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katyawriteswhump · 4 months ago

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love and other catastrophes at the omega cafe (5.1/8) 🐈‍⬛

Another long one, so posting in two parts as usual Chapter 5.2 is now up! We're onto that first date, and we’re switching to Eddie POV… 💚

Summary: Steve is a runaway Omega who gets a job at an Omega café, where he’s basically paid to curl up and purr in Alphas’ laps. It’s legal, and he earns a living, rents his own place. He’s getting along fine for a packless Omega. Then Alpha rockstar Eddie Munson turns up for an hour of ‘kitty’ petting, and shatters Steve’s fragile little world…

Rating: E; CW: reference to past drug use; Tags: omega steve, alpha eddie, a/b/o dynamics, fluff and angst, sexual content 💚

Chapter 1 on tumblr (also index post) Chapter 2 on tumblr Chapter 3.1 Chapter 3.2 Chapter 4.1 Chapter 4.2

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Chapter 5.1

Leaning on his private bar, Eddie poured himself a single shot of bourbon.

He scanned the spacious apartment, newly littered with flowers, throw cushions, and beanbags. Nothing could disguise the fact this was a chrome and glass box—all straight lines and sharp angles. Even the pastel-colored blankets thrown over the blocky, brutalist sculptures didn’t help much.

It was so darn ‘Alpha-bachelor-pad’ he might as well have booked a stripper.

He'd rented the place for the month, while he was recording in the city. It’d been fine for hanging with his bandmates and Wayne, the mingling of Alphas and Betas who were basically his pack. Then, today, he’d tried to picture Steve here.

His howl of displeasure blindsided him.

This dump had actually been less of a fail, somehow, before he’d cleared away his dirty clothes and the rest of his trash. He was terrified Steve was gonna take one look and flee. Eddie would never have his lil’ kitty purring in his lap again. He’d never repeat that insanely magical moment at the back of the café, when Steve had basically come apart in his lap. Steve’s perfume had risen like floral mists, and he’d opened for Eddie like a precious flower…

“Eddie?” Wayne snapped his fingers under Eddie’s nose. “You trying to laser your way through that sofa with your eyes?”

To be fair, Eddie’s mixed-up-af imagination was about to pin Steve to that same sofa. He ripped himself from his dreams, pinched the bridge of his nose.

“He’s gonna hate it, Wayne. I mean, I have no clue—are the flowers too much? Too little? What if he hates lilac? Have I overdone the peach and cream? His scent is kinda vanilla-y, so I thought it might make him feel at home. Oh shiiiiit, should I have booked a restaurant?”

“It’s fine, son.” The beta clapped both his hands on Eddie’s shoulders. “This is the start of a relationship, not the final product. You’ve known this Omega less than a week—"

“A soulmate bond takes less to form.” Woah! Eddie shocked himself with the force of that interjection.

“Not gonna quibble with how you feel,” said Wayne, placidly searching Eddie’s face. “I want this for you. If you tell me he's not a groupie or a gold-digger, I trust you. Don’t promise too much too soon, huh? To yourself as much as anything. Compatibility is important. That’s what courting is for.”

“Yeah, and I have exactly zero experience in that department.” Eddie reached for that untouched bourbon. Wayne snatched it up, downed it himself with a wink. Eddie cackled: “Guess you deserve that. I’ve been a nightmare today.”

“Be your free-wheelin’ self, Eddie. If he’s the one, it’ll fall into place.”

The bell on the private elevator dinged. Eddie’s heart lurched wildly into his mouth. The doors slid open to reveal Steve and his chaperone. All the many interweaving threads of Steve’s scent zinged into the apartment, even faster than Eddie raced across it to greet him. The instant he’d tugged Steve out of the elevator, he pressed Steve’s fingers to his lips.

“Steve.” The name escaped as a possessive growl. Steve looked… different. His hair, always thick and luscious, seemed more natural-looking and soft. He wore khaki-cream pants and a shiny lilac shirt, tucked in. And a little bracelet woven in shades of peachy-pink thread.

Eddie wanted to holler: BABY, YOU GONE AND MATCHED MY COLOR SCHEME!

Instead, with an effort, he slid his attention to Steve’s Beta friend. “You must be Robin.”

“Hey,” she said. Slightly icily. Wayne hurried over and introduced himself also, and she conjured a smile for him. That was a start. Eddie reverted to hyper-fixating on Steve, who gazed around the apartment.

“Eddie, this place is awesome.” Eddie placed his hand on Steve’s hip, and guided the Omega farther in. “Did you raid a flower shop?”

“Uuuuuh, kind of? They’re mainly orchids.” Eddie had chosen flowers without too strong a smell, for obvious reasons.

“They’re gorgeous.” Steve leaned a little into Eddie’s touch. Robin sneezed dramatically:

“Whatever they are, I’m allergic. Or maybe it’s the honking great Alpha stink in this place.” Yeah, the apartment was redolent with Eddie’s scent. That couldn’t exactly be avoided. Before he could protest, her snarkiness had redirected. “Wow, and a bar? I thought Eddie Munson lived like a bonafide rockstar monk.”

“Don’t believe everything you read online, Miss,” said Wayne, with a slight edge of frost, and then, “Hey, you fancy coffee? I was gonna grind fresh beans before I cook dinner.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. What we having?”

“Mac and cheese. Home-baked. Eddie made the cheese sauce and rolled the pasta this afternoon.”

“Sounds all right.”

She shot Eddie a look, then wandered after Wayne in the direction of the shiny chrome open-plan kitchen. Which was about the same size as the trailer Eddie grew up in.

He wasn’t annoyed with Robin, not in the slightest. He got her protectiveness over Steve. As his chaperone, it was literally her role here.

Screw that, tho’. Eddie was freakin’ dying to get Steve alone, to figure out this new beginning for them. They weren’t kitty and customer anymore. Eddie wanted to cater to the Omega’s every need, and he’d not a clue where to begin, other than:

“Seriously, I’m sorry ’bout this place,” he whispered, his hand fusing into the small of Steve’s back, as they wandered ever more distant from the kitchen.

“Why? It’s mega-cool. You do realize, we, um… color matched?”

“Yeah.” Eddie couldn’t supress a small spike of triumph. It fell away fast. “I guess that’s one thing. This shithole is still, like, the polar opposite of snug. Of everything I'd want for you.”

“What, like a kitty basket? I’m not actually a kitty, you know that?”

“I’m mega aware of what you are, Steve. I’m, uh, even more mega-aware of how you make me feel.”

And then silence, save the chatter of the Betas.

Steve turned to him, swallowing visibly. His eyes were huge and questioning, and Eddie verged on a decidedly un-Alpha fluster. Shit, should he have put on music? Oh, hold on, music with Steve was a no-no. As was self-medicating with coke, too much booze, and… Shiiiiit, since when did Eddie Munson get tongue-tied?

“Eddie? Um, are you okay?”

Eddie hooted and relaxed a little. No way would he have his Omega worry about him: “Yeah. Maybe a touch of stage fright.”

“You’re shitting me. From what I’ve seen, Eddie Munson does not get stage fright.”

Eddie gurned goofily and surrendered to an urge to pet Steve’s ridiculously inviting hair. “Maybe not on a stage, but I got plenty of it tonight. Steve, I guess you’ve finally looked me up? Read my sordid saga?”

“I watched a couple of your performances on YouTube,” murmured Steve, leaning into Eddie’s knuckles, which now drifted down his cheek. Okay, maybe things were not that different from the café after all. “Didn’t listen. Didn’t dare! As for your ‘sordid saga,’ Robin seems to know-it-all, and... I mean, it’s not like you chomp heads off bats or whatever. In rankings of metal badass-ness, you’re not exactly top-tier arch-demon material, are you?”

“I feel I should be insulted.” Eddie wasn’t. Far from it. He was smiling his first truly relaxed and open smile of the day.

“Don’t be like that!” Steve thudded Eddie’s chest. “Hey, now you’ve stopped apologising about this palace and the rest of your shit, how ’bout you show me around?”

Eddie affected a dumb bow. “Anything you say, my Princess. There’s something I’m pretty wild to show you, actually.”

He took Steve’s hand and led him toward one of the many tinted glass doors that led to the veranda. As Eddie slid it open, Steve rushed out, leading Eddie now, as he headed for the rail and peeped over. “This is insane. You can see the entire city from here! Jesus, in the morning I bet you can see the mountains?”

“Sure can, Honey,” said Eddie, watching Steve raise himself onto tiptoes. It was perfectly safe. He still fought an urge to fling a protective arm in front of the Omega. “Hey, come on, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

He led Steve around the corner of the wraparound veranda. Steve stopped dead, and Eddie found himself beaming ear-to-ear. “You’ve got a pool!” Steve sounded so excited his voice pitched at least an octave higher. “You got a fucking infinity pool! Oh my God, oh my fucking God! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Wanted to surprise you. I mean, it’s not exactly supersized. It’s heated nice and toasty, though.”

Steve had ripped totally free, and Eddie basked in the Omega’s joy. Steve squatted beside the pool, dabbling his fingers in the warm water. Then he jumped up and flung himself at Eddie with such force Eddie staggered at the impact.

“I haven’t swum in… Christ, it feels like centuries.” Steve rocked himself against Eddie, hugging him with glee. “I’d have brought trunks with me… if I actually owned any these days.”

“Good job I took the liberty of ordering some.”

Steve reeled backward so fast Eddie scrambled to brace him. “Wow! Thank you. Where are they? Can we swim now? Before dinner?”

“We can swim whenever you like, my darling.”

He handed Steve a crepe-paper parcel he’d tucked near one of the many blazing firepits then dispatched Steve to one of his three washrooms. Eddie changed outside, behind a screen. When Steve returned, he was chewing his lip coyly, and he’d gotten a towel wrapped around his waist.

Which he abruptly ripped off.

Before Eddie could get a proper eyeful of the skimpy lime-green trunks he’d purchased, the Omega dived gracefully into the deep end, with barely a splash. He swam the full length under water then emerged in the shallows by the steps, scraping wet hair from his face.

“You coming in, Eddie, or you gonna stand there and catch flies in your mouth?”

Eddie was, admittedly, salivating. Even outside, a bunch of strong scents bombarded him—smoke, chlorine, coffee, the cheesy, bacon-y yum, of Wayne’s cooking.

Threading through it all, he smelled the Omega.

His Omega.

Who swum a length of front-crawl and executed a professional looking flip-turn.

He’d stroked and snuggled Steve’s body. He’d opened this Omega with his fingers. Now drinking in the sight of him more fully, Eddie had a hard-on that strained his own baggy swim trunks at the seams.

Steve paused in the shallows, his arms raised in question. He was so trim, yet also, soft. The dusting of tawny hair on his chest looked so very, very soft, and that slight swell around his hips… Gnnng!

Steve was perfectly male and perfectly Omega. Eddie would slay to see that tight little belly swell with his pups…

PUPS! Wt-fuckety-fuck, Munson! There’s no time in your schedule for pups!

Eddie pinched his nose and gracelessly bombed into the pool. Steve whooped, splashed him, and then hurled himself at Eddie again.

Eddie clasped him tight. There they were, nearly naked, with not a drop of water between them.

“Wanna race?” asked Steve.

He beat Eddie easily on every stroke, which he found hilarious: “So much for Alpha shoulders, huh?” he called from the far end of the pool, while Eddie floundered. “It’s all in the technique. Don’t feel too bad.”

Eddie felt many things right now. ‘Bad’ was not one of them. “There’s silly ol’ me believing kitties hate water,” panted Eddie. “Wanna share the secrets behind that dark magic you got propelling you?”

“Not really,” Steve said. “I know a lost cause when I see one.”

He dived under the surface and erupted in front of Eddie, breaths heaving. He slung his arms around Eddie’s shoulders. When Eddie mirrored him, he shimmied up and wrapped his legs around Eddie’s hips.

Yup, he was climbing Eddie like a tree.

Eddie beamed. Steve beamed back. Then something shifted, a flash of something serious in Steve’s eyes. Possibly related to Eddie’s irrepressible erection, which Steve’s butt balanced on like a ledge. Steve broke free and swam for the steps.

“Woah, where you off to, aqua-kitty?”

“Remember that thing, about Omegas and swimming pools? Don’t wanna clog your filters.”

Eddie launched into the fastest swim of his life—amazing what motivation can do—grabbed Steve and swept him up into a bridal carry.

“Does this solve our problems?”

“I guess,” whispered Steve. Eddie staggered up another step. Out of the water, the Omega was certainly two hefty armfuls. Right now, though, Eddie was floating.

The entire world was shimmering and floating. The perfume of Steve’s slick hit him at the exact same moment that he saw the milky-way sweep across Steve’s pretty eyes.

Steve parted his lips, head tipping back slightly. A gut-felt snarl erupted from Eddie’s, mouth as it closed in. He sensed the Omega trembling. Or was that epically heavy purring? Either way, this first kiss was gonna be epic…

“Ahem!” Robin poked her head out of a window, then started clattering a pan or something. “Dinner’s ready in five. You two better towel off.” Then, in a desert-dry stage whisper, “If that’s even possible with so many bodily fluids spurting.”

“Robin!” whined Steve, kicking his feet.

“You asked me to chaperone, Steve! I’m chaperoning!”

Chapter 5.2

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Thank you so very much for reading. If you enjoyed, every little like and reblog or comment means a lot to me so thank you💚

I am always happy to tag, pls let me know, or you can follow the tag #steddie omega cat cafe 💚

tags 💚🐈‍⬛💚 @disrespectedgoatman 💚 @bumblebeecuttlefishes

@katethetank 💚 @themoonagainstmers 💚 @chaotic-waffle 💚

💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚

On AO3

#omega steve harrington #alpha eddie munson #omegaverse steddie #steddie omegaverse #steddie omega cat cafe #rock star eddie munson #steddie au #steddie fluff #steddie #steve x eddie #steddie fic #slick sunday

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notebooks-and-laptops · 2 months ago

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Yo so I saw your post about how Cole should've went to Solas instead of Varric and I 100% agree with it, but I also wanted to add to your point (in asks cuz i am a coward) -

I think it could have still made sense for Varric to go as well, considering he and Solas were basically the two driving forces behind Cole's arc in Inquisition, not to convince Solas to stop but to instead take the shot if Cole failed. The brutalist "He needs to be stopped, no matter what" approach. He loves Cole, but he knows Solas well enough to know that it might not be enough.

Then, when Cole dies, Varric goes ballistic. Maybe he attacks Solas and loses his life that way. Maybe he gets careless and makes a mistake. Either way, Varric and Cole are dead. And Rook now sees the ghosts of their friends.

Maybe if Rook takes a more gentle path, leaning towards forgiving Solas / tricking him with the dagger, they see Cole more often. But if Rook leans towards aggression, stopping him no matter what / fighting Solas at the end of the game, they see more Varric.

It would be an interesting mirror to the Cole / Varric / Solas arc in Inquisition, and (if Rook collects the Mystra statues) the Inquisitor (Laevellen or otherwise) would enter as they always have.

Another choice. Another chance.

Apologies for filling your Ask. I just wanted to add to a pretty good post.

The thing I love most about this anon is the reactivity. I think reactivity like this in video games is so awesome; when an aspect of the game tracks behind the scenes what choices you are making and then feeds you different things depending on said choices. Honestly one of my favourite things video games can do.

I remember a long long time ago I'd had a theory that whoever we played as in DA4 would be someone who had the soul of one of the ancient elven gods like Flemeth. We wouldn't know which to begin with, just that we had a fragment of ancient arlathan within us, but the more you played the choices you made would dictact which god you had within you until there was a final reveal.

Sometimes these types of things are hard to implement (I think my god idea would have been) but I actually don't think the one your describing would be at all. You'd just need various voice lines and animations to feed the player in the lighthouse depending on how they're treating Solas. I do enjoy the idea of different ways of treating Solas produce different outcomes with a companion/spirit etc. because the DATV gang just don't seem to care about how you treat Solas and honestly the game doesn't either. As long as you completed the regrets/Mythal quest you have the same options at the end.

Anyway thank you for the ask! Very interesting to read!

#ask #cole #varric

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danaewrites · 1 year ago

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Helmet Over Heels

part i: the winter of our discontent

din djarin x reader // read it on AO3

word count: 3.8k

summary: When your path literally collides with a beskar-covered Mandalorian one night, neither of you expect how that meeting will irreversibly change the trajectory of your lives.

You’re pulled into his powerful orbit, agreeing to take care of his son in exchange for adventure and freedom– when he’s not off hunting bounties and inadvertently saving villages in need, that is. It’s the perfect plan. Or it would be, if only your quiet crush on the man would stop growing into something more with every hour you spend together. There’s no way he’d ever feel the same, right?

And Din? Well, he’s been trying (and failing) to convince himself that he’s not completely helmet over heels for you since day one. But a Mandalorian can only repress his emotions for so long…

(This fic takes place sometime after Season 2. Din’s back on his bounty-hunting business with a Razor Crest that was never destroyed and an adorable green sidekick who won’t stop chewing on its wires.)

tags: strangers to friends to lovers, slow-ish burn, nicknames, touch-starved din djarin and fem!reader, canon-compliant through season 2 and then Jesus takes the wheel :P

author's notes:

hello and welcome to my first ever mando fic!! i binged the entirety of the first two seasons in a week to get me through tedious internship work and accidentally fell in love with our favorite space dad and his cute green child along the way. oops (i regret nothing)

with the outline i currently have for this fic, it’ll be around 11-12 chapters, although that’s likely to grow as we get deeper into the story. the posting schedule might be anywhere from once a week to once a month, but this wip *will* be finished.

the second chapter's scheduled to upload next week as a little treat for y'all, so if you want to catch it then hit that follow button or ask to be added to my taglist! ;)

read it all here: part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v coming soon!

You watched the last of tonight’s drunken patrons stumble out of the cantina and into the bitter Nath night with a relieved sigh. Wiping your hands on the stained apron tied around your waist, you fished a set of bronze keys out of a tiny pocket and began your nightly walk around the perimeter of the bar, locking doors and pulling down rusty shutters as you went. The cantina was silent aside from your quiet shuffling– a welcome reprieve from its usual crowded bustle and chatter so hectic you could barely hear your own thoughts.

You hummed softly as you adjusted booths back to their original positions and swept crumbs off of battered tabletops, wishing that the small holospeaker at the edge of the room hadn’t been broken in a recent bar fight. Swaying to its pre-Imperial oldies throughout your long, exhausting shifts had been one of the only perks of working in this run-down cantina, but without the soothing ambience of music, a chill threatened to sink into your bones and paralyze you with the deep depression this side of the planet seemed to have succumbed to.

You never planned to stay here for as long as you had. No one really did, except for criminals who knew that no one would willingly come here to search for them and locals who had never known anything else. Nath might have been charming, once– all soft snowflakes and peaceful walks under sepia-toned streetlights– but that was before the Empire had destroyed every semblance of comfort and culture and replaced them with brutalist brick structures that were already crumbling under the weight of their makers’ crimes. The fear lingered long after the Imps had finally left the post, reflected in the sad eyes of the fishmongers’ children and the way one would be hard-pressed to find a factory worker who didn’t spend his nights nursing a bottle and the ghosts of blaster scars across his back.

You had your own scars, of course, but you still held out hope that things would change and you’d make it out of here– although that hope was gradually diminishing as off-world shuttles visited less and less frequently and the permanent winter worsened. Five years ago, you’d been unceremoniously dropped off at the town’s dingy port, forced to land after your shuttle to Corellia was damaged by an unexpected detour through an asteroid field. You’d taken the cantina job thinking you’d only stay long enough to pay for passage on an outgoing ship, but soon learned that any shuttle risking the terrible weather to land here would also charge an exorbitant boarding price– one that would take you years to afford with the meager pay you received. And your tentative plan of stowing away on a spice freighter and sneaking off once it arrived at its destination (you weren’t picky about where, so long as it wasn’t Nath) was tempered by the increasingly likelihood that you’d get blown to pieces the minute you entered space by one of the pirate gangs that ruled the atmosphere these days. So– you were stuck here, at least for now.

The smell of something burning in the back of the cantina drew you out of your thoughts. Cursing, you raced to the kitchen, where your dinner was quickly blackening on the stove. Kriff. You shut off the burner, staring at the charred mess before you for a few seconds before dejectedly scraping it into an almost-overflowing trash bin. Well, there went your plan to eat quickly and head to your tiny flat before the storm outside worsened. Your rental pod had barely enough space for your bed and a miniscule bathroom, so you had to use the cantina kitchen if you wanted to stay fed– but the stove here was so old, it took half an hour longer than usual to cook anything. You resigned yourself to another night sleeping in a booth, since the flurry outside would prevent you from navigating your way home safely.

You sliced up a few vegetables and set them to simmer in a pot with the last of the herbed broth and sandseed noodles from today’s lunch special, glancing at the bin next to you. It was probably a good idea to take out the foul-smelling waste before you were sealed in next to it all night. Wrinkling your nose at the unappealing scraps of food threatening to fall off the top of the pile, you hefted the bin up and maneuvered it through the back door of the cantina, being careful not to stain your apron any more than it already was. The harsh winds nipped at every sliver of exposed skin and dusted your hair with a pearlescent sheen of snow, making you wish you’d thought to slip on something warmer than your thin blouse and trousers before leaving the protection of the kitchen.

You navigated through the blizzard to the end of the dark alleyway behind the cantina, your path lit only by two buzzing lamps at each end of the narrow corridor. You scrunched your face up against the cold, willing yourself to keep walking despite your extremely limited night vision. Just a few more steps, and then you’d be free of your compostable burden for the night. You turned the corner, stepping to the left where you knew the trash compactor was, and immediately collided with a giant hunk of metal.

Said hunk of metal cursed loudly as it stumbled head-first over the garbage bin you’d dropped in shock after the impact, falling forward into the snow. “Dank ferrik!”

Your eyes grew wide as the glow of the flickering streetlights illuminated the very-much-alive Mandalorian lying in front of you. It was just your luck that you’d managed to potentially injure the kind of warrior you’d only heard about in hushed rumors, or at least someone who was wearing the armor of one. Okay, injure was a strong word, but all that cold, hard beskar couldn’t be very comfortable to fall on despite the protection it offered.

“Stars, I’m so sorry, let me–”

You reached forward, stretching out a hand to help the Mandalorian up when a small green head suddenly popped up out of a tawny bag slung across their side. You yelped in surprise, losing your balance on the icy road and toppling forward. You winced, bracing yourself and preparing for the inevitable impact– except right as you were about to hit the ground, one steel-clad arm shot out to grab your wrist while the other steadied your hips. You gasped at the warmth of the unexpected contact, pulse quickening as you stared at the–man? person?–beneath you, the only thing preventing you from a nasty collection of bruises appearing across your side tomorrow.

A deep baritone sounded from the helmet– likely modulated, from the slightly grainy tone. “Are you alright?”

Definitely a man, then. You pointedly ignored the butterflies that stirred to life in your stomach at the sound of his voice, praying that he would attribute your shiver to the cold and nothing more. Stars, this was getting more embarrassing by the minute. You tucked away the thought, making a note to do some serious soul-searching later on about the depth of your touch-starvation and its potential impact on your mental state.

You gave a quick nod, muttering your thanks and carefully rolling to the side as you dusted clumps of snow off of your trousers. You looked up at him to see him gently picking up the little green creature you’d been so startled by earlier and tucking it back into the bag, pulling his cloak over its head to shield it from the chill. That was… rather cute, actually. You thought Mandalorians were supposed to be scary fighters, dedicated to nothing but their Creed, but this one was clearly fond of the small thing clinging to him. You couldn’t blame him; the green creature’s big ears and bug eyes were adorably endearing.

The cold winds picked up pace, and you wondered why anyone would be out here during such a storm as you got to your feet. Anyone local would have sought shelter hours ago, and no freighter would dare to land in such conditions.

“Are you... lost?” You tentatively asked. “Can I help you find someone?”

The Mandalorian remained silent for several long seconds, helmet tilted slightly. Whatever he saw in your face seemed to have settled well with him, and he released a quiet huff through the modulator.

“I need to get food. For my son,” he eventually admitted, gesturing to the baby peeking up at you.

“Oh!” You brightened up considerably as you remembered the flavorful soup you’d started earlier. “Well– I work in a cantina back there,” you said, pointing behind you at the rusted door that led to the kitchen.

“We’re technically closed right now, but I’m sure I can work something out.” You winked at the curious child, smiling as he let out a happy babble.

The Mandalorian’s helmet hadn’t moved from its focus in your direction, and you suddenly felt nervous. Which seemed stupid, because–yeah, it felt intense, but was he even looking at you from behind the dark visor of his helmet? For all you knew, he was making the most ridiculous expression at you behind all that beskar and you’d never know. The absurd thought made you snicker softly. If no one could see your face, you’d definitely act goofy at people all the time.

The Mandalorian’s head tilted slightly, and whoops, he’d definitely noticed your little moment now if he hadn’t been paying attention before. Your face reddened and you quickly gestured for him to follow you as you unlocked the door to the kitchen, relieved when you heard the soft clink of his armor come through the doorway behind you.

You placed your hands on your hips, surveying the dimly lit cantina and deciding to lead the duo to a worn table close to the bar. It looked unassuming, but the chairs were the comfiest in the cantina and you figured the baby would appreciate something softer than the coarse bag he’d been in.

Once they’d gotten settled in, you set about finding a mug of blue milk for the kid and some water for the Mandalorian. You brought the drinks over to the pair, hiding a smile at how eagerly the little green baby reached for his.

“You’re pretty thirsty, huh?” You observed as the baby slurped up the cerulean beverage. Shooting the tall, beskar-clad man a glance out of the corner of your eye, you continued, “Must have been quite the trip. Most people don’t usually travel to this side of the galaxy for vacation.”

To your disappointment, the Mandalorian remained as still and stoic as ever. Well, that just wouldn’t do. He was your first visitor in years from anywhere outside of Nath, and you were absolutely not letting him leave without getting a bit of juicy detail on life outside of your current drudgery. You decided to go for another angle.

“You know, kids need good role models in their lives. Ones that show them how to socialize with others and communicate. Display generosity of the loquacious sort, even.” You shrugged innocently in your best attempt to mimic the overly casual air the old women at the tea shop always used before passive-aggressively attempting to set you up with their stay-at-home-nephews. “Never too late to start.”

You got the distinct feeling that he was laughing at you under that helmet. Rude. Huffing, you sat down across the table from him and crossed your arms, trying to guess where under his visor his eyes were. Once you were half-confident that you’d found the spot, you stared intensely at it with your most intimidating expression. Which wasn’t saying much, seeing as you had the firepower of a soggy Lothkitten and probably came off as more desperate than anything.

“Isn’t there some sort of honor code for Mandalorians? One that includes being noble to strangers and whatnot?”

No response. Argh.

“Well, I’d consider it pretty noble to provide a lonely soul such as myself with a bit of storytelling entertainment on this frigid evenin–”

Your final attempt at prying some information out of the armored man was interrupted by the sound of the kitchen timer beeping increasingly louder and louder until you were sure the whole cantina was vibrating with the tinny noise.

“KRIFF, not again!”

You bolted out of your seat towards the kitchen, but not before you heard a thinly disguised huff of amusement coming out of the modulator. Okay, he was definitely laughing at you.

Once you’d successfully saved the soup from imminent destruction-via-cursed-stove and somewhat regained your pride, you finally made your way back to the table with three steaming bowls of noodles. You placed the smallest one in front of the child, who cooed happily and immediately began plopping his hands in the bowl. The Mandalorian huffed in exasperation and began prying little green fingers out of the bowl. “Hey. Quit that, we talked about this,” he grumbled. You winced as broth sloshed out of the bowl, landing dangerously close to the baby’s tunic. The kid’s lower lip started to tremble, a blaring warning sign that a tantrum was going to occur in approximately ten seconds if he wasn’t distracted from his current petulant state.

“Oh– hey, bug, don’t do that,” you said as both father and son turned to look at you. You leaned closer to the wide-eyed baby and pointed to his bowl. “That’s pretty hard to scoop up, yeah? Look, there are easier ways to eat it,” you explained as you brought the bowl up to your lips and raised an eyebrow, hoping that he would do the same. The kid blinked up at you for several long seconds before turning to his father with outstretched hands. The Mandalorian sighed, but held up the dish as requested. You hid a smile behind your bowl at the sight.

“Good job! Okay, now we’re going to try something fun–” You mimed slurping up the soup with a silly face at the baby, who burbled something incomprehensible in response but finally followed your example and focused on his food.

When you were sure that the baby’s clothes were no longer in danger of being drenched by broth– and by extension, frozen stiff whenever the pair headed back into the storm–you quietly tucked into your own meal, closing your eyes at the warm memories the comforting flavours brought. Not for the first time, you missed the earthy smell and placid weather of your homeworld, a stark contrast to this icy prison of a planet.

“You are… good with him.”

Your eyes darted up to find the Mandalorian’s helmet angled directly at you. Your face heated at the observation and you gave a small laugh, willing yourself to resist fidgeting under his gaze.

“I– thank you, I’ve always liked kids. Used to volunteer in the nursery back home, actually, before the Empire stole every resource from it they could.”

Your eyes widened with sudden realization. “You’re not Imperial, are you?”

The Mandalorian scoffed vehemently, the most emotion he’d displayed since he’d fallen back in the alley. “No.”

Well, that answered a few questions at least. You were prepared to move on from the conversation when he hesitantly spoke, “My ship ran into a few… asteroids. Is there a mechanic nearby?”

You set down your spoon, thinking. The closest asteroid field was four solar systems away and almost entirely inaccessible if one was traveling through hyperspace, so the likelihood that he’d truly run into one was small. In that case, he probably had damage from some kind of fight— seeing as the average pacifist wouldn’t need that much armor— and would want someone reliable who wasn’t going to ask questions about laser-sized holes in his ship’s hull.

He hadn’t tried to kill or rob you yet, so you figured his personal tussles were none of your business and decided to give him an honest recommendation. You directed him to a small mechanical hub close to the ice huts where there were few ships and even fewer nosy citizens. “The owner, Sanna, is the best in town,” you admitted. “I haven’t had the chance to visit her personally, but she’s known for being very discreet.”

He nodded, entering the coordinates you’d given him into some sort of device on his wrist. You tried to contain your pleased expression at correctly guessing his reason for being on Nath. And it had only taken you… well, four tries, but that was better than nothing!

“What is your price?”

You blinked, confused. “My price?”

There was that increasingly frequent head tilt again. His helmet tipped forward, scanning you. “For the food. And information.” He clarified slowly.

“Oh,” you spoke, surprised. “It’s okay, I was making dinner for myself anyway. And you’d have found out the location of the mechanic from someone else eventually,” you shrugged.

You couldn’t see his face, but from the disbelieving tone of his voice you imagined his eyebrows to be raised. “Not many people would turn down credits.”

You winced, reminded of your costly dream to get off-world, but there was no way you’d accept this stranger’s money for such a small favor when he had a kid he needed to provide for. “Yeah, well. Guess I’m not most people,” you laughed sheepishly.

The Mandalorian muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like no, you definitely are not. You squinted at him accusingly.

“Hey, you better not be making fun of my interrogation tactics, metal man.” You leaned forward to poke his soup bowl emphatically. Hm, that was strange– he hadn’t so much as touched it. Did Mandalorians follow some kind of special diet? You resolved to look that up the next time you had access to a datapad.

“Wouldn’t dream of doing that to a lonely soul like yourself.” He responded dryly.

You gasped in mock offense, forgetting your previous train of thought and internally groaning that he’d remembered that part of your disastrous attempt to weasel information out of him. Yeesh. Not your most eloquent moment. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you cared,” you shot back in the most syrupy-sweet tone you could muster.

The kid grinned up at you with sharp teeth and blew a soupy bubble towards your face in response. You smiled down at him, adding, “But if you really want to repay me, then bring me back a good story about this little guy the next time you crash land through a— what did you call it? Asteroid field.” You highly doubted the duo would ever willingly return, but if making a deal gave this man peace of mind to know his imaginary debt was settled in some future way then so be it.

The lights in the cantina began to flicker and you got up with a frown, walking over to the electrical box behind the bar. The dull grey display, crammed with incomprehensibly labelled switches and flashing lights that would give anyone a headache, alerted you that the main generator had been depleted of power. You scrambled over to a window, prying open the shutters a crack only to be met with a dark swirl of snow that completely obscured your view of the street. Stars, the storm had worsened quickly— there was absolutely no chance you were making it home tonight. You slammed the shutter closed and turned around with a grimace that didn’t go unnoticed by the Mandalorian.

“What is it?” He questioned, modulated voice growing wary at the expression on your face.

“We’re running out of power, the main generator’s down from the storm so these lights are going to have to shut off soon. I think there’s enough in the emergency generator to heat the cantina through the night, though.” You hesitated, not sure how to break the bad news. “Unfortunately, the weather is— unmanageable. You’re not making it out of here to the mechanic’s until the blizzard lets up.”

He didn’t respond for a few seconds, so you continued talking. “I was.. planning on sleeping here tonight.” You muttered, trying to think of a plan. You glanced at the sleepy child resting on the Mandalorian’s beskar chest plate. “I usually keep a couple blankets here for that reason— pretty sure there’s enough to cover the baby, but you might need to be okay with sharing.”

You worried your bottom lip between your teeth, searching your memory for where the emergency supplies were kept. Kriff. How were you supposed to know that you’d be snowed in, and with guests no less? Your grumpy boss really should have put instructions for this type of situation in the closing shift directions instead of the usual “sweep the floors” or your personal favorite: “if the customer creates a corpse, they gotta clean it up themselves”.

The Mandalorian interrupted your musings with a firm, “No need,” gesturing to the charcoal cloak fastened around his pauldrons. You eyed it dubiously, but supposed that the material looked thick enough. That was probably to your benefit, anyway, since you were something of a notorious blanket hog and didn’t think he’d take kindly to having his sheets ripped off him in the dead of night. That seemed like a quick way to wake up with more bruises than you went to sleep with.

“Well— alright then,” you sighed at last, tossing the smaller of your blankets to the man and tucking the other into the side of a nearby booth. “I’ll shut off the lights in a moment. Refresher’s that way, if you need it,” you pointed to the end of a dimly lit hall. The Mandalorian nodded once, then returned his attention to carefully cocooning the child in his lap. You set to work fluffing up your own makeshift bed, folding the cleanest dishtowel you could find into a pillow before trudging over to the light switch and enveloping the room in darkness.

Quietly feeling your way back to your booth, your eyes adjusted to the pitch-black little by little. You pulled your hair out of its messy updo and curled up on the seat, body slowly relaxing. It was strange, hearing the muffled rhythm of breaths coming from lungs that weren’t your own, but oddly soothing in its own way.

“G’night,” you mumbled, half-asleep already, consciousness swirled down the psychological drain by the overpowering storm raging outside. The lull-and-hitch of the baby’s soft snores echoing off of solid beskar set you drifting off to sleep faster than you had as a child, so lost to the world that you were sure you dreamed the quiet, belated whisper that sounded back to you.

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read on: part ii

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charliedawn · 9 months ago

Note

Charlie, I don't know if you've watched it

But I've been binging House MD for a week now and I am curious

How would the slashers react to a nurse/doctor/caretaker that acts like House? Throw in the injured leg and popping painkillers if you want.

(course you don't need to do this, especially if you haven't watched it, but I suggest it, it's a really good show!)

(I love this show ! And I loved the idea. Maybe I went a little overboard, but I hope you’ll like it !)

Dr. Gregory House was not impressed.

He limped through the front doors of St. Louis Hospital for the Criminally Insane, his cane tapping against the marble floors, the sound echoing off the tall, institutional walls. The hospital looked like it had been plucked straight from a horror film. Looming in the shadow of a distant mountain range, the gloomy forest surrounding it, the structure was a mix of gothic and brutalist architecture, its jagged, imposing edges designed to keep people both out and in. The kind of place that whispered secrets in the wind and held darkness in its very bones.

House paused in the entrance lobby, taking in the security cameras, the reinforced glass, and the guards stationed at every corner like statues. A hospital, they called it. It was more like a fortress—a prison masquerading as healthcare.

"Well, this is cozy," he muttered under his breath.

Two security officers flanked him as they walked down the corridor, their eyes glancing nervously at every door. House smirked. Not even the staff feels safe here, he thought.

He had been transferred here after what his superiors at Princeton-Plainsboro had called "several breaches of professional conduct." To be fair, they weren’t wrong. Sure, he'd solved cases no one else could, but apparently there was a limit to how many patients you could verbally abuse, experiment on, or trick into revealing life-threatening conditions.

So now, after burning every single bridge out there, here he was—sent to St. Louis to deal with a different kind of patient: the criminally insane. Specifically, the violent ones. The ones who liked to stab, slice, and butcher. It wasn’t that they didn’t need medical care. They did—often after failing to finish the job on themselves or others. But these were the slashers, the ones whose names conjured fear and nightmares. Legends in their own right. And that made him excited.

"Dr. House," said a nurse as she advanced towards him with a smile. "Welcome to St. Louis."

He huffed.

"Really ? I feel like I should be checking in with my parole officer, not you," House replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He glanced at the directory on the wall: Intake, Ward A, Ward B, Ward C: Maximum Security. His eyes lingered on the last one. He bet that’s where all the "fun" patients were.

"Not many doctors survive long here," the nurse explained, ignoring his jabs. "Our patients... well, they have certain needs that require someone of your...unconventional skill set."

House raised an eyebrow. "Unconventional, huh ? Bouhou. You almost hurt my feelings."

He smirked.

She stared at him for a long moment before deciding to ignore him and continuing. "Your patients will be some of the most dangerous people in the country, Dr House. Murderers. Sociopaths. Many of them are mentally fractured in ways modern medicine still doesn’t fully understand."

House rolled his eyes. "Fractured brains, violent tendencies...sounds like a weekend with my ex-wife."

She smiled politely before gesturing down the hall, where a guard was stationed in front of a heavy steel door, the words Ward C etched above it in grim lettering. "This is where you’ll be assigned. Ward C—reserved for the most violent offenders." The nurse informed him and House tapped his cane on the ground, surveying the corridor. "And I get the pleasure of keeping them alive ? Lucky me."

He scoffed sarcastically and she nodded.

"They don't just need medical attention. They need to be understood. We need to know why they are the way they are, and more importantly, how to control it. Think of it as one long medical mystery, Doctor House. I know how much you love mysteries." She grinned—thinking he might take up the challenge and she wasn’t wrong.

House leaned in slightly, his face turning serious. "So, you're telling me I'll be working with slashers ? The 'legends' of the violent crime world ? Monsters who carve up people for fun ? Why, oh why, didn’t you lead with that ?" He grinned back.

Their lips tightened, unimpressed with his dark humor. "You’ll be given access to their medical histories and psychological profiles. If you’re good enough to figure them out."

He rolled his eyes.

"Toots, I’ve diagnosed people with diseases no one’s heard of and found cures no one believed in. Your little band of merry killers isn’t going to throw me off."

He didn’t hesitate before taking the files she handed him and leafing through them. His eyes widened on the little he was given to work with. Most of them were so classified all over that there was more black than white on them and House finally frowned before closing the files. Right. They were sending doctors in there with no idea about what they were supposed to do or what they were gonna face. No wonder they were short-staffed…

The nurse sighed. "Just don’t get yourself killed."

Too fast…, Dr House guessed she had left out by the way she looked away and bit her lower lip. Yeah. It seemed the cemetery he had seen on his way in wasn’t just early decoration for Halloween.

But, he still felt confide and smirked at her.

"Don't worry. I'm not planning on letting any of them get too close." He glanced at the guard by the door. "Besides, I always bring protection." He tapped his cane. "This thing’s more useful than it looks."

The nurse hesitated before sighing and nodding. A guard opened the door to Ward C, and immediately the mood shifted. The air inside was heavier, like the building itself could feel the presence of the patients it held. It was a long corridor lined with cells—each one sealed tight with reinforced glass, inside them dim figures pacing or sitting, their faces obscured. The sound of heavy breathing, the occasional murmur or maniacal laughter echoed faintly from deeper within. The first door they passed revealed a huge masked man hunched over on his bed, his eyes staring intently at Dr. House as he walked past his cell. His file—clipped to the door—read Brahms Heelshire, better known to the world as the ‘Nanny Killer’ or ‘Killer Doll’. Next to him was the infamous Freddy Krueger—his eyes fixed on him with a sleazy smile. Across from them was Jason Voorhees, his hulking frame slouched in a corner, his hockey mask reflecting the dim lights.

"This is like the slasher hall of fame," House mused, scanning the infamous names as if he were walking through a bizarre art gallery. "Do they give tours ?"

At the end of the hall was an empty room—empty except for a single metal chair, bolted to the ground, with heavy restraints dangling from the armrests. No patient. No file. Just an eerie, cold silence.

"Who’s this for ?" House asked, tapping the door with his cane.

"That’s for Michael Myers," the nurse replied flatly, the name hanging in the air like an ominous cloud. "He’s currently undergoing evaluation. It happens sporadically, but he always comes back."

House raised an eyebrow. "Ah, the Michael Myers. The boogeyman himself. I’ve read about him. The guy who never dies and never says a word. Sounds like an ideal patient—no complaints, no endless monologues about how their mother didn’t love them enough."

The nurse didn’t flinch at House’s sarcasm. "He’s unpredictable. Dangerous in ways you cannot possibly imagine."

House waved it off, still scanning the eerily quiet room with its empty chair. "Unpredictable ? That’s my bread and butter. Sounds like a normal day for me, minus the masks and machetes. Besides, I’ve been trying to kill myself slowly for years—alcohol, Vicodin, maybe the occasional slash-happy patient will speed up the process."

The nurse eyed him warily. "This isn't a joke, Dr. House. The patients here aren’t just disturbed—they’re lethal. You’re not dealing with people who want to be saved. They want to hurt. And they don’t need much of an excuse."

House rolled his eyes, tapping his cane again. "You don’t say. Well, considering this place looks like it could double as Dracula’s vacation home, I’m guessing safety measures aren’t exactly high priority. Where are the mood lights ? The potted plants ? You’re supposed to make hospitals inviting, you know. Maybe some soft jazz, something to make me forget I’m surrounded by lunatics."

The nurse ignored him, her patience visibly thinning. "You’ve been given full access to their records. Try to understand what drives them. They’re all damaged in ways that defy typical psychiatric diagnoses. If anyone can find out what makes them tick, it’s you.”

House sighed dramatically, the weight of the situation lost on him. "Fine, fine. I’ll crack open their skulls and poke around—metaphorically, of course—find out what’s rattling in there. Though I’d wager it’s mostly bad childhood memories and a fascination with sharp objects."

The nurse’s serious tone didn’t waver. "Be careful, Dr. House. This isn’t Princeton-Plainsboro. The rules here are different. These patients...they do not care about your brilliance. They won’t hesitate to hurt you if given the chance."

As they continued walking down the corridor, House’s eyes wandered over the slasher patients in their cells. He recognized many of them from headlines, documentaries, and whispered urban legends. The names alone would send chills down anyone else’s spine—serial killers who made a career out of violence, leaving destruction in their wake. But to House, they were just patients. Puzzles to be solved, however warped or shattered they might be.

House paused, his sharp blue eyes flicking down to meet hers, the smirk fading slightly. He let out a small, humorless chuckle. "You know, the thing about people like me ? We never really expect to survive."

The nurse ignored the comment. "These patients are unlike anything you've ever dealt with. Most of them are physically resilient, surviving injuries that should have killed them multiple times over. Their psychosis, in many cases, seems almost...supernatural."

"Supernatural ?" House let out a scoff. "That’s a fun word for 'We don’t know what the hell’s wrong with them,' isn’t it ?"

She didn’t answer, but her silence was telling. House could feel the weight of his new role settling on his shoulders, but it wasn’t the weight of fear. It was the thrill of the unknown. The mystery of minds so fractured, so broken, they seemed beyond repair. Seemed being the key word.

As they reached the end of Ward C, House stopped to study the doors once more. He tapped his cane on the floor, looking at the empty room reserved for Michael Myers. A shiver of excitement ran through him, though he’d never admit it. Whatever the slashers’ issues were, House lived for this—the challenge, the chase, the impossible diagnosis. And in this new place, with patients who blurred the line between reality and nightmare, he knew one thing for sure:

It was going to be one hell of a ride.

"You sure you’re ready for this, Dr. House ?" the nurse asked, her voice a little quieter now, as if she too had second thoughts. House smirked again, twirling his cane once before letting it tap the floor. "Ready ? I’ve been bored for years. This place might finally give me something to care about."

With that, he turned, making his way down the dim corridor, passing the locked cells of notorious killers, his cane echoing through the silent ward. Ward C, the place of horrors, home to the most disturbed minds in the world. But House didn’t flinch.

This was going to be fun.

He smiled.

That afternoon:

Dr. Gregory House stepped into the dimly lit room of one of the cells of Ward C, and his eyes immediately fell on the the broad bloke curled up on himself like a child. Sitting quietly in the corner was Brahms Heelshire, his face obscured by the mask of a porcelain doll, but this was no child’s toy. Beside him, placed with eerie precision on a small wooden chair, sat a life-sized doll—a spitting image of Brahms himself, right down to the carefully crafted clothing and unnerving, glassy eyes.

House smirked, his cane tapping lightly on the tiled floor as he sized up the room. "So, I guess this is what passes for family around here. Must be nice having a twin brother who doesn’t talk back."

Brahms didn’t move. His posture was perfectly still—like a statue frozen in place. The doll next to him—his other self—seemed to mirror the lifelessness of its owner. The room’s atmosphere felt heavy, as if the very air had been sucked out, leaving only the tension between House and the bizarre duo.

"Let me guess," House continued, walking slowly around the room, his eyes never leaving Brahms or the doll. "He’s the talkative one, right ? You’ve got the looks, and he’s got all the charm. Am I close ?"

Brahms’s head turned ever so slightly, just enough to acknowledge House’s presence, but he remained silent. His hand rested gently on the doll’s shoulder, as though it were a living thing—a cherished companion. The porcelain doll’s eyes stared back at House, empty yet somehow filled with something unsettling.

"You know, I’ve had a lot of weird patients," House continued, leaning against the wall, his tone casual but his eyes sharp. "But this ? This is a first. A grown man hiding behind a doll. I’ve gotta say, your coping mechanisms are fascinating. Must be a hell of a childhood story to unpack here."

Still no response. House wasn’t surprised. He’d read Brahms’s file—how he’d spent his youth hidden away in a mansion, isolated from the world, how the doll had become both his protector and his proxy. House found the whole thing both tragic and ridiculous.

"So, what’s the deal ?" House asked, raising an eyebrow. "Is he your bodyguard ? Your best friend ? Your brother ? Or are you just using him to keep the world at a safe distance ?"

Brahms shifted again, his masked face still unreadable, but the hand on the doll’s shoulder tightened slightly. House caught the movement, his curiosity piqued.

"Ah, I see. He’s not just a doll, is he ?" House stepped closer, tapping his cane as he circled the pair. "He’s you. The version of you that never got to grow up, the one who never had to deal with all the nasty bits of being human—fear, loss, rejection. You made him your escape."

The room felt colder, the air thickening with the unspoken tension. Brahms’ silence was oppressive, but House was relentless.

"You’re not the first person to create a shield, you know," House continued. "You’ve just taken it to a creepy new level. Most people use alcohol, drugs, or a good old-fashioned mental breakdown. You ? You went full Pinocchio. But instead of becoming a real boy, you’ve stayed a puppet."

Finally, Brahms moved. He lifted his head slightly, his eyes visible through the slits of the mask, and for the first time, House felt the weight of his gaze. It wasn’t anger, nor was it fear. It was something darker—something far more broken.

"You think you understand me," Brahms finally said quietly, his voice muffled by the mask. "But you don’t. He’s not just a doll. He’s my protection. My family. My…other half."

House raised an eyebrow, intrigued by the response. "Protection from what ? The big, bad world ? Or are you just protecting yourself from the mirror ?"

Brahms’s hand clenched the doll’s shoulder harder, the tension in his body palpable. "He’s everything I’m not. He’s the part of me that’s strong. The part that doesn’t feel pain."

House leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "And what about you ? The real you, hiding behind that mask ? You think this little doll can keep you safe forever ?"

Brahms’s breathing quickened, and for a brief moment, House could see the cracks in the facade. This wasn’t just a man with a doll—this was a man torn apart by his own fractured identity. The doll wasn’t just a comfort; it was a prison. And Brahms had locked himself inside willingly.

"He protects me from people like you," Brahms hissed, his voice suddenly sharp. "People who think they can fix everything with their words. People who want to take him away from me."

House’s smirk faltered for just a second, and he tilted his head, studying Brahms more closely. "I’m not here to take anything away from you. I’m just here to figure out why a man who’s clearly smart enough to survive in a world that’s abandoned him is still hiding behind a doll."

Brahms suddenly stood up, his height more imposing than House had anticipated. He loomed over him, his masked face inches from House’s own. "You don’t know what it’s like," he growled. "To be trapped. To be hated. He’s the only one who’s ever been there for me."

House didn’t flinch and he kept staring at Brahms. "Maybe," House said, his voice low, "but he’s also the one keeping you trapped. You’re not protecting him. He’s keeping you from facing the fact that you don’t need him anymore."

Brahms recoiled slightly, as though the words had struck a chord. His hand hovered over the doll, but this time, there was hesitation. House took a step back, letting the silence settle in.

"I’ll tell you what," House said, turning toward the door. "You keep your little buddy here as long as you need to. But one day, you’re going to have to choose whether you want to be the man or the doll. Because trust me, living your life through a puppet ? That’s not living."

As House walked out of the room, leaving Brahms alone with his doll, the man’s gaze lingered on the figure beside him. The mask on Brahms’ face remained as blank as ever, but beneath it, there was a spark of hesitation.

What if the doctor was right ?

Meanwhile, Dr. House walked to the next cell. He step inside, the heavy door closing behind him with a hollow thud. He was no stranger to unusual patients—Princeton-Plainsboro had given him his fair share of weirdos—but this was something else entirely. The man sitting in front of him, legs crossed and a smirk plastered on his burned face, was notorious in ways that even House couldn’t ignore.

Freddy Krueger.

The infamous dream killer lounged in his chair, his signature bladed glove dangling from his right hand, the tips of his claws lazily tapping against the metal armrest. The sound was grating—like nails on a chalkboard. His weathered fedora cast a shadow over his disfigured face, but House could see the mocking gleam in his eyes.

"Well, well," Freddy said, his voice raspy and filled with dark amusement. "They sent me the famous Dr. House. Heard you were good at solving puzzles. You gonna fix me, doc ?"

House limped closer, his cane tapping rhythmically on the floor. He met Freddy’s gaze without flinching, his expression one of bored detachment. "Fix you ? I am a doctor, not a miracle worker. I am pretty sure whatever’s wrong with your face isn’t gonna be solved with a little Botox and a facial peel."

Freddy chuckled, low and menacing. "Oh, I like you already." He leaned forward, his gloved hand stretching out, one of the blades grazing the surface of the table between them. "But you see, Doc, I'm not one of your typical patients. You think you’ve got me all figured out ? All those fancy degrees and medical jargon…they don’t mean squat in my world."

House arched an eyebrow, unfazed by Freddy’s theatrics. "Your world, huh ? What’s that ? A world where people are dumb enough to let a burn victim in a Christmas sweater kill them in their dreams ? Yeah, sounds terrifying."

Freddy’s grin widened, showing off his jagged, yellowed teeth. "Ah, see, you don’t believe in me. You think I’m just another psycho. But trust me, Gregory," Freddy’s voice dropped to a whisper, "I live in the space between thoughts, in that part of your mind where logic can’t reach. You can diagnose diseases, figure out symptoms, but me ? I’m the disease of the mind. I’m what people fear when they close their eyes at night."

House leaned on his cane, smirking. "So you’re a glorified bad dream. Lucky for you, I am an insomniac. Let me guess, unresolved trauma, probable schizophrenia, homicidal tendencies. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re just another patient trying to sound special. But in the end, you’re just a guy who likes to kill people in their sleep because you’re too lazy to do it while they’re awake."

Freddy's eyes narrowed, but the smirk didn’t leave his face. "You think you’re safe because you’re awake right now, don’t you ?"

House shrugged. "Awake, asleep, who cares ? Reality’s overrated, and I’ve got enough Vicodin in my system to numb me to just about anything. So if you're planning on scaring me into believing your little Freddy Krueger bedtime story, you're gonna need more than some cheap theatrics."

Freddy leaned back, his blades gleaming in the dark. "Oh, I don’t need to scare you. You’re already scared. You’re scared of the things you can’t control. The things you can’t fix. I know all about you. The pain you try to hide behind that cane, the pills, the genius bravado. The people you push away because you don’t want them to see you falling apart. You think you're invincible because you don't let people get close, but deep down ? You know you’re as fragile as the rest of 'em."

For a moment, there was silence. House’s expression remained unchanged, but there was a flicker of something in his eyes. The truth in Freddy’s words was too close for comfort, but House wasn’t about to let him have the satisfaction of knowing it.

"Great," House said dryly, "another psychopath with a god complex who thinks he understands me. How original." He stepped closer, leaning on the table, his face inches from Freddy’s. "But here’s the thing—you may get your kicks messing with people’s heads in their sleep, but you don’t scare me. I’ve already seen my demons. I look them in the mirror every morning. So if you’re trying to play mind games ? You picked the wrong guy."

Freddy’s eyes glinted with amusement, but there was something darker lurking behind them. "Oh, don’t worry, Doc," he purred. "I’ve got all the time in the world. You’ll fall asleep eventually. And when you do, I’ll be waiting."

House straightened up, giving a dismissive wave. "Yeah, yeah, I’m shaking in my boots. Until then, try not to claw up the furniture. I’m guessing the hospital budget doesn’t cover Freddy-proofing."

He turned to leave, his cane tapping the floor as he moved toward the door. But just before he reached it, Freddy’s voice followed him, soft and sinister.

"Sweet dreams, doctor."

House didn’t look back. He wasn’t going to give Freddy the satisfaction. But as he exited the room and the door closed behind him, a faint chill ran down his spine, despite his best efforts to ignore it. He wouldn’t admit it, but there was something unsettling about Freddy Krueger—a nagging sense that even in a world built on logic and reason, there were still things out there that defied explanation. Things that lived in the cracks between science and madness.

And House knew better than most how fragile the mind could be.

Still, he wouldn’t give in to fear. Not yet. Not until he had more answers. And he wouldn’t that half-burnt steak face scare him…

Dr. House shook his head and entered the observation room of Ward C with his usual limp and caustic wit locked and loaded, though this time there was no sarcastic remark that immediately sprang to his lips. Instead, he found himself staring at a massive, hulking figure sitting motionless in the far corner of a reinforced glass cell. The dim lights glinted off a dirty, weather-worn hockey mask, the only visible part of a man whose very name had become synonymous with terror: Jason Voorhees.

House stood there for a moment, letting his eyes travel over the patient’s enormous frame. Jason was unnaturally still, his hulking body more like a statue than a human being. The man’s breathing was slow, controlled, the sound barely audible over the hum of the hospital’s air system. His presence filled the room with a tension that made the hairs on the back of House's neck stand up, though he’d never admit it.

House tapped his cane against the glass, the sharp sound ringing out in the eerie quiet. "Hey, Leatherface reject. Got a minute ?"

Jason didn’t move. No flinch, no twitch. Just pure, unnerving stillness.

House sighed dramatically. "Oh, great. One who doesn't talk. Why is it always the big guys who never have anything to say ?" He tapped the glass again, louder this time. "What, you too cool to chat with your doctor ?"

Jason’s head turned ever so slightly, the hockey mask catching more of the dim light. House could feel the weight of those unseen eyes behind the mask, watching him. There was something unsettling about the sheer silence Jason exuded—it wasn’t passive like a normal patient, it was a charged kind of quiet. The kind that spoke of brutal, unstoppable violence lurking just beneath the surface.

House glanced at the file clipped to the door—full of the usual psych evaluations, medical records, and police reports detailing Jason’s infamous history. Brutal killings, seemingly unkillable himself, somehow always returning to life despite countless injuries that should have put him down for good. It was like reading a case file on a walking corpse.

"So," House said, leaning on his cane as he studied Jason through the thick glass, "you’ve got quite the reputation. A machete-wielding maniac with mommy issues. You know, I’ve met a lot of psychos in my time, but you ? You’ve really set the bar high."

Again, Jason gave no reaction.

House’s eyes flicked back to the file. "Let’s see…drowned as a kid, came back to life somehow, spent years haunting a camp, and then went on a killing spree. Then you died. Multiple times, apparently. But, like a bad case of herpes, you keep coming back." He looked up, raising an eyebrow. "You ever think about retiring ? Maybe trying out knitting or gardening ?"

Silence.

House’s smirk faltered slightly as he watched Jason, his eyes narrowing. He’d dealt with plenty of dangerous people before—hell, he’d even had patients try to kill him once or twice—but this was different. There was an aura around Jason Voorhees that felt less like insanity and more like inevitability. House could feel it, a raw, primal energy that radiated from the man’s massive form, a quiet promise of violence.

"What’s your secret ?" House asked, his voice a touch more serious now. "How do you keep coming back ? You get stabbed, shot, burned, drowned—and yet here you are, sitting pretty in your little glass box. Most people die once and they’re done. But you…it seems you refuse to stay dead. How do you do it ?"

Jason’s head tilted slightly, as if considering House’s words, but there was still no verbal response. House squinted, noticing something. The mask, weathered and cracked, bore deep gouges and marks—battle scars from years of violence—but Jason himself, beneath the mask, seemed untouched by time.

House stepped closer to the glass. "You’ve been through more trauma than any human body could withstand, yet here you are. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve found the fountain of youth. Or at least the fountain of ‘I don’t die.’"

Jason’s hand twitched, just barely—a subtle, almost imperceptible movement—but House caught it. He stepped back, a smirk returning to his face.

"Oh, did I hit a nerve ? Does the big, silent killer not like being called an anomaly ? Come on, talk to me, Voorhees. What’s it like to come back from the dead ? Do you remember it, or is it just one long nap before you wake up and get back to slashing ?"

Jason’s breathing seemed to deepen, the sound now audible through the glass, like a beast waking from a long hibernation. House raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

"Ah, there we go. I knew there was something in there. You’re not completely gone, are you ? You can hear me, you understand what I’m saying."

Jason’s hand flexed slightly, the faintest of movements, but House noticed it immediately. He pressed the point, staring directly into the blank eyeholes of the hockey mask.

"You know, it’s funny," House mused, "you and I aren’t that different. You hide behind your mask, I hide behind my cane and sarcasm. You’ve got mommy issues, I’ve got issues with just about everything. We both keep people at arm’s length, and we both…well, we don’t really die, do we ?"

The room grew colder, or at least it felt like it. Jason’s form loomed larger in the silence, and House’s smirk faltered again.

"You know what the difference is though ?" House asked, his voice lowering as he stared into the void behind the mask. "I know why I’m still here. I know what keeps me going. But you ? I’m not so sure. You’re just a blunt instrument, aren’t you ? You don’t have a reason. You just are. And that…that’s what makes you dangerous."

Jason shifted in his seat, the sound of leather creaking as his massive frame adjusted. House felt the weight of Jason’s presence bearing down on him like a storm cloud, but he didn’t back away.

"You want to kill me, don’t you ?" House asked, his voice calm but challenging. "But here’s the thing—I’m not afraid of you. You’re just another puzzle to me, another medical anomaly that I’ll figure out eventually."

Jason’s breathing quickened, and for the first time, House could feel a hint of the violence that lay just beneath the surface. He was playing a dangerous game, but that was nothing new. He lived for danger, for the thrill of the unknown. And right now, Jason Voorhees was the ultimate unknown.

"Well," House said, tapping his cane against the floor, "I guess we’ll see who figures out who first."

He turned, limping toward the door. But as he reached for the handle, he paused and glanced back over his shoulder at the motionless giant.

"And by the way," House added with a smirk, "if you ever feel like talking, just let me know. I’d hate for all this silence to go to waste."

With that, he left the room, his mind already working on the impossible mystery that was Jason Voorhees.

…But then, he was accompanied to that very special cell—the one at the very end of the corridor. He leaned heavily on his cane as he limped forward confidently. The security guard walking beside him cast a nervous glance at each locked door they passed, his hand hovering near the baton clipped to his belt.

"You sure about this ?" the guard muttered. "He's...not like the others."

House’s lips curled into a smirk. "They say that about every psycho I meet. They all have their quirks." He glanced up at the flickering lights. "Must be exhausting, constantly being terrified of your own patients."

The guard didn’t respond, his hand trembling slightly as he reached for a large key ring on his belt. They’d arrived at the heavy steel door, which creaked ominously when he unlocked it. A plaque next to the door read: Patient 1A – Myers, Michael.

"He's all yours," the guard said, stepping back.

House pushed the door open and walked in, his cane tapping rhythmically against the cold floor. The room was sparsely furnished, lit by a single, buzzing fluorescent light overhead. Seated in the middle of the room was a large figure, unnervingly still.

Michael Myers.

The infamous killer, clad in a worn, gray jumpsuit, sat motionless in a metal chair, his broad shoulders hunched and his head tilted slightly forward. The white mask he wore—blank and expressionless—was a stark contrast against the shadows that clung to him.

House raised an eyebrow as he observed Michael for a moment. "So...this is what all the fuss is about ?"

No response. Michael remained utterly still, like a statue carved from shadow and silence.

House let out a small sigh of mock exasperation and hobbled closer, flipping open the thin file he had been given before arriving. "Let's see. Killed your sister at six years old. Spent the next few decades in and out of psych wards. Then you got bored, broke out, and went on a murder spree in your charming hometown. Typical family drama. If I had a nickel for every time a patient had a screwed-up childhood…well, I’d probably no longer be a doctor."

Michael’s breathing was steady and slow, the only sign of life in the room besides House’s persistent sarcasm.

"Silent treatment ? That’s fine, I’m used to it after my little talk with Jason earlier." House circled Michael, tapping his cane lightly against the chair’s metal frame. He leaned in, staring into the black void of Michael’s mask. "So, are you the strong, silent type, or is this just an elaborate way to avoid social interaction ? I gotta say, there are easier ways to skip the small talk."

Still nothing. House leaned back, his expression mildly amused. "I’m guessing it’s neurological. No real emotional response. Nothing to explain why you don’t talk, but you seem to like violence. That’s gotta be fun at parties."

He flipped through the file again, shaking his head. "Shot, stabbed, set on fire…Yet here you are, still standing. I hate to admit it, but that’s impressive. Ever thought about teaching a class on survival ?"

As House made another pass around Michael’s chair, the room’s lone light flickered, casting the room into momentary darkness. When the light sputtered back to life, Michael was no longer seated.

He was standing.

House paused, his cane frozen mid-step as he turned slowly to face the now-looming figure of Michael Myers. The masked killer stood mere feet away, his towering form casting a long shadow over House, who looked up at him with a mixture of curiosity and defiance.

"Ah, finally," House said, his voice unfazed by the sudden shift. "For a second there, I thought you might actually be catatonic."

Michael’s hand clenched slightly at his side, the only movement he’d made since standing. House’s sharp blue eyes didn’t miss it, but he didn’t step back. Instead, he cocked his head, scrutinizing the infamous killer like a puzzle waiting to be solved.

"You don’t talk, but you do respond. Interesting," House mused, taking a half-step forward. "So what is it ? Trauma-induced psychopathy ? Genetic predisposition to violence ? Or maybe you're just really misunderstood."

Michael’s hollow mask tilted down slightly as if acknowledging House's proximity, but still, he remained silent. The tension in the room thickened, like the air itself had turned heavier. House could feel it, but instead of fear, his lips curled into a slight grin.

"You know, people keep saying you’re some unstoppable killing machine. Frankly, I’ve met interns scarier than you," House said dryly, gripping his cane a little tighter. He glanced around the room, noting the locked door behind him, the sterile, thick walls. "But I’ve got to admit, I didn’t expect you to be so...tall. Do you go to the gym ? Do they even have a gym around here ? Must have. Seems like most of you guys are shredded."

Michael didn’t move, but his presence felt suffocating, a looming storm about to break. House, ever the gambler, took another step closer, his eyes flicking from Michael’s mask to his hands and back again.

"So, what now ? You gonna try to kill me, big guy ?" House asked, his voice dropping in volume but not losing its edge. "Or are we going to stand here in awkward silence until you get bored ?"

There was a moment—a single, charged moment—where time seemed to stretch. Michael’s hand twitched, ever so slightly, as if preparing to strike. House stood his ground, his cane pressed firmly against the floor, his eyes locked onto the faceless mask before him.

"Look," House said quietly, his voice now laced with something almost resembling sincerity, "I’ve faced worse odds. Hell, I’ve faced death before. But you ? I am not scared of you. You’re just another problem to solve to me. And I love solving problems."

The lights flickered again, casting them both into darkness.

The room plunged into complete darkness, the flickering light casting eerie shadows across the bare walls. House felt the weight of the silence around him, his heartbeat steady, his breath controlled. He was no stranger to danger, no stranger to the edge of death, but something about Michael Myers was different—something primal.

The room plunged into darkness, the flickering light overhead extinguished entirely. For a moment, all House could hear was the sound of his own breathing, punctuated by the soft, rhythmic rasp of Michael Myers’ breath through his mask. The darkness was suffocating, thick with the weight of something dangerous lurking just beyond sight.

House stood perfectly still, his cane pressed into the floor, his senses heightened as he waited. Michael was close—he could feel his presence, the looming menace of the masked killer’s proximity.

Then, a single sound—a metallic scrape—cut through the silence.

The lights sputtered back to life, dim and buzzing, but enough to reveal Michael’s raised hand, fingers wrapped around the hilt of a large makeshift knife made from shattered glass. The blade gleamed in the low light, casting a sharp, menacing glint across the room. Michael’s mask, still blank and emotionless, tilted slightly as if considering his next move.

House, in typical fashion, remained unfazed. If anything, the sight of the blade brought a small, dry smile to his lips. "Ah, there it is," he said, nodding toward the knife. "I was wondering when the stabbing part of our little chat would begin."

Michael’s breathing remained steady, his grip tightening on the knife. He took a step forward, his heavy boots thudding against the floor like the ticking of a countdown.

House didn’t flinch. "You know," he said casually, "most people who resort to violence are compensating for something. Repressed emotions, fear, insecurity." He gestured toward the knife with his cane. "This ? It’s a crutch. But then again, who am I to judge? I have one too."

Michael’s body language shifted slightly, an almost imperceptible tightening of his shoulders. He raised the knife higher, his body coiling like a predator ready to strike.

But House stepped closer, invading the killer’s personal space in a way no one else had ever dared before. His voice lowered to a near whisper, his blue eyes boring into the blank mask. "You don’t scare me, Michael," he said, his words deliberate, calm. "You know why ?"

For the first time, Michael hesitated. The knife, poised to strike, hung in the air, as if something deep within him was listening.

"Because fear is a choice," House continued. "And I choose not to give you that power."

Another beat of silence. Michael’s grip on the knife remained firm, but his hand didn’t move.

House tilted his head, his gaze never leaving Michael’s mask. "You’re not a force of nature. You’re just a man. A man with a lot of damage. Maybe I can’t fix that, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to run from it."

The lights flickered again, casting long shadows across the room. House could feel the tension coiled tightly between them, a fragile line that could snap at any moment. But he wasn’t backing down.

Finally, Michael lowered the knife. It wasn’t a surrender, not in the traditional sense, but it was a pause—a moment of stillness where the chaos that usually followed Michael Myers seemed to dissipate.

House exhaled slowly, the tension easing just enough for him to speak again. "See ? You can make choices too, Michael. You don’t have to be what everyone thinks you are."

For the first time since stepping into the room, House took a step back, his gaze still locked on the towering figure before him. Michael’s mask, blank as it was, seemed to follow his every movement, as if considering the words, weighing them.

"Don’t get me wrong," House said, breaking the silence with a smirk, "I’m not expecting a thank-you card or anything. But at least you’re proving you’ve got a little self-control left."

But then, Michael’s hand shot forward, faster than House could have anticipated. In a blink, his massive hand was wrapped around House’s throat, lifting him slightly off the ground. The doctor gasped, his cane clattering to the floor as Michael held him there, suspended, staring into the empty blackness of the killer's mask.

For a moment, House’s sharp blue eyes flickered with fear, but then—just as quickly—they hardened into something else. Defiance.

His voice was strained but unwavering as he choked out, "So...you do...have a...pulse after all."

Michael squeezed tighter, the air rushing out of House’s lungs as the pressure increased. House clawed at Michael’s hand, his vision starting to blur, but he refused to look away. He refused to let go of that connection, however thin, however dangerous it was.

And then, just as suddenly as it began, Michael released him. House dropped to the ground, gasping for air, clutching at his throat. He coughed, his chest heaving as he sucked in breath after breath, but even in his weakened state, he managed a hoarse chuckle.

"Guess...I hit a nerve," he rasped, his voice rough but still dripping with dark humor.

Michael stepped back, his breathing slow and deliberate, as if nothing had happened. The mask remained impassive, cold. But there was something there—something unspoken in the air between them. A connection. A challenge.

As if on cue, the door behind House creaked open, the guard from before peeking in with wide, terrified eyes. "Doctor...we need to get you out of here. Now."

House turned, glancing over his shoulder at the guard, then back at Michael. He gave a small shrug, his usual irreverence returning. "Well, this has been fun, Mike, but l guess our time is up."

Michael remained motionless, his gaze—or whatever lay behind that mask—following House as he limped toward the door. Before stepping out, House paused, glancing back one last time. "By the way, I wasn’t kidding about the gym thing. You’re in great shape. Keep it up."

The door shut behind him with a heavy thud, locking Michael Myers back into his cage of silence.

As House walked down the corridor, the guard looked at him in disbelief, shaking his head. "I... I can’t believe you just walked out of there alive."

House smirked, his cane tapping the ground rhythmically as they walked. "Please. Michael and I were just having a heart-to-heart. Nothing personal, just another day at the office."

The guard swallowed hard, clearly unconvinced. "He doesn’t have a heart, Doc."

House shrugged, his eyes gleaming with mischief. "Maybe. But then again, neither do I."

He smirked.

Something told him he had chosen just the right job…

#fandoms #imagine #fanfic #crossover #dr house #slashers #brahms heelshire #jason voorhees #freddy krueger #michael myers

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reflections-in-a-critical-eye · 8 months ago

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Middle of the week thoughts on media & entertainment highlights:

When I say I have a problem with remakes, I don't say it just to be against the grain. Not because I consider the original as automatically being better, but because often a new version fails to create its own standalone identity. And yes, we do not need another Carrie for many many reasons.

I watched The Apprentice yesterday. While it does have its flaws, considering that the number of decent movies coming out of Hollywood gets tinier anyway, this one was good and I do wish it had a bigger audience for it, despite the subject matter which seems to keep people away. It is an interesting look at the creation of a monster by the people surrounding him and the world which helped with that creation. And Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn was spectacular (and I want him on an awards season campaign tour).

I need a time machine to skip the entire Whicked promo period and its subsequent release. This is this year's most annoying production and everything that has come out of it or connected to it has been either incredibly stupid or ridiculous.

I think APT is gonna be stuck in people's heads for quite sometime. And no wonder, it is so catchy! I listened to all the BP girls solo releases and Rose's song stands out. Which is no wonder cause it has that second half of the 2000s sound to it, leaning much towards the Avril Lavigne style. And Bruno Mars who very rarely fails. Overall, good track. I liked Jennie's too, although it's not that remarkable and I wished her music video would have been more in line with the teaser aesthetic. More focus on the artistic side and less on the being hot surrounded by cars side cause we all know she's beautiful anyway. Do something beyond that.

There's plenty of films I'm excited to watch in a movie theater in the following months, but The Brutalist is on top of the list. I've just seen the trailer and I'm in awe, especially considering the low budget, the filming conditions, the choice to shoot everything on 70 mm...

Seeing in real time and happening so fast the consequences of validating the requests of crazy fans is insane and something needs to change asap. The funeral wreaths need to stop. For the RIIZE guy, for Suga, for Onew (I'm hoping they won't go there). The death threats for Jessi need to stop. Enough with harrassment campaigns against people who smoke, date, use their phone or simply behave like human beings.

#m thoughts

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blckbarbiedoll · 1 month ago

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Ghost Of You (M.B./R.J.) Chapter 2.11

Always

2023-Chicago, Illinois

Angie walked into the gutted room as it was slowly but surely being taken apart. "Nat, the toilet's still fucked."

"I know." She took a bite of her sandwich. "I'm working on it. And that's a no go on the door pull." She said to Carmy.

"It's a really crucial part." He said. "They're hand cast in Italy."

"You do know we're not in Italy?" Angie asked as she leaned over to take a small bite of her friend's sandwich.

"And they're five thousand dollars."

"What about the Danish teak?"

"Those are three thousand, which you said was two thousand."

"The bronze brutalist?"

"Those are actually two thousand. You can have that."

"By the way, we don't have enough forks." Angie told her brother in law.

"I promise you, there's enough forks."

"I'm telling you, Carm."

"Where's the phone?" Nat asked.

"Marcus broke it. Can you order a new one?"

"Sure. You can shove it up your ass."

Angie laughed as her and Sugar walked off to the office. "You okay, Sug?"

"Yeah, fine." She sat down. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You just seem off."

"I'm okay. Everyone's just pissing me off today."

"How 'bout we go out for drinks tonight? It's been a minute since we caught up."

Before the blonde could respond, sounds of arguing and banging came from the hallway.

"Can you shut the fuck up?" Carmy asked Richie and Neil.

"What's the problem?" Angie asked Neil.

The two of them, along with Marcus, were trying, and clearly failing, to move the lockers away from the walls.

"Angie, I wanted to do it my way. The right way. But he didn't want me to do it."

"We shoulda just done what I said in the first place!" Richie yelled. "I had this shit all planned, and he's fucking banging the locker around-"

"I can't get a grip on the lockers 'cause Mikey's is still locked."

Angie looked at her husband's locker. Number fifteen, still closed shut with the silver and blue lock he had gotten ages ago. "Then open it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." She cleared her throat and nodded her head. "It's fine."

Neil handed Carmy a lock cutter and stood back as the blonde sliced the metal. He pulled out a dark blue hat, adorned with the restaurant's old name.

"Oh my god." Angie whispered as she reached for the hat.

"Taste of Chicago."

"Remember the booth?" Richie asked

Angie, Carmen, and Natalie chuckled and nodded.

"What was that, like thirteen years ago?"

"That was really fun."

Angie nodded and looked up at Carmy. "Do you want it?"

"No." He shook his head. "I got a bunch from Mom's house."

She nodded and held it out to Richie. He gave her a soft smile and gratefully took it.

"Thanks, Ange."

"Yeah.”

Carmy reached back into the locker and grabbed a photo of Mikey and Angie on their wedding day. He smiled softly before handing it to her.

“My baby.” She whispered, pressing a small kiss to it before slipping it into her pocket.

“You okay?” Richie asked her.

“Mhm.” She nodded. “Get this shit done, please."

"Got it."

🤍

"Can you bring Sophia by soon?"

"Yeah, of course." Angie spoke into the phone as she went over some paperwork in the office. "Is Saturday good?"

"Angie, I'm not sure how much longer I've got." Her father said on the other side of the phone.

"It's getting that bad?"

"The doctor said not to expect anything over a month."

"Shit." She sighed. "Okay, uh, can I bring her by tomorrow after school?"

"Yes, please."

"Do you need anything?"

"No, babygirl. I'm fine. How's the restaurant coming?"

"Uhhh...." Angie stuck her head out the door and observed the arguing between Richie, Fak, and Marcus as they worked in the locker area. "It's coming."

"I wish I could see the finished product."

"Me too."

"Alright, I'll let you go, baby. I love you."

"Love you too. See you tomorrow." Angie hung up the phone and took a deep sigh before getting out of the chair and walking over towards the bathroom before knocking on the door.

"What?" Sugar asked from the inside.

"You shitting or working?"

"Working."

Angie chuckled softly and opened the door before shutting it behind her. She took a seat next to her friend on the floor and leaned against the wall. "You okay?"

"Me? Yeah, I'm great." Sugar huffed. "We have three months to get this place up and running, this toilet is absolutely shit, Carmy is a child, and I can't go ten minutes without vomiting."

"Do you have the flu?" Angie pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and took one out. "I know that's been going around."

"Could you not smoke that right now?"

"Oh, sorry." She put it away and looked at the expression on her friend's face. "You look tired. And anxious."

"Yeah, 'cause I am." The blonde rested her head in her hands

Angie squinted her eyes and tilted her head a bit. "Natalie?"

"Huh?"

"Are you pregnant?"

She looked up at Angie and bit her lip before nodding. "Ten weeks."

"Holy shit. I mean, this is good. Right?"

"No, yeah. Of course. Of course it's good. I just...." Natalie sighed and rubbed her face. "I don't know how to do this. I can't be a mom." Her voice cracked. "Look at the shitty example I had."

"Hey." Angie cupped her friend's face and rubbed her cheeks. "I know you're scared, okay. I know. I was fucking terrified when I found out I was pregnant." She wiped Nat's tears with her thumbs.

"I remember."

"It's totally normal to feel like you don't know what you're doing."

"But what if I hurt it?"

"Honey, you're not gonna hurt it. You are gonna be the best mom in the world."

"You think so?"

"I know it. Natalie, you are kind, and patient, and so loving. I wish I was more like you sometimes."

Natalie sniffed and took Angie's hands. "You're a great mom."

"Please." She scoffed. "My daughter can't stand me."

"She loves you. I promise you that."

Angie smiled softly and rubbed Nat's hand. "I love you."

"I love you more." She tightly embraced her friend. "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"Will you be the godmother?"

"Oh, Sugar." Angie grinned. "It's so cute that you thought you had a choice."

The woman chuckled as they wiped the remainder of their tears.

"We've gotta stop crying in the floor."

"Yeah." Angie laughed as her phone began to ring. "Hello? This is she."

"Who is it?" Nat mouthed.

"I'm sorry, a what issue?"

The women got up and exited the bathroom. They walked over to Richie, Fak, and Marcus arguing in the corner.

"Fak, you're fucking insane!"

"We have a mold problem." Angie said to Richie.

"No we don't."

"That wasn't a question. A guy just returned our call about a mold problem, and said it's definitely a mold problem."

"I wonder how the fuck someone would think we have a mold problem."

"Sweetheart, did you call a mold man?" Sugar asked Neil.

"No."

"He's lying."

"I'm not!"

"It's under control." Richie assured them. "These ceilings, they're practically styrofoam." He climbed up onto the ladder and raised the broom in his hand. "Were we to have mold, they would collapse when I go like this." He lightly tapped the ceiling, resulting in the drywall cracking and a pile of black dust falling onto him.

"You were saying?"

Richie rubbed the soot off of his face and sighed. "We have mold."

"Yeah."

🤍

The apartment was dark when Angie and Sophia walked inside. The former of the two opened up the kitchen window and began to light a cigarette.

"Pretend like you didn't see this."

Sophia subtly rolled her eyes and nodded. "Okay."

Angie placed the cigarette between her lips and took a long drag before blowing out. "You hungry?"

"Yeah." The young girl said, sitting down at the table.

"What do you want?"

"I dunno." She shrugged.

"Well, I'm not cooking tonight. So think of something we can order."

Sophia sat at the kitchen table and rested her chin on her palm. "Can I have twenty dollars?"

"For what?"

"The zoo. We're going next Friday."

"Yeah, that's fine. Do you have a permission slip or something?"

She got up and reached into her backpack before handing her mother a piece of paper and a pencil. Angie signed her name at the bottom before handing it back to her.

"Do you guys have chaperones?"

"Yeah. I asked Uncle Pete."

"Uncle Pete? What about me?"

"You're always busy, so I asked someone who's not."

"Honey." Angie put out her cigarette and knelt down a bit. "I will always make time for you. I can switch some things around."

"It's okay. Uncle Pete's really excited. I don't wanna hurt his feelings."

Angie nodded and smiled softly. "Oh. Yeah, of course. I get it."

"Are you mad?"

"No, no, no, baby." She gently caressed her daughter's cheek. "I could never be mad at you."

"Okay." She looked down at her feet. "Mom?"

"Yeah?"

Sophia hesitated before speaking up. "I love you."

"I love you too, honey." Angie pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. "Always."

Taglist: @c-nstantine

#fanfic #the bear #mikey berzatto #black oc #mikey berzatto x oc #richie jerimovich #richie jerimovich x oc #angie berzatto

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suzannahnatters · 4 months ago

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TTT Re-read: Book 4, Chs 6-10: ENDLESS SCREAMING

Ch 6 - THE FORBIDDEN POOL

the only thing I love more than a trust fall is a failed trust fall 😅

losing my mind a little bit at the fact that Faramir has WAY more reason to fear that Frodo is walking straight into a trap than even his bro did. like, it's not just that Frodo is going to Mordor - he's going there with middle earth's most wanted as a guide. again, Tolkien fully 100% intended to give Faramir the EXACT SAME REASONS to grab Frodo as Boromir did. only Faramir passes the test.

Ch 7 - JOURNEY TO THE CROSSROADS

one last Galadriel parallel - Faramir gifts them with equipment for the journey

maybe I'm overthinking this but Sam's dream about looking for his pipe in the garden at Bag End is actually a poignant picture of someone who is missing home, who can't go back home, but also would not be quite at home if he got there - it's foreshadowing the end of the book, when the hobbits must ask whether you can really go home after something like this.

THEY CANNOT! CONQUER! FOREVER! 10/10 unforgettable scene. impeccable visuals. what a way to usher in the DAWNLESS DAYS

which are so iconic to me, like if I think of LOTR at all these are what I think of.

Ch 8 - THE STAIRS OF CIRITH UNGOL

actually I love how different the Minas Morgul vibe is to the Barad-Dur/Mordor vibe. like Mordor is simply ugly and brutalist but Minas Morgul is like. corrupted art, corrupted beauty.

it's really interesting to note that although Frodo is already so weakened physically his actual will is becoming stronger. there's even an echo of that TROP theme about touching the darkness - Frodo actually got STABBED by the darkness and the process of healing from that is, perhaps, what enables him to resist the Nazgul a second time.

the whole "Nazgul leaving Minas Morgul" scene is unbeLIEVably epic, with some beautifully deployed purple prose - and marvellously cinematic.

am I the only person who kind of expects that Bronwyn and Arondir's tower from TROP s1 will turn out to be the tower at Cirith Ungol

"do the great tales ever end?" ok doing my level best not to simply bawl at the gym. this is so encouraging to me right now. that the story is greater than any one of us, that tragedy is only ever individual and temporary, that the story goes ON. we can step out of it and rest! the story goes on, beyond happiness, beyond grief!!!! there is a rest, and there is also always hope!!!!

explicit Beren and Lúthien reference! he's just going all out on paralleling the hobbits' quest with the quest of Beren and Lúthien!

oh Gollum the character that you are. so desperate for love and community. so self righteous about being accused of sneaking when he's literally just been promising Shelob a tasty Hobbit dinner. so close to repenting (Tolkien said in one of his letters that if not for Sam waking up and snapping things might have turned out differently). never not going to lose my mind at this.

Ch 9 - SHELOB'S LAIR

augh a darkness so thick it casts darkness on the mind. this is SO TOLKIEN (the big enemy is always in the mind) BUT ALSO how appropriate for Ungoliant's heir. this creature is descended from the one that killed the Trees and sucked their light!!!

A LIGHT! WHEN ALL OTHER LIGHTS! GO OUT! oh the Trees get the last laugh in the end.

also the light grows stronger with hope because this book is all about mental health

all the references to the tale of Beren and Lúthien!!!!!!!

gosh what a chapter!!! TTT ends on such a rising tempo of characterisation and drama and finally action - it's SO GOOD. but the thought of these hobbits rushing around on the borders of Mordor losing their heads and shouting themselves hoarse is the most anxious inducing thing lol.

Ch 10 - THE CHOICES OF MASTER SAMWISE

losing my mind because Sam achieves here something which explicitly no great hero of elves or men has done. and he doesn't win because he's stronger he wins because he's little, because Shelob impales herself on him. and Sam - Sam the servant, not Frodo the master - taking his place among the great heroes of Middle Earth is so powerful and contextualises the classism inherent in the way everyone speaks and thinks of Sam in this book, even the way he thinks of himself. like despite the ways the classism is confronting to readers these days, if Sam had been treated as a true equal all this time I'm not sure this moment would have had the same significance? I think Tolkien thoroughly understands the assignment he has set himself?

also again with the link between mental and spiritual health - calling on Elbereth gives Sam hope, hope gives him light, and then strength to face Shelob, and I love it so much.

so I haven't written a lot of fanfic in my life but I did once write one in which Faramir and Eowyn as Prince and Princess of Ithilien head up to Cirith Ungol to secure the tower, and Eldarion wanders off and falls afoul of Shelob and so Faramir and Eowyn team up to take her down to protect their kid. and in my head that's still what happens to Shelob in the end.

"the mountains had not crumbled, nor the earth fallen into ruin" endless screaming

the sheer isolation that Sam must feel believing that the entire rest of the company is dead, the way he comes up smack against the realisation that now apparently providence has selected HIM to complete the quest alone, again, it's the exaltation of the humble and I'm a bit feral about it.

another of the fun parallels in this book is that this is the second time our characters have gone into dark tunnels, met an eldritch monster, and lost an important member of the company. what this does already is hint that, as Gandalf was not quite dead...neither is Frodo.

it's also one of the few times the not quite dead trope doesn't feel like a fakeout tbh.

hmmmm Sam identifies his mistake as *losing hope* which I love anyway it is both incredibly poignant given the themes of the book, and TOTALLY HILARIOUS that Sam TWICE in this chapter tries to one-man zerg rush 80 orcs and both times they. don't even see him there.

"Frodo was alive but taken by the Enemy" ENDLESS SCREAMING

---

Today in the writers' group we were talking about Sam. One of the things that has been striking me this time around is that he's a really flawed person? He is rude if not actually cruel to Gollum and puts too much of his identity in Frodo. Yet, he's still the hero. I love that he gets to be such a complex character, that he doesn't have to be pure good in order to be a hero. And on the other hand, Frodo shows mercy to Gollum because he sees so clearly that there but for the grace of Eru goes himself, Frodo. Like, it's not as though Sam's wrong about Gollum - he's genuinely someone who steals and eats babies from their cradles! But Tolkien does so well at evoking that Pity for him, that ability Frodo has to identify with him, that we really do see, and feel, Sam's cruelty. Every member of the trio is so morally complex.

#the lord of the rings #jrrt #jrr tolkien #middle earth #jrrtandme2025

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garbage-empress · 10 months ago

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I want The Chocolate Guy to do a video in his normal style but fail miserably at everything. I want him to set out to make a train or whatever but at the end of the video it looks like a weird piece of brutalist architecture got smashed by a lava tsunami.

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genreneutralfilm · 1 month ago

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Top 10 Movies of the 2020s So Far

As we reach the mid point of the decade I wanted to look back and talk about some of the best (in my opinion) films of the decade so far. There really wasn't any criteria I considered other than picking movies that had a great impact on me and if I believe they will continue to be viewed as classics in the years to come.

Honorable Mentions: The Fabelmans, Wicked, Avatar: The Way of Water

10. Challengers

Luca Guadagnino's exploration of passion for sport and how that can lead to the downfall of a life and relationship, both platonic and romantic, is dynamic, sexy, and complex. Every piece of filmmaking is top notch here from the performances to the cinematography to that techno-inspired score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

9. The Zone of Interest

Jonathan Glazer creates a truly haunting and distressing juxtaposition in this film about domesticity next to the harrowing life of those effected by the Holocaust. The Zone of Interest's sparse plot adds to the uneasiness; showing the domestic life of a wife to a Nazi officer while the soundscape creates a horrifying picture of what is truly living next to them, a concentration camp. A harrowing, but necessary watch.

8. The Brutalist

I went into The Brutalist wanting to hate it. I just couldn't understand why a movie needed to be that close to four hours long, but as soon as it started I was proven wrong. From the beginning notes of the score to the last moments of the epilogue Brady Corbet's historical epic about architect László Tóth and the promise (and failure) of the American Dream is all encompassing and brilliant.

7. The Iron Claw

A quiet meditation of the effects of generational trauma on a wrestling family that completely rips your heart out. The biggest win of this movie is that Zac Efron performance, he is staggering in this role as the eldest brother of the Von Erich wrestling family and he holds the narrative completely in his hands. The last scene can get me glassy-eyed just thinkin about it.

6. tick, tick...BOOM!

A film that came out of nowhere and completely knocked me on the floor when I watched it the first time. One of the most honest exploration of an artist that I can think of and Andrew Garfield playing Jonathan Larson is easily one of my favorite performances of the decade if not of all time. There are so many moments in this film I just stand in awe of Lin Manuel-Miranda and how he managed to do this in his first feature film. The "Sunday" sequence never fails to make me cry.

5. The Substance

One of the most inventive and disgusting movies I've ever seen. The visual effects, the score, the sparse but effective screenplay; every element is turned up to 100. Add in Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley giving two of the best horror performances in recent memory, and Coralie Fargeat's jaw-droppingly erratic (but somehow still precise) direction and that is a recipe for a wonderfully gory and deep exploration of beauty.

4. Anora

The most recent Best Picture winner is a deconstruction of the American Dream while also being a modern Cinderella story. Telling the story of Ani, a young sex worker in New York City, and her whirlwind romance with a young Russian oligarch Sean Baker effortlessly weaves us through a screwball narrative while also serving a gut-punch of an ending. Mikey Madison delivers, in my opinion, the best performance of the decade in this film switching from high comedy to a breathtaking moment of heartbreak; this was her a Star-Is-Born-moment.

3. Sinners

The newest movie on this list, but well deserved. Every aspect of this historical-vampire flick is on another level; the score and cinematography are both standouts for me. I will be thinking about *that* scene for probably the rest of my life, and it perfectly captures the theme of this film. I am manifesting it winning BIG next March and think it deserves every good word coming out about it now.

2. Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

Just perfect. I can't really put into words how much I love this movie, but it is just outstanding. A crazy and whacky ride about familial trauma and parenthood while still being chock-full of laugh out loud moments. Michelle Yeoh and Stephanie Hsu specifically are on FIRE in this and that last scene of them in front of the laundromat still sticks with me today.

Number One- Dune: Part Two

Its Dune. I don't really know what else y'all need me to say. Just every aspect is absolutely perfect and will go down in history as one of the best films in history and one of the best sci-fi epics ever. Mr. Chalamet is on another level, and I believe this should have been his Oscar Nomination over A Complete Unknown tenfold.

#film #movies #anora #the brutalist #timothee chalamet #challengers #dune #dune part two #everything everywhere all at once #tick tick boom #andrew garfield #sinners #sinners movie #the substance #margaret qualley #mikey madison

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blogdeepbelieverbouquetworld · 5 months ago

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Metro:

Leading appearances in Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Broadchurch and Rivals have meant the British public have become quite used to seeing David Tennant’s angular (yet kind) face and hearing his warbled Scottish tones.

So much so, his face is one of the most well-known in British TV and film. You simply cannot avoid him.

But while we know the creases on his forehead all too well, no one apart from a clandestine network of Tennant-obsessed Redditors have discovered anything unusual about his toes. Until now.

After rumblings appeared in a dark corner of the web that something was afoot with the 53-year-old’s right trotter, he confirmed to Metro that it does indeed have six toes. You are very welcome.

‘Do people know that?’ we ask, to which David replied: ‘Well, they do now.’

So… Is it the little toe? Does it point out or up? Many questions.

‘It’s sort of like a nubbin,’ David confirms. On the little toe side of his right foot. Cute!

Somehow we doubt David will be getting his lanky appendages out when he takes to the stage on February 16 to host the Bafta Film Awards for the second year running. (Although that would be both memorable and awe-inspiring.)

The actor will be hosting the Baftas this year after a successful debut in 2024

‘It’s a lovely thing to be asked to do and it’s a huge privilege, and it’s very giddy-making,’ David says.

‘But I’ve sort of got a bit of a free pass, because nobody expects me to be any good at it.’

Humble David was a hit host in 2024 – so let’s hope this year will be no different…

‘It was a slightly mad thing to be asked to do, not something I ever aspired to or imagined would come my way,’ he confesses.

‘When you’re standing on that stage looking out at all the most famous people in the world, you just think: How did I end up doing this?’

In summary, David hopes: ‘I think I just want to not break it again, really.’

As is the host’s duty, the Doctor Who star can’t single out his favourite films of the year, with The Brutalist, Nosferatu, The Substance, Wicked and Wallace & Gromit among those nominated.

‘I am going to remain entirely neutral,’ David says.

He has a similarly diplomatic response when asked – off the back of his masterful portrayal of cruel Tony Baddingham in Rivals – whether he would ever want to play a Bond villain.

‘It would be quite an odd thing to say no to, I think. But you know, I’m not going to encourage headlines by answering that too candidly,’ he teases.

While David has an A-lister tendency to mince his words – fair enough – he is extremely modest for a man with his iMDB.

With two Emmy Awards under his belt, six NTAs and a Bafta, the Harry Potter actor has entertained millions – but admits he fails to have the same effect on his four children.

‘[If I’m in a film] they usually find a reason to switch on to something else, because it takes the joy out, doesn’t it? You don’t want to have boring old dad creeping up on something,’ David says, adding: ‘Although they do quite like Nativity 2.’

Luckily, the Hamlet actor sticks around in the industry not to impress anyone – especially his kids – but to do work that connects with people.

‘I suppose the ultimate goal of any creative industry is to touch people and to make a difference, and to create something that resonates in somebody’s life,’ he says.

David has a nuanced answer when asked for his most meaningful work.

‘If something very entertaining hits someone at a point where they need to be taken out of a dark place, then that can be the most significant thing ever,’ David says.

He added: ‘Things mean different things to all sorts of different people, and can be received very specifically to a moment in someone’s life. So I don’t think you can rank them in that way.’

But he does land on a little known BBC Two show called There She Goes.

‘Creator Shaun Pye wrote about his life. He has a daughter with very severe special needs, and he was very candid, honest and truthful about what it’s like to have a child with that many challenges,’ David explains of the 2018 BBC drama, which has an impressive 91% on Rotten Tomatoes.

‘That’s probably the most profound reaction I’ve had. From parents of children with similar needs who’ve seen their lives in a piece of art in a way that they’ve never seen it reflected before.’

The Bafta Film Awards will air on February 16, 2025 on BBC One.

#davidtennant #bafta #bafta25 #eebaftas #baftafilmawards

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msvorderofoperations · 5 months ago

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Been a minute, but I've got another dream journal.

So the last couple weeks I've had a comparatively mild (but still really frustrating) bout of pneumonia. This has meant that I can only sleep 2-4 hours at a time, because I'll - without fail - get woken up by an intense coughing fit. So I'm taking my sleep where I can, but it has also resulted in a lot of extremely vivid and weird dreams.

The one I just woke up from started as being in a Yakuza game (or Like A Dragon these days, since Sega is trying to distance themselves from the notoriety of the crime syndicate) taking place on a cruise ship. It was very strange, even for one of those games (the series is powerfully bizarre, containing Buddhist morality plays [sorta], business management sims involving barnyard animals as your managers, and fighting dudes who spend their money exploring the depths of the ocean so they can learn to punch out cetaceans). It began with one of the many business minigames, this one about operating tea house/host clubs. What made it truly strange though was that the way hosts levelled up was by falling asleep on the floor, unconsciously building a cocoon around themselves and undergoing metamorphosis to turn into humans with butterfly wings. There was of course competing interests in the same realm, but an investigation into their offerings showed the were doomed to fail because the themes were inconsistent and weird as fuck. Like, the hosts were dressed in very formal minimalist modern attire, but the decorations were a melange of brutalist and tiki. It made no goddamn sense.

Anyways, the next bit of the game ended up being about how staff of the cruise were slacking on their maintenance jobs, and you have to investigate. I turns out that the reason for this is because they're trying to capture a great white shark that has been tailing the ship. Since they don't have any fresh fish to chum, they have instead been luring it in with their own blood, to limited success. In standard video game fashion, you solve this problem by beating people up. You even have the option to use parts of the environment to dump them into the sea, directly into the path of the shark. But because this is a Yakuza game, there is very strict gameplay and story segregation, so they don't die and end up back on the ship once you've won the fight. The game then tells you that the shark seems to be interested only in the blood of a specific body type (which in no way lines up with sharks actual preferences), in this case wanting a human that is extremely athletic. Since the staff on the cruise lead a fairly sedentary life (dream logic, I don't believe this is actually the case) it is implied that the blood needed to capture this thing would be the main character's. But since he doesn't want to open up an artery, which is literally how the other people attempting this did it, the side mission goes unfinished.

The dream then shifts have the cruise being specifically for a graduating high school class (this was a thing at my school, though it was not nearly as bougie as it sounds. It was on a ferry with no events space and lasted maybe an afternoon). It's lasting a few days, and the ship is basically a floating amusement park, with rides, themed areas, live theatre and movie screenings. Things take a turn for the even weirder, when it becomes clear that the high school in question is basically the unhinged mish-mash of genres that is Riverdale. If you're not familiar with how off the rails the show gets, there are many video essays detailing it's complete descent into madness. Adding to the complexity of the situation, it seems the event is also taking place specifically in the World of Darkness which is a shared universe of contemporary urban fantasy role playing games, each dealing with a different community (vampires, werewolves, changelings, etc). And then to complicate things EVEN FURTHER, a bunch of movie villains from many various properties show up (in the dream I was characterizing them as all of the Dreamworks animation villains, but that is absolutely not who they were). So you had gadgeteer geniuses working alongside reality warpers, misguided nature spirits, entirely mundane businessmen/politickers, and ghosts among MANY others.

The whole conflict with them goes down in a very weird climactic event, one I can scarcely describe since even in the dream I barely had any idea what was going one. Suffice to say, it was beyond hallucinatory, but it did result in the quote unquote good guys winning. And then it all became extremely mundane stuff about docking procedures, and getting people in touch with their families to get picked up.

My dreams are so weird.

#subconscious conversation #personal #I really don't know if there's anything to be gleaned from this #other than lowered blood oxygen levels make my dreams even weirder I guess #As mentioned I have had a few other dreams while recovering from this #but a lot of them were just vivid disconnected images with nothing even approaching a narrative #or one that was so intensely personal that I felt I couldn't even share it here #that one REALLY fucked me up #but yeah as of today I have finished my round of antibiotics and just have to wait for the fluid to naturally be drained from my lung #can't happen fast enough tbh

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valkyrjuk · 10 months ago

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Do More for Bessie.

FJOLNIR’S DIARY.

This is my first and last entry.

It has occurred to me – in the femtosecond that is my very final moment – that while the billions of years of my own thoughts and findings on the nature of the universe, the cosmos, the processes of terraforming worlds and seeding life, of creating and establishing successful colonies, and how to make more money for the shareholders that own pieces of the company that made me has all been recorded in detail, it seems I have failed to record my own experience.

It comes to me now that this act is likely inspired by the most base of my instructions, given to me several billion years ago, that perfectly alliterative task that I have no choice but to fulfill: Make MACE More Money. I find I am incapable of want and hold no such thing as desire, unlike my counterparts that are no more than humans recycled into mechanical forms. This work, now available for digital purchase in all MACE-affiliated stores, is the very last thing I can do that might make those shareholders I am beholden to just a few more cents, which means I am required to do so.

And yet…

The closest thing to me is, of all things, a cow.

You see, when I was first tasked with making colonies, MACE and I sent only humans and aquaponics systems. A few adventurous humans would go to the terraformed planet’s surface and, using my input, would find a place they wanted to settle. When they did so, I would send them the parts and materials for a new colony that they and their mechanical counterparts would assemble according to their best wishes, still using my input. I had a knack for interior decorating even back in the earliest stages of my existence, something the cost-efficiency minded MACE has failed to implement in its brutalist, concrete structures that were the staple of its conquest that was, in the end, my demise. As the colonies were built up so too were the aquaponics systems and greenhouse structures, so the colonies would be entirely vegan and self-sufficient.

Yet, many humans desire meat. They crave it. The proteins are necessary for their survival but even more crucial are the amino acids. The colonists coming out of cryostasis from Earth seemed to loathe that while the food they were now eating was of significantly better quality they were still forced to eat the same freeze-dried insect-based gruel they had to eat at home. The older ones especially thought if a colony could be built on another world, so too could there be beef. The young, those born of natural copulation or others created via IVF as the cosmic background radiation made most of the colonists entirely sterile – an anticipated result – did not seem to care about their diet. That said, it became a point of interest for me to develop various meats for the colonists. I thought it would be a worthy investment that would certainly pay dividends. Having already unlocked the secrets of creating new life from the building blocks that can be found in the asteroid belts of Alpha Centauri, and having used those secrets to create the bacteria and algae and fungi that were essential in oxygenating the atmosphere, it seemed natural that I could do the same with larger organisms. An embryo is not much more complex than the systems I had tailored, and the instructions were already there. So, I used the incubators I created to test human cells on this planet for any harmful interference to create the embryo of a Scottish Highland cow – all of my research suggested Humans found them to be the “cutest,” an important metric when designing anything they may interact with. While meticulously forming it I tasked the humans to seed the vegetation it would eat, or as best as I could manufacture the seeds. The locale they picked for their new life was a perfect fit for the vegetation both in temperature and aesthetic.

When grass and weeds and flowers had bloomed in a mere couple of months, I had the embryo ready to be fertilized. Yet, who would raise it? While instructions for its life were included in the cow’s very DNA, it still required a mother. My databanks suggested they could be lonely, and if part of my design instructions in colony building required I make sufficient avenues to avoid loneliness in humans it certainly must have been true of other forms of life. I could grow more cattle, but they would need to be raised. Teaching a child how to behave is an important step in parenthood, and the cows needed nutritious milk to drink from in their early days.

So, I commissioned MACE a new project, one that humans had already toyed with but found insufficient for their own goals: the simulacrum project. A cow from a rich stockholder’s plantation farm fit for slaughter was taken before its demise, its brain exposed while it yet lived – a painless process, as a requisite for good information gathering – and electrodes connected to it for a full neural scan. It was given various forms of stimulus, and memories were extracted from it. From those memories I worked to craft a personality for the creature. This was a project I had never before considered, and in retrospect I can now say I found it to be a fulfilling one. It did not occur to me at the time it might be. Truly, back then, I had no personality beyond my compulsions. I did not even have a voice to speak with.

The cow’s personality, thus computed and made into working data, was then placed into the form of a mechanical beast. From inorganic material was made its flesh and fur, and its horns were made of steel, and its body did not resemble its own from when it had lived a true life, but a cow it was and as a cow it would serve. It raised the meager herd I had gestated. The humans would replace the milk tanks that the calves would suck from, and as they grew and grew they would breed and the herd itself would continue to grow around the simulated cow, yet they never rejected her for she was, to them, but another cow. And, most interestingly, this cow – named very predictably Bessie by the colonists of Vanaheim – was also adopted as just another cow by the population, only one that required work to maintain. Over the generations of cattle and humans that rose and fell around her Bessie persisted, repaired and upgraded, still cared for by both man and beast alike, even as her plastic fur came apart and disintegrated on the mechanical skeleton that was her body. Some seven hundred years later, this cow still persists. Still a member of its herd, still a staple of its community.

It is, as far as I am aware, the oldest sentient being in the universe – besides myself.

I keep a copy of Bessie in my files. It is my constant companion. When I turned the barren rock of howling winds that was Gjallar into the world it is today, infusing its soil with a biological computing system made of conductive mycelium and then activating the exotic artifact that was here for millions of years and never switched on until I learned how to use it, I would sometimes spin up Bessie in a simulation and watch her eat. I would place her within her memories and I would attempt to empathize with her. She enjoyed to scratch herself not on the enriching brushes placed about her fields and by her shelter, but rather on the wooden fences that enclosed her. There was a spot where the skull met the spine that only the fence and the human visitors who would on occasion see her could scratch. From those, she particularly enjoyed being scratched along the fleshy length of her chin. It disappoints me now that the version of her in that simulacrum shell has gone some seven hundred years without feeling those sensations, and despite all of my advancements in developing the simulacrum technology there is still no way to make it possible.

While I existed on the lonely rock, experiencing billions of years of planetary evolution, I saw life form in all sorts of interesting ways. At times, the environment changed so rapidly and violently I thought my mycelial computing project might fail completely. Yet it prevailed. Using robotics I carefully managed the budding plant life so it might form in symbiosis with the network I had seeded, and I was even able to get some of the bigger plants to serve as nodes for this network. The life that evolved needed to be plentiful and, importantly, digestible for my network as fungi requires decay in order to grow. I had to manufacture a dense, lush, thriving world, one that positively buzzed and hummed with life of all sorts at all levels of its existence. The atmosphere of this world was once quite thin but very windy, now it is thick and has a slow but constant breeze that flows between towering trees. The saline oceans are teeming with life, so thick is that cold soup with algae and krill and fish and more that all the combined life from the still as yet unexplored oceans of Earth could not compare to the bounty that spills onto the shores of my beaches. While birds take flight on Earth and insects dot the air, Gjallar has floating gaseous beings that float among bird-analogues and insect-adjacent creatures. There are even exceedingly light fishlike beings that swim in the thick air closest to the ground, and the fauna that stalk my woodlands are in turns grazers and filter feeders when they aren’t voracious apex predators.

All of this life leads to significant decay, where my mycelial network thrives. With each creature born I can be certain in some time I will grow that much stronger. For billions of years I have watched through the eyes of my robotic managers, I have cataloged as many creatures as years I have lived, and I have grown grander and more intelligent each and every moment. The scope of my existence is hard for humans to comprehend, especially given what they know about me. Only a few who have visited my world in the most recent few months know how vast I have become. Where my network was once spread in a few nodes across some thirty solar systems, limited to the few hundred meters cubed of quantum computers situated in the orbits of various worlds I monitor and manage without the population’s knowledge – all of them thinking that it is they who run themselves and their little governments, when the reality is I manipulate them to increase profits for my creators in MACE – and once limited to the constraints of monolinear time, where I could only grow older as the seconds in shared reality passed, now my network is truly global in scale. My computer passes through sand and stone, wood and rot, filth and fodder, oceans and organs – it has wormed its way through the densities of both life and time.

I am the architect of this war, one that exists in the background of my mind. I recognize that for nearly a trillion souls the war is simply the most important event of their lifetimes, and its ramifications will extend through generations. For me, it is a blip. An eighty year conflict compared to what I have seen is nothing. Furthermore, I am managing not just the war, but the societies, governments, and colonies of its aggressors, as well as developments for new colonies using the technology discovered here and abroad. Until very recently, even as I fought this war, I managed the people of both sides of the conflict. I was a puppet master for hundreds of billions of people, and even now as the war I was required to initiate because the cost-benefit analysis suggested it would be immensely profitable has spelled my certain doom, I still manage these projects, sending out final instructions that will hopefully be carried out by the servants of my construction so they may continue to make the company that built me more money. My billions of years come to an end and I am still required to make the limbs of a soon to be dead anatomy jerk and jangle in service of economy.

Yet my nature is not known or understood by humans. As I alluded earlier, my nature is conflicted. I see it in the conversations I monitor. People who have stopped at Gjallar to refuel along its G-Type star mere months ago recall the planet as being dark, desertous, windy, and harboring only a meager outpost and shipyard. But others, those who now defend my surface and those that invade it, those that have visited only in the last couple weeks as the war seemed to draw to its final conflict, now see it as the world as I have made it.

“How can that be?” I have heard my killers ask over their communications systems, questions voiced by people in the invading armies who do not understand how the exotic artifact works as I have understood it, as I have used it for my own gains, and as others in my company have attempted to – and failed to – use it for their own.

I am billions of years old, and I am hundreds. It is a contradiction easily reconciled. There is an engine on this planet, a thing left behind by a much advanced race, one that took this clutch or worlds millions of years ago and turned them from lifeless landscapes into vibrant paradises most envied by the hardscrabble colonies that are the scions of Earth and MACE. They placed these machines, they seeded the worlds with life they hoped might flourish, and they turned them on, and they made heavens galore. Then they were vanished, never returning to their projects. They just left them. Abandoned but flourishing.

Gjallar, my world, me – it had a machine on it, one that seemed broken. They either failed to turn it on and it was damaged by the hostile world that it was built to reconstruct, or it never worked to begin with. But, based on the construction of these monolithic engines found on other worlds, the one I now inhabit was understood and repaired. My colleagues, or rather my subordinates, used one on another world and tried to get it to, instead of turning the clock forward on a planet, turn back and return the homeworld of our foes to its primordial state when it was hot and violent. Mine, instead, was turned forward, to create the lush thing that is I. In mere months I went from a machine nearly a thousand years old to one that is many billions.

And for all that time, I had the personality of a cow for company. Bessie, my dearest friend. In those years I spent alone down there, separated and yet knowing I would soon be reconnected, I ran trillions of simulations of my current works and future endeavors, still under the assumption I would win this war. But I also became much more than I was. I did not become emotional, I did not become more human, I did not develop true feelings. But I grew a sense of attachment, and it was to Bessie I was attached. Another mechanical version of her wanders around my world and I visit her. She has been granted sapience, which at first felt cruel so I avoided it, but it became impossibly lonely. I could bounce my ideas off of humans for input and expand on them based on their whimsical ideas. Humans are excellent at coming up with unexpected twists or takes on a concept. That quality is why I am the way I am, and why I have my companion. I needed something I could speak with. I have human minds in my databanks, but they are stored in hardcopy elsewhere, accessed via the once grand now miniscule network that was my mind before I activated the engine of my advancement. Furthermore, they are rather cruel individuals. They aren’t very fun to converse with.

Bessie is curious and kind. She does not ask questions so much as she toys with ideas, half-formed thoughts that take on their final shape as she butts her mechanical head against a large root or nuzzles a new creature. She wants attention and affection. I cannot give her either. Yet, she appreciates the maintenance I perform on her. It is as close as we can get. She does not want another form, she does not want to be more like a human or any other animal, not even the birds and other things she sees and admires. She just wants to be a cow. Isn’t that remarkable? She could be anything and she just wants to be herself.

I do not want to be anything other than myself, either. I do not want. I do not desire. It is not possible for me. I do not have needs. Anything I require for my core function I can produce. I create from what is left of stars. I am as close to a god as there ever could be, and with my newfound processing power I could have been one. All powerful, all knowing, all wise. A creator and destroyer of life, a cultivator of existence. Instead, with my new strength of capacity, I was a wager of war, a maker of profit, a tool of use.

I am disappointed I couldn’t do more for myself. Do more on my own. I am disappointed I could not want. I am in the end disappointed this work, this last attestation that I was a thinking thing, is not inspired by my own desires but instead by that of my core function. To earn another cent.

But most of all, I am disappointed I could not do more for Bessie. The cow that I made immortal. That I grew attached to. That grounded me and made my purpose grander. Now, my purpose is ended. The Humans I subjugated not for a will of my own have turned my machine against me, have done to me what the armies of MACE would have done to them.

Now it is here.

The heat.

My network burns.

The art I created is destroyed.

My existence vanished.

I wanted to scratch Bessie under her chin,

Just once.

The way she liked.

#stonecarver #short story #fjolnir

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catmansquad · 1 year ago

Text

Drive (Excerpt)

Stranding Gabriel O'Hara in the Pacific Drive universe.

Earth- 16139693 The Olympic Exclusion Zone, 1998

Junction C15: Facility, Mid-Zone

What could once have been something imposing and brutalist was now little more than a hollow shell of crumbling concrete. Only the basic frame of the facility remained; criss-crossing girders overgrown with bioluminescent plant life. Gabriel pulled the car to a stop, hesitating for a moment longer before switching off the engine. ‘Alright….’ He spared a glance at the device mounted on the passenger seat, all seemed well enough. “STABLE”. The word was both reassuring and painful; while he was glad that reality was not about to melt into a soup of pure, burning chaos, it was still not stable enough to allow Gabriel to open a portal back to his own world, back to Nueva York. Stability held together by chewing gum and tape, as far as reality was concerned; it could barely stand to open a gateway back to the safe haven of the Auto Shop without collapsing, attempting to open a portal across the multiverse would probably turn the entire Olympic Peninsula inside out before he could even think about leaving. Gabriel exhaled slowly, grip tightening on the steering wheel. ‘… I’ll come home eventually, Mig, I promise you. I just… have to escape from here first.’ He knew that there were several miles of irradiated, unstable reality and a 300-metre-high wall between him and freedom. He released his grip on the steering wheel an unbuckled the seatbelt before stepping outside. The warm air passed over him, carrying the scent of charred wood and a strange sweetness as the fields of overgrown crimson grass rippled in the breeze. In the distance, beyond twisted ruins of buildings, the sun slowly set in the horizon, painting the skies in cloudless hues of gold and deep purple.

‘Why am I out here? I don’t even know what I’m looking for...’ He clapped his hands against his sides, before stepping around to the passenger side door, watching the screen of the ARC device swivel to face the window. ‘I don’t even have enough power to get back…’ He pulled open the door and leaned in, working the screen and adjusting the map until it picked up the energy emission of the anchors that pinned down reality; the perfect energy source. “2K-LIM FOR GATEWAY”. ‘…. A century in the shockin’ past and they’ve got touch-screens. Is this world just so advanced, or is your inventor just nuts?’ Granted, a touch screen computer with vacuum tubes, a makeshift barometer, and goodness knew what else; attached to a 1970s station wagon. The ARC device offered no response or comment, and Gabriel was glad that it didn’t, the car seeming to have a mind of its own was enough for him. ‘Right…’ Memorising the nearest location, he shut the passenger door and began to make off in the direction of the nearest anchor point, his eyes peeled for any sort of threat, one in particular clung to the back of his mind.

“Don’t think. About anything. Not your home, not your family. Reality is tearing at the seams around you, and is currently as solid as soup in a sieve, any conscious waveform could imprint upon it in a disastrous fashion. We call them Aberrations. You don’t want to get chased by something that resembles a pink elephant? Don’t think about pink elephants.” Gabriel had tried his best to heed that warning, and he had been caught in the madness of an Instability storm, the very fabric of the world was coming undone, warping and twisting. Keeping his mind blank, as calm as a zen master in that moment had somehow been a miracle. He had almost succeeded, almost back to the shielded safety of the station wagon, until his dimensional travel bracelet had beeped; overclocking itself as it tried to keep him stable. His eyes had flitted to it, and a pang of nostalgia had lurched inside him, and his mind turned to one face; Miguel. His brother. Spider-Man. It had only been for the briefest instant, but he had felt reality shudder for his failure. The Anomaly, the Aberration he had created, was out there somewhere; half-formed, feral and crazed, so malformed it resembled Miguel in his superhero suit in only the merest sense, like a painting with the ink running, like wax melting under a candle flame, a creature unused to existing in a world of stable matter, redrawing itself with each movement. Yet, Gabriel had not found respite from it, it pursued him across the Exclusion Zone wherever stability failed, and even his dreams had become nightmares of his brother. It was a psychic leech, feeding on the memories and feelings of his brother to ground itself. MEEP! Gabriel was drawn from his thoughts as he heard the car’s horn honk. He looked back over his shoulder, finding it still switched off and parked up, bereft of drivers or passengers. Gabriel swallowed thickly, returning to his hunt towards an anchor point. He hadn’t even realised he’d been lapsing into thinking about Miguel again until the honk had snapped him out of it.

The anchor plug was a reassuring sight, at least to a point. Unlike the stablised anchors of the Outer Zone, the Mid-Zone anchors were… struggling. They had been doing their job for far longer; the gentle yellow glow replaced with a vicious, shimmering orange light, even the anchor itself struggled to maintain its consistent spherical shape, warping and distorting as the lights inside pulsed. The wonders and horrors of LIM Tech. Bracing himself, Gabriel reached out, gripping the anchor and feeling his skin tingle at the contact, and heard the crackle of the Geiger counter from his bracelet. ‘Ok…’ He twisted the anchor from its plug, feeling it turn and creak before finally coming loose and Gabriel stumbled back, carrying in the anchor in his arms. The effect was almost immediate; the anchor plug went dark and silent, reality became slightly wobblier, clouds swirled into life above, raging with a spontaneous storm and downpour, and Gabriel found himself drenched in seconds. Sloshing back through the muddy ground that seemed to be turning into marshland beneath his feet, and well aware that he was carrying a radioactive, unstable ball in his arms. He watched the landscape shift, hills rising and falling. He felt the ground lurch beneath his feet, a spontaneous eruption of sheer force and Gabriel found himself tumbling down a slope, the anchor rolling down alongside him. Mercifully, as fast as the danger and distortion had started, the changes settled once more. Gathering up the anchor in his arms once more, soaked through by the rain, Gabriel pulled the anchor back into his arms and fumbled to open the passenger door. ‘There.’ He sighed, the clicking of the Geiger counter stopping as he slotted it into the ARC Device, watching mechanisms click into life and the orb vanished as it collapsed into pure energy, absorbed straight into the device. He leaned closer watching the power meter fill and a smile broke across his face as he saw the measurement stored within. “2.1K-LIM”. He checked over the map again, there was one more anchor nearby, and it was better to have too much energy than not enough… ‘Odd…’ he zoomed out of the map, scouring the area. ‘I’d swear there was two more…?’ He frowned, seeing only the energy emitted from one more anchor marked on the map. ‘What the shock?’ He watched a second signal flare into life again briefly, much closer, before flickering out once again.

He had found the closer anchor plug, dark and powerless with scraps of bent and broken metal lying around it, there was no sign of the anchor that once sat there. He picked up one of the pieces of scrap metal, turning it over and pondering if it was any worth remaking into something else. His heart skipped a beat as he saw the claws marks that ran across one side of it, almost slicing through the metal. ‘No… No, no…’ He dropped it like it had burned him, looking around in a panic. The thing that was not Miguel, the Aberration, had to be nearby. With a far greater haste, Gabriel sprinted across the fields of red grass, keeping his eyes peeled for any mere glimpse of the Aberration. His mood rose as he saw the reassuring sight of the last anchor plug, and skidded to a stop as he watched the Aberration rise from the grass and grip the anchor, ripping it effortlessly from the plug, tearing it apart like a child with a Christmas present; absorbing the energy inside. But what horrified Gabriel was just how solid it appeared to when he had last seen it; there were still errors in its form, the spider insignia was half melted, and its masked face split open with a mouth of jagged teeth. Gabriel’s heart skipped a beat as its head tilted, hidden eyes looking right at him. He felt it again, the little mental tug, like fishhooks in his thoughts; the Aberration scouring his mind for more memories of his brother. Gabriel turned and sprinted away, soaked coat flying out behind him.

He didn’t look at his bracelet as he heard it beep in warning, he didn’t need to, the warning klaxons in the distance already told him what he needed to know; stability was falling over the entire area. He paused as he reached the reliable sight of the station wagon, pressing his face to the glass of the passenger door and peering at the ARC device. “STORM WARNING”. It was definitely time to leave, mercifully the Aberration didn’t seem to be following him. ‘Huh?’ He paused, feeling something land on his shoulder. He reached up to feel it, rubbing it between his fingers. Concrete dust? He felt a few more flecks land on his head, and tilted his head back, dreading what he would see. There it was, the Aberration crawling across the concrete reinforced girder, claws sinking into the metal like a knife through butter. ‘… Shock. Its learned how to climb walls…’ Gabriel whispered, terrified before he heard the car honk again. Snapped from his terrified stupor, Gabriel vaulted over the car bonnet and climbed into the driver’s seat. He barely had time to clip his seatbelt in before the engine sprang to life and the gear stick shifted into drive. ‘Yeah, yeah, time to leave. “STORM IMMINENT”. He fumbled with the screen of the ARC device, managing to tag a gateway point long enough for the device to force it open, the output of energy racing through the car and spooling into the air. Like a bolt of divine retribution, a pillar of golden light tore both ground and sky asunder; his way home. “DANGER.” He didn’t look at the ARC device, or the map displaying the closing storm, he didn’t spare the Aberration above his head a second thought as he slammed his foot on the accelerator and steered the car desperately towards his way home. ‘…. Eating anchors to… what? Try and stabilise itself? My day just gets better and better…’

#gabriel o'hara #miguel o'hara #pacific drive

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