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sp00kworm · 3 years ago

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Evo-23 (Part 2)

Part 2 - Blackberry Eyes

Pairing: Zombie/Infected Monster (Ji-woon) x Gender Neutral Reader

Warnings: Gore, Horror, Cannibalism, Graphic Gore and Wound descriptions, Death.

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PART 1

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“Ji-woon!” You hollered as you battered at an infected's head with the small axe in your hand. You slashed at the creature before shoving it hard and watching it fall to the floor. In a moment you were on it, smashing it’s skull in with two heavy blows. The Other, your companion, clicked and gurgled behind you, his back meeting your own before he screeched behind the gag, black veins running out from his eyes and down his arms. You’d seen him do this many times now, but the unnatural shift in his muscles and the bulge made you shudder. His fingers flexed before he howled, spit flying from his mouth, dripping down his chin as he flung himself at an infected, throwing it to the floor before he caved in its head with his fists. Another stumbled behind him and the other grabbed it by the neck over his shoulder and pulled, dragging it’s head from its body as the rest of its corpse went flying into the bushes. Ji-woon span back to deal with another as another gun shot fired at the two of you. It would attract even more infected. You were sick of it already. With a growl you beat at another infected before shouting again.

“We need to get to that shooter in the trees!” You hollered.

The Other gurgled as his reigns flew behind his head and he rushed forwards, his body unnaturally low to the floor like a big cat. You screeched as he outstretched his arms and grappled you, holding you against his body as the veins spread and he sprinted towards the trees, sliding in the dirt, spraying leaves and mud upwards in arcs as he dodged the bullets being fired. With a howl at the hunting perch, Ji-woon flung himself at the trees, claws scrabbling at the bark as he snapped at the other human’s feet, his gag and reigns stopping him from getting a mouthful of the man’s toes.

The man cried out and aimed the hunting rifle down, shooting a round through Ji-woon's shoulder. The bullet slammed through the Other, sending him flying to the floor, but you clung to the ladder tightly, climbing up to the perch before you slammed yourself into the man. A scream sounded as he was sent flying over the edge and towards the floor where Ji-woon was waiting with open arms, foaming at the mouth at the prospect of fresh meat.

“He’s all yours!” You screamed at the Other as he gave a delighted gurgle, his arm flopping at his side from where he took the high calibre round to his shoulder.

“NO, PLEASE!” The man screamed before Ji-woon flexed his hands and popped his temples inwards, smashing bone into his brain.

You descended the ladder slowly, watching the Other prance around the body, heaving and gurgling with fresh blood and spit dripping down his chest. You sighed and carefully undid the gag and reigns, watching as Ji-woon screeched at the lingering infected, teeth clicking and snapping, before he dug his fingers into the man’s hips and dug his way to the bones he wanted to lick clean. You shimmied back up to the perch to get the gun and bullets, sitting in the little chair with a sigh as you tried to ignore the slick eating noises beneath you. The Other needed to eat just as much as you did. Humans were the best food source for him to be able to protect you, but it didn’t make you feel any less guilty. Even if this man deserved what he was getting for trying to have you torn apart by zombies after you let him have water. You closed your eyes and clutched the rifle as you listened to the Other swat at infected and command them away. With one eye open you dared to look at the Other as he wrenched the femur from the man’s flesh and cracked the middle of it open, peering into the bloody, gooey mess inside of the hard cortical shell. With a gurgle, he pressed his lips to the end and swallowed the syrupy contents gladly. Your stomach churned and you looked away, fighting the retching that threatened to tighten your throat.

So you sat in the hunters perch quietly, looking through the man’s back pack for anything useful aside from his rifle and bullets. He had a cleaning kit in his bag for the gun and you leafed through the things with a mild amount of confusion. You knew some things but others were beyond you. Hopefully you could learn. You shook the bag again and watched as a small journal fell out along with some old cereal bars and a compass. You pocketed the food at lightning speed before opening the notebook. The first three pages were illegible scrawl beyond the first sentence.

‘I deserve to die for killing him.’

It was repeated over and over again before the dates started to appear and the scrawl became messy writing. Most of it was mild observations about the days he had lived since killing his son. He was infected was written in a lot of the explanation but it didn’t seem to make him feel any better.

‘I wish we had let him die of the leukaemia so I didn’t have to put a bullet in his head and then my wife.’

The reality of everything settled heavily in your stomach as you closed the man’s notebook. You only opened it again to tear out the pages about his gun maintenance. The diagrams were crude but would serve you well later on. You shoved the pages into your bag after folding them tightly. The rest of the journal you put away in his bag before you swallowed your tears and moved to the ladder. Ji-woon was finished with his meal, his belly slightly rounded and very little left of the man beyond pieces of grizzle and empty bones. His head was untouched and you felt bile burn your throat before you took it and a small trowel from your bag. The Other watched wordlessly as you dug a shallow grave for the man’s remains, burying them with his backpack before you dusted the blood away with plenty of dirt and a dip of your hands into the algae ridden fountain. Still, the Other followed you quietly, waiting for you to replace the gag and reigns like you usually did after he’d eaten.

You sat on the edge of the fountain and sobbed softly. A gurgle drew your attention away from your feet and you peered at the Other crouched by your knees, his sticky hands patting your knees in some semblance of a comforting gesture. If he was human, maybe it would have said that it was going to be okay, but the cold hands only reminded you that you had condemned a man to death for the sake of maybe finding out some truths. It made you feel sick again and you reached for the Other’s hands before realising that the sticky hands were coated in blood and other bodily fluids. You tried not to cringe as Ji-woon reached upwards, his sticky fingers stroking over your cheek, moving along the flesh in a downwards motion towards your chin. His cold fingers tilted your chin upwards so you had to look at his bruised face. His black vein infested cheeks twitched before his lips parted and he smiled wide, exposing his pointed, clot covered teeth.

“Smile.” The Other gurgled as he watched you snort at his ridiculous looking face. It was silly. A mutated superhuman bleeding from his nose, smiling at you like it was some comfort. To a sick part of your brain, it was. Ji-woon wasn’t just one of the Others, he was something more than that. Part of him was still human or fighting to remember how to be.

“I’ll try.” You whimpered as the Other reached and tugged at your cheeks, pulling the flesh taut before he let it go and patted them awkwardly, his cold fingers twitching against your warm flesh. With a heave and a shuddering sob, you finally found the strength in your knees to stand up. Ji-woon tilted his head to peer up at you, grinding his teeth and drooling as the black veins over his bruised skin receded back up his neck and into his eyes. His chest bowed outwards with a heavy breath, as though he was about to scream, but Ji-woon simply let out a long, shuddering sigh as he pulled his hands away from your skin and reached for the reigns in your hands. Gently, he tugged them free, and reached backwards to fasten the gag and attach the reigns back in place. Drool dripped through the gag, despite him just eating, but you carefully looked at his arm. The bullet wound was long gone, leaving only a dark bruise behind, and his arm was back in perfect working order. He flexed the muscles and twisted his fingers as he listened to the surroundings, his black eyes quivering back and forth, focusing on a million different things at once. He waited, patiently, like a well-trained hound, as you shouldered your backpack again and brushed off the dirt from your bottoms.

The Other watched quietly as you headed over and grabbed at the leather reigns, tugging them gently before you started back along the path towards where the blackberries were growing.

“I guess we can go and get what we came here for now…” You whispered as Ji-woon followed behind you, gurgling quietly as you both kept a watchful eye out for any lingering infected. The blackberries you wanted grew along the bramble infested outskirts of the former city park, growing up the old iron fences. There was a lot. You pulled out a box from your backpack and smiled at Ji-woon as you plucked on of the berries free and chewed the sweet flesh. It tasted amazing in comparison to the bland, plain food items you could get your hands on normally. So, for a minute, you chewed as many as you could fit into your mouth, giggling as juice dripped over your chin before you pilled at many as you could into the container. With some gelatine you could make jams. You filled the container to the brim before pulling a few more off the brambles for yourself. Ji-woon watched from the edge of the bramble patch, his black eyes following the rivulets of juice as they dripped over your neck.

“Can you eat human food?” You wondered out loud to the Other.

Ji-woon tilted his head as he moved through the brambles, the thorns catching his skin. The cuts healed as fast as they opened and you swallowed your mouthful as he took hold of your fingers, gurgling behind the gag as he looked at the stained pinky coloured juice over your skin.

“Can you?” You asked again.

Ji-woon rolled his shoulders and shook his head violently, as though he was trying to dislodge the gag and you scowled, remembering that he was probably eyeing up your hand as a food source. You snatched your hand away and clipped the box shut, leaving Ji-woon in the brambles as you scampered back to your bag. The Other gurgled and followed on your heels again.

“I don’t know why I asked. You only want to eat me anyway. After we find out what happened to you, you’ll just eat me and leave the outside of my bones for the crows.”

The Other stopped, holding you in place by refusing to walk on the reigns, his black eyes looking you up and down before he surged forwards and caught you by the arm.

Ji-woon forgot his own strength, clasping his hand tight enough around your bicep to bruise.

“What?” You asked with a small quiver to your voice, “You can’t even talk to tell me I’m wrong! You’ll devour me just like that man as soon as you get the chance, with or without knowing you were once human!” You screeched, tugging away from his grasp.

Ji-woon’s hairless eyebrows dipped again as he grabbed you by the shoulders this time. He dragged the fingers of one hand down the side of his cheek, tugging at the leather straps of the gag before you dared to reach up and undo it for him. The buckle jingled as you let the gag and reigns fall away, dripping in bloodied spit. The Other clicked his jaw sharply, his teeth snapping together with a harsh grind.

“Look after…until…human.” The Other gurgled before he touched the space over the top of your heart, “F-F-Find.” He chirped before opening his mouth and leaning over in order for you to muzzle him like a dog again. He chewed against the gag as you replaced it, fingers shaking as you struggled to keep yourself together.

“Until we find about what happened. I know buddy.” You whispered before Ji-woon pressed his cold fingers to your chest again and reached upwards, dragging you towards him by the shoulder. He grumbled, spit dripping from his mouth before he blinked more bloody tears down his cheeks and clasped you tightly in a hug.

The flood gates opened again, and you sobbed into the Other’s shoulder, wailing like a child as you clutched his torn shirt and grasped at his powerful shoulders. Fat tears streaked your cheeks as you sobbed into the bloodied material, listening to the rattling breaths of Ji-woon as he chewed against the gag and gently petted your back and hair, running his fingers over your scalp softly before he cupped the base of your back and squeezed again. The touch was comforting in the loneliest way. You hadn’t been held like this since the whole event started, and now you relished the cold arms around your body as you sniffled and hiccupped into Ji-woon’s embrace.

“Protect.” He promised against the gag with a hiss of spit, and you nodded, not saying a word as you let his cold fingers soothe the worries from your spine.

“One day you might not be able to…” You whispered under your breath before you pulled away from him and smiled gently, “Come on then. Let’s go home, huh?”

Ji-woon nodded slowly, his hands twitching by his sides as he watched you turn away from him, dragging the length of reign behind you. With a click and a gurgle, he followed in your footsteps, his head tilting towards the sides, listening for danger.

The park was not far from the local hospital and you shuddered as you looked up at the building, the windows smashed and rotten, sun bleached skeletons hanging from the windows and laid on the tarmac. When everything had broken out, it was the first place in chaos, and you pitied the doctors who had been turned into meals for the Others and infected on that day. You remembered the bodies hanging from the window rotting that first year, dripping stinking flesh down onto the tarmac where starving infected licked the surface clean. Even the thought now made your stomach churn. You walked past quickly, with Ji-woon mimicking your speed, following close behind you.

“They used to claim that this place was where the first of your kind came from.” You told the Other, “It was the original test subject who got loose in the hospital and started the whole event on a mass scale. There was some top-secret research place attached apparently.” You spat on the tarmac, “I hope they were all eaten for making this mess.”

The Other's eyes wandered from the tarmac, looking around at the empty bones before his eyes fixed on the bodies hanging from the windows and I’m the suicide nets between the two large hospital towers. They had died being torn apart and the zombies that had eaten them were long rotten, hanging through the nets in strewn piles of limbs and jelly. Ji-woon peered at the buildings individually before he planted his feet and stopped in his tracks.

“No way. Not today, mister.” You cursed at him as he tugged on the reigns, “We can’t go in there. It’s full of infected!”

Ji-woon reared back again and took hold of the reigns and gag, tugging it insistently, pushing himself closer so you had to look into his eyes. His mouth dripped with spit and blood as he loomed over you, his shoulders twitching. His eyes begged you even if he could not say the words. He wanted to go in there, with or without you.

Your hands shook as you looked at the building and you sighed, reaching for his gag, “One quick look. That’s it!” You insisted as Ji-woon babbled to himself and took your hand in his own, dragging you to the barricaded front doors.

The doors had been piled with rubbish bins, wooden benches, and heavy dumpsters, preventing a hoard of most of the patients from escaping. You didn’t doubt that most of them had probably rotted away in the hallways, but you had seen even the slimiest rotten bodies still crawl. Ji-woon clicked before he heaved the dumpsters away, black veins crawling up his arms as he pulled. They swam up to his fingers where he clenched his hands and howled, tearing away the two dumpsters and letting them clatter down the steps to the building. In response to the groans both inside and outside, the Other hissed sharply, demanding no help as he dug at the planks boarding the automatic doors shut. The electricity was long gone so once the planks were gone, Ji-woon had to heave the doors open himself. You only watched as he did so and cringed, gagging as the smell from inside the hospital was released. It burned your nose it was so foul. The smell of hundreds of rotting bodies rushed out, and you reached for your scarf to cover your nose before pausing and rummaging in your bag for the filter mask you had. It would be better for cutting out any spores from rotting bodies as well. You found it quickly and pulled it over your head with a grumble before you dared to follow Ji-woon into the festering hospital.

The hallways by the doors were littered with bones. Corpses were laid over the remains of others, and you could only assume those were the remains of the infected who had eventually faded from existence too as their brains leaked from their ears and their bodies gave in. Ji-woon lifted a bone to his nose under the reigns, the black strap over his nose wiggling as he sniffed at it and dropped it to the floor again like a used toy. He rummaged through the bodies before tugging at the reigns and gag again. You had forgotten to remove them the first time, and so you carefully pulled them free, letting his mouth free. The Other gurgled, cracking his neck and jaw in his hands before he flexed his fingers and arms in a wave, clenching the muscles tight as the black veins spread over his bruised skin. The muscles twitched as his eyes blinked before they rolled backwards and be bent over backwards to look at you, clicking in a long groan from the back of his throat. His mouth opened in a giant, spit dripping grin, before he snapped back over and rushed forwards, disappearing down the hallways. With a gasp, you rushed after him, listening to the screeching of infected as Ji-woon smashed them against the concrete walls. You had to run quick, following the blood trails down the linoleum floors. With a screech you slipped in the guts of one infected and went flying, tumbling to your knees as you slid through the mess on the floor, staining your hands and knees. The fabric of your combat bottoms was stained a brown tinged red.

As you fought against the tangle of intestines, you heard the buck fire of a shotgun. The snap of pellets against the wall was followed by the blood curdling scream of Ji-woon. It came from the stairs. You rushed to catch up with him as infected lumbered up from the floors and piled towards the doorway as well. They had no interest in you, covered in zombie blood and guts, and so they cajoled you along in their group as they crawled and hobbled into the opening of the stairs.

“Fuck!” Someone cursed from the stairway as the zombies started to pile together, climbing the stairs slowly. It gave Ji-woon an opportunity to heal enough to launch himself at one of them, screaming as blood dripped from his mouth and eyes. His fingers met the woman’s eye sockets and he pressed her against the wall before shoving his thumbs in as far as they would go. She screamed, her legs kicking out at the Other, and you tried not to watch as Ji-woon leaned over to lick the blood and juice from her cheeks, purring happily as his blackened tongue swiped at the snack. He twisted his thumbs with a violent jerk and pulled out the ruined mess of her eyeballs before popping them into his mouth with a happy purr. The shotgun fired again, and you cried out as Ji-woon’s ear and half of his neck was sent flying against the window behind him.

The Other screeched, flying backwards into the wall before the only sound he could make was a pathetic whistling noise. The small hoard he had summoned were quick to slow and the remaining survivors seemed to deal with them quickly, smashing open their skulls before they grabbed you out of the mess, kicking and screaming. Ji-woon gurgled, blood bubbling in his open trachea before it flopped back and the cartilage started to heal, his hands flying out to grab at your bottoms as a male and a young girl dragged you in front of the man with the shotgun. They didn’t dare go near the healing Other but they were quick to drag their friend’s corpse away from him to delay his recovery. Ji-woon gargled violently and slammed his fist into the concrete in an attempt to grab at the foot before it slid away from him. He missed and swooned before thudding against the first step, his nose cracking and bleeding, broken, from the impact. The survivors only then dared to tie him up, grappling his arms and legs, hog tying them behind his back before they dragged him up the stairs away from you. You didn’t shout for him, you looked at the floor as you were put before their leader and the gas mask was torn from your face.

“Now what is someone, alone, doing with an Other on a leash, hm?” He asked as he cocked the shotgun, “You know what they do…so why have you got one as a pet? Couldn’t bare to kill your lover? Pretty fucked up to let it loose on people.”

You didn’t reply, just looked at the floor. You couldn’t afford to tell these people anything.

“Fine. Be that way. We’ll see what the Doctor has to say about an Other listening to a human.” He dismissed you and turned, the shotgun perched on his shoulder. They were all dressed similarly, in old, tattered looking military clothing, and you made sure to make yourself a bit of a dead weight as two of them grabbed hold of you and heaved you to your feet. You followed willingly enough as they chatted quietly among themselves, heading up six floors before they dragged you into the floor and relocked and barricaded the doors behind them. You caught sight of Ji-woon only briefly before they carted him into an examination room, their hands full of heavy dog chains and cuffs. Fear churned in your guts as they dragged you into the side room to the examination room and sat you in a chair. They were quick to cuff you to it, ensuring that you wouldn’t be able to escape, and you felt your eyes and throat burn with tears as you looked through the glass and saw Ji-woon, naked, delirious, unhealed and chained to a hospital bed.

You whispered his name but said nothing else as the Other’s blood dripped down the hospital bed and his neck sealed itself back shut. Still, he was loopy, delirious and upset, throwing his head left and right in an attempt to clear imaginary fog from in front of his eyes. As you watched the Other come around, the door opened quietly behind you, revealing a man in a lab coat, the sleeves rolled up his aging arms revealing puckered scars. The man was tall and thin, almost gaunt, as though his work consumed all of his waking hours. His greying hair was tied back at the back of his neck and a cigarette was perched between his lips. Dark brown eyes looked you over twice, head to toe, before he removed the cigarette from between his lips and blew a great cloud of smoke out over towards you.

“I’ve never heard of an Other listening to a human, never mind a human that takes their pet out to snack on other survivors.” he drawled as he puffed on his cigarette and looked you up and down again.

“He doesn’t listen to me.” You whispered, “He just uses me.”

“A likely story. My entire group heard you shouting for it. It has a name, which I never thought the Others could remember. Whatever this little thing the two of you have, it’s something I’m interested in looking at.” he confessed as he looked over at the large machinery Ji-woon was being pushed inside, “But first I need him to heal that brain of his fully.”

“What do you really want out of this?” You asked, looking the Doctor in hi dark eyes. You were shocked by the lack of depth. They were cold and uncaring.

The Doctor laughed at you as he reached into his pocket and slammed down a notebook on the table in front of you before he followed it up with a bulging folder. The front was labelled with a ‘top secret’ stamp, but he opened the folder and flicked to a blue coloured tab.

“Does this answer your question?”

You leaned forwards as best as you could, straining against the ties around your arms to get a good look at the images and writing. There was an image of Ji-woon, not unlike the image on his teacher ID, and then there was a more gruesome one of him pinned to a table, his eyes peeled open with needles piercing the pupil, back into the optic nerve.

“Your little pet was one of the originals.” The Doctor droned from behind you, “He was kept here after his first escape and then escaped again before causing all of the problems. The outbreak in the city was all his fault. This hospital was the breeding ground, and he was the catalyst.”

It was like you had swallowed a heavy rock. Your stomach clenched as you realised just why the zombies had listened to Ji-woon's call. He was their master. Most of the infected in the city were his doing. Even the Others might be his doing. You felt sick. You reached quietly as the Doctor only laughed and stubbed his cigarette out in a full ashtray.

“Did you think he was innocent? It’s one of the Others now. He’s killed more people than any of them combined.” The Doctor gloated before he leaned over the controls in the corner of the room, looking at the heart monitor they had attached to Ji-woon. The beep was quiet and there were long pauses between them.

“Even the fact his heart works is a miracle.” The Doctor continued, “All because of some little human he couldn’t bring himself to kill.”

“If he’s the original, what do you want with him?” You asked meekly as the Other stirred in the other room. The MRI whirled to life, the magnets letting out a high pitch whine as they span.

“To study him. He might be the cure to the this, and I want my people to be able to live with the knowledge that if they put a foot wrong, they won’t be turned into monsters.” The Doctor droned as he turned to the small control panel and flicked a switch. The magnets hummed and you leaned towards the glass as Ji-woon stirred, his black eyes opening as his wounds finally closed.

The magnets span and the MRI scanner hummed to life. You held your breath, watching the Other thrash against the dog chains. His shoulder clicked back into place only to be popped back out of its socket as he dragged at his chains, pulling them taught as the scanner started. He was quickly snapped back into place as the outside pully system went tight, keeping his head back and his shoulders pressed to the bed. You gasped as the scan started and Ji-woon let out a horrific howl. It went on for an age, the magnets spinning as his lungs roared until he couldn’t anymore, and he spat blood, whining as his eyes rolled and more blood dripped from his eyes and nose. The chains only went slack when he fell back against the bed, his mouth open as spit dripped from his mouth, mixing with the blood he had splashed all over the bedding from his thrashing. The Doctor tutted at the images and started another, initiating another round of howling from Ji-woon, his arms bulging as black veins swam down his face and shoulders then invaded his arms. The chains were drawn tight again, and you cringed at the unholy howl that left the Other as they scanned his brain again. The third scan had Ji-woon pass out, his nose pouring blood as his eyes rolled back and his teeth chattered in his mouth.

The Doctor looked at the scans, ignoring his creature in the other room and you in favour of focusing in on one area of Ji-woon’s brain. The brain stem was enlarged at the back, with a strange looking organ attached beneath the main area. It almost looked like a tumour. You wondered if he had once been a patient, given the experimental therapy to help with a disease of some sort.

“Amazing.” The Doctor commented, “So not only has his brain enlarged but there’s a whole new area.”

“It looks like a tumour to me.” You commented bitterly.

“That’s precisely what it is. A tumour growth turned into a new centre of control. The brain stem controls all basic functions down to breathing, but this centre seems to be responsible for the Other’s abilities. Like the ungodly strength and speed, you’ve seen him have. This is the reason.” He sparked his cigarette again and hummed, “Its sad I’ve got to cut it out of him.”

Your blood ran cold, “You’re going to do what?”

“A live brain surgery. We can’t kill an Other but removing the organ in his brain might do the trick.” The Doctor snorted, “It isn’t human anymore. Why do you think it is? That thing would eat you if I threw you into there right now.” A smile curled his lips upwards at the thought, “In fact, let’s see what he does, hm? A little live experiment never hurt anyone.” he took hold of the back of the wooden chair and tipped you backwards before dragging you to the door, laughing and wheezing as he puffed on the cigarette. His people looked on in confusion before he demanded for the door to the scanning room to be opened.

“Please don’t do this!” You begged as fear churned your guts and hammered at your heart.

“I thought you trusted your little pet?” The Doctor mocked as he slid you inside the room, your back to the thick glass viewing window, “Let’s see how much he repays you!”

You tugged against the bindings to no avail as the door slammed closed behind you and the Doctor’s wheezing laughter bounced down the corridor.

The room was silent as Ji-woon’s mouth dripped spit and blood back against the hospital bed, his eyes closed and wiggling behind his eyelids. He was alive. His chest moved rhythmically up and down, breathing wheezily as he recovered from the MRI. What it had actually done to the Other, you didn’t know. He was dazed and sleepy, tossing his head with occasional twitches as the veins in his arms pulsed with a black light. It was something you had never seen him do before, and it worried you as you looked at the tied rope and cuffs which bound you to the wooden chair.

“Ji-woon?” You whispered softly as the Other twitched violently against the bed, his shoulders bending as his back and hips bucked forwards.

The Other gurgled again as his head rolled towards you, his ears twitching as black veins burned under his skin. His bruised face was covered with them like lines of tattoos, and they were quickly spreading down his chest. His arms were already covered, and you watched them pulse as Ji-woon tugged on the chains lightly. They were slack. Like a chain reaction, his arms bulged, and his eyes shot open as blood dripped down over his cheeks, painting him like a horror as he let out a screech and pulled the chains as taut as they could go.

There was a commotion outside before a gravelly laugh sounded and the chains holding Ji-woon dragged against the holes, completely slack. The metal slammed against the MRI scanner as Ji-woon tore himself free and flew towards you. His mouth opened wide, exposing the black insides of his cheeks and his slick black tongue. The Other launched himself at your chair, sending you both flying back against the viewing wall. His mouth dripped spit over your shoulder before his tongue dipped out of his mouth to taste your hot skin. He purred at the taste, gurgling just like the first night you met him. Hungry. Feral. Insane.

“Ji-woon, please, it’s me.” You begged softly as his teeth pressed against your skin. He’d already torn your sleeve away and it laid down at the bottom of your wrist.

The Other gurgled before black goo dripped from his mouth and he heaved over your back, letting the spit, blood and black bile dripped over your shirt.

“J-J-Ji...woon...” He gurgled before he screeched again.

You flinched, moving to cover your ears, and Ji-woon wrenched himself backwards, clutching his head as he let out a shriek and another howl. You watched in horror from the floor as his back rippled and cracked, the veins spreading like a web over his shoulders and down to the base of his spine. The muscles contorted in painful spirals before he let out a piercing human shout and spasmed violently. He clutched at his hair, fingers tearing scratches into the shaved sides as he tore at the pain.

“Stop it! You’re hurting yourself!” You shouted at him. Ji-woon only flinched away from the noise and collapsed, holding his head against the floor as his back bowed and a great black appendage tore from his shoulder blade. The mucus covered limb spread itself before the pointed tip slammed down against the linoleum, tearing a giant hole, revealing the solid concrete underneath. Another shriek left the Other as he slammed his feet against the floor and scrambled to hold onto something as another black, pointed, mucus covered limb burst from his skin, tearing a wound in his back. It was followed by four more in quick succession, and you tried not to cry as they slammed close to your face.

Ji-woon clicked like a possessed child, groaning as the limbs lifted him like a spider and slammed against the sides of the room. His face was almost completely black, and you shuddered as chitin plates moved underneath his bruised skin and burst from underneath covering his face like a grotesque, insect like helmet. The slit along the middle left room for his eyes, but there was no recognition as the black limbs clicked along the walls and grabbed you by the rope that tied you to the chair, lifting you close to the Other’s face. The plates shifted and revealed his mouth, open, hungry, and filled with black pointed teeth. They snapped near your face before the Other sniffed you. He reared back slightly with a gurgle and flinched as the MRI whirled to life. A great, wet laugh sounded as the plates of his helmet shifted and clasped over his ears, protecting him from the noise as his black tongue licked at your hot skin, tasting the sweat that drenched you.

His teeth tore open your shoulder a moment later.

Agony laced your veins as you looked down as where the Other was suckling on the gouge. He pulled back and you watched your blood drip from his mouth. A great purr sounded as he hoisted you high with one limb dripping blood over the chair and his body as you felt the area burn with unimaginable heat. It would take you an hour to die and then three more to turn. If you were lucky, you wouldn’t wake up as an infected, but as one of the Others. At least then it wouldn’t be such torture living inside your own head. You’d remember nothing, or at least you hoped. You hung from the appendage as Ji-woon peered up at you, licking his fingers as he held you aloft, admiring the bite mark on your shoulder. The Other purred at the taste of your blood until the door slammed open. The helmet pieces snapped back into place, covering his face as the appendages whirled and slammed into the door frame. A shotgun kicked and the pellets sprayed against the hardened tentacles as Ji-woon’s arms grew again, the veins pulsing before his arms turned black completely. Thorns shot out of the skin as he howled and lowered himself, walking on four limbs as the others deflected the gun shots. You were hoisted high above the carnage, woozily swinging back and forth as you bled and the pain around the bite mark seared down to your fingers. As Ji-woon advanced on the people, you felt tears drip from your eyes, down onto his wild hair. He ignored the salty tears as he tore open a woman by her throat, the trachea held fast between his jaws. His maw opened again to tear more meat from her arms, the monstrous tentacles whipping around and piercing the other humans, leaving them with gaping holes, bleeding against the linoleum.

“Ji-woon. Please.” You wheeze above him as he jumped on another person, tearing open their stomachs before he popped the rib cage open and crunched the bones in his mouth. The tentacles thrashed harder growing as the thorns on his arms became tough scales and his helmet moulded to the back of his head, holding his hair high over his head in a crazy spikey updo. You wept softly as he lowered you down to his eyes, black orbs shining inside the helmet before he opened his jaws, the plates parting, now part of his face, to reveal his black mouth, full of blood clots and bone shards. He clicked before reaching out a cold hand and running it up your thigh. He stopped above your knee and then smiled. Blood dripped from between his pointed teeth and ran down his chin, and he whipped his head back and forth like a dog. His hand came away from your thigh to touch the bite mark. He licked away the blood on his fingers before he touched his cool fingertips to your chest, pressing hard over your heart before he pressed them to his own chest.

“We can’t be together like this!” You sobbed, “I wanted to help you, not become one of your thrall.”

Ji-woon’s eyes blinked away blood, and it dripped over the plates over his face, “Together.” He promised you as he held you away from danger again.

The Doctor appeared in the hall, and you watched in horror as Ji-woon slammed one sharp tentacle through the man’s stomach, pinning him to the wall with a slam and a great splash of blood. Ji-woon followed his appendage, growling as he met the man against the wall, cracking his black fingers as the ends shifted into points. With a snarl he slammed his hand through the man’s chest, enjoying the blood with a feral madness. He wailed again, the black covering his skin spreading, the plates and scales growing as he let the man fall to the floor. Spit slicked his chin at the thought of the marrow, but with a bite, he was upset. Ji-woon spat the blood and meat after the Doctor’s cries of pain.

“Stupid thing. I’ve been dying from the cancer for three years. My body will only make you ill.” He laughed as he reached into his pocket, pulling free a syringe, “But you might want this.”

You didn’t catch sight of it before a tentacle snatched it from the Doctor. Ji-woon inspected the liquid before the Doctor laughed and snatched something from his lab coat. He slumped forwards, slamming the syringe into Ji-woon’s leg. The serum seemed to have no effect, and Ji-woon swatted him away with a smash of a tentacle, sending him sprawling down the hall, his head twisted grotesquely.

You sobbed above the Other as your arms burned in agony and your chest went viciously tight. You coughed, tasting blood in your mouth as you were lowered again. Ji-woon twitched violently as he presented you with the vial. You read the side and sniffled again. A lethal injection. The poison had already been ejected from Ji-woon’s body, and the clear fluid leaked down his bare leg before it too was covered with insect like plates.

“Please.” You begged softly.

The Other eyed you, his eyes twitching left and right, before he placed you on the floor and held the needle and syringe in front of your eyes. With one violent movement, he crushed it, and let the millilitres of drug drip from his clawed fingers.

“Together.” he stuttered again as he linked his fingers and took hold of the back of the chair, tugging you along behind him as he lumbered along the hospital corridors, groaning the word ‘together’ repeatedly like a ghost.

When you woke again, you were laid in your small apartment. You wheezed as you looked up at the ceiling, feeling your limbs burn as you dragged them against the floor, attempting to touch your head. A cold hand grasped yours as you blinked away the red in your eyes. An armour clad Other peered at you with warm black eyes. Blood leaked from his eyes and mouth, between the creases of the plates of the helmet covering his face.

“Ji…woon.” You wheezed as your chest burned. Agony seared at every nerve as you shivered and coughed blood over his armoured thighs. A tentacle swept over your thighs, tucking you back against the mattress before it dragged your blankets over you.

“Together.” Ji-woon wheezed at you with a purr before his sharp teeth snapped and he gave you another bite on your hip. He said it again and bit your arm. The pain was already intense. You didn’t really register the bites as you raised your other hand and touched his head.

“So much for finding yourself, hm? I s-should have known… that you were a monster all along.” You heaved at him as you dragged your hand over his hair and cupped his cheek, “You’re still Ji-woon at least.” You whispered as your chest burned and you gasped and hiccupped violently.

Ji-woon’s arms went slack as the tentacles around him waved gently. His mouth parted, dripping your own and his blood over the mattress as he leaned over your body.

“Together…Ji-woon a-a-a…” The Other gurgled as he reached for your body and touched your skin. You were cold. Freezing cold. Dead. It was as though it all came rushing back, and the Other wailed as he clutched at your body, looking for the veins that should be weaving over your neck and arms. Nothing moved under your skin. You were not going to turn into one like him. He howled, his tentacles thrashing, lashing blood and mucus over the walls as he desperately touched your face and pressed against your throat. He clicked, softly, louder and then screeched near your ears, calling for an Other who wasn’t there. Violently, he shook your body, crying for you as he cried black and red tears over your body. There was nothing. The Other wailed, throwing himself on top of your corpse as he heard his thrall thunder through the hall.

Dead.

He cried over your body again before he tore open his arms, spreading his blood over your lips before he took his teeth to your neck, spitting and bleeding into your mouth and the wounds to try and get you to wake back up. Your chest compressed with a breath before your eyes opened, red rimmed and burning with an orange glint around the pupils. You were not an Other. A gurgle sounded from your throat, and Ji-woon reached to cradle your head as you slumped into him. His blood dripped over the both of you as he stroked your hair like a doll, combing his fingers through the mess. Your eyes drooped shut again and your chest stilled before your body convulsed against him. Ji-woon knew what it was, and you were close to being with him, forever, if only he could get you to eat. He reached for his own leg and gouged his nails against the flesh. It hurt, but he continued, peeling open his calf underneath the plating. Blood and gore stuck under his fingernails as he plucked free a piece of muscle, fat and skin, dangling it in front of your mouth. Your eyes shot open, the veins in your eyes pulsing with black as your lips wrapped around the treat. Ji-woon let you have it, purring as you chewed and swallowed. It was then that he chirped and slid his nail under the back of your skull, straight into your spinal column.

The scream that tore from your throat made him flinch, but he held you fast as his skin twisted and a black appendage grew from his pointed black nail, weaselling under your vertebrae before it shot upwards into your brain stem and poked the small tumour growing at the back. Ji-woon focused as his form broke off and wrapped around the tumour, stimulating the centre with new black veins, filled with the mutating virus. Your eyes rolled back as the veins webbed over the back of your neck, and Ji-woon waited for your eyes to go black before he purred and leaned forwards, kissing your dead lips. You only came to when his tongue pressed into the back of your mouth, tasting of your combined bloods and the faintest hint of blackberries. Maybe that was thanks to your last meal? You didn’t know but the veins in your neck pulsed and wormed their way down your chest, bucking you forwards, into the kiss with the Other. Your brain throbbed with the taste of food, and you reached up your cold hands to tug at the Other’s hair for a further taste of what would be your forever. Together, forever with the Other.

#zombie x reader #monster boy x reader #infected x reader #monster boyfriend x reader #monster x reader #reader insert #monster reader insert #monster boyfriend #monster boy #zombie boy x reader #zombie boyfriend x reader #monster romance #my writing #gender neutral reader #original work #monster man x reader #mutant x reader #dystopian future #apocalypse fiction

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tabby-shieldmaiden · 4 years ago

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This is for @promptsforthestrugglingauthor ‘s Friday Night Fights. Please make sure to check the tags for content warnings, and I hope that you enjoy this!

Reblogs would be appreciated! Comments too!

Just like any day where I have a scheduled exam, I arrive at school as early as I can. I had packed myself breakfast to eat there. Mostly out of habit. I like to eat at school, for some reason. It was a simple meal, two peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches and some coffee in a thermos. I ate it all while sitting under the old tree in the centre of the school’s courtyard. Afterwards, I pack away my lunchbox into my pack, pick up my sword, and head over to the centre of the yard.

I take in a deep breath, and adjust my stance. Then I determine my next move. My mind runs through the many ways I could swing my sword at a hypothetical monster. Most of them were moves I saw from other trainers, expert swordsmen. I had looked through lots of diagrams in the library, and I tried to recall as many as I could. I swung, trying to recall all the advice given to me. Took in a deep breath. Swung my sword again.

It wasn’t as good as having a sparring partner or a dummy, but for the time being, while the gym was closed and I was partnerless, this was as good a practice I could get. Especially before the practical.

I wanted to pass this test. I wanted to be a good sword fighter period. I always wanted to be a knight or a magical girl or something along those lines ever since I was a little girl. In a world with so many monsters, where more and more different variants are spawning by the day, where researchers and the fighters of monsters are constantly dropping like flies while on the job due to the sheer number of new monsters, I was encouraged to go for it.

At least, I was encouraged to go for it by my teachers. Other people who knew me for my interests at school.

My mother is still scared for me. I came from a long line of seamstresses. My father had been a baker’s son, before serving some time as a soldier against the monsters, and then dying. He was poorly-trained, and he was already a rather scrawny, sickly man. It was during a particularly intense battle. A lot of people died. Traditionally, in my country, funerals last three days. His funeral lasted three hours. Right before one, and right after there was another one.

It stuck with me. For years, it was all I could think about. I wondered if there could have been a way for him to live. I wished that I could grow up strong and brave. Eventually, I began asking myself questions. Could I get stronger, faster, become a better fighter than my father? Fight the monsters who took his life?

Those questions, those hypotheticals, became challenges.

As it turns out, I could. I got good enough to get past an audition, and into Northport’s School for Monster Hunters and Monster Research. Mother was scared, but ultimately supportive. “You’re a tough girl, Janey. But please, be as careful as you can.” I have her and my younger sister Lila praying for my safety every day. Every day, I make sure I work as hard as I can for them.

What no one told me was that most people who enrolled in these specialised schools for monster hunters were trained all their lives. They came from lines of acclaimed monster hunters. Powerful people, great fighters, who spent their youth slaying monsters and keeping the land safe, and then were lucky enough to retire and go on to start families.

My classmates were proud. They were good at what they did. They trusted very few. Cliques were common among the people I went to school with. Most of my classmates were better fighters than I was. They were more skilled, thanks to spending a lifetime around monster hunters. While I played with dolls and balls, their toys growing up were swords and shields. And they needed to learn how to use them well. Their families expected them to. And among themselves right now, because of their cliques (the environment was very cliquey), they trained and pushed each other every day. I was mostly friendless, and I had to do a lot of training by myself. It made things like sparring more difficult. Who was I supposed to spar against if all I had was myself most of the time?

I thought I was pretty good before. I was the neighbourhood bully hunter. The girl who would never go anywhere without her makeshift armour. Being an aspiring warrior was my ‘thing’. But once I started school at Northport, I suddenly became a small fish in a very big pond. Especially in terms of my fieldwork.

I was decent at theory at least. I studied monsters and the best ways to take them down - all their common weak points and vulnerabilities - as much as I could, and I was rewarded for my hard work in the form of Cs, Bs, even an odd B+. They, for the most part, are what prevent me from flunking out. I suppose this is a sign I should get into research more than fieldwork… hm…

In any case, in the present I need to focus on my swordwork. I’d been practicing in private a lot lately. Hopefully, they’ll be good enough for the examiners. I always found theory exams much easier than practicals. But hopefully, this time I’ll be good enough to pass this one the first time ‘round.

I go from stance to stance. Rehearsing how to carry myself, and the right next steps after. They weren’t supposed to be static, which was the problem. The trainers always said I was far too stiff. I needed to be dynamic, flowing, my movements striking and powerful. I’d been practicing loads. But I still wonder, I question, I doubt. And I froze.

Shit, that wasn’t supposed to happen. If I had overthought my next move out in the field, I would have died. They had always said the problem was my way of thinking. Mainly, that I thought too much. “You’ll choke out in the field if you overthink it,” they said. “Just go with your gut, trust that you’ve practiced and let your instincts kick in.” Most everyone in the class was so good at going with their gut. It came as naturally to them as breathing.

I had to argue with my mother to even get a sword. Prior to this, I had only a year of official training. I think what got me into the school was my good grades in my formal education. I pour countless hours into practicing my fighting skills. But I think too much when I really shouldn’t. I always have. Ever since I was little. And so far, it’s hard to turn that part of me off.

I sometimes wonder if anyone else in this school felt the same way. But honestly, if they grew up in a family of monster hunters, I don’t know why they would. I envy them sometimes. Growing up, they had access to some of the finest monster hunters to train them in the craft.

After a while, I stop and drop my sword. Panting, I pick up my bag, and make my way to the bathroom. It was about time I took a break anyway. I can’t go and take my exam while exhausted. Right now though, I needed to freshen myself up. I have to at least look presentable.

Well, technically I didn’t. The people who judge fieldwork are all seasoned warriors, and they all know not to judge a fighter by their appearances. But I still feel the need to look neat and tidy anyways.

I walk into the bathroom, and I steer myself towards the sink. I wash my hands. Scrub them clean of grime. And once they were clean, I splash some water onto my face. The sweat washes off my brow, and I felt a little more refreshed. I’m still all sweaty from the neck down, but at least my face was clean.

I wish I had brought some deodorant. Ah well. I still should try to do what I can to freshen myself up anyways. I undo my braid, which was already coming apart, and I start to redo it again.

Halfway through, my ears pick up a soft sound. Previously, I had thought that I was the only one in the bathroom. But upon closer inspection…

I turn around, and realise that there was actually a locked door behind me. Another soft sound. Something muted. If I had to classify the sound, I would say it was a sob. It sounded like the person wanted to make a softer sound, but ended up sobbing louder than they had wanted to.

I slowly walk to the stall, my concern growing. Was it any of my business? Probably not. But I was an ex-bully hunter. I always, out of instinct, would want to check up on anyone who appears to be having a miserable time in the school bathroom.

I tap the door once. Twice. “Hey,” I whisper.

A sniffle. “Are you okay?”

No response. Another attempt at a muted sob, which came out loud regardless.

“Are you crying?”

“Please,” their voice cracked against the word. “Don’t acknowledge it.”

I pause, and bite my lip. For a moment, I contemplated between walking off and leaving them alone, or staying with them. But that decision ended up being harder to make than I thought. I most likely had no idea who this person was as all. Would they even appreciate having a random stranger hang around for them in the bathroom? They sound like me being here was already a pretty big blow to their dignity.

On the other hand… call me a chronic do-gooder, but I don’t like people being left alone to suffer. I just don’t. But I knew I had to respect them. If they want to be alone, they should be allowed to be left alone. Something my mother told me once regarding heroics was that assuming what was best for someone wasn’t necessarily doing what was best for someone. I had trouble grasping that concept when I was younger. Now, I think I should try to work harder at remembering that.

With as gentle a voice I can muster, I ask them, “Would you rather be left alone now?”

A loud sniffle. A pause. “N-no. It’s fine.” Another sniffle. A choke.

And then there was silence. I tap my fingers together, I wonder what to do. “Could… could you stay for a little while?” They asked, their voice soft, tinged with embarrassment.

“Oh, uh, of course.” I dug into my backpack and pulled out my phone. From there, I check the time. I still had a couple of hours before the exam would start. Ultimately, I guess it was a pretty good decision to head to school early.

It was awkward there. I tried to focus on anything else. The weight of my sword hanging from my belt. The whirring of fans. The strong smell of cheap air freshener. The suspicious looking puddle leaking out of the stall in the far right. Then, they started talking again. “If you promise to not tell anyone else,” a sniffle, “can I vent a little to you?”

I was… well I was a little surprised at the request. I’d had a lot of people vent to me in my lifetime. But those had all been people I knew. Ergo, I knew what words to say to them to comfort them. But I didn’t know who was on the other side of the door. What does one say to someone who may be a complete and total stranger?

Maybe they really do just need someone to vent to though. “Sure,” I say. Maybe all I need to do is listen.

A sniffle. “Okay… okay…” And then a moment of silence. I figure they probably needed some time to put their thoughts together. So I stood there, patient.

“I…” they trailed off again. “I guess I’m just… I’m just worried about disappointing people in the fieldwork exam today.” My eyes widen. They were taking the test today too?

“I… My Mom and Dad expect a lot. They were all really skilled monster hunters back in the day… and… and… so’s everyone else in the family. I come home every day and I always hear about how even though they were so great, they all had their close shaves. And how someone like me could never be a good hunter like they all were…” Trailed off. More crying.

They calm down. “Like, sometimes I feel like I’m the talentless one of the bunch. I feel like I’m in the wrong place. But I actually wanted to be here. So I can only blame myself for failing.” A choke. A sniff. “I just made it into this school. If there had just been one more person auditioning, who… who had more potential than I did… I wouldn’t have even made it… I’m pretty sure.” I chew my lip. Regardless of whether or not I knew them, I honestly didn’t know what to say to help them feel better.

They continue, after taking more time to cry. I stood there, waiting patiently, growing more and more uncomfortable with my inability to truly go in and comfort them. Why couldn’t I think of anything which seemed like the right thing to say?

“And all my friends… They’re so much better than I am at everything too. They get better grades at everything they can stick with their study schedules… I think I’m actually pretty replaceable to them. Anyone else in my class just seems so much more hardworking than me, and I don’t know why… I don’t know why I can’t seem to ever work as hard as they do. I want to, but I can’t, and now I’m scared I never practiced enough to pass.” They cry some more. It sounds like an insecurity they’d been grappling with for a long time.

I swallowed after hearing that. Did they… are they a classmate of mine? And if they were, was I actually an object of envy in some ways?

The perspective I had just been given, along with how it was revealed to me, only made me feel something strange. I wasn’t quite sure what I would label that emotion. They continued to sob behind the bathroom stall.

“I see,” I replied, after they had quieted down. I still had no real words of comfort to give them. A bit more crying from behind the door. I look down at my sword, and kick the tiled floor.

“Thanks,” they say, “thanks for listening by the way. Promise you won’t tell anyone about this?”

I nod. “Of course I won’t.” That was a promise. “I’ll… I need to go now too. Good luck for your test.”

A sniffle. “Thank you.” I leave the bathroom.

It was weird now. Just earlier I had been worried about being held back, and now… those fears have been given a bit more perspective. And well… I suppose I am still worried about the test. But at the same time…

I look down at my sword, and then make my way to the holding room. Hopefully, it should be open by now. It was not. That meant loitering around in the corridor for a bit. Ah well.

I read a lot of stories about great heroes back in the day. Beyond monster slayers, there were also many fictional tales about great heroes I loved. I still love them, somewhat. But I also realise, as I grew older, that so many of those tales made it feel like the world revolved around one very successful person. And everyone else there was merely a prop to help them attain greatness. And though the world doesn’t revolve around a person, at times, I found myself feeling more like a prop and less like the hero to my own tale. Simply because of how powerless I feel sometimes.

There were exceptions to those though. The hero sometimes needs to learn that the world did not revolve around them. They needed to learn to accept their weaknesses while acknowledging the strengths of their friends. Then they empowered each other to live happily ever after together. Working together to make up for each other’s shortcomings.

Strangely enough, I suddenly got the feeling to reread one of those stories.

Maybe after the exam. Hopefully, the practice will pay off.

#tabby says something #original writing #fnf #friday night fights #action girls #death mention #trauma mention #panicking in the school bathroom #attempting to be a good listening ear #I'm still practicing so don't expect this to be great #also assume the mc uses the gender neutral bathroom #first person pov #my writing

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jilyyall · 4 years ago

Text

The Note

I saw a post on here that was really funny, but I lost it. It was a Venn Diagram with three circles and each circle had one word in it: “what” | “the | “fuck” Someone said that it would be funny if Bella gave that note to Edward (or his siblings I can’t remember because I lost it) after that first Biology lesson when he almost killed her. I thought it was really funny, so I wrote it.

Edward Cullen wasn’t in school on Tuesday, my second day at Forks High, the day after he glared murderously at me for the entire hour of Biology from a distance of about six inches from my face. His absence pissed me off more than it should have, since he was a boy I had not even spoken a single word to yet, and I should have been relieved not to have to sit through another such uncomfortable, terrifying hour.

All through Biology, I stared at the empty seat to my right, glaring at the space he would have taken up next to me, and imagined what I would have said to him.

By the time I walked out of the gym and into the parking lot to head home, I had worked myself into a frenzy. He was clearly an asshole, and as rich and beautiful and self-important as he clearly was, I doubted anyone had ever let him know just how much he sucked.

I saw them, then, standing next to an obscenely large silver Jeep waiting for the parking lot to clear so they didn’t have to fight through a traffic jam, all four of them beautiful and pale and bruised around the eyes. Their clothing was crisp and new and pricey, and their skin was completely unmarred. The girls were huddled together under an umbrella and the boys looked completely unaffected by the cold slushy sleet that fell from the sky and soaked through their clothing.

I stalked to my truck – really, slid my ungainly way across the slick pavement – and fought to get the door open. With a huff, I threw my bag and then myself into the driver’s seat and glared at them through my rearview mirror. Overcome with annoyance and rage, I dug into my bag and pulled out a sheet of paper and the first pen my cold, fumbling hands could find.

In bright red ink, I scratched three words into the sheet of white, then traced and retraced and retraced them again until my frazzled, enraged state of mind was clear in the lettering. Honestly, I just thought the act of writing my frustration would make me feel better. Maybe when I got home I would burn the paper for some symbolic catharsis or something. Then I made the mistake of looking in the mirror again.

They were looking in my direction. It could have been a coincidence, but I just knew it wasn’t. They were looking at me because of him. Because he had told them about me. About how, for whatever reason, he hated me and seemed to want to rip me limb from limb.

Before I could reason with myself, I threw my door open again, slammed it right into the boy getting into the car next to me, who looked horribly offended when I only slammed the door shut again and walked, as quickly and haughtily as I dared, across the row.

They watched me approach with trepidation, suspicion, and surprise. I stopped and held out the paper in the general direction of the two girls.

“Give this to your psycho brother for me, please,” I said through gritted teeth.

There was a brief pause before one of them – in my anger, I couldn’t even process which of the two beautiful girls it was – reached out and took it primly from my hand, just the tips of her fingers touching the edge of the folded paper.

I turned on my heel and stalked properly away, forgetting myself and my surroundings until I lost my balance about three feet from the back of my truck.

“Shit!” I screamed as my legs flew out from under me and my butt hit the pavement hard.

It knocked the wind out of me, and my face burned. Everyone was looking at me now, not just Edward Cullen’s siblings. I was sure I looked like a crazy person as I struggled to regain my feet on the slick pavement not all that unlike Bambi on ice.

“Are you okay?” The little one whose name I thought I remembered Jessica saying was Alice asked, bending down in front of me so that her face was only a few inches from mine. “Here, let me help you.”

“I’m fine,” I insisted, but she wrapped her gloved hands around each of my forearms and yanked me, surprisingly firmly, to my feet. Trying, and clearly failing, for dignity, I tugged the hem of my jacket down and sighed. “Thank you.”

She didn’t let go of me until I made it back to my door, and I didn’t fight her because I knew if I did I would either lose to her strong grip or to gravity. I swallowed my pride and thanked her again, not looking her in the eye as I climbed back behind the wheel. She was already gone by the time my truck roared to life, already back with the others, all of them still watching me. I backed out of my spot very cautiously. The last thing I wanted was to wreck my truck in front of them now when they obviously already thought I had lost my mind. I stared straight ahead, determinedly not glancing at them, as I drove away.

“What is it, Rose?” Emmett asked, leaning over and peering at the paper curiously as soon as the odd little awkward, angry human was gone. “What does it say?”

“Should we wait and see if he comes back? Give it to him to look at?” Jasper asked, but he was staring at the small square of paper too. Her scent, stronger and more alluring than most of the others around them, still lingered on the paper Rosalie grasped gingerly.

“Open it,” Alice urged. “He’ll be back on Sunday, and everything will be fine. He’s not going to kill her.”

“Should we even give it to him at all?” Rosalie wondered with a small scowl. Why did he need to know that the human girl was so affected by him?

“He’ll see that it happened,” Jasper reasoned. He was tempted to play with Rosalie’s mood, make her feel more at ease with playing along, but she always got so angry with him when she realized that he had affected her emotions. “We have to.”

“He’s right, babe,” Emmett said, and pulled her into his side. “Open it.”

Rosalie sighed and unfolded the paper and held it out flat in the middle of the curious little circle they formed around it.

There, in large red letters, looking quite like someone absolutely insane had scratched them into the paper, were the words:

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Emmett’s laugh roared out of him, startling the humans nearest him.

“I like her!” he declared loudly. Edward could stand to be called out on his bullshit a little more often.

Jasper shook his head with a smirk, and the laugh tinkled out of Alice. Even Rosalie smiled a little as her eyes traced the crazed letters. Maybe not all humans were boring and worthless.

#bella swan #twilight fanfiction #twilight fanfic #edward cullen #the cullens #alice cullen #rosalie hale #jasper hale #emmett cullen #this is stupid but i love it ok

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davidmann95 · 4 years ago

Note

Hey David? Why is ours such a cruel and merciless God?

mirrorfalls said: (If you don't know what I'm talking about, your inbox should be filling up with more specific deets riiiiight about now.)

cheerfullynihilistic said: THE SNYDER CUT

Anonymous said: You don’t seem to think Superman’s public rep will take another beating from the Snyder Cut coming out. Honestly I thought you’d be way more upset than you seemed on Twitter.

Anonymous said: So uhh, against all thoughts and logic the Snyder cut is being released? Maybe as a mini series? Thoughts?

Anonymous said: SNYDER CUT!

Bullies. Jocks. Guys angrily asking if we know who their father is. Assorted dudebro nerd-oppressors of America:

You have failed us. You have failed us so hard. What else do we even keep you around for if not to head this shit off at the pass? Shame on you.

Okay, so seriously: I’m actually gonna put most bitching and moaning under a cut, because I know firsthand there are as many as several non-slavering maniacs out there who dug Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and who are simply and entirely reasonably excited that they’re getting this movie after all. I don’t feel like throwing a wall of text at them shitting all over this, so I’ll lead off with I think some fairly even-handed commentary on the real-world circumstances here, rambling speculation regarding the production, and some cautious optimism about the actual movie/s. THEN I’ll get to what I imagine most of you are here to see.

So totally in a vacuum: this is a cool, good thing. I’m the notorious theatrical Justice League-liker, but at best it was a compromised product due to the original creator - who like it or not clearly had an incredibly ambitious personal vision for these characters and their world - suffering a horrific tragedy forcing him off the project, and leaving his final stamp on blockbuster culture and a world he’d devoted years of his life to a flop with his name on it when he couldn’t even truly call it his own anymore. At worst, said tragedy was taken advantage of by suits to ditch him in the home stretch so as to try and shove out something ostensibly more marketable. But now because of a...very loyal fanbase, the man’s getting the opportunity and resources to rise like a phoenix and see at least some of his vision through in a huge way. That’s pretty remarkable.

Not in a vacuum this is fucking horrifying. I’ve already seen folks poo-poohing the reflexive fears that this will ‘set a precedent’, and they were right enough that I deleted my initial tweet on the subject because I didn’t think I could express my own opinion with any nuance in the space of 280 characters. Yeah, nerd whining definitely shaped Rise of Skywalker (another movie I enjoyed in spite of the circumstances of its creation). Hell, Sonic the Hedgehog crunched its CGI team prior to unceremoniously firing them to redesign his model thanks to outcry. That’s already a market force, and just to be clear upfront, if we can’t agree the predominant mode of operation for #ReleaseTheSnyderCut has been a toxic nerd harassment campaign when they spammed posts memorializing deceased actors and chased Diane Nelson off Twitter, we’re not gonna be able to have this conversation. And director’s cuts are you may have noticed also already a thing. But this isn’t changing direction on a project that’s already going to exist no matter what, this is turning back 3 years later on a commercial flop and dumping tens of millions of dollars into it, explicitly in response to that harassment campaign. It’s not *actually* going back and, say, remaking The Last Jedi, but by god to the naked eye it’s gonna be as good as for plenty of fanboys, and probably to some shortsighted execs as well. This is a new thing, and in this context it is a very, very bad one. Hopefully one that won’t amount to anything.

As for the movie itself: what the hell is this thing going to end up being? I assume with this sort of cashola being pumped into it we’re not getting any slapdash greenscreen or storyboarded sequences, but four hours? Is it really just going to be an expanded and revised version of what we saw in theaters, or is this including content that would have been in the originally planned Justice Leagues 2 and 3? My understanding is that those were already compressed into a single Justice League 2 before plans collapsed altogether, were they maybe filming side-by-side and this’ll be the whole shebang? If not is Snyder going to hedge his bets and end this on a clean note, or keep it ending on a cliffhanger in hopes HBO will throw another $250 million his way to keep going? Does DC want to keep going? Would they give into fan pressure on releasing after all what was widely publicized as the first film of a duology or trilogy with dangling threads if they weren’t going to be at least watching the numbers to see the feasibility of returning to this in a bigger way? Not that I think WB execs would piss into Snyder’s mouth if he were dying of thirst at this point if he simply asked to be able to do Justice League 2, but if he floated that if they instead just give him a liiiiiiiitle more money he can finally deliver unto them their very own Avengers - one that they can work on even during quarantine since it’s mostly just VFX work left - and hey if it works out he’s got a sequel or two cued up and ready to go? Maybe they look at their scattered plans and say the hell with it and end up giving this a theatrical release and sequel with Snyder holding the reigns again if this ends up a killer app; stranger things have happened, if not many, and somehow this is already happening in the first place after all. Alternatively, if this succeeds, could they go “thanks and good on ya, totally do another, but it’s gonna be an HBO exclusive so you’re only getting a hundred million, figure it out”? Would Ben Affleck return? How much reshooting will he be willing to commit to even for this? And most importantly, since this is potentially going to be serialized as six ‘episodes’, will We Got This Covered count this as another ‘win’ since their bullshit rumor mill algorithm spit out “Justice League HBO TV show” recently?

As for the project itself: I ain’t subscribing to HBOMax for this bad boy, but once it becomes more widely available I can’t claim I won’t probably watch it. It’s basically a new movie about the Justice League, and if there’s anything I WOULD wanna see Zack Snyder do in the DCU, it’s the movie finally moving past pseudo-realism (aside from some of those dopey costumes) and leaning all the way into godlike superbeings bludgeoning each other through continents. I absolutely wanna see his aesthetic take on the Green Lantern Corps, and New Genesis, and time travel, and all the other weird promises of where his movies were going to go climaxing in a ridiculous super-war across all spacetime. It’s the same reason J.G. Jones was an exciting choice for Final Crisis before he had to leave, seeing a guy known for his work in an ultra-real grungy superhero style starting there and building up to seeing his version of absolutely wild cosmic spectacle. And no, to respond to one of the initial asks, I’m not worried about the impact on Superman. Everyone seems to have accepted this is its own distinct thing whether they like it or not, I think him getting to complete his ‘arc’ will quiet down many of the folks who like to yell at every other version as retro nonsense since now they’ll be able to be smug about having had the best take rather than pining for a lost finale, and I’m not interested in further Superman movies at the moment anyway with Superman & Lois in the pipe (which I was originally paranoid would be endangered by this when rumors first started floating, but if it’s been brewing since November then if they wanted to strike that down to ‘make room’ according to their Byzantine ever-shifting rules, they would have by now). Far as I’m concerned, as long as the other DC movies get to keep doing what they’re doing during and past this - even Pattinson in his corner, however that works - then totally let Snyder work out all his Wagnerian superhero bullshit for another flick or two. If nothing else, maybe we’ll learn what the hell that diagram up there is supposed to mean. And a plea I want to clarify upfront is wholeheartedly sincere: we’re already down the rabbit hole, so let Snyder to literally whatever he wants with his non-theatrically released Justice League. Zero input or veto power from outside parties. If he wants Flash to hang dong or Superman to say fuck or Batman to learn he’s Steppenwolf’s secret dad or Cyborg to learn he needs to eat babies to fuel his machine parts, let him go for it. Whole point is this is now his thing for people who want his thing.

Okay, beneath the cut the filter comes off, so go ahead if that’s your jam.

Hahahahahahaha this is gonna be such a fuckin’ shitshow you guys, Jesus Christ.

They’re giving the dude who did BvS and wants to make an Ayn Rand adaptation someday $30 million to take another crack at this monstrosity! 30 goddamn million smackaroos for four fucking hours of by many accounts roughly the same basic movie, except now presumably with what little coherency, fun, and clean character work the theatrical cut managed to pull off excised in return for weighty staring, ponderous pseudo-philosophical musings, hackneyed symbolism, aimless mythology teasing, and Steppenwolf I understand being decapitated by Wonder Woman at the end rather than taken back to Apokolips. I didn’t even spoiler mark that shit because don’t you dare pretend you care about the fate of Steppenwolf. I won’t have it.

I used to wonder if I was indeed missing the forest for the trees with these movies, that I was so inflexible in my personal image of these characters - even though I appreciate plenty of alternate takes on them and even some stories that bend or break what I consider their ‘rules’, just not these - that I was incapable of grasping or appreciating these films on their own merits as works of art using those archetypes in wildly different ways; even I could see there were good moments and interesting ideas on display despite seemingly failing to come together. No matter how much I personally deconstructed how and why it wasn’t working, I couldn’t do it to my own satisfaction to the point of stamping out that niggling little worry with how many folks whose opinions I respect love ‘em. Until I finally remembered that the Cadmus arc of Justice League Unlimited is totally the same basic story as BvS, centrally driven by an even worse take on Superman, and that’s still one of the best superhero stories of all time. These just stink by any merits, and while I think Justice League absolutely has the potential to be the most *entertaining* of the bunch, it’s not going to magically become *good* in the eleventh hour. Not to lift up Joss Whedon of all people as some kind of savior, I’m on the record that my love for Justice League as-is is some kind of inexplicable alchemical accident, but I promise that there is not going to be one single addition to this movie that’s going to make up for the removal of “Just save one person”.

Also I’m already not looking forward to dudes tweeting “whoa, he’s splitting it up into a serialized narrative, reflective of the sequential nature of the characters’ primitive native pictorial medium! Or mayhap in ode to the pulp film adventure serials which inspired those in turn! Even the Justice League children’s cartoon for dumb babies, which was itself...made up of episodes! That’s three references in the structure of the thing alone! The man’s operating on an entirely different level!” “God, isn’t it amazing how much better he understands the source material than you”, they shall say, about a man who I understand just very confidently referred to Doomsday in his livestream as having destroyed Krypton in the comics. Again, don’t you say they won’t, just the other day I saw folks tweeting they just realized that since Jor-El wears armor over his bodysuit that technically means Superman’s whole costume is underwear which means Snyder’s totally honoring that without putting him in ugly dumb red panties so checkmate, dorks.

(Okay, in fairness, I know Snyder was saying that’s his take on what happened to the moon in the past of the movies and maybe I only misheard that he thought that also happened in the comics, and it’s trivial information anyway. Still sucks though, that seeming out-of-nowhere Jax-Ur shoutout was like the one thing I liked about that otherwise interminable Krypton sequence. And why is there a second Doomsday? You did Death of Superman already!)

And further SPOILER thoughts below on the reported plots of 2 and 3:

It’s also an amazing, perfect sort of narrative synchronicity that the hypocrisy of Man of Steel in presenting Superman as a savior would (will?) be matched by the movies also rejecting that promise long-term. In there, Jor-El’s musings on the capacity of every living thing being capable of good, the closest the film has to a singular moral statement, are proven wrong when Zod has to be put down like a mad dog, and rather than the one who’ll bring us into the sun, Kal-El’s presence draws ruin from beyond the stars to our world. And again in BvS with Doomsday. And again in Justice League 1-3, where in spite of claims by Snydercutters that it’s okay for Superman to be a really lousy take on Superman because it’s totally supposed to take several movies after putting on the costume and calling himself Superman, including his own death and resurrection, for him to really, like, become Superman, man, he remains a liability to the end. His death lures in Steppenwolf, the Kryponian matrix in his genes is Darkseid’s goal, he becomes the villain of the first act of Justice League 3 - possibly of his own free will depending on which version you’ve heard about - and at the final showdown, it’s Batman who sacrifices himself to stop Darkseid and save the world and inspire the rise of superheroism, because Batman, you see, rules, whereas Superman, stay with me here, drools. A letdown given BvS was just about the one major story of the last 30 years to unambiguously conclude Superman is better than Batman, but not a shocker. None of what I understand goes down in these - iconography from the likes of Fourth World, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Death and Return of Superman, Rock of Ages, Final Crisis, and Injustice reused but stripped of all context and thematic weight that gives it meaning (even Injustice is built on the premise of having a ‘good’ Superman to contrast the dictator); Lois being the ‘key’ because of her connections to two men, one she married and one she bears; time travel that even by the very generous suspension of disbelief applied to it in a genre like this operates by two obviously completely different sets of rules in its only two uses, and is then used to write the entire second movie of the trilogy out of continuity in the first act of the third, making one and a half of these movies pointless - is shocking. It’s just more empty notions and unfulfilled promises offered up to a fanbase staking everything on the idea that all the tampering, all the wild swings, all the meandering, it’s all building UP to something, not possibly just a dude who doesn’t understand these characters but wanting to look very clever with them before building up to one more rad punch-up. So yes, make these movies. Let what can be gleaned from them as worthwhile be revealed, leave the rest of it up for examination to be judged as it deserves and let it, finally. Finally. Be done.

#Justice League #Snyder Cut #Zack Snyder #DCEU #Worlds of DC #Superman #Man of Steel #Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice #Superman & Lois #DCTV #Analysis #Opinion

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tally-kiza · 6 years ago

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Horrorswap and Horrorswapfell Headcanons

So I decided to make Horrorswap and Horrorswapfell headcanons. There’s not a lot of stuff out there for it, so I wanted to throw my hat into the ring, and see what I could come up with.

This isn’t typical scary Horrortale, btw. These are soft-Horrortale inspired by popatochisssp’s HT skeletons.

(this is slightly edited and revised as of 02/25/2020 so if things seem different than before, thats why)

Horrorswap Sans (Boston)

- The famine was particularly hard on him. Alphys’s abuse really injured his head, and combined with the effects of starvation, Sans was eventually diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. His brother was always so worried when Boston started spending days in bed or sprinting throughout the underground setting up violently painful puzzles and traps, shouting about humans, but having an explanation assuaged his worries a bit. At least then he knew how to help.

- Speaking of Alphys, when Sans became captain of the Royal Guard and bore the brunt of her anger, it left permanent damage to his bones and teeth, leaving them cracked and crooked, with strange blood stains on them (his own marrow/blood, not a human’s).

- Despite everything, he's still Sans. He’s sunny, but less so than he use to be, and even when he’s feeling miserable, he tries his best to be friendly and cheerful. ...It’s difficult though. It’s so tempting sometimes to just curl up and forget about the world, but... even though he does do that occasionally, he never stays like that for long. He keeps going through the day, trying his best to live and forget about the past.

- On better days though, he can be pretty cheerful and friendly! He likes talking to other people and hearing what they have to say.

- Boston goes to therapy regularly to cope with his trauma. He tries to convince his brother to go too but Citrine’s been stubborn so far.

- During the famine, one of his favorite things to take his mind off the stress was creating things. Like drawing maps of what the stars in the sky look like, and designing diagrams of spaceships that he likes. Very space-oriented things usually, since he’s always loved it so much. It’s... very difficult to make these though most of the time. His concentration and focus is basically nonexistent when he’s starving, so he can mostly only create when he’s recently eaten. Making them is his favorite hobby on the surface.

- Adores farmers markets. There's so many possibilities! Buying cool new foods, selling the things he’s made, meeting and talking to cool new people! He loves them, they’re so fun.

- Uses the fruits from his brother’s gardens to make preserves! Saves jars of jams, jellies, and other preserves in the cabinets for whenever he needs to use them when he cooks. They’re delicious and he always has a lot of fun making them with his brother.

- Has a collection of lava lamps! They’re so satisfying and relaxing to watch. He loves them, and they always help him feel less stressed.

- Along that same vein, he likes stim videos! Pretty much all kinds of them. they’re very relaxing to him.

- He hates the silence... It reminds him so much of Snowdin during the famine. Cold, empty, devoid of life and joy... He cringes whenever there’s too long of a silence. Boston will almost always have some kind of noise on in the background, whether it be music or tv show or an audiobook. It really eases his fears.

- Stars, he loves food. So much. He loves watching stress-free cooking shows and learning new recipes to cook. Trying something new and making food for him and his brother is one of his favorite things.

- Awkwardly genuine. He tries really hard to fit in on the surface and be a good person to make up for what he's done. Every so often he’ll say or do something really dark and completely forget he can’t do that anymore on the surface. Sans will berate himself really hard afterwards, so he really appreciates the reassurances he gets that it’s okay.

- Admittedly, he had lost hope of ever seeing the stars... He thought they’d be stuck underground, starving to death forever... But when he and the others emerged out of the Barrier in the middle of the night, he finally saw the infinite blanket of stars twinkling above them. He’s never been quite so happy in his whole life, as he collapsed on the ground and sobbed with the pure relief of finally being free and finally seeing the stars.

Horrorswap Papyrus (Citrine)

- After getting into a big fight with Alphys and interfering when she tried to hurt Sans, he ended up with a big bad hole in his skull. Sans had to use all the healing magic he could find to save him. When Citrine woke up, his skull was throbbing and he could barely remember what happened.

- Very apathetic at times. It’s hard to care about stuff when he’s stuck underground and feels like they’re going to die soon... It'll take a lot of years on the surface for him to be anywhere close to normal again. Also doesn't have the energy to be nice to people sometimes. So he just isolates himself and doesn’t interact with them.

- That being said, it is possible to befriend him. It’ll be a long journey but With the right circumstances and if you’re good to Boston, Citrine ends up being a pretty great friend.

- Pretty touch-repulsed unless he’s close with someone. After many years of being friends with them, he can be pretty cuddly. If you’re lucky, he’ll drape himself over you like a cat.

- Like the other lazybones, the hole in his skull gave him memory problems but not as severe as the others'. Still has all his long-term memory, he just forgets recent things (like where he put his keys) ver easily.

- Since he has no suckers to chew on during the famine, he chews on sticks as a replacement. It's left his teeth chipped and scraggly. He gets them fixed on the surface, and hoards all the suckers, honey, and pocky he can find.

- Loves plants. Has a mini garden on the surface. Grows his own food and everything. Boston is so supportive of him and helps him when he’s struggling with it.

- Probably has a slight case of osteoporosis? And maybe the other horror!skeletons would as well. So his spine is kinda bent, unfortunately.

- Still really loves puns. Dark ones make him kind of uncomfortable (he doesn't like anything that reminds him of the underground) but his favorites are plant and music puns. They're perhaps the quickest way to get him to warm up to you.

- Still appreciates memes. Doesn’t outwardly show a positive reaction to them, but they make him chuckle inwardly. Will deadpannedly meme at you when you least expect it.

- Has an unfortunate case of MVRSF: Monotone Voice and Resting Stony Face.

- Pretends he’s fine when there’s clearly something wrong. Refuses to accept help and burden anyone. He just... doesn’t want to cause any more problems. He insists he’ll be alright....

- Stars, he just? loves Hozier’s music?? so much??? It’s so ethereal and chill and it always calms him down when he’s stressed. And music! Just music in general is his one true lomfve. He can’t get enough of it. Starts learning to play the kalimba on the surface. It has such a lovely sound. He’s a little rusty at it, but he tries hard. Hozier songs are his favorite songs to play on it.

Horrorswapfell Sans (Knox)

- Like Horrorfell Papyrus, after the famine began, he sobered up. Sans didn't have the time nor energy for all his usual grandiose. Like with all the Fell skeletons, he blames himself that the human killed so many people, and it's really taken a hit to his ego. His self-esteem is a lot lower than it used to be.

- Didn't take of any of Alphys's shit, and refused to let her abuse him. They fought quite a bit however, resulting in chipped misaligned teeth and long scars on his eyesocket and side of his face. The eyesocket with those scars lost its eyelight, so hes unfortunately blind in that socket now. Scraps with Snowdin-folk have left scars and marks all over his and body, but nothing too deep, luckily.

- An incredibly responsible and capable skeleton. Like, he gets shit done. Insanely productive at times with laser-like focus. He was basically the only reason his brother survived during the famine; Knox motivates Clover to get out of bed and live.

- Mildly paranoid on the surface. He's worried that something bad will happen and is lurking around the corner, so he's incredibly suspicious everything. Especially people he doesn’t know.

- In addition to being mildly paranoid, he also is easily stressed, and has anxiety and depression. He has... a lot on his plate, to say the least. The famine gave him a lot of trauma, but frequent therapy helps a lot, once he’s comfortable opening up to strangers. His brother Clover is a great help, he’s the most helpful, supportive brother and friend he could’ve asked for.

- Oftentimes he wears a dark cloak that makes him look like the Grim Reaper. Enjoys scaring people with it and making them think he actually is the Grim Reaper. It’s one of the great joys he has in life.

- Favorite type of music is opera and classical. He likes how quickly it can go from soft and peaceful to fast and dramatic and dynamic.

- Secretly likes baking, especially baking cupcakes, but sshhhh! No one can know. ...Mostly just because he’s new to baking and not very great at it yet, so he’s self-conscious. But! He hopes knows he’s gonna be great at it someday. And his brother is always there to cheer him on and nom all the sweet treats happily.

- He's very sly. Makes the most subtle, hidden, and deady traps out of all the skeletons, and with his silvertongue can easily turn people's words against them.

- But... once you have his trust and his friendship, he wouldn’t dream of doing that to you. Knox isn’t someone who takes friendship lightly, so he’d never dare manipulate your words or hurt you in any way.

- Also very formal and serious. Not much of a casual skeleton, and doesn’t like letting down his walls. It’s part of his distrustful nature. Makes him pretty difficult to befriend, honestly. But it is possible, in the right circumstances.

- Sans isn’t passionate for many things on the surface, but sewing is definitely one of them. He got into it when he was younger, and starting sewing and creating more during the famine like Boston to keep himself distracted when he wasn’t working or patrolling. He enjoys it so much on the surface, that he starts doing tailoring and sewing commissions. Probably even becomes a tailor or something similar eventually. Altering clothes is the one thing he feels like he hasn't failed at, so he likes it.

Horrorswapfell Papyrus (Clover)

- Animalistic. The famine probably hit him the hardest out of all of them, mentally at least. He started acting more and more dog-like over time. Nothing extreme, he just has bad habits that he’s picked up. Hostile and distant towards strangers, growling at people with too high LV, whining if you won't cuddle him. It's pretty cute tbh.

- Once hen him and Alphys got into a fight over Sans, she threw her axe at him, and left a pretty big cracked hole in his skull. When Sans saved him with the DT, one of his eyelights became enlarged and beaming red. The other eye "overloaded” in a way from the influx of magic so it became basically unusable. Even though there’s no physical damage to it, keeping it uncovered hurts sometimes so he keeps an eyepatch over it.

- Wears beanie hats! Clover’s self-conscious about his crack, so he covers it with adorable beanie hats. He has a whole collection of them of many different types. He also likes how they make him feel cute.

- His slitted pupils make him look so adorable when they dilate when he's excited.

- Basically a cat. Drapes on top of his s/o for cuddles. Naps in the sunbeams. Complains when you don't pay attention to him. Kills pests for you. Just a 7 foot tall teddy bear kitty skeleton ;w;

- Looooves chicken nuggets. They’re his favorite food and nomming them after a bad day always makes him feel better <33. Calls them chimken nuggies.

- Also loves love songs! Especially the soft and sweet and heartfelt ones. They're so nice and calming to listen to. He really likes to hum along to them when he's drawing.

- Pretty quiet. He didn't talk a lot underground so as to not draw attention, so he rarely talks anymore. Doesn’t speak much around people he doesn’t know in public, but in private with people he’s close too he’s more comfortable talking. When Papyrus does talk, it's rather slow and his voice cracks occasionally.

- Before the famine, Clover ate hard candies. But after he ran out of candies when the famine started, he wanted to have the same sensation so he started chewing on sticks and pebbles. It's left his fangs misaligned and cracked. They're partially repaired on the surface, but there wasn't a lot the dentist could do. So he just replaced them with more gold teeth. He has four now, instead of one.

- Has a panic disorder. He's terrified of going back underground. Only his brother and his s/o can calm him down from his panic attacks. Also has generalized anxiety. If he’s in front of strangers, he’ll try to hide it with aggression out of fear of looking weak.

- Papyrus used to love reading, but after his head wound, it was difficult to concentrate and understand what he was reading. So he stopped. But on the surface, he discovered the magic of audiobooks and uses them all the time! He can often be found wearing headphones listening to audiobooks in the background.

- Him and Knox eventually get two sweet darling therapy cats. They’re the most helpful nicest floofs he’s ever known and he loves them to bits. The cats are incredibly sweet and helpful when the skellies are having a bad day, and always makes them feel so much better.

- Works as a commission artist when he gets to the surface! He tried other jobs before, but they were always so stressful so he never worked there for long. He never lost his passion for making art during the famine, even though remembering how to was difficult sometimes. But once he relearns all his skills again, he loves working from home as an artist. It's the best job he could've ever asked for.

-He’s just Babey. A wonderfully sweet, wholesome, precious babey skellie ;w;

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huffletiika · 6 years ago

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About late studying sessions and presumably haunted corridors.

Ok, peeps, I have decided to take part of this year’s Lutteo ficweek… even if I have no time, or whatsoever. I might skip some days, tho, as there are some prompts that didn’t inspired me #tja. Anyway, I hope you like this one.

Anyway, just some info before you start reading: this OS is at the same universe as my Gastina multi-chapter “Hello, stranger.” So, if anyone is interested on reading it before (or after) getting into this, I will leave you the link RIGHT HERE. But, don’t worry, there’s no need to read it to understand the OS, as this is a prequel that takes place way before the events of my multi-chapter. However, there might be a little wink for those who read it.

Words count: 2.4K.

DAY 1 – “it’s 3 am and I’m still in the library studying for finals and I’m losing my grip on reality and I think I just saw a ghost”.

Finals are going to be the death of her.

Seriously, it’s like no matter how much she tries to keep her studying schedule going, she will just not gonna make it, not even with the very well done graphics an diagrams her best friend made for her. Days doesn’t have enough hours for her to have enough time to learn all she has for her exams, and at the same time training for the skating competition, and going to all those social events her grandfather told her she must go in order to keep the Benson’s inversions safe and sound.

She can’t wait for summer vacations.

The next day (correction, that day, as it’s already three in the morning) she has one of the most important exams for her career, and she really need a high grade on this one in order to pass.

She tried studying in her dormitory, she really did, but she gave up at 10pm as the girls from the dormitory next to hers and Nina’s had decided to throw a party for the end of the semester, and the music was so loud she thought the walls would break at any moment. So, she had to walk all her way to the library in order to find a quiet place, internally grateful for living in a dorm inside the campus. Her parents would kill her if they find out about her having to walk down the street in the middle of the night.

Since the finals started, the library has remained 24hrs open as an incentive for students to use it to prepare for their exams instead of the many outdoor places on campus, as the benches outside the buildings, or the dark gardens. It might sound crazy, but just a week ago they found a student sleeping in a picnic mat outside the engineering faculty, hugging his advanced calculus book, mumbling something about going late for his exam while on his sleep. There were memes with his picture all over the campus app, it got viral.

The library has become the second home for many.

Surprisingly, that day the library doesn’t seem to be as popular. Well, there were many students when she arrived but, as midnight arrived, she noticed she was the only one at that specific section, and that the rest of them were practically empty. That’s just so great. She tried to focus on the words from her text book, on solving the problems, on getting all that info into her head, but as it started getting later her eyes started to burn, and the words became blurry, so she finally realized that what she didn’t learn in the whole semester, she wouldn’t learn in those five hours she had left before having to go comply her death sentence. Come what may, her father is always telling her, and she believes him.

She is so gonna fail.

When she stands to leave the study cubicle she notices it’s darker than she expected. There are some light spots, of course, but many of these seem to have gotten damaged. She walks toward the shelves to put the books back at the place they belong, and as she gets deeper at those dark aisles, she starts to have the feeling that she is not alone.

She looks around, but there’s nothing either on her left or her right, and she tells herself that it’s just her head playing games. She has never believed in ghosts, even after her biological parents appeared in her dreams, and she wouldn’t start doing so now.

She leaves the last book at the right shelf, having to get on her tiptoes for that hard mission, and then sighs looking at the time on her phone’s screen. If she leaves now she will be at home at 3:40, and so she would have a couple of hours to sleep. A sound coming from her left calls her attention, putting her on alert. But there’s nothing. There’s no such thing as ghosts, she reminds herself, you are just tired from studying, and it’s all in your head. But there were stories, many indeed, of a student that died in the library years ago, crushed by a shelf that fell on her as she tried to reach a book that was on the top, and other who took his life on the 90s after losing all his finals.

Those are just stories, she reminds herself as she tries to breathe in and breathe out to calm herself, and get her backpack from the floor, but as soon as she gets up she finds someone standing right in front of her.

She screams.

Someone from the distance shushes.

Throwing her backpack at the mysterious figure she tries to run away, but it grabs her wrist, and she is not able to get away from its grip no matter how hard she tries.

Her heart is racing inside her chest, she is scared, much more than after waking up from one of those terrible nightmares about the fire where her biological parents died. Her mind isn’t thinking in other thing than running away, than getting into her room and hiding under her blankets, maybe hugging the very cute teddy bear her grandpa gave her when they found out she was the granddaughter he thought he had lost years ago.

“Calm down, Chica Delivery. It’s me,” a male voice she knows pretty well gets into her ears, calming her down, throwing all fear away from her body. She looks back at him, stopping her intends to scape, and as soon as their eyes meet, she manages to let go of his grip with a swipe.

“Are you crazy, Matteo?! You scared me to death!” she claims, wishing to have something to throw at his stupid face when she sees him grinning. He’s just- Ugh! She can’t stand him, or his stupid smile, or his perfect eyes, or that hair of him where she wants to dig her hands in, and…

Enough.

“Ouch, I didn’t know I was that ugly,” he teases, and then bends down to pick up the backpack, and then offers it back to her. “Let’s make it a tie. I mean, you almost killed me with this,” he adds, as she gets her belongings back.

“I didn’t meant to… it was your fault for scaring me,” she fires back.

“Oh right, keep blaming me,” he rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest. Oh shit, she thinks, he’s wearing one of those stupid vests that look way too good on him. Her sanity decides to submit her resignation, there’s no way she could handle him. “What are you doing here at these hours, anyway?” he asks. “I thought your roommate was the kind of person who would be okay with you studying in your room no matter what time.” She has to look away when he carelessly supports his side on the shelf.

How does he always looks so good?

“She is,” she defends her, frowning at him. Nina is one of the few people she has met in Buenos Aires that she can confidently call a true friend. “But our neighbors finished their finals today, and threw a party to celebrate,” she explains, with a shrug.

He puts a grimace.

“Whoa, that sucks,” he says, and for once he agrees with him.

“Tell me about it!” she replies, and another shush comes from an undetermined place in the library. She lowers her voice. “And you? What are you doing here at this hour? I thought you had a fancy flat with enough space to study, even if you have the loudest roommate, which you don’t,” she asks, and his stupidly attractive grin gets wider.

“Can I ask how you know that?” he rises his eyebrows, and she swears under her breath. She can’t tell him that her roommate has a crush on his roommate, that’s practically breaking all the rules of friendship.

She goes for a better excuse.

“You seem to forget that your ex-girlfriend is my cousin.”

“And it seems like you have paid too much attention to what she says about me,” he fires back with a cocky smile. His fresa attitude drives her insane. “But, don’t worry, it’s normal to want to know more about me, you are not the only girl who does that at the campus.” She rolls her eyes.

“Whoa, Chico Fresa, I thought your ego couldn’t grow bigger,” she replies, sarcastically. Then reminds him: “You still haven’t answered my question.” He shrugs.

“This is just a really nice puns-free environment to study,” he briefly answers, looking away as if something has ashamed him. How come? She frowns, and he changes his attitude in a click. “Anyway, are you going back at your dorm now? I can give you a ride.” She’s about to reject his offer, but he interrupts her. “I know you live inside the campus, but it’s still dangerous to walk there alone at this hour, so please let me take you there.” How could she refuse his offer after those words? She ends up accepting.

----

His car seat is the most comfortable thing she has ever sit on, she thinks, as she closes her eyes and lets the sound of the engine, and the delicious smell of his cologne (the one that seems to dominate the place) lull her, to the point of even falling asleep for a few seconds.

She hears him chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” she asks, her eyes still closed.

“Nothing,” his response comes quickly, but then it seems like he gives up. “It’s just… you almost look inoffensive right now.” She sticks her tongue out at him, and he giggles.

Then they stay silent for a couple of minutes, in whose she nervously drums with her fingers.

“So, I went to the Jam & Roller last night and saw the Roller Band playing,” he casually says, as if taking those words out of his mouth wouldn’t have cost all of his courage. “Your boyfriend and his bandmates are really good,” he adds, as he parks in front of her building.

“Yeah, they ar… wait, boyfriend?” She looks at him, confused.

“Yes, the guitarist is your boyfriend. Isn’t him?” he frowns.

He saw them being very affectionate with each other some weeks ago, at the skating rink, and that restrained his attempts to get closer to her, to let her know how much he likes her. Gastón wouldn’t leave him alone since then, of course, bugging him about how an idiot he was for letting those assumptions stop him from getting the girl, as if he wasn’t MATTEO BALSANO, the king of the rink, the one who always gets everything he wants, and throwing bad puns and references about Luna at any given opportunity.

“No, we are not,” she replies. “He’s my best friend, I know him since I lived in Cancun, why would you think we are dating?” She asks, and he glances away, looking kind of ashamed.

“I just supposed it as you seem to be so close,” he answers, with a shrug. Internally, he is dancing la Macarena, and opening a bottle of tequila. He might indeed do that as soon as he gets to his flat.

Luna and Simon aren’t a couple.

He has a chance.

He needs to make a plan, and fast, step up his game and get a date before she leaves the car. He isn’t going to miss any more time, not after the disaster the past month has been.

“But I guess I was wrong,” he adds, turning off the engine of the car. She makes an overacted face of surprise, and takes her hand to his forehead, as she’s testing if he has fever.

“Are you ok, Chico Fresa?” she asks, her really bad acting making him smile. “You just admitted you were wrong about something, so this is either you dying from some sickness or a miracle,” she teases, and he cackles.

“Ha-ha, Very funny, Chica Delivery,” he takes her hand out of his forehead, even if he would have wanted it to stay there for a little longer. He casually forgets to release it, tho. “Then, if he is not your boyfriend, I guess there wouldn’t be a problem if I invite you out for a milkshake one of these days… like, for example, tonight?” he suggests, knowing he’s risking a lot with this proposal. He slowly releases her hand. After her response he will have either a date with the girl he fancies since they met, or the biggest rejection of his whole life. The only one that would have mattered. “I mean, I owe you that for scaring you today.” Yes, he thought, make it sound as casual as possible.

She frowns.

“I thought we were even after I almost killed you with my backpack,” she replies, and he’s almost sure she will say no, he could feel it in his bones, or maybe those were just his insecurities kicking in. Since he met her, he knows how it feels to be afraid of not being enough for someone, of being rejected. She takes what seems like an eternity to consider his offer. “But, who am I to refuse such an invitation?” He felt his own smile growing on his face, as the cloud of doubt fades away. “Tonight is perfect, I will need lots of sweet after failing my exam,” she confesses.

“You won’t fail it, Chica Delivery. Stop being so negative,” he tries to cheer her up, bopping on her nose, making her wrinkle it. “I’ll pick you up around seven, is it okay for you?” he asks, and she nods with a bright smile.

“It’s a dat…” she interrupts herself, getting as red as a tomato. “I mean, it’s a… a deal,” she stutters and then bites her lower lip. He laughs and nods, but in his mind he is the one doing it.

“It’s a deal,” he agrees, and then both of them say goodbye. He might have intentionally missed her cheek while kissing her goodbye, touching the corner of her lips instead.

“Hey,” she tells him, putting half of her body through the window after closing the door, as her height wouldn’t help her much. “Send me a message when you get home, ok?” she asks him, and he couldn’t help but smile back at her and nod. If he wasn’t before, now he is sure that he is deeply in love with her.

You (sent 3:40am)

I’m home, Chica Delivery.

ChicaDelivery (sent 9:31am)

I’m so sorry, I fell asleep.

And I’m running late for my final!

Thanks for not forgetting about the message.

See you tonight?

You (sent 9:38am)

It’s ok. I hope you get there on time.

And I’m glad you didn’t forget about our deal.

See you tonight, Chica Delivery ;)!

#Soy Luna #lutteoficweek #lutteo #lutteo fanfic #Luna Valente #Matteo Balsano #Soy Luna Fanfic #Written by me #UniversityAU

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tisfan · 7 years ago

Text

Holiday Spending

Chapter 10 -- Fruit of our Labors

All I Buy For Christmas - Renting in the New Year - Will you Steal My Valentine - Up for (Mardi) Grabs - Hopping Down the Money Trail - (In) Memorial Day Sale - (Folding) Paper Anniversary | (Financial) Independence Day | Back to School (Fundraiser)

“... 29 year old male, Caucasian…”

“Applying pressure, where is all this --”

“... cutting him out of this… what is this?” The EMT held up a pair of mangled safety scissors.

Tony blinked, glanced up. “Stark Secure body armor,” he said. He couldn’t bring himself to look away from Bucky’s hand. He was secured in the gurney, face-down so the EMTs could work. His hand was limp, dangling over the side like a pale starfish. Blood dripped down his skin from the shoulder, travelled in thick rivulets over his wrist, and splattered onto the floor of the ambulance. “You won’t be able to cut it. There are velcro closures on the right and left sides.”

“What the hell is it made of?” The EMT was still holding her scissors like a child she was mourning for.

“Cellulose nanocrystals,” Tony responded. He’d been primary in inventing them; part of his Materials and Processes 417 class project that Howard had jumped on, tossed over to R&D with a muttered “guess that’s what I’m paying for” about Tony’s classwork.

The ballistics resistant material was in testing phases, still, but Tony had liberated a few pieces for Bucky’s personal use. If nothing else, they were lighter and more breathable than a standard tactical BPV. Made from plant fiber and coated with molecular crystals, the Stark Secure was supposed to be the better option; the best option. Certainly more protection by the pound, more protection for the dollar. That was supposed to be what it was.

“I’ve got a blood pressure of about 70 over fuck you,” another reported. “Not registering. He’s already deep in shock.”

“No, seriously, you think?”

Someone peeled back the tactical vest, cut away Bucky’s stained tee underneath, dripping with blood. Not… not as much blood as Tony might have expected. He held onto that hope.

That hope lasted about two minutes until Tony got a look at the fucking hole in Bucky’s back. Furious red and black at least the size of Tony’s fists together, just to the right of his spine. Damnit, it couldn’t have hit where the arm and plates already were? Some of that would have deflected--

Blood welled, and the EMT covered it with a thick pad, putting pressure down. Tony would have thought Bucky too out of it to feel pain, but he groaned, thick and guttural. More blood dripped out of his mouth.

“Ok, he’s as stable as we’re getting,” one of the EMTs reported. “Let’s get this bus going before this poor bastard is a DOA.”

“... non-responsive to verbal, BP still not registering…”

“Pulse is weak…”

(more under the readmore, or catch the entire fic at A03)

“... eavy deformity to the upper back, Behind-Armor, Blunt Trauma, bleeding as expected. Pulse 45, respiration rapid, thirty-five. Full spinal immobilization including C-Collar in place per BLS protocol, O2 via NRB at 12LPM. ETA five minutes.”

The two guys in the back nudged around Tony, and one of them poked him, hard, in the shoulder and indicated that he should grab onto a strap. Tony did his best to get out of their way.

Bucky had stopped making noise. He barely seemed to be breathing, although the paramedics didn’t seem too upset by that. Tony looked down at his lap, bracing his feet on the rough metal of the ambulance. There was blood on his pants, his tie. His hands.

Literally, blood on his hands.

Tony had looked through the various ballistics material when developing the nanocrystals; the theory was sound. Tests on dummies had provided a lot of good information. But that wasn’t the same as a flesh and blood human. He wasn’t even sure testing had gotten as far as the gelatin-stuffed proto-test models, the ones that imitated the surface tension -- if not as far as bones and interior organs -- of humans.

What the hell was he thinking, letting Bucky be a first live-fire exercise? Not that Tony had any intentions that Bucky be fired upon, but wasn’t the motto safe, rather than sorry? He thought it might be something like that. Of course, Tony’s personal motto was more like run before crawling, so there was always room for improvement, and even with --

The ambulance jerked to a stop and the EMT shoved Tony against the wall in their hurry to get Bucky out of the back and into the med bay, which Tony thoroughly approved of.

He hopped down, but at that point, someone else caught him by the elbow. “We’ll take really good care of him, Mr. Stark,” someone said. “But for right now, we need you out of the way. Let the doctors do their jobs.”

Tony found himself standing on the pavement, just outside the Emergency Entrance, not quite knowing what to do. Not alone, exactly. There were people around, but they were people who were utterly and completely unconcerned with Tony. Other emergency cases came in and EMT teams wandered around. For people who were in the medical health industry, Tony took note of the fact that many of them smoked cigarettes. He overheard a conversation between two drivers, talking about the problematic drivers who refused to get out of the way; that could kill someone, and Tony found himself absently plotting a new grid-traffic system that could be controlled from dispatch, to clear holes. He brought out his phone, tapped a few notes and sent it away to R&D.

Eventually it occurred to him that there might be paperwork or red tape that Bucky needed to have cut or filled out. As Bucky’s technical employer, as well as his boyfriend, he could assist there.

Tony was always at his best when he had something to do to keep him from dwelling on everything that had happened.

But by the time he made his way around to the check-in and visitor’s section, Jenn had arrived on site. She covered him immediately.

“We don’t know what happened to the shooter,” she confessed, bustling him into the hospital, and then directing him to a private waiting room. That seemed unfair, somehow. It wasn’t that everyone else loved their relations more, or were more important, but that the same time, “no, this is best, Mr. Stark, if someone comes after you for a second chance, we don’t want indiscriminate firing in the lobby, someone entirely uninvolved could get hurt.”

Tony let her lead him away. The white walls of the room -- some spare patient consultation thing, covered with advertisements for pills and diagrams of how the body worked -- were clean, but somehow sad. Jenn checked the exits, pulled the blinds all the way shut.

The whole thing felt very surreal, like Tony wasn’t actually here, wasn’t actually in his body at all. That he was still in front of the restaurant, Bucky’s blood on his hands. “I did this,” he said, looking down. Somewhere, someone had gotten him wiped off, a bit, but his jacket and shirt were still stained and Tony wasn’t sure he could handle it any longer.

“Can you--” He held his hands out for Jenn to see.

Jenn nodded, already on her cellphone. “I’ve pulled together some of your security team,” she said. “They’re on their way in, including Bain, I know you find her a comfort. They’ll bring you a change of clothes and a bit of a way to clean up. It’ll be a while before we know anything, but I’m prepared to stay, if you want to. Anything longer than sixteen hours, however, and we’ll need to relocate you to a safer place, all right, Mr. Stark?”

Was there a safer place?

Tony hadn’t wanted to spend his life ruled by fear, but it wasn’t his life that he was spending anymore, was it?

He nodded, listlessly. “When Bain gets here, see what news you can get, okay, please?”

He collapsed into the flimsy plastic chair, let his face sink into his hands. Smelled Bucky’s blood on him.

Bucky woke up screaming for Tony.

And then he was just screaming.

Pain. Oh, god. Pain. And he was strapped down. He could barely move, and yet he struggled against restraints. His left arm was totally numb, worthless. And his right was on fucking fire.

No. no please, not the other arm.

Bucky could barely turn his head; pain radiated up his spine. He was still screaming, struggling. There were voices and nurses, and the smell of medical antiseptic. Someone was saying his name, but he couldn’t listen, because where the fuck was Tony, where was he?

A cotton smell and the fluff feel at the back of his throat, and he… garlic taste flooded his mouth...

darkness...

tony…

ow.

The second waking was a little less frantic, although pain still clouded everything, hanging over it like thick blankets on the clothesline. Bucky fought his way through to the light; opened his eyes.

It wasn’t too hard to recognize a hospital room. They sucked.

The bed was uncomfortable and his back ached where he was slumped over; not quite reclining, certainly not laying down.

He was covered in tubes; a cannula was looped around his ears, blowing too-dry, too cold oxy-mix up his nose. Two IVs were jammed up in his arm -- at least his arm was still there, thank god, he remembered a burst of panic and black terror that he’d lost his other arm. A thicker tube lay against his hip and the less he knew about where that one went, the happier he’d probably be.

Dozens of monitors and measuring tools were stuck all over him; he resembled nothing more than a tasty fly, waiting for a spider.

As awareness trickled back, the noises were regular, but annoying. A blood pressure cuff inflated itself, squeezing his thigh. Between the IVs and his artificial arm, he guessed they didn’t have room for it elsewhere. Each time it squeezed, it tugged unpleasantly on his leg hair; he was going to have a bruise and a bunch of plucked hairs when they got done with him.

He twisted his neck, trying to see; his right arm was cuffed with a padded leather restraint, held down. The left one unmoving -- he’d been in the hospital before, they probably turned the fucking thing off. The nerve-cluster in the back of his brain that let him feel pressure and operate the device wasn’t pinging, so it probably wasn’t malfunctioning.

No call button.

Fuck, what the hell was he supposed to do now?

Spiraling up into a panic again seemed to be the answer; the heartbeat monitor picked up on his distress first, and then his breathing got erratic.

There was pain, but pain was secondary.

Where the fuck was Tony?

Was Tony okay?

Why… why wasn’t he here?

He turned his head, watched the heartrate monitor go up, and up again until it was beeping with distress. This wasn’t the military where the philosophy was, if you’re on the table, you’re important, and if you’re not, you probably won’t die in the next six hours. A civilian facility had some sort of quality control, right?

His breath jerked in and out of his lungs. He couldn’t breathe through his nose; his mouth dropped open and he took great gasping breaths. His mouth was so dry, thick and cottony. His tongue and teeth were coated with sticky and he couldn’t work up any spit.

The blood pressure cuff activated again, squeezing. An alarm went off for that, too; he could barely read the numbers, but he was pretty sure that was high. Better than low, he supposed.

A strange bubble of calm stayed there in the center of his head while all the other parts of his body checked into Hotel High Anxiety.

He took another few breaths, then fell back on the bed. He couldn’t maintain that level of anxiety, he was too damn exhausted. And then he was in too much pain. Everything hurt. Literally. He went through from nose to toes and couldn’t find a single thing on his body that didn’t ache, throb, pulse, or sent shooting sparks up his nerves.

Pattern recognition was a thing Bucky did; being in the military so long, everything happened in chunks of time. After a while, despite the erratic breathing and the stupidly excessive heart rate, the blood pressure cuff was going off rhythmically. Every fifteen minutes, it squeezed his thigh.

Which gave him some sort of measurement of the passage of time. He drifted off from time to time, waking to blink and wonder all over again where he was, why he hurt so much. Was it night? He couldn’t tell, the ward wasn’t quiet, but hospitals never were. The light under the door was brilliant and he could see feet pass by from time to time.

Eventually, seven times he could recall the machine checking his BP, the door slid open a crack and a shadow moved inside.

His heart rate spiked again, and then the shadow separated itself, stepping into the vague light from machines and monitors.

“Tony.”

Bucky’s voice was barely a croak, a shaking whisper rattle. He wasn’t even sure it was a complete word, but Tony, oh, god, there he was. All rumpled hair and wearing an MIT sweatshirt and looking like he just rolled out of bed. The most beautiful thing Bucky had ever seen.

“Oh, god.” And Tony was there, at his side, fingers absently plucking at the blue and flowered hospital gown that Bucky was wearing. Bucky leaned his head as far as he could to one side until Tony took the hint and brushed his hand down the side of Bucky’s face.

Bucky licked his lips; there wasn’t any spit in his mouth at all, and the sound his tongue made was raspy, alien. Lizard-like. “Water?” It wasn’t what he wanted to say, there were so many things that Bucky wanted to say instead, like how relieved he was that Tony wasn’t shot, that Tony was the most precious thing in the world to him, and that Bucky was just so damn happy that he was okay, that everything was fine. But he didn’t have the breath for that anyway, and his mouth and throat were screaming for something to drink.

“Uh,” Tony muttered, staring around. The room was mostly dark, the most light crept in from around the door, but eventually Tony found a tray on the far side of the room with a styrofoam cup. He rattled it, and the sound of ice and slushie water swirling in it send flames up through Bucky’s throat.

Tony unfolded a plastic straw and stuck it in the cup. “Just a little, baby,” he said. “I don’t know if they’re gonna want you for a surgery.”

The half-sip or so that Bucky managed before just leaning forward enough to let the straw touch his mouth was gone too soon. And yet, he fell back against the mattress, trying to suppress his groan of agony.

Everything hurt. His fucking shoulder hurt worst, pain that spiraled up from his fingertips, wrapped around his arm like concertina wire, scissoring and fresh and silver, all the way up. “Why’s my head hurt?” Bucky asked. It wasn’t like he could check anything. He could barely move, and his arm was strapped down.

Tony made a face -- Bucky wasn’t even sure there was a name for the expression that twisted up Tony’s mouth. “You got shot, baby.”

Essense of no, really.

“Yeah, got that,” Bucky said. He licked at his mouth again; now that there was spit there, he was a little more conscious about how nasty his mouth felt. Coppery and full of cotton. His teeth were coated with a scrim of plaque. Still, his head hurt. Not like a headache -- although he’d be a fucking liar if he said he didn’t have a headache. That would have been bad enough, but there was a stinging, slicing pain, just above the back of his neck.

It wasn’t the pain, although that was bad enough in its own right. The sick, blinding fear that he’d lost the use of his right arm -- and that hadn’t even let go, not a little bit, it crouched at the back of his mind like a feral animal, ready to bite and pounce and tear if he took his eyes off it for a second. Now that he had eyes on Tony, some of the despair was gone. But at the same time, he couldn’t see himself.

A doctor hadn’t been in to see him, and Bucky was hovering over a pit of ignorance. He had no idea how bad his injuries were. The look on Tony’s face, a skittering of his gaze, alternating with the way he stared at Bucky’s face, it couldn’t have been good.

And Bucky was a coward. He couldn’t seem to bring himself to ask.

“The shooter--”

“Don’t you worry about that, honey,” Tony said. He couldn’t seem to stop touching Bucky, his face, the side of his neck, fingers dancing down Bucky’s chest. Even though it hurt, each touch and tap were like having the apple-soft center of a bruise poked, Bucky couldn’t ask him to stop. Didn’t want him to stop. Wished he had his arm free, so he could return the favor. Each drop of pain was just a little more realism.

“Don’t-- don’t worry? Tony, you’re still at risk, and I’m… stuck here and --” he struggled against his injuries, the tie-down. He didn’t mean to, but it was…

dark

slithered around him like snake...

The next time Bucky was aware that he was awake -- according to the one nurse that he talked to some time in the deep early morning, he’d been drifting in and out for several days now, not a thing that made him happy, and that sometimes he was awake and aware, but that he wasn’t absorbing those conversations, so every time he woke up, they were having to go through it again -- the straps on his arm were gone, but his arm still hurt so much that moving it was torture.

He did have a call-button, though, so he pressed it.

“Mr. Barnes,” the nurse said, efficient and cheerful. She gave him a few sips of ginger-ale that sat unpleasantly on his stomach for a bit before his body decided to let him have it. “You came out of surgery well, how are you feeling?”

“Surgery?”

“Your acromioclavicular joint was separated, and you have three distinct scapula fractures. On the plus side, Mr. Barnes, since we were in there anyway, the doctor took the liberty of upgrading your bracing hardware for the prosthetic. Once you’re back to seventy percent, at least, you should notice some better movement, and certainly less pain. Technically, we did it to make sure that therapy on the opposite arm was effective. But, consider it like a bonus.”

The way the nurse laughed, Bucky didn’t have to wonder what his expression looked like. “The shooter?”

His nurse glanced at him. “You are single-minded,” she said.

No, Bucky thought. It was just that he didn’t remember. He knew someone had told him, but between the pain medications and the surgeries, he wasn’t holding on to information. There was something vaguely wrong with that, something that made him desperately uneasy, but he couldn’t even hold onto it long enough to get his fret on.

“Just tell me,” Bucky said.

The nurse checked a few of his vitals, humming thoughtfully. “They think it was that boy,” she said, finally. “That college football player, the--” then pressed her hand to Bucky’s chest as he surged forward.

“Rumlow,” Bucky said. Ow. Why did she have to shove him like that.

“That’s the one. Stay put, Mr. Barnes.”

His heartrate was already spiking, blood pressure cuff doing its thing.

That didn’t make any sense; what the hell would Rumlow gain from murdering Tony now? He was already out of school, just because Tony was dead, it -- ow, fuck, there went his chest again, just thinking of Tony dead and cold and unmoving was enough to ache -- wouldn’t change anything. Not for Rumlow, at least.

“That’s stupid,” Bucky finally managed to say.

The nurse sighed, pulled an injection kit from her pocket. “You keep saying that,” she said. She stared at him, her eyes huge and wide and somehow not quite innocent. “Why do you think that? Did you see something, the day of the hit?”

“Huh?” Why the hell would a nurse care about something like that? He was vaguely befuddled that she knew even that much about it; although he supposed if he’d asked about it a few times, some of the shift-staff might have gotten the run down, just to answer the questions.

“Oh well,” she said. She tapped the needle a few times. “You’re well compromised by this point. No one’s gonna believe anything you say, even if you saw anything at all. Head wound, brain damage. Mental trauma. Not a reliable witness.” She pulled the cap off the kit and took a step to the side.

Something cold slithered into Bucky’s belly. “What are you doing?”

“It’s just for the pain, Mr. Barnes,” she said. “Once you get excitable like that, you--”

“No,” Bucky said, firmly. Didn’t a nurse, a real nurse, flush the site with saline before injecting anything into the shunt? Why… why couldn’t he remember anything for more than one waking period at a time.

He looked more closely at the nurse.

“Bain.”

She sighed. “Don’t draw too many conclusions, Mr. Barnes,” she said. “You’ll blow my cover, and that’ll make me cranky. If you just stay asleep, all of this will be over, and I don’t really want to kill you. Too much mess to cover up.”

Bucky struggled, but he was so weak, and everything hurt so much.

“Don’t worry,” Sunset Bain said. “You don’t have to be afraid. You won’t even remember this…”

That was precisely what Bucky was worried about.

What had she said, earlier, about the bracing hardware; they’d updated his arm, his prosthetic?

Bucky twitched, just barely heard the servos in his left arm and stilled his fingers again. He let a low, helpless whimper escape from his throat. “Please…”

“He’s not worth all this, I hope you know that,” she said, coming closer. “Spoiled little rich boy; he has no idea what he’s doing, the company is infinitely more valuable to the lives of our American soldiers without him behind the wheel. You should appreciate that, Mr. Barnes. There’s no need for you to have been so injured. Drone soldiers, they’re the way to go.”

“Is that how you shot Tony? With a drone?”

“Ah, well, there are some satisfactions to my work, a little personal touch, that means so much.”

Braced. Waiting.

She stepped closer, needle out. She reached for the shunt, pressed the tip of the needle into the soft plastic ring.

Bucky twisted.

Oh, fuck. Everything lit on fire; his spine, his arm, his shoulder.

But he twisted anyway.

Got the full use of his hips behind it, swinging the prosthetic up and over; he could barely bend his elbow, so it wasn’t a punch, just a heavy blow, the full weight of steel alloy and plastics underneath. He’d had to learn to move it, it was so damned heavy when he’d first gotten it, he’d walked lopsided for months.

Bain shrieked in surprise as he rolled, but she’d been caught unaware.

The sound she made when the arm struck her was small, almost a whimper, and she went down in a splatter of blood and a crunch of bone.

Bucky screamed. The pins and supports in his spine were electic agony as the weight of the arm, still mostly immobile, pulled and yanked at him.

Call button. Call button.

Bucky fumbled, felt something tear in his shoulder. Found the remote and mashed it.

There were footsteps, running. He didn’t care.

Bain was struggling, weakly, on the floor. Squirming. Trying to crab away.

Whatever was in that syringe… foggy, fading… Bucky shifted again, grabbed hold of the IV tube with his teeth, as close to the site as he could manage. Bent the tube in his mouth and bit down.

He…

darkness...

“You’re so fired,” Tony said.

Bucky was struggling with the fog and disorientation that came from yet another round of surgeries.

This time, at least, he’d woken up with Tony’s hand firmly in his, with his prosthetic alive and buzzing with new information. With a brightly lit room and a feeling of safety.

“Why?”

“Why, he asks?”

Behind Tony, Jenn Walters gave Bucky a thumbs up, then slipped out of the room.

“Because I don’t think I can go through this again, baby,” Tony said. He pushed Bucky’s hair away from his face. “I know, I know, your month’s been worse, but this may well have been the worst week of my life.”

“Did I miss anything new?” Bucky asked.

The on-again, off-again memory loss bothered him more than he knew how to say. Every time he woke up in the morning, hospital walls around him, someone had to fill him in. Repeat everything that had happened since that bullet struck the vest.

Bain… she’d fucked him up, but good.

“We got Bain to roll on her boss,” Tony said. “She’ll do ten, with time off for good behavior. Probably back out on the streets in seven. I’m not entirely happy with that, but her face is all over the papers, so hopefully she won’t be able to snow anyone else as thoroughly as she’s done to us. It’s hard to be an assassin if everyone knows what you look like.”

Bucky managed a very painful shrug. “There’s surgeries. And other countries.”

“Yeah, don’t remind me,” Tony said. He swallowed hard. “Turned out, she was being financed by Obadiah Stane.”

“Your godfather?”

The look that flittered across Tony’s face was both pain and annoyance. He’d probably told Bucky this before. “Yeah. Turned out, he was behind my parents, too. That third body? One of his stooges that was supposed to make sure my parents were dead after a hitman slammed into their car. He got run over by accident. If the hitman hadn’t left the body behind, we might never have had enough warning…”

Bucky made a small, soft sound. He didn’t think he could bear it, if something had happened to Tony. Knew he couldn’t have.

“So what’s this got to do with why I’m off th’ job?”

“I have a new job for you,” Tony said, brushing invisible wrinkles out of his tee.

Bucky’s eyebrow went up. “Do you?”

“Well, I suppose the question is, more, will you?” Tony reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, velvet box. The kind that everyone knew. Bucky heard the heart rate monitor speed up, echoed by the feeling of his pulse in his ears and throat.

Tony cracked the lid, and the ring was Tony, all the way. Golden metal swirling around rubies, the band thick enough that if Bucky put it on his hand, it’d cover from knuckle to knuckle. Not ostentatious, but obviously expensive. Tasteful.

Bucky cleared his throat, a rumbling sort of cough, and then, he thought, maybe he could breathe again.

“Ohgod.”

There went that eyebrow again.

“You’ve asked me before,” Bucky said, suddenly.

“Yes,” Tony said.

“Have I turned you down yet?” He knew that answer, of course. He never, ever would. Tony was his whole life.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Tony said, shrugging like it didn’t matter.

“I may not be able t’ hold onto my mind,” Bucky said, shuddering a little, “but what’s in my heart, Tony? That ain’t gonna change. Yes. You already know it. Yes.”

#winteriron #prompts #tony x bucky #tony stark #bucky barnes #holiday spending AU #September #medical stuff #violence #drama #angst #this fic #the author has regrets

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prettiestrice · 7 years ago

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Jour 10: Notre Dame!! Mercredi, 31 Mai 2017.

So today I woke up, petit dejeuner, etc etc. I had my first visite with my history class (have I mentioned that I love my prof?) which was to Notre Dame. So I left the house literally at 8:30 lol and got there at 9 and we weren’t supposed to get there till 10 so who is the big dummy. & I didn’t even remember my diary so I couldn’t write BUT I did pick up Le Pere Goirot which I really need to read for class cause it’s hard af. Anyway so I sat there then Alvaro came then Tucker came and we talked. I was LITERALLY sitting outside Notre Dame reading a book. How amazing is that?

I look pregnant in that photo. Anyway, when the class arrive he started to give us a tour. First, outside Notre Dame is the first point of Paris. Notre Dame sits on the L’Ile de la Cite, which is the originally part of Paris like thats where Paris started, and so on the ground like where that person is kneeling to the left, is a gold thing on the ground marked as the Point Zero for the city of Paris!!!! So cool! (I didn't take a pic --- also I wanna talk about about the Ile later) anyway he was explaining to us about it. It’s gothique architecture obviously. The front face of the church is called the Facade. Inside the many body where the pews and everything should be is the Nef (sp?). And the heart of the church which is the tabernacle and altar and everything is called the coeur. Accurately translated as heart to English.

If you look closer a sign of it being Gothique is the 3 doors, which you can’t see from here but are all gold with like black iron ivy decorations very intensely done. It’s beautiful.

Here is a pic of the names for things. He gave us all the names in French obviously because it’s a French history class but I forget a lot of them and I couldn’t find a French diagram online. Also, the name for the two towers he DEFINITELY didn't give to us as Towers (Tours) so Idk what he said they were called.

Then we went around the side and walked the whole way around. It is SO BEAUTIFUL. It has Gardens in the back (I’ll post all my pics in a separate post) and just SO pretty. He explained to us about the things in the back that are built like ten feet away from the church but push the walls in to like keep it standing. Don’t remember the name of those. It was so cool.

This is the Portal of the Last Judgement on the diagram which is the central doors which we took a closer look at. LITERALLY THE COOLEST THING EVER LOOK AT ALL THE DETAIL. You can see about the door in the second section is like Saints on our left side, devils/demons on the right and they are fighting over what I think is a child. You can see the second underneath them is like in pain and worried and scared. And all the saints literally everywhere. Literally the coolest thing ever.

Anyway, so we walked around then finally went inside (We didn’t go up so I gotta make sure to do that on a different day). It was jam packed but amazing. We walked through and saw all the little chapels and he explained to us, there is this center section like where the pews should be but aren’t that is like a 20 foot tall way that like separates the left side from the right side of the church and there is like space inside it like it’s almost like a giant ceiling-less room created by this wall in the middle of Notre Dame. Anyway, on it is depicted scenes from the life of Jesus. Starting with his birth you can see. Then the Epiphany where the 3 wise men come and give him gifts. Then like the evil earthly kings tryna kill babies but Jesus escapes because St. Joseph is like the best foster father ever. LITERALLY. Honestly sometimes when I see pictures of Saint Joseph I weep because how amazing is he? Like he literally doesn’t get his wife pregnant Like she freaking immaculately conceives a child and he has so much faith that he stays with her and trusts God and raises this child who ends up dying for all of us. And like I just idk he died when Jesus was young but Jesus turns out all right man like idk I’m just weeping as I write this because St. Joseph is one cool and vastly under-appreciated man. Anyway, then is showed the Wedding at Cana where Jesus turns water into wine. I wish I had pictures of them all but I hate taking pics in churches so you can just google this lol.

Okay then we left because we had class at noon back at IES. I’m gonna go back because I wanna go up into the towers and I LOVED IT. Also, it is difficult because the people here are definitely nicer than I originally thought and it turns out that like 2 of them are Catholic (not REALLY practicing) and 2 others are pretty religious like, Christians, of some sort. But truthfully all I really wanna do is go into churches and pray and go to daily mass every day in French at a new church and none of them are into that lol ugh

Then I had class blah blah blah. The rest of the day was pretty boring. OH. When I went on a run It was supposed to be 3 miles but turned into 3.5. So I started running down rue de la convention towards the Seine. When I got to it, I turned right to run alongside it towards the eiffel tower. That was amazing because what an extraordinary view right?! I got to the end of the sidewalk and turned back around and then turned on the big road BEFORE Rue de la convention so I ran down that for like 5 minutes then realized it was RDLC. So I freaked out because I didn't even have my phone on me. So I just kept running hoping I’d find my way but I turned down the side street and two guys on a motorbike cat-called me which was terrifying. I finally got home and didn’t even get hit by a car at all.

OH then I ate dinner which was a very good salad with avocado and lettuce and tomato and a raw vegetable of sorts which may have been potato????? and an unidentified meat that I legit have no idea what it was. It was yummy but I wish I wasn’t so afraid to ask what I was eating.

Also I LOVE THAT THEY EAT CHEESE AFTER DINNER. It’s so great. Ahh.

#paris #study abroad #notre dame de paris #just cua things

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redconfidential-blog · 7 years ago

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I’ve been up and away again. This time, to visit the Queen! Okay, that was an exaggeration but, I’ve been in Great Britain for a few weeks, touring some parts of Her Majesty’s Kingdom and as usual, I will be sharing my experience with you! But first, let’s talk about Britain and its people.

Before I go any further, it is important to explain that despite being used interchangeably, the British Isles, United Kingdom, Great Britain, and England actually refer to different things. The diagram below explains this difference succinctly.

The Difference Source: http://brilliantmaps.com/eng-gb-uk/

British Culture I’ve come across unintelligent comments on social media like “white people don’t have culture” and that just isn’t true. Mostly Caucasian, Brits are generally soft-spoken and extremely polite. They are reserved or snobbish as my Brit friend said. They aren’t likely to start a conversation with a stranger but if you started one, they’d respond pleasantly. Most people are helpful with directions and general inquiry and if you are familiar enough, you’ll be invited to have some tea.

With regards to fashion, Brits sense of style is very muted, with most of their clothes in dull colours like pale pink, grey, navy, dark blue or black, and their jewellery very discrete. Generally, they seem not to have a single flamboyant bone in their bodies. The women love leggings, and the teenage girls pair them with cropped tops despite the biting cold. The majority seem not to be wearing any underwear, not that it’s a punishable offence.

Brits and Tea

His name is Shadow

Now, if you’ve wondered where the phrase “every man and his dog” came from, I’m quite certain it’s Great Britain. For most Nigerians, our dogs are primarily security guards, bred to bark and alert us of intruders, and if necessary in the course of duty, take a bite or two of them. A Nigerian with his dog outside the home is most likely going to the vet. But it’s quite different with Brits, who appear to really love their dogs and seem to go almost everywhere with them. On the bus, the train, the morning run, taking a walk, everywhere you look, there’s a dog right next to the baby in the buggy and they come in all kinds of breeds. From the sausage-like ones that give new meaning to hot dogs, to the massive, well-fed and wolf-like, that breathe life to the direwolves of the North. To my surprise and delight, they are mostly well behaved, friendly even.

As much as they love dogs, most Brits appear to also enjoy gardening. On Sunday morning while we are getting dressed and rushing to church, many of them are otherwise purposefully dressed, down on all fours pruning and planting, and they do a good job of it too. These gardens spot the most beautiful flowers and very often fist-size roses.

Landscape The British countryside is a lot like walking into a bedtime story. I grew up on Ladybird books with stories and poems that talked about castles, houses with chimneys that Santa could climb down at Christmas, picturesque woodlands, sheep in the meadow and the grass rippling in the wind, and classic lonely cottages where the witch could be about to cook Hansel and Gretel, all so surreal. Unlike in Nigeria, no one’s sheep or cattle is roaming free on the road. They are all respectfully confined to their farms.

Money The Great British Pounds (£, GBP) otherwise known as Pounds Sterling is the official currency of Great Britain. It is one of the strongest currencies in the world, ranked 4th most-traded in forex markets, after the United States Dollar ($, USD), the Euro(€), and the Japanese Yen(¥). Bringing this home, one Pound Sterling sells for 470 Naira, and one pound is a coin.

Coins from Coin Purse

GBP Coins

Coins and Notes

This brings me to my first inconvenience: Carrying and Spending Coins. Unlike Nigerian currency, coins here are valuable. Drop a one or two-pound coin, and you have lost N1000. The least valuable coins are one and two pence, the “red” ones, equal to 5 and 10 Naira approximately. To get rid of as many of them as possible, I had to do some mental maths and a lot of counting.

Weather In my limited experience, the weather south of Britain is much better than up north. I’m told the best time to visit is between June and September. It’s still cold compared to Nigeria but it’s so much more bearable. Most of the time, a hot bath and some tea kept me warm. I’d like to visit during the winter just so I can see it snow, but the way they describe the bitter cold, I don’t think I’ll survive it.

Sunrise

Me freezing

Sunset

Another inconvenience was Sunset and Sunrise. That thing about longer days and shorter nights we didn’t really grasp in geography class? It’s real here. I crawled out of bed to pee at about 4.00am and light was sipping in through the curtained windows. The sun was rising! I couldn’t believe it, especially since the sun didn’t completely set till about 10.00pm the previous night. With only 5 hours of true darkness, it was difficult to sleep or keep track of the day. It looked like 2.00pm outside but it was actually 6.00pm.

Language Thanks to colonialism, communication in Great Britain is easy because we speak English fluently. However, I learnt that it is necessary to speak slowly and to pronounce one’s words slower and carefully so the Brits can understand, because believe it or not we have a Nigerian accent. This is why people who are foreign-based pick up a foreign accent. It’s not to sound bourgie, it’s just an adaptation to the society they have been in.

Drinking Tap Water

Drinking Tap Water We don’t drink water straight from the tap in Nigeria. In fact, if you do that in Lagos you are most likely to end up in the hospital. We drink bottled water when we are financially buoyant or pure (sachet) water otherwise. In Britain, it’s the exact opposite. According to Prof Paul Younger, of Glasgow University, “Water coming from UK taps is the most stringently tested in the world,”. The tap water is checked daily under a rigorous inspection regime and is widely believed to be safer than bottled water. This was really difficult for me to adapt to. Getting drinking water straight from the tap always felt unhygienic. In thirst, I’d fill my cup but only take down a few sips. This left me dehydrated a lot of the time.

Trying British Foods I enjoyed some typical British foods but I kept a lid on it because my budget was small.

Full English Breakfast which is otherwise known as a fry up is made up of sausages, some bacon, baked beans, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and bread. Nothing really special in my humble opinion, because we have all of these at home.

Scones are a mouthful everyone should try. It’s more or less hard cake.

Crumpets are my favourite only because they look divine in pictures. They are really just bread made in a pan and they go well with jam and butter. They are a little too salty for my taste but I intend to make a saltless version when I get back home to Abuja.

Branson Pickles are an absolute delight in a ham sandwich

Marmite is salty and absolutely disgusting. Don’t even touch it.

Worcestershire Sauce is the one no one really knows how to pronounce. WorCHester or WorSester, it’s great in Ceasar salad and perfect in meat marinate. Get some.

Finally, you have to try Cornish Pasty by West Cornwall Pastry Co. Thier potato wedges are beyond delicious and for a decent price of one pound. It was so good I didn’t remember to take pictures fo you all, so I have included a few stock images.

Trekking Up and Down The transportation system here is very organised and for the most part timely, so most people use the bus or the train to get around. Consequently, you have to trek to the bus stop or train station. As a Nigerian, I differentiate walking and trekking based on 2 things; distance and purpose. If it is leisurely and short, it’s walking. if it is purposeful, brisk and longer than 12minutes, it’s trekking. Cab fares here are quite steep and an ordinary 20-minutes walking distance can easily cost you some 10 quid which is some N5000! So I trekked. I trekked in the sun and even in the rain (because it started raining out of the blue and cabs aren’t readily available like in Nigeria) while being mindful of stepping in dog poop like dodging landmines.

Running Shoes

On the upside, while trekking, I didn’t sweat because the weather was cold, but I had to pee often, and my fitness improved tremendously. In all of this walking, trekking and running, I cannot overemphasise how much you need a good pair of running shoes. If you overpronate like I do, Nike Zoom Structure is the shoe for you.

Using the Train As if trekking isn’t enough, finding my way around the train station was mind-boggling. I very often found myself running from one platform to another and back, trying to find and catch the right train. Fortunately, and unlike the Indian Metro, these trains have very comfortable seats.

Swindon Train Station

First Great Western Train

Train Tickets and Change

Some trains had wifi and sockets to charge your phones, laptops and other handheld devices. They had on-board toilets and a food cart selling cookies, sandwiches, beverages and other life-saving edibles. You are likely to undervalue these services and facilities until you are in for a 3-hour ride.

Overall, Great Britain is a good place to visit and relax, not just because there’s no language barrier, but for its tourist sites and heritage which I will focus on in my next post. In the meantime, root out your passports!

Discovering Great Britain I've been up and away again. This time, to visit the Queen! Okay, that was an exaggeration but, I've been in Great Britain for a few weeks, touring some parts of Her Majesty's Kingdom and as usual, I will be sharing my experience with you!

#Britain #Crumpets #Dogs #Farming #featured #flowers #food #Houses #Lagos #Nigeria Abuja #Tea #Trains #Trekking #water

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