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maxineswritingcenter · 3 years

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Maybe in Another Life - Dean x fem!reader part 4

In this universe, Chuck had won, Dean, Sam, and (Y/N) were the only ones left. They must find another reality to live so they can find a way to bring back their own. But after getting separated, (Y/N) must find her Dean while working with this universe’s hunters.

Also Season 15 spoilers

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2005

(Y/N) was a young hunter down on her luck. She was on her last twenty bucks and her last tank of gas. She wanted to get this hunt done so she could go down to Vegas to hustle a couple old men out of a couple hundred bucks. Selling pictures of her body wasn’t honest work, but it was work.

For right now, hunting was more of a duty than a pay bill, her parents had been killed by a vampire clan with (Y/N) narrowly escaping. So when she heard that the vampires who killed her parents were back in town, she wanted revenge. The only problem was that she had to team up with John Winchester. The guy was a complete hardass, military-like instructions. He had little to no respect for anyone, including his own kid.

After the hunt and telling Mr. Winchester the place on her body that he could place his dusty, crusty lips on, she was walking back to her car or as she liked to call it, the mansion. Behind her, she could hear a car pull up and John Winchester saying he would be back soon. She looked over her shoulder, seeing John getting in a car and his son, Dean watching the car leave.

His eyes then landed on her. Dean started jogging towards her car. This outta be good. The guy was a flirt... A good flirt, but a flirt nonetheless. But something told her that behind shell was a heart of gold and so much trauma, it reminded her a lot of herself. Alone in a dark world that kept getting darker.

“What’s wrong? Daddy dearest kick you out?” She asked as she opened the door and threw her bag into the passenger seat.

“Uh no, he went out on his own for a hunt.” He looked at the ground awkwardly, “I wanna apologize about him. He’s kind of-”

“An asshole?” She finished the sentence.

Dean slipped his hands into his pockets, “I was gonna say rough around the edges.”

“If by rough you mean sandpaper.” She looked at him, “Sure.”

Dean smiled, his bright green eyes sparkling, “I guess. Uh, where you headed?”

She sighed and looked at him, “I dunno. Wherever I can earn my next dollar.” She got into her car and closed the door, turning the key. And turning the key. The key, turning. Car not starting.

“Son of a bitch!” She slammed her hand against the wheel. Dean gave her a innocent looked, leaning down into her window.

“Did you know this model is notorious for just not working?”

She looked back at him, “I am well aware.” She rested her head against the steering wheel, “It was all I could afford at the time. And now I’m screwed.”

“Well...” He opened her door, “You could hitch a ride with me.” She turned her head, narrowing her eyes at him.

“What’s the catch? Because this.” She motioned to her body, “Aint free.”

Dean backed off quickly, holding his hands up in surrender, “Woah woah, sweetheart. I ain’t that kinda guy. Not that you’re not...” He looked her up in down, “Incredibly beautiful. But I feel like you deserve it after my dad said what he said.”

“You mean when he told me that the reason the vampires killed my parents was because I wasn’t strong enough at the ripe age of ten?” She got out of the car, grabbing her bag.

“Yeah, pretty much.” He smirked, “I also wanted to apologize for that over a slice of pie at that diner we passed on the way into town.” She hummed, tapping her chin as she walked to the back of her car, hitting it just right so that the trunk opened.

“I don’t have any money.” She said, “So I can’t pay you back until later.”

“I don’t have money either.” He shrugged, reaching into the trunk and grabbing a suitcase of all her worldly possessions, “I’m just really good at shooting pool.”

“Hey dad, it’s Dean again... Why aren’t you answering your phone? And what the hell was that voicemail you left me?” (Y/N) watched Dean grip onto the payphone tightly. They were sitting outside an apartment near Stanford university where Dean was going to talk his brother into trying to find their dad on a hunt that he hadn’t come back and hadn’t answered his phone. In the days since Dean and (Y/N) had been driving, they had actually gotten to know each other very well, they were becoming close friends.

After the line went dead, Dean got back into the Impala and cursed, gripping onto the steering wheel.

“Look, you don’t have to be apart of this if you don’t want to.” Dean looked at (Y/N).

She shook her head, “You’re not getting rid of me that easy, Dean-Bean.” She reached into her bag of cherry twizzlers, taking a bite, “Plus.” She said around the candy, “He may be an asshole, but he probably needs help.”

Dean chuckled, leaning over and taking a bite of the twizzler in her hand, “I appreciate it, sweetheart.” He winked.

“Awh.” She pouted dramatically, “I don’t get a fun nickname?”

“How about snookums?”

“Oh absolutely not.” She laughed.

“Honeybunches?”

“No.”

“Sugar booger?”

“The Spanish word for no is no.”

Dean shook his head, “Alright, alright. How about sweetheart when you’re sweet, and sweet-tart when you’re a little crabby?”

“I do not get crabby.” She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Really?” He raised his eyebrows at her.

She rolled her eyes, reaching down on the floor of the car in front of her and pulling a burger out of the bag, “Shut up and eat.”

2006

After the semi truck crashed into them, John, Sam, and (Y/N) were left with minor injuries while Dean was left in critical condition. He was in a coma, hooked up to a wall of machinery and a breathing tube in his throat.

(Y/N) had been confined to her room with a broken ankle, kept in touch by Sam who would come in to explain what was happening. Dean was in the space between life and death and John was going to summon the demon he had been searching for to get revenge against him for... well, for everything.

As she lay in her bed, tears in her eyes, she spoke to no one, but hoped he was listening.

“I don’t know if you’re hear right now, Dean. But...” She inhaled deeply, “But I want you to know that I love you.” She chuckled, “And I know you’re probably thinking that I’m only saying this because you’re having your out of body experience moment and you could die. The reality is that I love you. You put up that flirty, whore persona, but I know who you really are. Those nights when we’re alone and we talk about our lives together and depression backstories. I’ve never trusted anyone more. And I love you. So...” She looked around, “So please, don’t die on me. I don’t know if I can do this without you.”

Finally, (Y/N) had managed to get into a wheel chair in the night, the night that Dean woke up. The night John died in the basement of the hospital, giving his life for Dean’s.

Sam was passed out asleep in a chair next to Dean’s bed while Dean was wide awake, staring out the window.

“Hey...” She said softly, rolling up to the side of his bed. He glanced at her, a small smile pulled at his lips.

“How’s it goin’, hot wheels?”

She sighed, “You were literally in limbo this morning, but now we’re laughs?”

“Gotta get through the pain somehow.” He looked back towards the window. She reached out and took his hand, giving it a slight squeeze.

“I’m sorry about your dad.” She said, “My last words weren’t kind to him. If I would have known...”

Dean shook his head, “Nah, you had every right to talk to him like that. Especially after the last few days.” He looked down at her, “I heard you by the way.”

Her eyes widened, “No, you didn’t.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“No, no, you didn’t.”

“You called me a whore.” He spoke in a hushed voice, taking a small glance at Sam before looking back at (Y/N).

“Well, you are.” She shrugged, “Kinda.”

Dean rolled his eyes and sighed, “Look... My point is... The feelings are mutual.” Her eyes widened.

“I was on death’s door, I’m not gonna deny what I’m feeling anymore.” He brought her hand up to his lips and pressed a soft kiss on her knuckles, “I love you.”

As they started searching around the town, Sam was finally able to get ahold of Dean.

“Dean? Dean, is everything alright?” Sam asked into the phone. Jack and (Y/N) head’s snapped back towards Sam on the phone. Her heart felt a little less heavy then. Dean was alive and that meant she hadn’t lost everything.

“Okay, we’re in downtown Hastings, we really need to plan out our next move.” Sam said. After a moment, Sam looked up at her, “Yeah, she’s still here.”

That was the other thing that made her heart feel heavy, call it survivors guilt. She came from a dead universe, just like all those hunters had, and she was still there.

It was scary being on an empty planet. You never realize how much noise the world made until the world had gone silent. Everyone in Hastings was gone. Everyone in Minnesota was gone. The whole world. They were all that was left. They made to an intersection on an empty street. Cars stopped or crashed where they were last operated. The soft puttering of the Impala made them pause. Dean parked it on the street corner, getting out and looking around the abandoned town.

Dean walked over to the group, closest to (Y/N), reaching down and holding her hand. She welcomed this touch, knowing it well. He was devastated, he needed something to ground to the world. He was shaking slightly, not enough to be detected by the human eye.

“Everyone's gone.” Sam said, “You see anybody on the way here?”

“No.” Dean answered, sounding like he didn’t believe it himself.

“I couldn't save anybody. Billie-”

“It wasn't Billie. It was Chuck.” Dean said.

“What?” Sam and (Y/N) asked together.

“Where's Cas?” Jack asked. It was only then that she realized that Cas was no where to be found. And when Jack said his name, Dean’s hand clenched down on hers.

“Dean?” Sam asked hesitantly.

Dean looked everywhere but the Nephilim, “He saved me. Billie was coming after us, and Cas summoned the Empty. It took her. And it took him. Cas is gone.” Jack looked like his whole world had fallen apart, and it had. His father was gone.

“This can't be happening.” Sam shook his head. Maybe in a state of shock.

“It is, Sam. I think everyone's gone.” Sam shook his head, bringing his phone out and making a call.

Dean dropped her hand, walking to the young boy, “Jack, I'm sorry.” (Y/N) stayed in his position in the street, looking around.

This was impossible. They had no option. No plan. It all seemed so hopeless. Maybe she couldn’t save them... She couldn’t save this world. How could she save a world that was already gone?

They made their way to a diner in town and made their way inside to regroup. The diner looked like everyone had dropped what they were doing - eating- and disappeared. Food was still on the table, the fryer was still crackling in the kitchen. On the television was what was supposed to be a football game, but all the screen showed was an empty stadium and an empty field.

“Hey,” Dean motioned to the TV, “It brings a whole new meaning to the term "sudden death." He turned the bar’s tap off so the stream of beer coming from the stout ceased.

“Do you think we're it?” Sam asked, “All that's left?”

Dean chuckled darkly, “Yeah. You, me, her, Jack.” He looked out to the window where Jack was sitting on a large cement planter. He asked for space to come to terms with the fact that Castiel was gone. He needed it. Honestly, they all needed it. She had lost Cas before, but losing him again was twice as hard. Dean had poured himself a pint. Alcohol had always been his vice.

Soon enough though, Jack made his way inside, staring at the hunters, “Hey. So, um, what now?”

“I did this.” Sam spoke up, “We could have just given Chuck what he wanted, you know, his grand finale. But I resisted. I pulled the thread. I thought we could beat this game, do it better. We tried to rewrite him, and the whole world paid the price.” Sam looked at (Y/N), “I’m sorry. But you’re mission to save us... I ruined it.”

“Sam, we can-”

“We can what?” Sam interrupted his brother, “There's nothing left, Dean. No one left to save. Everybody's gone.”

“You can't just give up.” Jack spoke up.

“What other choice do we have?” Sam snapped back.

Sam and Dean decided to hash it out with Chuck, agree to his ending of brother against brother. If it meant that they could get things back to the way it was, maybe they could try something new. They had dropped (Y/N) and Jack off at the bunker before leaving.

The two were left at the bunker, hoping the plan would work, but frankly their nerves were shot that hope seemed like a fever dream. (Y/N) had made food but both of them were too emotionally devastated to really eat.

As (Y/N) was cleaning up dishes, Jack walked into the kitchen silently.

“(Y/N)?” He asked.

She turned and gave him a soft smile, “Yeah?”

Jack came around, grabbing a dish towel and slowly drying off a bowl, “I was just wondering what I was like in your world.”

She hummed, “You’re pretty much the same. I think you ate a little more nougat though.”

“I feel like I was happier.” He said, drying a cup.

“Why’s that?”

Jack paused his drying and looked up at her, “Because I would have had you since the beginning. You have been so kind and warm to me. Even after all the things I’ve done.”

She looked at him, handing him a plate, “Jack-a-bug, you have powers that angels have had millennia to master.” She looked at him, “You’re still learning. When you’re learning sometimes you do things you didn’t mean to and you feel awful. But for how long you’ve been with us, with how much you’ve learned, I think you’re doing great.”

Jack nodded and then looked at her with a head tilt that reminded her so much of her friend in the trench coat, “Jack-a-bug?” He asked.

She let out a small laugh, “Oh yeah.” She shook her head, “That’s what I called my Jack. I had a lot of nicknames for you. Sweet boy, Dean two, Jack-a-bug. I’m pretty sure he hated it though.”

“No.” He said, “I like them. They make me feel... Special.”

She smiled, cupping his cheek, “That’s because you are. Not because you’re a Nephilim. Because you’re ours.” He smiled weakly, then excused himself to bed.

(Y/N) was sitting at the world map table, waiting for the brothers to get home. When they did, she stood up from the table, look expectantly. Sam only shook his head and went straight to his room. Dean however stood in the entrance of the room.

“What’d he say?” She asked. She had an idea of the answer, but she needed to hear it.

“Uh, he wants us to rot here.” He said casually. He walked into the room, cupping her cheeks in his hands, “So what do you say me and you play catch-up over some whiskey?”

“Dean-” She said, holding his wrists to take them off her cheeks.

“Sweet-tart.” He sighed, looking down at her, “There’s nothing we can do right now. Or maybe at all. Please.” He rested his forehead on hers, “Can we please just... Let’s just have tonight. No universe difference, no your Dean my (Y/N). Just be mine for tonight.”

“Okay.” She said softly, giving his hands a squeeze, “But if you call me sweet-tart again, I’m gonna drink your good whiskey that you hide in garage.”

He narrowed his eyes, a sly smile on his face, “How do you know where I hid that?"

She hummed and leaned up, rubbing her nose on his, "Who do you think put it there in the first place."

He chuckled, dropping his hands from her face to her hands, pulling her towards the garage.

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toomanystoriessolittletime · 4 years

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Getting away with it (2/?)

Summary: August Walker was dead. At least that’s what people believed for almost 2 years. When the CIA found reason to believe that he was alive they made it their top priority to find him. Including sending one of their best female agents to recruit his twin brother. Walter Marshall.

Pairing: August Walker x Reader (Walker) + Walter Marshall x Reader (Walker)

Warnings: none yet

Wordcount: 2.457

A/N: We’re slowly getting started with the plot. Hope you like it :)

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Part 1

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@ladyreapermc / @theolsdalova / @greenmanalishi / @itsmydreamlifethings / @palaiasaurus64 / @celestial-vomit / @penwieldingdreamer/ @notyourtypicalrose / @babypink224221 / @fanficsrusz / @solariumss / @starlite13 / @ly–canthrope / @mytbel0st / @oddsnendsfanfics / @ravenpuff02 / @sofiebstar / @chamomilebottom / @keiva1000 / @agniavateira / @peaceinourtime82 / @dearlybelovedluke / @vania-marie / @wildwavehc / @fcgrizi / @mary-ann84 / @ayamenimthiriel / @radaofrivia / @ohjules/ @omgkatinka / @xceafh / @diehadess / @watermeloncavill

@its-jb86 / @singeramg / @mrrightismrreeves / @mis-lil-red (I can’t tag you guys. Sorry)

Cemetery, Langley, Virginia, 2 years ago

It was a rainy day. The skies hang dark, the rain pouring down. A typical day for a funeral. But then again it really wasn’t a funeral in the least. August watched the few people that were standing around an empty grave from his hiding spot behind a tree. He could see the silhouette of his wife who was holding Evie close. He couldn’t see her face, and knowing her she wouldn’t be shedding a tear for him.

She didn’t understand why he had to do, what he was still planning on doing. Making the world a better place for the next generation. His daughters generation.

Ever since he knew he would be a father August did everything with his daughters best interest in mind. Even if it meant lying to Walker about it. Knowing her she would be furious at him for his lies. He knew her like the back of his hand, she would blame herself for everything that happened before she would finally blame him.

But who really was to blame was the world. Their corrupt leaders. The politics. The weak people who didn’t stand up for themselves. That was why he wanted to steal those plutonium cores. So only the strong survived. Like him. His wife. His daughter.

Evie would make a great leader one day, he was sure of it.

“We have to go.” A voice whispered behind him, making his head snap over his shoulder, glaring at one of his remaining members.

“I’ll find you at the drop point.” August nearly growled.

“Yes Sir.” The man stammered, walking away immediately.

August didn’t know when or if he would see his family ever again. So he watched them for a couple minutes more as they were standing around the empty grave, silently saying goodbye, before he turned around and left them for good.

CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

“You tell me, Agent Walker, that you didn’t know your husband was the leader of a terrorist group? And you call yourself CIA…” The older Agent mocked.

“Like I told you the last 15 times. I haven’t seen August in almost 3 months before he died. Yes I recognized that his behaviour changed, that he stayed out longer, that he changed the passwords of his devices. But honestly? I was thinking he was having an affair. I would have prefered if he had an affair. What would you think if your wife suddenly stayed out longer? Would your first thought be that she must surely be leading a terrorist group?” Walker asked. The older Agent crossed his arms in front of his chest as he looked down at her. It was her fourth constant day of being interrogated. And she didn’t have any answers. She knew this was frustrating for the CIA, but it was even more frustrating for her.

She had been allowed a week for herself after news broke of the attack. She had brought Evie over to her Mom’s place and had spent the whole night drinking in front of the TV watching the news. She kept looking down at her wedding ring. Remembering the day she agreed to be his wife so detailed, she wanted to drink until she forgot it. Forgot what happened.

Walker knew August had been hiding something. It was in the year Evie was born that he had started to change. He kept being on the phone instead of talking to her. The only time he really was present was when he was taking care of Evie. He was a good father. That probably was the reason she kept her mouth shut, when he snapped at her. She could see how sorry he was after he yelled at her after every single time.

“I’m doing all I’m doing for your and Evie. I want you to live your life in safety.”

The sentence kept repeating in her head. It was what he always said when they had another argument. When his arms were wrapped around her and he was kissing her head. After they had sex and he was pressed against her back, his leg over hers, his hand beneath her head. She always felt safe in his arms. She would probably even forgive him if he had a simple affair. But when three weeks ago the CIA was contacted with the real identity of John Lark, and she was sent to London to get through to him…

She would never forget the look in his eyes. How he looked right through her as she talked to him.

“August please. You know this will end with you dead. You know that. There is no way you can escape the CIA. There will be no place on this planet they won’t search for you.” Walker pleaded, standing across from him. August breathed in deep, his whole posture on edge.

“Please leave now.” August growled.

“What should I tell Evie, hm? When she asks about her father? Should I tell her he’s a insane terrorist who wants to kill a third of the world's population?” Walker asked.

“I’m doing this for her.”

“Yeah… You keep saying that, but do you believe it?” Walker reached for her gun.

“You really think you can shoot me?” August mocked.

“Someone has to.” Walker breathed.

“How will you tell Evie that you murdered her Father?” He asked.

“I will make sure that she won’t remember you.”

An explosion had interrupted their argument, giving August the perfect chance for his escape. Walker had met with Ethan after she had gotten out, telling him everything that could help him to take August down. With which he had apparently succeeded. Or so he thought.

“You will be helping us to get every detail of his life. We need to be prepared for what’s coming.” The older Agent said.

“I already told you everything I know.”

“You have to tell us about your daughter.”

“Absolutely not.” Walker shook her head.

“There is no room for argument her, Agent Walker.”

“You will leave my two year old daughter, who just lost her father out of this. Me you can have. I don’t care what you do with me. But Evie? No way.”

Minneapolis, Minnesota, now

“She’s not going to bite my finger?” Evie asked concerned, looking up at Walker. Grinning Walker knelt down next to ther.

“She’s not going to bite your finger. Look at her. She just wants that yummy lettuce you are holding.” Walker explained, earning a sigh from her Daughter. They had spend the whole day at the zoo and Evie had been so excited to feed the giraffe. Until she was standing in front of it.

“Hmm…. ‘kay.” Evie said. Walker chuckled as she got back on her feet again, Evie clutched her hand as she slowly walked towards the giraffe. Walker nodded thankful at the keeper. Holding out the lettuce in front of her, Evie stepped closer to the giraffe who immediately spotted her snack and bend closer, her big tongue grabbing the lettuce from Evie, making her giggle.

“That… tickles.” The little girl giggled excited.

“See? And all your fingers are still there.” Walker smiled, making Evie breathe out relieved.

“Can we do that again?” She asked.

“Next time. If I remember correctly we have a date with the water slide at the hotel…”

“YAY!” Evie jumped

However these plans were interrupted when Walker got back to the space she parked her rental car in, finding it nowhere to be seen. She remembered exactly where she parked the car.

“Motherf….” She cursed, stopping as she looked at Evie.

“Where is our car?” Evie asked confused.

“I’ve been just asking myself the same question, Buttercup.” Walker sighed. She was already reaching for her phone, calling 911. After a quick call to the local police station Walker had to come clear that her rental car had been stolen. Calling an Uber to the police station she waited while Evie was collecting Daisies on the side of the road.

“What are you doing?” Walker asked. There was no point in getting upset over the stolen car. That was what insurances were for. It’s not like she couldn’t change it.

“Making you a Daisy crown.” Evie laughed.

With a bag full of collected daisies they stepped inside the police station. Evie was holding her mother's hand in a tight grasp, being intimidated by all these big men walking around her. Evie only really knew her grandfather and Uncle Miller, how she called Agent Miller. Ever since August died Walker hadn’t been involved with anyone. Too afraid of getting hurt again. Walker was just about to tell the police man in front of her why she was here, when she heard her name being called. A shiver ran through her body when she heard that voice. How could she have forgotten that he could be here. Looking down at Evie who was hugging her leg, she thought of what to do when Marshall made his way over to her.

“What brings you here?” Marshall asked, nodding to the other police officer who excused himself.

“It looks like my rental car has been stolen. We came here straight from the zoo.” She smiled uncomfortably, her hand coming down on top of Evie’s head. Evie was looking up at Marshall with a frown. Like she was trying to figure out where she knew him from.

“Well that su…” Marshall looked down at Evie, clearing his throat. “That’s not good.” He continued making Walker nod her head, sucking in her bottom lip to keep herself from laughing.

“Yeah. We had a date with a water slide, didn’t we Evie?” Walker asked. Evie nodded. Marshall got down on his knees to look at Evie. Walker held her breath, trying to control the numerous feelings inside her body as she watched the two of them. It seemed so familiar, yet so different. Even if August and Marshall were twins, the way Marshall smiled at Evie, holding out his hand which Evie took hesitantly to shake. Marshall looked up at Walker, his hair a wild mess on top of his head, a small smile on his face. Swallowing she sighed.

“You have the same hair as I do. Mommy always says I got them from my Daddy.” Evie said, her hand hesitantly reaching out towards Marshall but not really touching him.

“Really?” Marshall asked. Evie nodded.

“He died when I was littleler.” Evie shrugged, hugging Walkers leg closer.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Marshall said to her, then looking up at Walker.She closed her eyes and breathed in deep. He got up from his knees, his musky smell with a hint of aftershave getting to Walkers nose. When she opened her eyes and looked up at him she could see the sympathy in his. For a little moment she let herself get lost in his eyes, recognizing the many things that were different from August, finding so much sadness in them that seemed to mirror her own she had to shake her head after a while to look away from him.

“Let’s see if we can find your car.” Marshall said quietly.

Sitting in his office Walker knew he was about to find out who she really was, and possibly who she had been married to. Chances were that he already knew who August was. His face had been spread over the news for weeks after the incident. Thankfully her name and Evie’s were never brought up.

“You wanna draw something while we do this grown up stuff, Evie?” Marshall asked. Evie nodded excited as she sat in the chair next to Walker, already reaching for the pencil Marshall handed her, getting right into drawing, oh wonder, a bunny. Chuckling Walker looked from her to Marshall.

“She’s obsessed with bunnies.” She said, making Marshall smile a little.

“I remember Faye being obsessed with bunnies too when she was that age.”

“You have a daughter too?”

“Yeah. She’s living with her mother.” Marshall swallowed, looking away from Walker to type into his computer.

“Now… I need your full name and address.” He said.

“You sure you have time for this? How long has it been since you last filed a robbery report?” Walker asked.

“A while. And yes, I’m sure.” He looked up at her with the hint of a smirk.

“Okay. Then let me make this easier…” Walker sighed, reaching for her badge in her purse, sliding it over the table. Marshall looked down from the badge, up to her face, a line forming between his eyes as he typed her badge number into the computer.

The silence that spread that was only interrupted from the pencil running over the paper where Evie was drawing. Sucking in her bottom lip, a thing Walker only did when she was nervous, she waited if Marshall would connect the dots right away. She heard his calm breathing as he typed and clicked, before he pushed the badge back to her, his eyes still on the computer screen in front of him.

Seconds stretched into minutes before Marshall finally looked up at her. His eyes confused and cold.

“You were married to…” He looked down at Evie, not finishing the sentence.

“I saw the news back then. It was like looking into a mirror. I tried to find out more, but everything was classified.” He said quietly. Walker breathed in deep.

“I think I can answer most of your questions. But… not here.” She motioned to Evie who was still drawing. Marshall looked at her a little longer before his eyes were on Walkers again.

“Okay. Then let’s just file that report first.” He nodded.

It only took 15 minutes to file the report she needed to get to the rental car service and her insurance company. Evie had drawn a whole army of bunnies when they were finished, gifting Marshall one of her drawings, which made him smile.

“I’ll be at your hotel at 9pm, like we discussed.” He said as he escorted Walker and Evie outside.

“Just go straight up to our room. I don’t want to leave her alone.” Walker agreed, seeing him nod.

“Thank you for your help today, Marshall.” She said honestly.

“You’re welcome.” He nodded.

“Thank you Mr. Policeman.” Evie smiled up at him. Marshall chuckled.

“You are more than welcome Evie.” He said, holding out his hand which Evie shook wildly, making the adults laugh.Walker took Evie’s hand to walk away when Marshall looked at her.

“Was he my brother?” Marshall asked quietly. Walker stepped closer to him.

“He is your brother.” She said, her eyes not leaving his, before she nodded and turned around to take Evie back to the hotel.

#fanfiction #fanfic #august walker #august walker x reader #walter marshall #walter marshall x reader #henry cavill #getting away with it

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blackfreethinkers · 4 years

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Sunday service had just ended, but Noah Tillman-Young called his small congregation back for another prayer. Shots had been fired at a rural church just down the road — a church a lot like theirs.

As his 30-some parishioners stood in a circle asking God for protection, something changed for the pastor of Joyful Heart. An act of mass violence in his Stockdale, Tex., church was no longer unthinkable. Ten miles away, 26 people were dead at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, the deadliest shooting at a house of worship in the country’s modern history.

That night, Tillman-Young and parish leaders held a vigil for their neighbor church. The next day, they decided to arm their own.

“It’s nothing you ever imagine could happen, but when it hits so close to home, you have no choice — you can’t ignore it and you have to prepare,” Tillman-Young said. “It’s the reality that houses of worship are increasingly becoming targets.”

With a new team of private security officers and an armed corps of volunteers, Joyful Heart joined the wave of small and midsize places of worship adopting security measures to gird against the rising threat of violent attacks.

'This community will heal': A small town mourns an enormous loss Residents of Sutherland Springs, Tex., grappled with the mass shooting that took 26 lives from the community in November 2017. (Alice Li/The Washington Post) While there is no definitive tracking of shootings or other attacks on houses of worship, several researchers and the federal government have documented a significant rise in targeted acts — particularly those with high death tolls.

FBI statistics show a 35 percent increase in hate crimes at churches, synagogues, temples and mosques from 2014 to 2018, the most recent year for which data is available. The nonprofit Faith Based Security Network found a 60 percent increase in “non-accidental deaths” at such sites from 2014 to 2017. And of the 88 people killed in mass shootings at places of worship since 1966 — defined as incidents in which four or more people were killed — more than half the deaths came in the last five years, according to The Washington Post’s mass shootings database.

This spike has prompted several state legislatures to write or revise firearm laws to make it easier for people to carry guns in houses of worship.

Since the Sutherland Springs shooting in November 2017, lawmakers in 14 states have introduced 40 bills, according to a Post analysis using Quorum, a database of state and federal legislation. Several are still being debated and six have been enacted, from Louisiana to North Dakota.

In the first weeks of 2020, legislators, most of them Republicans, have introduced 13 bills allowing armed security in places of worship. The flurry of lawmaking began just days after a gunman killed two people in late December at a church in White Settlement, Tex., before an armed volunteer shot and killed him. The volunteer’s action won praise for a state law that allows parishioners to carry firearms.

Laws under consideration in Florida and Missouri would allow anyone with a concealed-carry permit to bring a firearm into a religious building. In New Jersey, a proposed law would allow houses of worship to select one person to carry a handgun for security. And in Virginia, Republicans have introduced four bills to repeal a law that bars the carrying of weapons in a place of worship “without good and sufficient reason.”

Experts say that churches, synagogues and mosques, with their typically welcoming environments and looser safety measures, can make for easier targets, especially as businesses and schools ramp up security. But more places of worship are turning to surveillance equipment and armed guards, especially volunteers from the congregation, who blend in and save the parish money, said Carl Chinn, president of the Faith Based Security Network.

Chinn and other security consultants said they’re getting more inquiries from nervous congregations. Business is always busier after a shooting, and Chinn said recent incidents were “a wake-up call.”

“Churches are waking up to the fact that the way to stop a bad person with a dangerous weapon is a good person with a weapon and training,” he said.

Gun-control advocates balk at the idea that more weapons will create safer spaces, and others suggest that armed security — especially volunteers — may actually bring more risk.

“Whenever firearms are present, there’s always room for error and the possibility that the guns which are intended to protect become liable to endanger,” said James Densley, a criminal justice professor at Metropolitan State University in Minnesota. “Arming parishioners so they can make the kind of split-second decisions that police get wrong worries me a little bit.”

But Chinn, who has tracked the use of deadly force in churches since 1999, said he hasn’t seen an instance in which innocent people were hit by a volunteer’s gunfire.

“There’s risks anytime you have defenders,” he said. “Of course, the risk is that innocent people might get hurt. But here’s what I tell people: That has not happened. We shouldn’t get wrapped around the axle of ‘what ifs.’ It’s not even comparable to the number of times people were hurt and nobody was there to protect them.”

Security teams can minimize the risks by training often and schooling themselves in more than firearm marksmanship, said Steve Padin, a retired police officer who is a chief consultant for the Watchman’s Academy, a church security firm.

The volunteers that Padin sees, mostly men, often have a background in the military or law enforcement. And when they don’t, Padin said, they need to learn to think like those who do.

A well-trained security guard should be versed in de-escalation and disarming tactics, be able to recognize suspicious behavior and be ready to act quickly, said Padin, who travels the country training security teams at churches and synagogues.

“You should not get to the point where you have to use a firearm,” he said.

At Beth Tikkun Messianic Fellowship in Akron, Ohio, Vic Agosta and his small team of volunteer security guards huddle outside the sanctuary before Saturday service. They all carry guns, and every weekend they pray they won’t need to use them.

Agosta helped form the team eight years ago, when the congregation of 200 was growing quickly. Agosta, who is a lineman for a power company, doesn’t have a background in law enforcement or the military like some of his fellow volunteers. But he does have family in the pews, including a daughter with cerebral palsy who uses a wheelchair.

“Just the thought of someone coming into a service of ours and opening fire on us,” he said. “My daughter couldn’t run for cover.”

In Ohio, places of worship must give permission before attendees can bring in concealed handguns — a restriction that Agosta, a Second Amendment advocate, supports.

“I think you should be able to carry a weapon, but I like the control that private entities have, like churches or places of business, to say who can and cannot carry,” Agosta said.

His church asks congregants to leave their guns at home and trust in the security team.

“We don’t want you to carry,” Agosta said. “But we’ll protect you the best we can.”

At Grace Fellowship, a small born-again Christian church in suburban Omaha, Greg Eckert runs a volunteer team with four other men. He’s recruiting more volunteers from the church’s 97 members, but some have trouble passing his test. It has two questions: Will you give up your life for the congregation, and will you kill for it?

“It sounds like a silly thing to ask for a Christian believer, but God doesn’t lay down for that stuff,” Eckert said. “There were people in the Bible who had to kill at God’s command. If they can’t answer yes to that, I don’t want them.”

He requires his team to practice shooting once a month, and he tests their accuracy four times a year, keeping their bullet-pocked targets on file and dated. In Nebraska, only designated security personnel are permitted to carry concealed handguns in houses of worship — and only if the leadership has given permission and informed the congregation.

“I don’t believe any church should be just an open-carry-type situation,” Eckert said. “But I don’t think it would be prudent to have a law that you could never carry in church, either.”

Outside New York City, which has its own gun laws, New York state has no laws prohibiting firearms in places of worship. And parishioners are better off for it, said Jim Woods, the head of security at the nondenominational Niagara Frontier Bible Church, not far from the famous falls. He’s one of 10 volunteers who greet newcomers at the door, keep an eye on the parking lot and carry a weapon.

“Years ago, it wouldn’t even have crossed my mind [that] you would need to defend yourself in church,” Woods said.

One of the most notorious attacks at a place of worship was the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., where Ku Klux Klan members detonated dynamite, killing four children and injuring 22 people.

Since then, attacks at places of worship have been divided into two categories: hate-fueled assaults and those related to domestic violence. Both types are increasing in frequency and deadliness, said Densley, who also co-founded the Violence Project, which tracks mass shootings.

In 2012, a neo-Nazi killed six people at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, south of Milwaukee. Three years later, a white supremacist hoping to start a race war killed nine at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church. And in 2018, anti-Semitic online screeds were connected to the man accussed of bursting into the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and killing 11.

These were some of the deadliest and most high-profile shootings at American houses of worshipBut more common are shootings that are extensions of intimate-partner violence or domestic disputes, like the massacre in Sutherland Springs. In those cases, Densley said, the shooter is usually a member of the congregation.

“We’re often afraid of the stuff we don’t know and don’t understand that’s outside of us, when really the biggest risk is right in front of us,” he said.

At Joyful Heart Church, the new security measures have also inspired Tillman-Young and his wife and fellow pastor, Allison, to look inward. They’ve spent more time getting to know their members and their families.

“When you’re in the community, you see those red flags, and you see them before they come to a head and get ugly,” he said. “That kind of intentional connection, that relationship, showing people love — it helps to prevent that kind of stuff.”

But more than looser gun laws and armed guards, Tillman-Young said it’s his faith that makes him feel safe.

“We’re packing,” he said, “but we’re also packing the power of God and trusting in God to keep us protected.”

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galadrieljones · 5 years

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A Funeral: Chapter 15 (Arthur Morgan x Mary Beth Gaskill)

Fandom: Red Dead Redemption 2 | Pairing: Arthur x Mary Beth | Rating: Mature

Content: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Touch-Starved, Humor, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Angst, Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Fake Marriage, Epiphanies, Backstory, Banter, Deep Emotions, Sharing a Bed, Swimming, Arthur to the Rescue, Forests, Abduction, Angst, Heavy Angst, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, Sexual Content, Sexual Themes, Adult Content

Summary: To help her process Sean’s death, Mary Beth asks Arthur to take her on a hunting trip, somewhere far away. He agrees, and on their journey, they find quietude and take comfort in their easy bond. In their desperate search for meaning together, they endure a number of trials, some small, some big—all of which bring them closer to one another as well as to the future, and to the unchecked dangers of the natural world.

Credit to @bearly-tolerable for the banner! Art is my own.

***For the rest of this story, you can visit the masterpost or AO3, both linked in the replies to this post and also at my blog.***

Chapter 15: Homeward

She saw it in his eyes then, something showing—the sadness of Arthur Morgan. It lived quietly inside him. It was not obvious. It was so deep and his eyes were so blue and like pretty pieces of winter on the surface. You might miss it if you didn’t know what you were looking for. His stoicism was not obvious. Sometimes, he seemed to feel everything and you could see the disapproval or the frustration right there, so present and alive. It was just the sadness. How he just stayed real silent. Dumbasses thought this meant he was unintelligent. Like smart people always say everything they think and feel, like that's true or something. It's the opposite of true. He was calculating. Everything was a means of protecting himself though of this she could tell he was not fully conscious. Arthur's anxieties played out in small ways that were not apparent. He seemed to carry all of his fears inside his hands and he would shake them out and flex them constantly. It is how she knew he felt safe with her. Because he did this less. At present, though, he was wringing his hands around his cup of whiskey tea. Just wringing, and wringing. He was anxious.

She tucked a piece of his hair behind his ear. She held his jaw in the palm of her hand, gently till he looked at her. It was a wide and firm jaw, set very tightly. He was always chewing something, too, she thought. Another means of expending his nervous energy. That night he wasn't chewing anything but the insides of his cheeks. When she touched him, he stopped wringing his hands.

"You're anxious," she said. "What's wrong."

He sighed.

But then she panicked. "Wait."

This seemed to confuse him. “What?"

“Let me talk first.”

He straightened up a little, holding his whiskey tea, still now. He gave her his entire focus, which if you were not used to it, could be a little daunting. “Okay.” He nodded.

She took a deep breath. She set down her tea. She tucked all of her hair behind her ears as if this would somehow prepare her more readily for the moment. “I love you, Arthur,” she said, looking at him, a little shy. “It ain’t a fantasy. It’s very real. I need you to know that. Before we say anything else.”

He just stared at her. Just stared. It did not seem to be what he expected, but he responded with seriousness. “I love you, too.”

She swallowed and blinked her eyes, rapidly, feeling like a wild animal. “You do?”

This actually served to make him smile. “Yes. You think I give myself to women like that who I do not love?”

“No.”

“Well then, there you go.”

“Fine,” she said, recalibrating, smoothing her hands over her nightgown. It was the same one Hamish had leant her the other night. He'd said she could keep it, like a way of letting go. “But I can tell there’s something wrong. In your eyes. You're still anxious. What’s wrong, Arthur? Is it because of what happened today? I’m real sorry I scared you like that.”

He set down his tea then, heaved into a very heavy sigh. He turned toward her. He was wearing the night clothes, too, those leant to him by Hamish. He gathered her hands together, covering them entirely in his own. “No,” he said, very serious. “It ain’t because of today. I’m proud of you, for how you handled yourself with that gun. You took care of yourself back there. You're capable, Mary Beth, and I appreciate that."

She had never been told she was capable before, not like this, not by anyone but him. She was so deeply flattered. She wanted to cry, so she looked away at the fire because she knew that crying would start things over. It would make it hard again, because he'd have to comfort her, and at present, she wanted to comfort him. “Thank you,” she said. She looked back at him and smiled through all that emotion. “Though I prefer not shooting wolves to shooting them, if that’s okay.”

This was funny, she knew it would make him smile. “I know,” he said, and yes he did smile. Tired, though. “I know, and I appreciate that, too. Believe me.”

“Then what’s the matter, Arthur?” she said.

He sighed again, one of his huge, Arthur Morgan sighs. “It ain’t about you I wanna talk, Mary Beth. It’s us, and it's me, and my life.”

“What do you mean?”

“Earlier, on the river," he said, "right before we fell asleep, I was thinking about Sean, and what happened to him in Rhodes.”

The fire crackled loudly, spat a couple embers up into the flue.

“He got shot,” said Mary Beth.

“That’s right,” said Arthur. “He got shot, and that could’ve just as easily been me. I was standing right there, right next to him when it happened. It could’ve been me. It could’ve been any one of us.”

Mary Beth said nothing. She didn’t have anything to say. She knew that it was true.

So he went on. “I heard you today,” he said, “when you said you didn’t wanna go back to the swamps. I heard that. I didn’t know what to tell you at the time, but now I know that the only thing to say is that when we do back, I got a big decision to make."

"A decision?"

"Yes. And I just—I feel I ain’t made many big decisions in my life. I kind of just let…inertia…wash over me, pushing me forward, one thing to the next, very little discerning. Hosea’s always telling me to stop, think, use my head, but I never really thought about what he meant before. I know now, this is what he was talking about. Choosing.”

“What are you saying, Arthur?” said Mary Beth. “You wanna leave the gang?”

He turned his head a little, stared at the fire. “Maybe,” he said. “This ain’t the first time I’ve thought about it, but it’s the first time I’ve actually considered it.”

“We don’t have to do that,” she said. “I was just talking before, just being me.”

He shook his head, glancing to the cracks in the wooden floor. “Don’t do that," he said. "Don't walk back on the issue. Don't pretend it don’t matter."

“I ain’t,” she said. “I’m just saying, I’ll stand by you. No matter what.”

“That’s just it,” he said. “I know you will. Right up until the end.”

“The end?”

He gathered up his thoughts then, was still staring at the floor. He had begun to trace circles in her palm with one of his thumbs. “You know what’s gonna happen,” he said, looking down at her hands. “The way this is going. You know."

“What do I know?”

He said nothing, but then he looked at her, very sternly. She came to his meaning, but slow.

“You mean me getting pregnant,” she said. “That’s what this is about.”

“Not all of it,” he said. “But some, yes.”

“I ain’t afraid of getting pregnant by you," she said. "I want that. I know what I'm choosing.”

“I want it, too,” he said. “I do. But it ain’t that simple.”

“Sure it is,” said Mary Beth. “My life has been filled with so much uncertainty up until this point. This is a certainty. I ain't impractical when it comes to this sort of thing, Arthur. I know the stakes. And I want you, and all the parts that go with it. I would rather be fat and pregnant with your eighth child, shoveling snow on a ranch in Minnesota somewhere than to spend one more day skinny and lonely in the swamps of Shady Belle, pining over imaginary boyfriends that I read about in books I steal from the general store. Do you understand?”

He blinked. At first, he really didn’t understand. He was surprised and almost amused by her confession. “Eight children?” he said.

She sighed. “Well, maybe not eight. I don’t fancy turning inside-out by the time I’m forty, but several. Maybe three or four. Maybe five. Hell, maybe eight. I don’t know. The point is, I ain’t scared. Why are you?”

He was searching her. She was doing that thing again—going fifteen directions at once. “It ain’t having kids I’m scared of,” he said. "Or, I mean, I got no idea what I'm doing, but it ain't that."

“Then what is it? Is it because of Mary?"

"No," he said, very clear.

"Then is it still because of Eliza? Of what happened to her and Isaac? Because I understand that. I do.”

“I know, Mary Beth.”

“I ain’t her, Arthur. This ain’t then. It’s a second chance. And you ain’t gonna fail me.”

“If I get shot, and I die, like Sean, like an outlaw, and I leave you alone, that’s failing.”

“You sound like you did the other night,” she said, shaking her head. “At Hamish Sinclair’s. But things have changed since then. If you’re so certain of your impending failures as a man, then why did you kiss me last night? Why did you give yourself to me? Then, and again today. Why are we doing this at all? Especially after you initially said no to me. I know you. You don’t just do things because they feel good, Arthur. You ain’t that kind of man. You have a code. You have a reason.”

“I kissed you last night because I realized I had a choice.”

“A choice?”

“Yes,” he said, real determined, almost like he was talking to himself. “I didn’t think much past that. It was enough. I had a choice, in you. You was the choice. I could choose you, be with you. That was a freedom for me to decide. I want you. I love you. That’s it. I ain’t never felt free to make that choice before. I ain’t never realized I had one. Not with Eliza, not with Mary. Not with anyone but you.”

The moonlight was coming in the windows now. It was glinting—off the glass, off his eyes in pretty ways. She didn’t know what to say. “What’s so different about me?” she said.

“You listen to me,” he said, without hesitation. “You just listen, Mary Beth. And you don’t wanna change me, not beyond what I wanna change in myself. And what you need, it’s something I can give for once—because it’s just me. It’s just me.” His voice broke. He was so earnest, serious. It didn’t come to tears, but it was close. “I ain’t leaving you. I said it last night. I meant it. I won’t leave you, and that includes via my getting shot by an ingrate Southerner or a lawman, or a gotdam Pinkerton. And that is what I wanted to talk about, tonight. My feelings is clear. This ain’t about what I feel. It’s about what we’re gonna do next. You and me. If that’s okay.”

Mary Beth got real quiet. She looked down at her tea. She picked up the cup, took a drink. It was starting to cool. She looked back at Arthur. She just said, “Oh.”

Arthur smiled at this. "I like your brain," he said. "Even if it ain't always obvious, the directions it's going."

She blushed. "Thank you."

"What do you want, Mary Beth?" he said.

“I thought I made that pretty clear,” she said.

“Besides me. Practically. In life. I know you want your window and your desk. Do you fancy being a outlaw forever?”

She shrugged. “No,” she said. “But like you, I ain’t never really had no choice before.”

“Let’s say you did,” he said. “What would you choose?”

She shook her head. She was all feelings, no plans. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe a life where we could just be us, just the two of us, together. Not living in a camp somewhere outside, with fifteen other people. Not always on the run. A home?”

Arthur nodded at this, like he understood. He took a long drink of his whiskey tea and stared at the fire.

“What do you want?” she said.

“I want a home,” he said, looking back at her. “Just the same as you. I ain't had one of those since I was a kid, but I ain't forgotten what it means.”

“How do we get one?” she said.

“We need to put some distance between us and here. We need money, but I have money. Money ain’t an issue.”

“So the issue is distance?” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “We gotta leave.”

She sighed. “Where would we go?” she said. “Back west?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “As much as I miss it out there, we’d have to get pretty far to the point we can stop looking back.”

“It’s terrible you’re all caught up in that business with Blackwater. You wasn’t even on that boat.”

“I know,” said Arthur. “But that ain’t the way it works, unfortunately. And they don’t want me for Blackwater anyway. They want me for Dutch, and I ain’t singing.”

“Of course you ain’t.”

“I was thinking more north.”

“North?”

“Don’t nobody know me there. Wisconsin, maybe. Minnesota.” He smiled at her.

“You know, I hear there’s parts of Wisconsin that ain’t changed since before the ice age,” said Mary Beth.

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah. Like, it escaped it somehow. Like it's all these real beautiful hills and glaciers and things, under the ground, making shapes in limestone. Tons of rivers. Tons of farms and prairie, real romantic. I seen a picture of a farm from up there—all corn. Looks like it’s growing on steps. They got lily farms, too. I read that in a book. Something about the soil. No matter where we go, it’ll be prettier than Kansas, that’s for sure. And definitely better than the swamps.”

Arthur just stared at her, at her pink mouth as she talked. “Lily farms, huh? That sounds beautiful.”

“It is,” she said, taking a drink of her whiskey. “And I bet it smells so good. And I bet there’s tons of horses for you break, Arthur. Tons of land yet to be claimed.”

“You make it sound perfect,” he said.

“Well maybe it is,” she said. “Maybe it ain't. We won’t know till we get there.”

He was just watching her go on, feeling a little miffed but fascinated by her optimism, as it put sparks in his own.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said. He breathed out. He was tired now. Tired of talking. He pushed the hair off her shoulders and leaned in to touch her neck and kiss her on the forehead with his eyes closed. He wanted to linger there for a minute, very calm, as he spoke. “We do gotta go back though,” he said, his lips still soft against her skin. “To Shady Belle. You know that."

"I know."

"Before we do anything. When it’s time, we’ll finish our business. We'll leave. But there’s people there that’s gonna be worried about us.”

“You're right,” said Mary Beth, smiling. He could hear it in her voice. “I know, Arthur.”

He took a very deep breath. “I will miss this place though,” he said.

“The cottage?”

“Mmhmm,” he said, very low. “It’s quiet.”

“Real quiet,” said Mary Beth.

She breathed and seemed so small beside him. He felt her getting closer. She set down her cup so they could be closer. Arthur had set his down a long time ago.

"What do you think everyone else is doing right now?” she said. “Back at Shady Belle.”

“Who knows,” said Arthur, kissing her temple, kissing her ear. He grazed a palm past her shoulder, undid one of the laces of her nightgown, then another, until her shoulder came free, and then he touched it again. The nightgown was much easier to remove than the blouses and the skirts. She sort of shuddered beneath his touch.

He smiled at this. “You know," he said, amused. "You do that a lot."

“Do what?” she said.

“Shudder, like. It’s very endearing.” He touched his mouth to her shoulder, kissed it just fine.

She shoved him a little, in the chest, but she was weak now, and they were laughing. “I do not.”

“Yes you do,” he said.

“Well, maybe I’m cold,” she said. They were very close now.

He just exhaled, guttural, out the back of his throat as he kissed her neck. He was weak now, too.

“Make me warm,” she said, like a whisper, a surprise. She leaned into him, his mouth on the corner of her jaw. He felt her hands soft down the front of his chest. She undid the buttons there. She pushed the shirt off and to the floor. “Okay, Arthur?”

He felt his hands into her hair, tugged a little, until she tilted her head back, exposing her neck to him, like a kind offering, which he proceeded to study, and then to kiss, real shallow. “Okay,” he said into her skin.

She shuddered again. He took her to the bed, took off her nightgown, dropped it to the floor. He traced his hands all the way down the center of her body, like he was drawing all their energy together into one calm place. Then he lowered himself to the other end of the bed. She was holding her hands in his hair as he pushed up her knees, put his mouth on her, gentle. Just like that. He wanted to bury himself there, consume, but he went softly, easing her into it, because she was taken by surprise at first, and it took her a minute to settle. But then, the smells and the tastes and the sounds of her because too much, sparking inside him something primal. He let go, consuming now, just as he had set out to do. She lost her center to him. She was trying to be demure. But it was no use, and after some time of making her moan in the sheets, saying his name in her familiar voice, he was pleased with himself as she came so hard that her legs were shaking all around him, pressing against his ears. And she was very warm now, he thought, as he brought her down, bit by bit. She was warm.

After that, he was inside of her in what felt like an instant, and together they were saying goodbye to Deer Cottage, and to their trip north, out of the swamps, moose hunting which resulted in no hunted moose. But who cares, thought Arthur as he moved in her. Anyone can hunt a moose. It ain't a pressing matter. It ain't like that. And Mary Beth had been right anyway, like she so often was. With only two mouths to feed, hunting a creature of such size and majesty was just being vain.

As he finished inside her, his mind went numb and thankful and in the ensuing moments as they found peace together, and he was putting the hair out of her face and lying with her in that modest bed, he thought about that thing she'd said about the country up in Wisconsin. Lily farms, he thought. That was what she'd said, and cornfields that looked like they were growing on steps. Could that possibly be real? He turned to face her, asked her if what she was saying about the cornfields up in Wisconsin had been serious.

She was hazy as she looked at him, all flushed and freckled, kind of like mush. "You think I could make that up?" she said.

"Probably," said Arthur.

"It's real," she said, sticking her face in his neck. "I saw it in a book at the library in St. Denis. I'll show you, when we get back."

"I don't need to see it to believe it," he said. "I was just wondering."

"Well, I ain't lying," she said.

They slept then, for as long as their bodies would allow. And the next morning, they packed their things, and they left Deer Cottage, headed homeward.

#red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #rdr2 fanfic #arthur morgan #mary beth gaskill #arthur morgan x mary beth gaskill #arthur x mary beth #a funeral

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diinofayce · 6 years

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Like A Whisper In The Night pt2

Pairing: BuckyxOFC | Word Count: 5,178 | Warnings: Swearing, talk of human trafficking

Previous Chapter

Chapter Two

Layne opened her eyes when she felt the quinjet touch down on the tarmac. She groaned and stretched her cramped shoulder muscles, her attention grabbed by Greg Andrews who was yelling at them all through a strip of fabric that he was being gagged with.

“Welcome back, kid,” Steve chirped pleasantly, clapping his right hand on her knee. Layne smiled softly, still unused to any real interaction with the main squad. Bucky just caught her eyes with his and gave a reaffirming smile.

Bucky had spent the flight back to Stark Tower keeping a careful side eye on Layne as she napped. He bantered with Steve and Nat with Clint adding his own snarky remarks here and there. Whenever the quinjet jostled, even a little, his eyes immediately shot over to Layne to make sure she wasn’t disturbed. It wasn’t until touchdown that he had gently tapped her away with his foot, pretending not to notice Steve and Nat smirking at each other.

“Thanks,” she said softly. “What are you guys going to do with Greg?”

Natasha got up and opened the door to the quinjet; hopping out she offered her hand to Layne which was gratefully accepted.

Steve attached his shield to his back and took Andrews when Bucky passed him off. “We’re going to take him down to holding. Black Widow will be heading the interrogation.” He answered, his hand holding Greg Andrews’ upper arm firmly making the older man walk nearly on his tiptoes.

“Can I come watch?” Layne asked, hope filling her voice. The team seemed to be warming up to her, and she was hoping she could ride out that good luck into actually seeing Natasha in action.

“Nope,” Steve replied, popping the ‘p’ for emphasis. “You’re going to go to get checked out by Dr. Cho and then write your report. I want a full explanation of what happened.”

Layne tried not to look defeated. She could argue that she felt fine and could just do with a nap, but she knew that arguing with Captain America was probably not a good idea. She also didn’t think an argument of procrastination on her report would go over well either, but she still couldn’t help the snark of; “Not like anyone will actually read it.”

Layne stalked off ahead of them with fire in her steps. Bucky and Clint came up behind the shell-shocked looking Steve, both trying very hard not to laugh. “You should let her watch, Cap,” Clint said.

“She was the one to get him, after all,” Bucky added, smirking as Steve sighed in defeat.

“Yeah, alright. Someone go hunt her back down while I bring this scumbag downstairs,” Cap ordered, hauling Andrews into the facility.

“Go get her, tiger,” Clint laughed, smacking Bucky on the shoulder as he passed by him.

“What? Why me?” Bucky barked back.

“I have to go check the quinjet back in. Plus, I don’t know. I feel like you might enjoy the walk.” Clint yelled back without looking at his teammate who was flushing a very telling shade of pink.

Bucky let out a huff of air, shooting the lock of dark brown curl that had dangled down next to his nose out of the way. “Enjoy the walk. Whatever the fuck that means. You enjoy the walk.”

Muttering to himself like he was most people avoided him in his hunt for Layne. Even Pepper had started approaching him with a file before her right eyebrow shot up and she detoured into a side room to look for someone - anyone - else. He took the elevator to the living quarters but stopped dead when the doors chimed opened, and he was faced with rows of doors. The sudden realization that he didn’t even know what room was hers hit him. What kind of teammate were they to her that none of them knew the extent of her powers or where she lived or even what she liked to order at the bar? Which was weird because what Bucky did know about Layne was that she always chewed her left thumbnail when she was concentrating on a book or her phone and that she washed her hair every three days because the third day it was always up in a bun. He knew she preferred Converses over combat boots, something that drove Cap up the wall, and that she could spit better than some men he knew which was oddly charming. Bucky knew a ton of superficial things, nothing of any real value, but he doubted most of the team noticed them. Now to figure out which door was hers, rubbing his hands together he went down the list in the process of elimination.

~*~

Layne slammed the door to her room shut and pulled out her phone to send an S.O.S. text to Wanda. She pulled a bottle of white wine out of the mini fridge in her room and pulled down two glasses and a corkscrew. She looked at herself in the mirror on her living room wall and let out a sigh; she looked like a mess. Her eyeliner had melted a bit and ran past her waterline, making her look like a raccoon after a bad trip, and a binder was barely containing her thick chestnut hair. Scrubbing at the eyeliner with her thumbs and ripping the binder out of her hair she raked her fingers through the chocolate mass, alleviating the pressure of it all being tied to the top of her skull. She took a step back and gave herself a once-over, she never really got used to seeing herself in the black uniform that matched the one Natasha wore mostly because she never got to wear it with any frequency. Layne tilted her head to the side, her hair all tumbling to the right in a sheet, as she reached up to the zipper at the top of her breastbone and zipped it down to just above her navel, a flash of red lace holding everything in place. For never being any sort of field agent Layne was still in fantastic shape, she had been doing kickboxing and yoga since she was fifteen, so her stomach was toned, and her ass was tight even outside of this sausage suit. She nodded at herself in approval; it felt good to let the girls breath a bit. Layne didn’t think she’d ever be Natasha Romanoff hot, but she could hold her own. She just had to make some plans to go out a bar with Wanda sometime soon so she could get some normal guys to look her way.

Layne picked up the corkscrew and went to work on the bottle of wine while thinking about the mission. Not even so much the mission, more so the post-mission in the plane. She thought about their conversations and felt a rush of appreciation again towards Clint when Layne remembered how he stood up for her. Although, the idea of her getting herself killed in some bought of need to prove herself was a bit exaggerated; Layne had a fantastic sense of self-preservation. She thought back to all the little ways Bucky had actually touched her; her hand, her knee, and when she had returned to her body she swore that it felt like someone had been touching her face. Layne had thought Barnes was attractive when she first came to Stark tower, but it became apparent pretty quick that he didn’t have the time of day for her. As soon as the team learned Layne didn’t have some super cool background or specialty combat training it felt like it became a game to see how long she would last.

Layne had her master’s degree from the University of Minnesota in science with a specialty in genetics. She had written her thesis paper on the genome that reacted with the Terrigen Mist and how it changed the DNA cell structure and the possibilities of it causing hereditary ramifications and the impact that would do to civilization. That was what had attracted Tony Stark to her to begin with, once he learned what Layne was capable of herself it opened up a whole different job offer than just working with Dr. Cho and Dr. Banner in the labs. Not that she didn’t do that too, microscopes were much more comfortable than guns.

Pouring herself a large glass of wine she took a deep drink just as there was a knock on the door and she felt almost giddy with excitement.

“Wanda! Finally!” Layne called through the door sliding open the lock. “Get a load of this…shit…” Layne trailed off, confused, as she opened the door to find Bucky Barnes on the other side of it and not Wanda.

Bucky immediately flushed a brilliant crimson and cleared his throat, turning his head and pointing at her chest. Layne looked down at herself and let out a squeak, dropping her wine glass and slamming the lapels of her suit closed. “Son of a bitch,” she swore, embarrassed, bending down to grab her glass and turning around quickly. Placing the glass on a side table and zipping her suit back up she pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m so sorry, Barnes, I was expecting Wanda. You can come in.” Layne turned back to him, biting her lip and looking at him apologetically.

Bucky nodded awkwardly and stepped into Layne’s room; he didn’t feel the need to mention that she was blushing as brilliantly as her bra which offset the creamy flesh of what he had seen of her chest and abdomen. He distracted himself around at the various band posters; Led Zeppelin, HIM, DOROTHY, Coheed & Cambria, and a big tapestry of Chris Cornell spattered the walls along with thirty or so odd shaped mirrors that hung in ornate and neon colored frames. “What’s, uh, what’s with all the mirrors?” Bucky asked pointing at one of them.

“They stop me from projecting in my sleep. Sometimes, if I’m not dreaming, I’ll project, and then the mirrors keep me in my room,” Layne explained, leaning against the back of her sofa.

“How do the mirrors manage that?” Bucky asked, crossing his arms over his broad chest, his pectorals flexing with the movement. Layne looked down the chorded muscle on his arms and had to refocus her thoughts quickly. She brought her eyes back to Bucky’s and was momentarily caught up in just how deep and blue they were. Shaking herself mentally she scolded herself for acting like a weird little school girl and telling herself sternly to focus.

“I can’t see in my astral form, not with normal vision anyway. Remember how that one time I told you it was kind of like being a ghost? Well, I can focus on people’s auras and am drawn in from there. I’m getting better at picking out individuals in a crowd, but usually, I’m drawn into a particularly strong aura. I found out though, thanks to Dr. Banner, that I’m far more interested in being in my own body. So we put up these mirrors because then my astral form will see my body right away and just go home. I didn’t want to risk taking over any of you in your sleep.” Layne explained, wringing her fingers together nervously.

“That is both cool and terrifying,” Bucky said with awe causing Layne to smile softly.

“It would be cooler if I could control it.”

“Well, how much do you practice?”

Layne scoffed and shook her head. “How am I supposed to practice, Barnes? This was my first big kid mission, and it went questionable at best. No way Cap is going to want me puppy dogging along on another mission after this.” Layne moved past Bucky to pour herself another glass of wine since the first one was pitifully soaking into her carpet.

Bucky smirked and took the wine glass from her hand, setting it back down on the table. “Well, I don't know about that. He thinks you’re capable enough to come watch the interrogation.”

“What? Does he? Why didn’t you lead with that, Barnes? Put your coat on, let’s go,” Layne grabbed her phone to shoot a quick text to Wanda for a rain check and opened the door for him.

“My coat is on,” Bucky replied sounding confused, following behind swiftly.

~*~

The elevator doors opened, and Layne rushed out, Bucky reached out to with his flesh hand to catch her by the wrist. “Hey, calm down. Remember, you’re an agent not a kid on a field trip,” Bucky scolded softly. Layne flushed and let out a huff of air. She wanted to argue but knew he was right she needed to get her house in order. Layne steeled herself and nodded sharply, Bucky smirked and let go of her wrist. Layne’s fingers twitched, and she was confused at how her body seemed to miss his touch suddenly. “And you keep calling me Barnes. You know, you’re allowed to call me Bucky.”

Layne hummed softly and followed Bucky down the hallway, staying a step back as he stopped at a large steel door and knocked twice. Steve opened the door and looked at Bucky and Layne waiting in the hall before stepping back and letting them in, closing the door behind them. Layne walked up to the window and watched Natasha try to pry information out of Andrews. The older man’s hair was disheveled, the white streaks sticking out of the ink black in tufts, and his eyes were still bloodshot. Dried blood crusted and cracked around his mouth and peppered the collar of his dress shirt from where his nose was bleeding during his mental struggle with Layne.

Layne stiffened, only for a second, as Steve stood behind her. “What happened in his head, Whisper?” Steve had his Captain voice on, and Layne tilted her head a little to the left, wondering if she was part of this interrogation as well.

“I was following Barnes up the stairwell to the roof when my vision swam, and it felt like a Dremel tool was powering through my ears. I couldn’t focus, I could only hear high pitched squealing,” Layne recounted, her memory flashing back on the stairwell. She took a shaky breath as she watched Natasha coax a smirk from Andrews, his thin lips widening to reveal teeth that were too white and too straight. Her eyes glazed over slightly as she slipped back into the memory. “It was like, tentacles almost, reaching out of the darkness and wrapping around me. But there isn’t a ‘me’, really, just my being and there isn’t a ‘him’. Usually, when I take over someone their being is ejected from their body, there can only be one host at a time, but Andrews found his way back in, and it was like he was trying to strangle me. I couldn’t focus on keeping control of his body because I had to focus on keeping Andrews out of me. It was like hot honey, and I couldn’t shake free. I took what last bit of control I had and asked Barnes to knock me out.”

Layne jumped slightly as Steve put his hand on her shoulder. “Has that happened before?” he asked, his voice losing it’s commanding edge feeling much softer; like a parent comforting a child after a nightmare.

“Sort of. Back in Hong Kong with the acrobatic Hydra agent,” Layne cast her caramel eyes to Bucky, and he looked at the floor, shifting from one foot to the other. “It’s okay, I always understood why you had to shoot her, I actually set you up to shoot her. She was the first Inhuman I tried to overtake; I wasn’t expecting the power in her blood to feel like it did and when I overtake someone initially I get random flashes of their memories. Whether its memories they want me to see or they’re just pulled at random, I don’t know, but her were horrible and twisted and I got a little lost in them. I was stuck in her body, and I couldn’t push her out. I should have just left her but I saw her plan to attack Barnes, and I wanted to try and stop her. I blocked her abilities, but I couldn’t do much else,” Layne turned her focus back to Natasha and Andrews, flinching when Natalia pounded her fist on the table and slammed her chair back. Greg Andrews laughed at her openly, and Natasha just glared before slamming her way out of the room.

Bucky’s brows were furrowed as he looked up at Layne, her brown hair cascading down her shoulders and settling on the swell of her breasts. He liked her hair tied back more; Layne tended to try and hide behind the curtains of her hair. “I always wondered why she just ran straight for me. She had been flipping and dodging around that whole fight, and suddenly she just ran straight to me.” His blue eyes were looking at her with a mixture of confusion and awe.

Layne nodded at him. “She hadn’t even used her abilities yet, she was a teleporter. She could tell I locked her down and it pissed her off. Then I set in her mind the plan to just charge you down.”

Steve had opened his mouth to say something when their door burst open and Natasha stomped in.

“I don’t get it, Cap, I tried everything. I tried sexy, I tried mean, I tried saying please,” Natasha said looking like she had sucked on something sour. “He’s locked up tight and hiding behind some excuse that the kid scrambled his brains.”

“That’s a lie,” Layne said, still staring at him through the one-way mirror.

“I know it is,” Nat sniped before turning back to Steve and Bucky. “What do we do?”

“You send me in,” Layne said before the boys could open their mouths. All three of them whirled on her and stared at her like she had grown a second head. Layne steadied her gaze and planted her stance. “I can do it. I’ve been inside his head, I know his ticks, and if all else fails, I can just persuade him. It probably wouldn’t hold up in court if that’s what you’re going for here, but it’ll move us along the ladder,” she argued. When the three looked like they were just going to argue back, she held up her hands. “Please, trust me.”

“What can it hurt?” Bucky caved looking at his teammates. Layne looked at Bucky sharply, her eyes widened in slight surprise. Natasha scoffed and rolled her eyes, tossing a hand in the air.

“Sure. Why not. Let her in, Cap.”

Steve looked Layne dead in the eyes, “If I see any sign you’re losing ground, I’m pulling you out.” Layne nodded in understanding, and he opened the door for her.

Leaving Bucky, Natasha, and Steve in the observation room, she put her hand on the knob of the interrogation room and took a deep breath. She readied herself and pushed the door open, closing it softly behind her. She glided over to the table with ease and flipped the chair around backward before slinging her leg over the side. Layne rested her forearms on the back of the chair and settled her chin on them; she locked her warm golden eyes to the cold steel grey of Greg Andrews’.

They sat there in silence, Greg fidgeting slightly causing Layne to cock her head to the right and smile at him softly. She never lost eye contact with the sleeze of man. Layne had to assert dominance, that was the number one that made Andrews’ uncomfortable, women in power. He had to have control, feel on top, and Layne had every intention of sitting here calmly until he cracked.

In the observation room, Bucky, Natasha, and Steve all stood right up to the glass, shoulders almost touching. Bucky tried hard to not stare at Layne’s ass as she straddled the chair, the black fabric stretching over her curves in a way that made the spot between his eyebrows sweat. They watched with bated breath as they stared silently at each other waiting for the other one to make the first move.

“She looks oddly comfortable in there,” Steve assessed, chin in his hand as he chewed softly on his middle knuckle.

“Well, she’s been in his head. I’m sure sitting at the same table isn’t nearly as daunting,” Bucky answered, the conversation helping to break the stare he had locked on Layne’s backside.

Natasha put a hand up to silence them as Layne lifted her head, putting her left elbow on the back of the chair and her chin in her hand. Greg had broken the eye contact first, looking down at his shaking hands. Natasha hadn’t scared him, she didn’t know the things about him that Layne knew.

“So, Greg,” Layne spoke lazily, sounding like she didn’t want even to be there. “I’m sure you don’t really want to talk to me. I know Black Widow and I are much older than the girls you usually like to spend your time with.”

Andrews stiffened and his hand shot to the knot of his tie, for the first time looking a little uncomfortable. He knew that this woman had been inside his mind, controlled his body, knew so many of his secrets, but he didn’t understand how. “You have no proof,” he rasped, and Layne just shrugged nonchalantly. “You’re completely correct. I do not have proof, but I’m not here looking to throw proof at your feet. I’m here to save those girls and I’m hoping you could just tell me about them. Where you got them, where they are, why Hydra wants them, that sort of thing,” Layne drawled, drawing invisible circles on the table top with her finger.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Andrews insisted, fidgeting with the lapels on his suit jacket.

“You run a security company, yes? Why don’t you tell me about the security files you had on your office computer for Hydra?” Layne asked coolly.

“Why don’t you just dive back into my head and find out for yourself?” Andrews sneered in a last-ditch attempt to sound like he had control and wasn’t afraid of her, slamming his hands on the table in front of him, his long bony fingers splayed out on the cold metal surface.

Layne’s hand that had been drawing little patterns on the table lashed out as quick as a whip and grabbed one of his hands in her small one. He gasped and tried to pull back but Layne’s grip was firm, and she slowly turned his hand over so the palm was facing the ceiling and she brought her other hand over to trace the deep lines in Andrews’ palm with the tip of her pointer finger.

The three agents in the observation room were all but holding their breath, watching her with fascination. The calm and serene manner that she was handling this interrogation was that of an experienced professional, not the goofy lackadaisical girl they were so familiar with seeing around the Tower. Natasha was pulling on her bottom lip softly with her fingers as she watched Layne with rapt attention, Steve has paused the soft chewing on his knuckle, but it stayed in his mouth as his curiosity piked. Bucky was leaned against the frame of the one-way glass, his hands on the sill as he stared intently at the scene unfolding. He watched as Layne took Andrews’ hand in her own and a weird sensation of nausea and anger flared in the pit of his stomach; it was a like a bear waking up from hibernation and letting out a roar that shook the forest. Bucky’s fingers gripped the window sill and his shoulders locked as Layne traced a lineup and down Andrews’ forearm, following the bright blue vein from his wrist.

“I think, Gregory, it would behoove both of us if you could just tell me,” Layne whispered sweetly. What the three in the observation room couldn’t see were the big doe eyes she looked at Andrews with and how the warm caramel of her eyes flared to life with a brilliant amber glow, like someone poured molten lava into her irises. Andrews took a visible gulp and cleared his throat, his gaze starting to cloud over.

“I-I can’t. They’ll kill me,” he answered, his voice strained.

“You’re not worried about them, Gregory. You know you’re safe with me. It’s just you and me here, and no one here can hurt you,” Layne soothed, her fire eyes staring deep into Andrews’ trying to convince him to yield.

Greg tried one last weak and futile attempt to take his hand back from Layne before giving in and letting his posture slump. It was as if the weight of his life suddenly came pounding down on his shoulders. He sighed and loosened his tie with his free hand.

“Hydra hasn’t been able to source girls from The Red Rooms in Russia for a few years now. They started with the mail order girls of Thailand and Russia instead, finding that for every ten girls they brought to their facilities at least half showed promise of something more. I had hired an intern a few years back who turned out to be one of their insurgents; they have people placed in almost every prominent company in the world. I thought at first they wanted my company for the security features we provide, but it turns out they had discovered my taste for…for Asian massage parlors. Soon I had gained them access to the deep underbelly of human trafficking and I couldn’t get out unless they released photos of myself and a few underage girls to the press,” Andrews’ explained, looking and sounding exhausted.

“Where are they taking them?” Layne asked, bile high in her throat and she could feel her energy beginning to drop drastically but if she could just keep it up for a little bit longer. If she could only find out where they were taking the girls, then she could go back and finish that bottle of wine (that was half gone and she got basically none of) and take a nap.

“I don’t know that. I knew Hydra had a base in Hong Kong, but your people infiltrated it. They had just enough time to get all the girls out before your lot blew it all up.”

“What happened to the girls who didn’t show promise?” Layne asked, fearing the answer.

“All I know is they didn’t get sent back,” Andrews responded, confirming her fear.

“Who was your contact?” Layne asked reaching down into a pocket on her thigh and coming out with a pen and paper. She placed it in front of him and resumed lightly stroking his arm. “You should write it down for me, so I don’t forget.” If Bucky watched Layne’s fingers close enough he could see the skin she brushed on Andrews’ arm would let out a soft glow, like a faint flashlight lived under his skin. Just watching Layne use her powers of persuasion looked warm and soothing and he couldn’t help but wonder if she could do that glow thing without using her ability. He had an odd image of Layne tracing her magic fingers down his bare chest, his skin lighting up like fireflies, and had to shake his head to regain focus.

Andrews licked his lips before grabbing the pen and sliding the paper to him, writing down a name and a phone number. “Her name is Mae Ling; she drove the van that would pick up the girls. That’s the only contact I have.”

“What other dealings did you have with Hydra?” Layne asked, making a mental note of the phone number scribbled down.

“My security systems are in place in most major weapons makers and distributing sights, including local gun shops. When they needed to make a hit I just made sure the security system failed,” Andrews said with ease. Layne swiped up the pad and pen and broke contact with Andrews, he gasped and looked like his heart had been ripped from his chest. “What are you?” he asked her shakily, the clouded gaze leaving his eyes only to be replaced with fear. He clutched the arm Layne had been holding to his chest like it was going to fall off of him.

“Nothing but a whisper,” she said with a sneer and stood up, leaving him alone in the interrogation room. Hearing the door click closed behind her she let out a whoosh of air and placed her palms flat on the wall across from her, her arms outstretched and her head down. She felt like cement weights were attached to her all over her body. The door to the observation room opened and the three stepped out from where they had been watching with surprise and appreciation.

“Layne, that was fantastic,” Steve praised, holding his hands out in case she should drop. Concern was etched over all their faces when she looked up and smiled softly to try to alleviate it. “How did you handle that so calm?”

“Thanks, it just takes a lot out of me. I don’t do it a lot. He hates feeling like he doesn’t have influence over women, Natasha was working too hard to get information out of him, it made him feel like he had power. I had to take that feeling away,” Layne explained and passed the notepad to Natasha. “You’ll probably want to run that right away.” Natasha nodded taking the notepad and then cautiously reaching out and placed her palm on Layne’s cheek.

“You did great,” she said before turning around and taking off to bring the information to intelligence.

“I need to go debrief Fury. Andrews can sit in there a bit and sweat, you, however,” Steve said focusing back on Layne. “Need to get back to your room and rest. I’ll make sure to put in a glowing review after today’s mission. I’m glad Bucky and Clint talked me into letting you watch.” Cap clapped Bucky on his metal shoulder before heading to the elevators.

Layne looked at Bucky with her eyebrows knitted together. “You helped convince Cap to let me watch today? Why?” she asked, not that she was complaining or anything, but it’s not like he’d ever stuck his neck out for her before. Or had anything to do with her before. Sticking up for her to come watch the interrogation and then to actually get in the room with Andrews was a new side of Bucky that she hadn’t experienced.

Bucky just shrugged, “Seemed only fair. You’re the one that caught him in the first place. Come on, doll, let’s get you back to your place."

Layne snorted with laughter and pushed herself off the wall, teetering slightly before finding her balance again. “Taking me to my door. What a gentleman you are.”

Bucky flushed and ducked his head, letting his hair fall around his face to hide it. “Yeah, well, it’s not a big deal. Plus, you’re going to need all your energy. After what we saw in there you can bet your butt Natasha is going want a front seat demonstration.”

Layne let out a groan, and she punched the button on the elevator to go up to the living quarters. “Should have run off to join the circus,” she moaned. The doors closing on her and Bucky as he let out a raucous laugh.

NEXT CHAPTER

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sciencespies · 5 years

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Musk's Improbable Mars Quest Runs Through Border Town Concerned With More Than Getting to Space

https://sciencespies.com/news/musks-improbable-mars-quest-runs-through-border-town-concerned-with-more-than-getting-to-space/

Musk's Improbable Mars Quest Runs Through Border Town Concerned With More Than Getting to Space

Boca Chica Village, Texas – Cape Canaveral this is not.

But here, down toward the coast, on a spit of land past the Border Patrol checkpoint, where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico, there is a spaceship being assembled off State Highway 4 just before it dead-ends into the sea.

Towering and stainless-steel shiny, it looks like a surreal sculpture amid the cacti, yucca and relentless South Texas sun. And since it’s being built not in a factory but out in the open, it’s become a roadside attraction, drawing gawkers to an area so remote that the county trucks in drinking water once a month to the few who live nearby.

They’re coming to see Elon Musk’s latest creation, a prototype called Starship that he hopes will one day carry people by the dozens to the moon and Mars. Musk, in a presentation here Saturday, said his goal of building a “rapidly reusable spacecraft” here would lead to the fulfilment of his ultimate goal of creating “a city on Mars.”

But first he’ll need to pull off another improbable feat, building a private, commercial spaceport here, in what the top local elected official called a “mind-boggling” juxtaposition: SpaceX, one of the hottest companies in the world, led by a Silicon Valley celebrity with nearly 30 million Twitter followers, building a rocket in a border town where nearly a third of the residents live below the poverty line.

“I never in a million years would have imagined it,” said Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño.

Five years ago, SpaceX started building a launchpad here, hauling in dirt by the ton, that would allow the company a measure of freedom without the restraints that come with shooting rockets off from government sites, such as Cape Canaveral or Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where several other companies operate.

“This is really going to be a new kind of spaceport that is optimized for commercial operations,” Musk said during a groundbreaking ceremony in 2014. “Cape Canaveral and Cape Vandenberg are great launch sites, but they are military launch sites.”

The company has been welcomed by local officials as a Walt Disney-like messiah that would help spark an economic revival in an area that desperately needs it. The state set aside $15.3 million to help the company build its facilities here and has bought into SpaceX’s vision to transform the area into a commercial spaceport that would be sending people throughout the solar system.

Photo Credit: Washington Post photo by Jonathan Newton

“You know the term ‘visionary,’ they’re the ones who make the world go round,” Treviño said.

Outside the county courthouse, the downtown here is replete with boarded-up businesses. Real estate prices are depressed. Poverty is rampant. Schools are surrounded by security fences. For years, the area has been caught in an unending “vicious cycle,” Treviño said, so bad that people who “are fortunate to get a college education or a postgraduate degree don’t come back.”

While he knows SpaceX’s presence has led to “growing pains,” he said those are merely the turbulent spasms of progress in an area that has seen very little.

But now, across the water on South Padre Island, the county has spent some $31 million building new pavilions and an amphitheatre that would host concerts and weddings and make a prime viewing area for rocket launches. Local officials hope for a future where residents and tourists line the beach, the way they have for years along Florida’s Space Coast, cheering rockets as they tear through the sky.

“It’s exciting,” said Sofia Benavides, a county commissioner who represents Boca Chica. “I’m 69 years old and have never been to a rocket launch. For my children and grandchildren, it’s great that this is happening in their backyard.”

Not everyone is cheering, though.

A handful of residents who live next door to SpaceX’s facilities recently received letters from SpaceX, which said the company’s footprint in the area was going to be bigger and more disruptive than originally imagined. As a result, it was seeking to purchase their properties at three times the value determined by an appraiser hired by SpaceX. The deal was nonnegotiable, the letter said, and the company wanted an answer within two weeks, though some have received extensions.

Called Boca Chica Village, the area is comprised of about 30 homes within walking distance of the Gulf of Mexico, occupied mostly seasonally. Many are boarded up. A few have weeds as high as the mailboxes.

The few full-time residents moved here seeking an end-of-the-road refuge. It’s nothing fancy – an outpost with little more than surf and sun and spotty cell reception, where fishermen drive their trucks up on the beach. There’s no running water, so the county brings in giant water tanks for residents once a month.

Ray Pointer discovered the area by accident in 2002. He was trying to make his way to South Padre Island, the resort town just to the north, but instead made a wrong turn, ended up in Boca Chica and decided he had found an oasis where he’d plant his flag.

Hi neighbour, Bonnie Heaton moved to Boca Chica 18 years ago from Minnesota with her husband after they retired. It was a place so desolate and tranquil she recalled the UPS delivery man once saying, “I didn’t know anyone lived out here.”

“We came across this place and never left,” she said.

The letter from SpaceX, then, came as a shock, one that she said felt like “a hostile takeover.”

“The thought of a company that’s going to shoot a rocket to the moon or Mars, that’s exciting, that’s history,” she said. “But when you get to the other side of the coin, and you lose your house, it’s terrifying.”

Ray Pointer and his wife, Maria, feel the same way. They were offered $233,000 for their home, Ray Pointer, 72, said, a figure he believes is outlandishly low. (Zillow estimates the value of their home at $103,655.)

“To tell me to leave and not really compensate me is unconscionable,” he said. “It’s not fair. It’s not the right thing to do. SpaceX is better than that.”

While many of their neighbours, who don’t live in Boca Chica year round, have taken the offer, they continue to try to negotiate.

To Treviño and other local officials, moving a few residents is a small price to pay to make way for SpaceX and its starry ambitions.

“We have to think big picture,” Treviño said. “And the fact that an individual with the vision like Elon Musk is investing his time, his money and his efforts to build his dream of launching to the moon and Mars here – it’s important that we be a part of that.”

SpaceX chose the area because of its location and comparative desolation – you want to launch rockets near the equator and over unpopulated areas. On Saturday night, Musk was here himself, to show off the rocket his team had been feverishly working to complete and to discuss his vision of the future. As for the rocket ranch he is building, he said it would continue to grow with more buildings and increased activity that forced the company to buy out residents’ property.

Initially, SpaceX had intended to launch its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets from here. But as the concept for Starship began to form in his imagination, he decided to switch gears and make Boca Chica home to the new, massive rocket he hopes will take people deep into the solar system.

“I think there will be a lot more buildings and a lot more stuff – way more stuff than is currently here,” he said. A sense of urgency to get Starship built led the company to do it in the ramshackle way it has – outside, without a factory in sight, in a barren setting fit for Star Wars that, as he wrote on Twitter earlier this month, could be labelled “Droid Junkyard, Tatooine.”

“Since it was going to take too long to build the buildings we built [Starship] outside,” he said. “My new thing is management by rhyming: If the schedule is long, it’s wrong; if it’s tight, it’s right.”

Most of the presentation focused on technical details, the benefits of stainless steel versus carbon composites (“I’m in love with steel,” he said at one point.), orbital mechanics, reentry vectors (“It’ll look totally nuts to see this thing land.”), the importance of orbital refueling and a future where humanity is “out among the stars.”

“The critical breakthrough that’s needed for us to become a spacefaring civilization is to make space travel like air travel,” he said. The first flight of the test vehicle – which looks as if it were born from a collaboration between Wernher von Braun, the designer of the Saturn V Apollo-era rocket, and Frank Gehry, the modernist architect – would come within a couple of months, he said, a short, suborbital hop to about 12 miles high.

Saturday’s presentation was the latest in a series of grand space talks that Musk’s fans have lauded as visionary and critics have derided as fantasy. But for all the hype SpaceX has received, and for the myriad times Musk has talked about making humanity a “multi-planet species,” it still has not flown a single human being anywhere, let alone the moon or to Mars.

All the talk, then, of futuristic spaceships and deep space exploration rubbed NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine the wrong way. SpaceX is preparing to fly NASA astronauts to the International Space Station under a contract worth $2.6 billion. SpaceX, like Boeing, the other company hired to fly astronauts to the station, is years behind schedule. And in April, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, designed to carry the crews, exploded during a test of its emergency abort engines.

In a tweet Friday, Bridenstine took the bold and unusual step of firing a shot at the company, saying that while was looking forward to SpaceX’s announcement, the agency “expects to see the same level of enthusiasm focused on the investments of the American taxpayer. It’s time to deliver.”

In response Saturday, Musk said that the company’s “resources are overwhelmingly on Falcon and Dragon,” the rocket and spacecraft that would be used to fly NASA astronauts. And company officials stressed that flying NASA’s astronauts is SpaceX’s top priority.

But Musk’s focus is clearly on the next generation spacecraft he’s been envisioning for years, one that has gone through multiple iterations and is still evolving, a stubborn problem not fully solved.

Meantime, Bonnie Heaton wonders where she’ll go next and whether she’ll ever be able to afford another place so close to the water, where during the evening, the “sun melts into the ocean,” she said.

There is one thing she knows for sure, though: “I don’t want to go to Mars. Let him do that.”

#News

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geeksrs545 · 7 years

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Cops Sent Warrant To Facebook To Dig Up Dirt On Woman Whose Boyfriend They Had Just Killed

Everything anyone has ever said about staying safe while interacting with the police is wrong. That citizens are told to comport themselves in complete obeisance just to avoid being beaten or shot by officers is itself bizarre -- an insane inversion of the term "public servant." But Philando Castile, who was shot five times and killed by (now former) Officer Jeronimo Yanez, played by all the rules (which look suspiciously like the same instructions given to stay "safe" during an armed robbery). It didn't matter.

Castile didn't have a criminal record -- or at least nothing on it that mattered. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been allowed to own a weapon, much less obtain a permit to conceal the gun. Castile told Yanez -- as the permit requires -- he had a concealed weapon. He tried to respond to the officer's demand for his ID, reaching into his pocket. For both of these compliant efforts, he was killed.

Castile's shooting might have gone unnoticed -- washed into the jet stream of "officer-involved killings" that happen over 1,000 time a year. But his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, immediately live-streamed the aftermath via Facebook. Her boyfriend bled out while responding officers tried to figure out what to do, beyond call for more backup to handle a dead black man sitting in his own vehicle. Only after Yanez fired seven bullets into the cab of the vehicle did officers finally remove his girlfriend's four year old daughter.

To "win" at killing citizens, you must start the spin immediately. Yanez spun his own, speaking to a lawyer less than two hours after killing Castile. Local law enforcement did the same thing. Documents obtained by Tony Webster show Special Agent Bill O'Donnell issued a warrant to Facebook for "all information retained" by the company on Diamond Reynolds, Castile's girlfriend. This was to include all email sent or received by that account, as well as "chat logs," which presumably means the content of private messages. The warrant also demands any communications that may have been deleted by Reynolds, as well as metadata on photos or videos uploaded to Facebook. It came accompanied with an indefinite gag order.

Why would law enforcement want (much less need) information from the victim's girlfriend's Facebook account? It appears officers were looking to justify the killing after the fact. The following sworn statement was contained in the affidavit:

Your affiant is aware through training and expertise that individuals frequently call and/or text messages to each other regarding criminal activity during and/or after and [sic] event has occurred.

This is warrant boilerplate, especially when it comes to obtaining information from accounts or devices. But this warrant should be considered anything but business as usual. Should be. Isn't. This is the actual standard operating procedure after an officer kills someone: the department goes digging through its criminal records to find any reason at all to have killed the person and to buttress "feared for safety" excuses given by officers -- awarding them points for effort based on information they didn't have when they ended someone's life.

When it comes to police shootings in America, there are no aggressors in uniform, only victims. Officer Yanez made his own excuses, theorizing Castile's willingness to smoke pot in front of a 4-year-old child indicated Castile had no respect for human life.

I thought, I was gonna die, and I thought if he's, if he has the, the guts and the audacity to smoke marijuana in front of the five year old girl and risk her lungs and risk her life by giving her secondhand smoke and the front seat passenger doing the same thing, then what, what care does he give about me?

Following his testimony's logic, smoking pot in front of a child has so severely damaged Castile's moral compass, he apparently would have thought nothing about shooting an officer over a non-functioning tail light. There's no logical boundary cops won't cross to pin the blame on the dead. Hence the Facebook warrant to dig up dirt on his girlfriend in hopes of adding a bit more post facto righteousness to the shoot.

The only upside -- and it's incredibly small given the surrounding circumstances -- is Facebook refused to hand over the information on the grounds that the indefinite gag order was unconstitutional. Faced with this pushback, Minnesota police withdrew the warrant. But in the end, Yanez was acquitted and Philando Castile is still dead -- a man who did nothing more than try to comply with an officer's orders.

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unquietdesperation · 7 years

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Interview with a Responsible Gun Owner

Among all the other discussion, I’ve heard and read a lot about what a “responsible gun owner” should think and feel about various gun control proposals. I find this speculation interesting, because much of it has come from people who have never fired a gun, let alone owned one, served in the military or law enforcement.

I consider myself to be a responsible gun owner. I’ve been shooting as long as I can remember. I served in the National Guard for nearly three decades, including two tours in Iraq. I keep my guns secure when I’m not using them, and I’ve never discharged one when I wasn’t firmly in control of my emotions or without meaning to.

So, what do I think? Without further ado, I present an interview with myself…

Q: Do you think private citizens should have the right to own guns and use them for self-defense?

Absolutely. I think it’s clear that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

Q: But surely that refers to members of a “well regulated militia?”

That’s not what is written. It says the right of the people shall not be infringed, not the right of militia members. The concepts of a well-regulated militia and an armed people are related, that’s why they appear together. If you need to rapidly expand your militia in time of need, you need a population of people who know how to shoot. The founders were not so intellectually clumsy that they would write the “right of the people” when they meant the “right of militia members.” They also realized that individuals needed to be able to defend themselves from animals, hostile native peoples and, just like today, criminals. Fresh from the War of Independence from Britain, it is also clear from the Federalist Papers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers) and responses that there was a concern at the time about tyranny from government, and some were of the opinion that an armed population would be better able to resist, though I’m not sure that’s as relevant today.

Q: Why don’t you feel that is relevant today?

I just don’t think an army of people armed exclusively with rifles and pistols have any chance against a modern military equipped with tanks, artillery and bombers. You don’t need to look any farther than Syria for proof of that.

Q: Don’t you think the people’s need to defend themselves against animals and hostile natives isn’t relevant anymore, either?

It depends. There are still people living in rural areas who may need to defend themselves and their livestock from wild predators, though we haven’t been at war with any Native American tribes for a long, long time. That said, there is still a case to be made for the right of people to defend themselves from criminals with violent intent.

Q: Isn’t that what the police are for?

Absolutely, but it takes time for them to respond. According to the Economist (http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/12/police-response-times), police response times can range from less than 10 minutes to more than an hour, depending on the location and the type of call. That assumes that you are able to use your phone and make a call. In 2007, Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters were raped and murdered, while her husband, Dr. William Petit, was restrained during a home invasion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshire,_Connecticut,_home_invasion_murders). A bank manager actually called 911 when one of the criminals took Jennifer to the bank to get more cash. The police spend more than half an hour assessing the situation and setting up a vehicle perimeter while the assailants were raping and murdering the women inside the house. Am I saying that that if the Petits had been armed they would have been able to defend themselves? Maybe, but I am saying that a lot can happen while you’re waiting for the police to arrive, and if you have the capability to protect yourself and your family, you’re much better off.

Q: But two American service members were able to disarm a shooter on a train in Europe, and they were unarmed.

I’m a former infantryman and I trained martial arts off and on for more than two decades, and yes, it is POSSIBLE to disarm a gunman if you are unarmed, provided the individual is within arm’s reach and you are very, very lucky. The odds are against you, however, and even the airman who helped disarm the shooter was seriously cut in the exchange (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/22/world/europe/americans-foil-gunman-on-french-train-officials-say.html). Look, there is a reason police and soldiers are armed with guns: because when facing an opponent armed with a gun, your best chance of survival is if you are armed with a gun, as well, provided you know how to use it, which is another matter.

Q: But that police chief in Dallas after the shootings said armed citizens made things more confusing for police, and police in Minnesota ended up shooting someone during a routine traffic stop because he was armed.

I hear this a lot, that police don’t want citizens to have guns. Frankly, I have yet to find a comprehensive national survey of law enforcement on the matter from a credible source, and even questionable surveys like this, https://www.policeone.com/Gun-Legislation-Law-Enforcement/articles/6186552-Police-Gun-Control-Survey-Are-legally-armed-citizens-the-best-solution-to-gun-violence/, do at least suggest that some police officers support the right of citizens to be armed. That said, I know a fair amount of cops, and occasionally I engage them in conversation about this. The conversation usually goes something like this…

“Do you think citizens should have guns?”

“I have mixed feelings. I would feel safer on the street if I knew that the only ones armed were police.”

“But you carry a gun when you’re off duty?”

“Yes, as law enforcement officers, we’re targets and we need to be able to protect ourselves and our families. Plus, we may need to help other officers, even when we are off duty.”

“So, you should have a gun when you’re off duty to help protect yourself and your family, and others, from criminals, but I shouldn’t?”

“You can. I know you. It’s the other nut jobs I worry about.”

So anecdotally, in my experience, it really boils down to the fact that police really just want to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, crazy people and others who simply don’t know what the ‘F’ they are doing.

Q: During the Umpqua Community College shootings, John Parker Jr., an Air Force veteran, told MSNBC that he was armed when the attack happened but did not intervene. He said SWAT officers might have mistaken him for a killer. Doesn’t that invalidate the good guy with a gun argument?

Not at all. When I was in Iraq, I worked in the embassy annex. As a soldier, I was armed, as were my peers. The security detachment gave us a briefing. They said if the enemy gets into the compound, stay in your offices, that way they would know that people who weren’t with the security detachment that were running around with guns were the bad guys. They added to lock our doors, get behind some cover and point our guns at the doors and windows. Anyone who forced their way in who wasn’t with the security detachment, they said, shoot them.

Parker did exactly the right thing. He protected the people he was with and let the police use their better situational awareness and greater manpower to track down the shooter. Had the shooter broken into Parker’s classroom, I’m sure he would have responded in defense of his companions. The fact that that didn’t happen doesn’t take away from what Parker did. He was the right person in the right place at the right time, and he did the right thing.

Q: FBI published a report in 2014 on active shooting incidents. They analyzed 160 “active shootings” resulting in injuries to 1,043 victims, including 486 deaths, between 2000 and 2013. They found that more than half (56 percent) ended when the shooter either took his or her own life or fled the scene. Another 26 percent ended with the shooter and law enforcement personnel exchanging gunfire, usually with the shooter ending up either wounded or dead. In 13 percent of the shooting situations, the shooter was successfully disarmed by unarmed civilians, and in only three percent of the incidents was the shooter stopped by armed civilians, of whom four were on-duty security guards and just one was just an average guy who was carrying a gun. Doesn’t that invalidate the good guy with a gun argument?

First, let me say that if you were one of those whose life may have been saved by that one average guy with a gun, you were darn glad he had it. I would argue that maybe we need more like him.

Second, I’m not sure what we are supposed to learn from these statistics. Are you saying that, since most ended when the shooter either took his or her own life or fled the scene, my best course of action is to wait it out and hope myself and my companions not among the victims in the meantime? No thank you.

Third, I can easily find coverage of many instances where a good guy, or gal, with a gun was able to stop a bad one, such as this: http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/collection/good-guy-gun-stopped-bad-guy-gun/.

Q: What if we just banned guns outright? Then no one would have guns.

I just want to begin by pointing out that the idea that banning something will prevent criminals from having it is laughable. Someone who is willing to break the law will find a way to get what s/he wants. Some will be caught, but others won’t, and a thriving black market will be established, along with associated violent crime to protect it. The illegal drug trade is proof of that.

But let’s say we manage to prevent everyone from getting access to guns. Would that be an end to violent crime? Of course not. People with an intent to murder will still kill, they will just find alternative tools to do so. Even with guns, people commit murder with all kinds of things. In 2011, for example, 1,694 people were killed with knives, 496 were killed with blunt objects, such as a hammer or club, 728 were killed by hand (or foot), and 85 were strangled (https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8).

And a gun may be the only chance a weaker person would have to defend him or herself from a stronger one. As a soldier and former martial artist, I’m generally capable of defending myself, but at 48, my days of going toe-to-toe with an experienced street fighter are numbered, if not over already. Apart from a gun, what chance has someone in their old age with no self-defense experience in facing a younger, stronger individual who means to do harm?

Q: But don’t guns make it easier to kill large numbers of people?

I would say large numbers of “unarmed” people, sure, but terrorists also use bombs, knives and motor vehicles to commit mass murder, as we’ve seen in the Middle East, and in the West, as well, such as the truck that killed dozens of people in Nice during Bastille Day (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36801671). As I said earlier, people with an intent to murder will kill, and they will find the tools to do it. Mass murder is no different.

Q: But surely, there must be some rational gun control measures we could enact to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, the mentally ill and others? Why is the gun lobby so resistant to even what would seem to be common-sense measures?

Many such laws are already on the books and are under-enforced, (http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/09/politics/obama-executive-orders-gun-control-enforcement-gap/) and many gun-rights activists questions the wisdom of creating new laws when we aren’t even enforcing the ones we’ve got, but today, frankly, I think it all boils down to Australia.

Q: You’re referring to the National Firearms Agreement of 1996?

Yes, all six Australian states agreed to ban semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, implement a 28-day waiting periods, thorough background checks, and a requirement to present a "justifiable reason" to own a gun. Self-defense was not accepted as a justifiable reason. Since the laws were passed, roughly one third of the country's firearms were sold back to the government and destroyed, nearly halving the number of gun-owning households (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-35048251).

Gun owners are terrified of that happening here. They’re afraid that anti-gun activists will chip away at gun rights, one law at a time, until it is functionally impossible for the average American citizen to own a gun. So, gun advocates don’t want to give an inch, out of a fear that their antagonists will take a mile.

Q. But wasn’t the Australian ban effective?

I think the jury is still out in many ways. Studies do show a reduction in gun violence, but others point out that gun deaths were already falling in the early 1990s, and likely would have continued to drop without the NFA. Some researchers have found a significant change in the rate of firearm suicides after the legislative changes, but others noted that a number of suicide prevention programs were implemented from the mid-90s on, and non-firearm suicides began falling, as well.

Particularly interesting is a study that compared the incidence of mass shootings in Australia and New Zealand, which found that from 1980–1996, both countries experienced mass shootings, the rate of which did not differ significantly between the two countries. Since 1996-1997, however, neither country has experienced a mass shooting event, despite the continued availability of arms in New Zealand that were restricted in Australia (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2122854).

Also interesting is a 2014 report, which stated that approximately 260,000 guns are on the Australian black markets and that Victorian police obtained plans to create 3D-printed guns. The plans didn’t work, but they demonstrate intent by criminals to circumvent NFA restrictions (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/13/australia-has-250000-illegal-firearms-guns).

Q. So, what would you like to say to gun-control advocates?

I think I would like to say that a legitimate case can be made for individual gun ownership, for self-defense, but also for recreational use, like hunting and sporting competitions. You may not agree with that, but the fact is that my right for gun ownership is clearly protected by the Bill of Rights. I may not agree with what you have to say on the matter, either, but your right to free speech is protected under the Bill of Rights, as well.

I would also point out that gun violence in this country is already in decline. In 1993, there were seven firearm homicides for every 100,000 Americans, according to a Pew Research Center study of Center for Disease Control and Prevention data. By 2013, the rate had fallen by nearly 50 percent (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/03/weve-had-a-massive-decline-in-gun-violence-in-the-united-states-heres-why/?utm_term=.1f10bf27a49b). And as far as risk is concerned, you have a much higher risk of being killed by heart disease, 167 out of 100,000 Americans; cancer, 161; diabetes, 21; or motor vehicle-related injuries, 11, according to 2014 data from the CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus15.pdf#019).

Finally, I would also say that most gun owners are rational people, and we understand that steps should be taken to make guns less available to terrorists, criminals, the mentally ill, and others who may pose a threat to society. Why don’t we start by making the existing laws more consistent between states, and by giving law enforcement agencies the resources they need to enforce them? Let’s see how that goes, then we can talk about new measures.

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