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7-wonders · 3 months

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At the Edge of the Universe

Michael Langdon x Reader (Mad Love Act II, Chapter XIV)

Summary: It’s time to meet the residents of Outpost 3 as Michael begins his interviews to see who will make it to the Sanctuary (spoiler alert: not many).

Word count: 4.1k

A note from the author: Surprise Mad Love drop! We are down to our last three or four chapters, can you believe it? I've told myself that I'm not allowed to write anything else until I finish this, so expect updates semi-frequently. Goal is to get this bad boy finished by June! As always—hope you enjoy, and remember that likes, comments, and reblogs make my world go round!

Mad Love Masterlist

This is your fourth Outpost visit, and as you look out at the small crowd of survivors gathered in the sitting room of Outpost 3, you believe that you can confidently say that every one of them looks exactly the same.

Not appearance-wise, of course. Overseers are allowed to establish their own rules for their respective Outposts, including wardrobes. Most had been pretty laidback, actually. Outpost 3 is by far the most draconian, and you’re already regretting not pushing back on Michael’s decision to have you join him as you sweat in your stiff Victorian gown.

Though outfits and rules may change, what doesn’t is the faces. Every single time, when you and Michael arrive and make your introductions, the faces of the survivors are filled with hope. The hope of new drama, the hope of continued survival, the hope of a way out of the Outpost. It’s so familiar now, and each time, it’s pained you to see. These people that the apocalypse has spared, whether due to circumstance or societal standing, have no idea that they’re just pawns in Michael’s game of chess. No, worse than pawns. They’re nothing but dolls, amusement for Michael to play with before tossing them to the side like they’re worthless.

“My name is Langdon,” Michael starts. Instead of introducing you, he looks to you to introduce yourself, and you press your lips together to keep from smirking. Oh, he’s so going to regret this.

He immediately does the moment that you introduce yourself with your first and last name. Your legal last name, the one you were born with, and not that of your infernal husband. You can feel him looking at you, surely with barely-contained rage. Instead of looking back, you simply smile warmly at the occupants of Outpost 3, waiting for Michael to get back with the program.

“We won’t sugarcoat the situation,” he says after a brief stumble. “Humanity is on the brink of failure. Our arrival here is crucial to the survival of civilized life on Earth.”

There are a couple of other things that don’t change from Outpost to Outpost, you note as you watch the interaction that unfolds. The questions, for instance, are almost always the same, and almost always asked out of turn in a way that is guaranteed to infuriate Michael. What happened to everybody, what’s the Sanctuary, will some survive, etc. You clock every single question—even robot Ms. Mead’s, though that one wasn’t too surprising since you knew how she was reprogrammed—and listen as Michael gives the same answers that he always does.

Something else that doesn’t change? The abject lust displayed by a good contingent of the survivors. Michael’s a very attractive man, which you obviously know. 18 months is a long time to be surrounded by a very small amount of people day in and day out, and now that there’s fresh blood offering them a chance at salvation, they’ll do anything to convince him that they’re worthy. You frown as the survivors jockey for his attention, to be first.

Not because you’re jealous or anything. It seems as though the only aspect of Michael’s personality that has remained untouched through his rebirth into a full-fledged Antichrist is his devotion to you. No, you frown because you know that Michael loves to use this to his advantage. After all, lust is one of the seven deadly sins.

“What was that?” Michael asks after the introduction is over and as soon as the doors close behind you in the office in which the interviews will be conducted.

“What?” you ask coyly, playing a game of your own.

“You know what.”

“Oh, that?” Michael nods exasperatedly. “Langdon’s not my last name.”

You’re not sure if he looks more angered or bewildered, though the combination does have a pleasing shade of red creeping up his neck. “Of course it is, you’re my wife!”

“Not legally,” you retort.

“Well, we can’t exactly go to a courthouse to make it legal.”

“Hmm, maybe you should have waited for us to get to the point where I wanted to get legally married before ending the world.”

Michael’s jaw clenches, and he smirks. “Clever, though I have to say that your attitude is getting old.”

“And yours isn’t?”

You’re both breathing heavily as you glare, daring the other to continue. You fight with Michael so often now that this is a familiar dance, and you know the next move. He goes to kiss you, and though you’re certainly tempted, you put a hand up to stop him.

“No! No, we are not having sex right now.” You try to sound convincing, though you might be attempting to convince yourself more than Michael. It’s just so easy to resort to sex. It’s the one thing that you both agree on in this new world—that you’re good at having sex together. Plus, that’s one of the only times that you don’t completely hate him, and though it pains you to admit it, you look forward to those moments when you forget why you should think him a monster.

Michael raises an eyebrow. “We could, though.”

“No.”

To drive the point home, you put as much space between you as possible and go to the desk that holds all of the files of every Outpost 3 resident. If there’s one thing that gets Michael’s mind out of the gutter, it’s talking about his magnum opus: the apocalypse.

“What’s Dinah doing here?” That had been quite the shock, to greet Outpost 3 and find yourself meeting the eyes of the (now former, you suppose) voodoo queen. Though her own had widened in a frightened recognition, she looked down at her hands and kept her gaze there for the remainder of the meeting. The man next to her, her son, was one of those who instantly fell a little bit in love with Michael.

“She bought her spot, just like all the other rich fucks.”

“So she won’t be joining us back at the Sanctuary,” you tease.

“Absolutely not, especially now that I have no use for her and her powers.”

Ever since ending the world, Michael’s powers have blossomed into a whole different beast. He’s so powerful now that you don’t even know the extent, and you don’t think you want to. Where before, he would have needed the help of a voodoo queen or the Supreme when doing something especially complicated or out of his wheelhouse (such as enlisting Dinah’s help when you ate Satan’s poisoned apple or getting a spell from Mallory to reveal the ghost of Cordelia Goode), now, their powers would be worthless to him. You’re no expert when it comes to magic, but you think that his power must be equal to at least ten Supremes.

You certainly don’t want to test that theory.

“How many survivors will be accompanying us back to the Sanctuary, do you think?” you ask.

“Considering I’m not hopeful about interviews, there will be two. A man and a woman, both selected for their optimal genetics.” The interviews are never something to be hopeful over, because they almost always are a disappointment. In the other twelve Outposts, there have been a total of nine survivors that impressed Michael enough with interviews alone that he spared them from their original fates and gave them a spot at the Sanctuary.

“If I had to guess, I’d say it’s the two that are very obviously in love with each other.”

“Which ones?”

You rifle through the folders until you find two with pictures that match who you were looking at in the library. “These two. Timothy and Emily.”

He looks up at you curiously. “How could you tell?”

“When they weren’t watching you, they were staring at each other.”

Though the two were sat across the room from each other, their eyes were continually drawn together like magnets of differing polarities. You’re a little shocked that Michael couldn’t tell, considering his ‘night vision of the soul,’ as he calls it.

You just call it his creepy Antichrist powers.

You try not to, but you find yourself beginning to look through all of the files. They’re all fairly simple; a headshot, a bio, medical information. Really, Michael only uses them to look official and mysterious as he begins to pick their personalities apart bit by bit. For you however, they help to get to know the survivors, even just a little bit.

That’s precisely why you don’t like looking through these, why you don’t like these visits at all. Because knowing them, and knowing their ultimate fates, is something that makes you sick. Maybe that’s the price you’re forced to pay by the universe for being the Antichrist’s wife. You’re forced to be complicit in the continued mind games and eventual deaths of these people who thought that they were somehow safe after the bombs dropped.

Michael scoffs at the next file you flip open. “That’s one interview I’m dreading.”

“Her?”

“Mhm, Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt.” His words drip with disdain.

Coco…the name strikes some level of familiarity, but you can’t remember where you would have met a Coco. She didn’t look familiar when you saw her and her…interesting hair in the sitting room. She’s obviously a socialite, so maybe she was trending for some scandal or another in the Before. It’s so hard to remember that time, not only for the pain, but because it feels like an entire lifetime ago.

(Was it really only eighteen months ago that you were preparing for graduation, scrolling through social media, and participating in regular 21st-century society?)

One person who does look familiar? The white-haired stylist whose work Coco sports and the one who claimed the first interview spot before anybody else, Mr. Gallant. You’d recognize him anywhere—his confidence in you was one of the sole reasons you had the courage to go down the stairs and join Michael for your first Cooperative function. But as for him?

“Mr. Gallant didn’t recognize us,” you broach.

“No, he wouldn’t. Those whose services are needed by the Cooperative but aren’t trusted enough to keep their mouths shut are…conditioned to forget.”

“You brainwash them,” you clarify.

“I don’t.” His lips twitch at his own joke. Of course, he doesn’t. That would be getting his hands dirty, which he hates doing, especially now that he has all the resources in the (under)world at his disposal.

“My bad.”

“You’re so interested in this group of survivors. Does that mean you’ll be joining me for interviews?”

When you joined Michael for the first time, at Outpost 6, you said yes when he asked you this question. It was something different, after all, and you were at first interested in being a part of the process and getting to know some new survivors. Of course, this was all before you actually sat in on the first couple of interviews and witnessed Michael’s interview ‘style’ firsthand.

You roll your eyes. “Ugh, no. I hate all the weird sexual tension you have with everyone you interview.”

Naturally, Michael gets the wrong idea and thinks that you’re jealous. He places his hands on the arms of your chair, and leans in until he can meet your eyes. “You’re my one and only, you know that.”

“I do.” You stare back at him unflinchingly. “Doesn’t mean I like it.”

“The sexual tension or that you’re my soulmate?” You simply raise an eyebrow in response, and Michael sighs before straightening up. “Well, a Gray should be arriving at any moment with Mr. Gallant, so if you don’t want to see any ‘weird sexual tension,’ I would suggest leaving now.”

“Alright then, guess I’ll give myself a tour around ol’ Hawthorne.”

Michael pouts. “I was planning on taking you around tonight after Venable’s curfew.”

“Oh, that sucks. Have fun.” You give him a friendly pat on the shoulder as you leave the room.

Outpost 3 isn’t the largest Outpost you’ve visited, but it’s still pretty expansive. In most cases, this would mean lots of exploring to do. Unfortunately, it seems that Ms. Venable has stripped this place of anything that would make it unique. Hall after hall looks exactly the same in a way that would be disorienting if you weren’t keeping track of your whereabouts. The same boring, gray walls, the same black doors, the same frightened Grays scurrying around.

(If you had to pick the worst part about this Outpost so early on, you’d have to go with the forced servitude of some of the survivors here. Most of the other Outposts had a glorified chore chart that distributed tasks equally among survivors. Others had special privileges given to those who volunteered to work. This system? Well, this system has you hoping that Michael’s especially tough on Ms. Venable during her interview.)

After coming to the unfortunate conclusion that this is about as interesting as it’s going to get for you, you make your way back to where it all started: the library. This room at least has some character, between the fireplace and the music playing. Yes, it might be the same song on repeat, played on a vintage radio, but at least it’s something.

As it turns out, you won’t be alone. The two that you had noticed earlier, the ones that couldn’t keep their eyes off of each other, are holding hands and whispering to each other on the couch. They spring apart when you enter, and it’s obvious that they’re not expecting anybody to see them. Their attitude, and the way they’re trying to play it off like they weren’t conspiring, gives you pause. What other severe rules has Ms. Venable imposed on those under her care?

“Hello,” you smile at the two warmly in between appraising the titles on the shelves. “Timothy and Emily, right? It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Timothy says warily.

Emily, who doesn’t have that same tact, immediately gets to her question. “Are you here to interview us?”

You shake your head. “No, I let Langdon do the interviewing.”

“So…what do you want with us?”

“I don’t want anything with you. I am trying to find some entertainment, because this place is already incredibly boring and I’ve barely been here six hours.”

Timothy laughs. “Yeah, that doesn’t really get better.”

They watch as you continue to peruse the books, waiting to see if this is some sort of trap devised by you and Michael. It’s not—you genuinely just want to find a book you haven’t read yet and escape to your bedroom for a few quiet hours. Unfortunately, nothing is modern here, not even the books, and you end up settling on Frankenstein, which you’ve read a couple of times now.

“Is it alright if we ask you a couple of questions?” Timothy asks when you turn back around.

So much for a quiet few hours.

You sigh and sit down on the couch opposite the pair. “I can’t guarantee that I can answer all of them, but I’ll certainly try.”

“What’s it like out there?” Timothy asks the question, but both his and Emily’s eyes shine, desperate for any sort of news about the world outside the walls of Outpost 3. You wish you had better to share with them.

“Lawless. You remember the movies about the apocalypse?” They nod. “It’s worse than that. The world is completely unrecognizable, decimated by the bombs. If it weren’t for a map, I wouldn’t even know where we are. Those who survived the blast have been affected by the radiation from the fallout in the most terrible of ways. They have…sores and growths and cancer, all over their bodies. People kill each other for the smallest scrap of clothing. I’ve seen cannibals picking clean the bones of someone they once traveled with, someone that was once their friend.”

“My god,” Emily mutters.

“When M-–Langdon traveled to Outpost 2, his carriage was almost overrun by a band of survivors. They believed there was food inside, and even if there wasn’t, they wanted the chance to hurt somebody that hadn’t yet been hurt by nuclear fallout.”

That had been a terrifying ordeal to hear Michael recount. He wasn’t scared at all, knowing both that the radiation couldn’t hurt him and that he could (did) kill all of them with the snap of his fingers. But you were, for the simple fact that the world that you had once lived in was completely gone and replaced by one where people hunted each other out of necessity, because it might be the only true meal they could eat in weeks.

“How did he get out of it?” Timothy wonders.

The true answer obviously isn’t something that you’re able to share, so you instead go with what would have been the answer if it were any other member of the Cooperative in the carriage. “The bodies of the carriage have an electric current that can be activated in case of emergency. The attackers were all electrocuted with the push of a button.”

“Langdon mentioned a Sanctuary,” Emily says. “Is that where you live?”

“We both do.”

“What’s it like?” Timothy asks, while at the same time, Emily questions, “Where is it?”

“The Sanctuary is…well, it feels like the world never ended, that it just moved underground. As for the location, I’m afraid that’s classified.” You smile sympathetically, feeling a lot like Michael.

Now that this line of communication has been established, that Emily and Timothy now feel like they can trust you, you can practically see the plethora of questions that they want to ask.

“So how do you end up working for an organization like the Cooperative?”

Now that’s a question you haven’t been asked before. “It’s kind of a long story,” you say with an awkward laugh, wracking your brain to come up with a lie convincing enough that they believe it.

Before you can, the sound of a cane clicking slowly across the floor stops you. You look in the direction of the entryway, where none other than your dour host stands. Her bright orange hair stands in stark contrast to the rest of her outfit, black like yours. She smiles at you with darkly painted lips, but it’s a smile that holds absolutely no warmth.

“Dinner is served,” she announces.

The three of you stand, but only two start to follow Ms. Venable to the kitchen. “I’ll take my leave, then,” you say.

“You won’t be joining us?” She sounds a tad incredulous, as though nobody’s told her no in quite some time. That’s likely the case.

“The Cooperative supplies us with rations of our own, so as not to take from the Outposts’ stockpiles.”

It’s technically true. Michael would rather starve than eat the gelatinous cubes that constitute nutrition, and thanks to the endless powers he’s gifted with, meals remain the same as they are when at the Sanctuary.

“We shall see you tomorrow, then.”

You nod before smiling at Emily and Timothy. “It was nice talking to you.”

As you walk towards the office, you can already hear Venable questioning what it was that you talked about, trying to determine if the two gained an edge on making it to the Sanctuary. If only she knew that they’re practically guaranteed spots, you think with a quiet laugh.

Michael arrives at the office at the same time as you do, which is odd, considering he’s meant to be inside the office conducting his interviews. He takes your hand and kisses the back of it gently before opening the doors and leading you in.

“Where were you?” you ask.

He waves a hand and the doors close behind you. “Finishing up an interview.”

“Doing a little field work?”

“Something like that. Now, I’m starving, and I would very much like to enjoy dinner with some good company.”

At first, you felt a little bad eating your favorite foods while the rest of the inhabitants were forced to eat what was left of their rations. Why should you enjoy while they suffer? And then, you met the survivors, most of whom were filthy rich, and you felt okay with it.

Now, as you sit across from Michael enjoying an actual meal, you allow yourself to pretend for a little bit that your life is still as it was before the end. That this is a regular day after classes, and you’re eating a quick meal and enjoying the company of the man you love before you’re off to finish homework, go to an activity, or just hang out with friends. You miss the simplicity that you didn’t know you had, even still after eighteen months.

“How were your interviews?” you ask, trying to bask in that normalcy for as long as you can.

“Nothing to write home about, though I did learn that Ms. Venable is…shockingly self-conscious beneath her hard exterior.”

You scoff. “And that’s surprising to you?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“I talked with Emily and Timothy,” you mention.

“Please tell me they’re not as vapid as the rest of the inhabitants of this Outpost.”

“No, they’re…actually kinda cool.”

If you’re being honest with yourself, the reason that you immediately liked them so much is because they kind of remind you of you and Michael, before the apocalypse. They’re so in love with each other, so eager to just be near one another and enjoy their presence. It brings you back to New Orleans, walking through the market arm in arm as you searched for the perfect gift for Kate and he eagerly shared what he had learned when looking up grad schools for you. What you wouldn’t give to be showing him how to catch fireflies, or enjoying a sugary treat together.

Shouting sounds from downstairs, a loud argument starting to take place and distracting you from your thoughts. While you strain to try and hear what’s being yelled about, Michael simply smirks. “Took them long enough.”

Neither of you is surprised, because this is what always happens when Michael arrives at an Outpost. He, quite literally, brings Hell with him. It’s an interesting side effect of what happens when an Antichrist inhabits your space. Those walls that people put up, the rules that they live their lives by, crumble when the living embodiment of sin walks in. From there, it’s only a matter of time until everything unravels and they begin giving in to those seven deadly sins. As you listen to wrath begin to cloud minds, you can practically see Michael becoming more powerful thanks to it.

Later, wrath continues, along with a side of lust.

High-pitched shrieking, so different from the argumentative yelling of earlier, wakes you from the dozing you had taken to while trying to read Michael’s interview reports after dinner. You scramble to sit up in your chair, looking at Michael with wide eyes.

“What was that?” you ask.

He doesn’t even tear his eyes away from the computer to look at you, simply waving a hand nonchalantly. “Oh, Timothy and Emily have just been caught having sex. They’re about to be executed.”

“What?” You stand up in alarm, sure that this is actual cause for alarm. Michael, on the other hand, doesn’t even react to your reaction. “Michael!” you snap, desperately wanting him to show some kind of humanity.

Finally, he turns around in his chair and sighs as though you’re interrupting your work, which you know for a fact you’re not. “Yes?”

“We can’t let them die.”

“We won’t.”

You look at him in disbelief, because it sure looks like he’s going to let them die. “Then why aren’t you stopping this?”

Michael finally joins you in standing, taking your hands in his and squeezing reassuringly. “It’s sweet of you to worry about them, and I promise you that they will not die before reaching the Sanctuary. I’ll stop this when the time is right. First, however,” he smiles, “I’d like to enjoy their terror for a bit.”

“Every time I think you can’t possibly let me down more than you already have, you prove me wrong.”

Michael’s face falls at the barb that hits unexpectedly deep, but you don’t have it in you to claim any sort of victory in this. Anger, that heady emotion that’s fueled you up until now, has completely left you at this latest example of Michael’s lack of humanity. All that remains now is disappointment, and it’s a disappointment that leaves you tired. Tired of these games, tired of the life that you’ve found yourself in, tired of being able to do nothing but watch.

Except, you can do something this time. In this Outpost, you have the same amount of power as Michael. With that in mind, you pull your hands free and make for the door.

“C’mon, where are you going?” Michael calls after you.

You don’t answer him, because he knows as well as you. If he won’t put a stop to this, then you will.

///

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#michael langdon #michael langdon imagine #michael langdon x reader #american horror story #american horror story imagine #ahs imagine #michael langdon imagines #mad love musings

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itsasainz · 1 year

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the poison drips through | Roman Roy x Reader

Summary: grief is a natural instigator of reflection; Logan’s funeral forces you to look back on your own grief, and your relationship with Roman.

Word count: 7.3k

Warnings/tags: death of a parent (Logan Roy, reader’s mother), discussions of abuse (physical, emotional), grief and breakdown, mentions of addiction, depression and associated mental health struggles in a parent and in reader, implications of suicide, toxic and/or abusive familial relationships.

a/n: roman roy has a special place in my my heart. he’s awful, he’s product of his environment, I can’t justify his actions, I love him, it’s confusing, I don’t know. I binge watched all of succession in seven (7) days.

masterlist!

You’re not sure how old you were when you first met the Roys, but you find it strange to think of time pre-Roman, pre-Roy, when you were free of proxy-politics, hidden slights and subtle digs. You must have been a preteen, maybe twelve. It would make sense—the second summer after your father moved to New York, when he bought the house in the Hamptons. Your mother had stayed in London that summer, leaving you and your siblings to battle the sweltering Long Island heat alone with your father, who worked most of the summer anyway. Had it been the Sailing Club or the Golf Club where you’d first met Siobhan Roy? You aren’t sure, but you remember the bathroom where you’d run into her, and how a five minute conversation had turned into five weeks of friendship. It had gone beyond that five weeks—even when you got back to the UK, you’d found ways to keep in touch, and spent holidays together when you were in the same place; you’d grown accustomed to Kendall’s strange attempts at seeming “hip” and cool, and Roman’s whining and jokes.

Shiv had been, and is your friend—in many ways, your best friend—but you’d always had a sweet spot for Roman. It wasn’t until you moved to New York more permanently, right after you graduated, that you actually befriended him, your work at his father’s company at first forcing you into the odd work dinner or late night at the office, but routines were formed, at some point. Thursday lunches together, Monday morning coffees. At some point, he’d stopped seeming like Shiv’s whiney older brother, and become funny—most of the time. Roman, you had, at some point understood, took time. But most of your relationship with him came after Greece.

The first time you went on holiday with them—beyond the Hamptons or British countryside—you were twenty-three, and had found yourself on a ten-day trip through the Greek islands on Logan’s oversized yacht. It was that ten days that you realised that you were in, not particularly intentionally, but in nonetheless. You remembered everything about that trip; the private jet that took you to Thessaloniki, the starting point of the trip—you’d fly back to New York from Heraklion, with the entire family, who were coming from various outposts across the globe. To start with, though, it was just the two of you, walking on the scorched tarmac of Thessaloniki’s international airport, leaving the gleaming private jet behind, already feeling slick with set in the hot, midsummer air. You had appreciated the perks of a private jet that day—no queues, no crying babies or seats reclined into your knees—and didn’t have to think twice about where your luggage was, because everything had been taken care of by a team of people you barely saw, working like ants under the foliage. A refreshingly air conditioned car had brought you smoothly to the port, where a smaller boat, already stacked with your luggage, had taken you quickly to the gleaming palace on water that was the Roys’ yacht. The boat was like a small, disturbingly empty, city; an almost utopian place, gleaming and shimmering under the Mediterranean sun, a labyrinthe of rooms and decks and corridors. Despite the surplus of space, it was split between a select few; Logan Roy, of course, his four siblings and their own guests, a selection of board members and his third wife, who you’d met only once or twice before, Marcia. That day was languid, a steady flow of arrivals as the hours passed and the yacht sat just outside of the port, watched by the locals and tourists alike, most likely speculating about the owners of such a gratuitous yacht, carelessly waiting for all the world to see.

You and Shiv had been greeted by Connor, in his pre-Willa days, already in his forties though; Kendall had appeared at first without your notice, but the sound of his children, still babies then, had alerted you of his arrival, alongside his then-wife, Rava, who you still respected wholeheartedly. Roman had been next, harder to miss, making sure to “jokingly” insult everyone aboard within five minutes. You weren’t sure whether to feel flattered when it took him a minute or so to come up with an insult for you, but that train of thought was quickly lost to the arrival of the man himself; Logan Roy came with a fleet of people. He spoke about three words to you directly on that first day, but you supposed that wasn’t so bad—you were hardly novel to him anymore, given how your recent promotions had drastically increased your time spent with him and Kendall. Roman, however, was a different matter entirely.

You’d seen him around an awful lot, and spoken to him maybe twice, never for longer than a passing comment or introduction, though he knew of your friendship with his sister. And yet, here you were, on holiday with his family, and he was suddenly fascinated. Over those ten days, between your hours spent gossiping with Rava and his hours spent talking business with his brother and father, you somehow found time to get attached to the youngest son of the Roy dynasty.

Roman was a piece of a work, there was no denying it. He was insulting, defensive, childish, et cetera, et cetera, but he was often funny, too, and within days you had understood him well—he, like Kendall, Shiv and Connor, was driven by his father’s approval, but as is the way in any family, each of the siblings had manifested the same fears and motivations in different ways. Shiv’s fear of intimacy made for relationships with people who depended on her—for money or status—but who she could keep at an arm's length, and cast aside if they got too attached. Roman more openly craved connection, but his fears and traumas came to light in a more physical expression. The jokes at his expense had swiftly enlightened you to his troubled relationship with sex and affection, while, even this early on, Kendall’s addictions were beginning to form cracks in his determinedly “hip” façade. Most of these things you had already understood, but an extended amount of time on a vehicle that you can’t exactly leave had opened it all up to you—unlike the Hamptons, you couldn’t piss off to the other side of the island or back to the city, but only to the other side of the yacht, and even for a big yacht, it never allowed you to genuinely leave. The thoughts that would later become a strange, fucked up mantra began to formulate on that holiday; before you’d put it into words, or understood what you were asking yourself, the statement was swirling around your consciousness; the poison drips through.

Each of the Roy siblings was broken and damaged in a way you’d never seen before, but your long standing practice of people-reading and your love of untangling the dynamics within groups made the holiday a sort of project—by the end, you’d created a map in your head of the different events and people that made up the complex web of Roy troubles, built off the foundations laid by your friendship with Shiv and many brief interactions with her extensive family over the decade. It was an incomplete map—there would be things you didn’t discover until his death, a decade later, and things you would never know, but that initial map, fraction of what it would become, was the starting point for your relationship with Roman.

Your morbid fascination with the family, and apparent loyalty (though you only realised it years later) met with his intrigue with you. Shiv never brought friends on holiday, he disclosed on the third or fourth day—as such, everyone was trying to work you out, your game, your presence, beyond the limited stuff they already knew. But at the end of the trip, it wasn’t Shiv who you’d spent the most time with, but Roman.

You’d thought of it as a ten-day deep-dive into the family, one that wouldn’t be repeated and that would have few repercussions—for you, anyway, but something had been pushed into being on that yacht that would change the trajectory of your life.

Upon your return to the company, tanned and rested from your break, you found that your routine at work changed a little at first, and then a little more, and then completely. A week after the end of the holiday, Roman had barged into your office at around lunchtime, insulted a photo on your desk and dragged you out for an overpriced lunch to discuss work stuff—a legitimate offer, you later found out from Gerri, about an actual deal that he genuinely wanted to pick your brains about. The work-related talk had lasted maybe fifteen minutes before the two of you were side-tracked by something entirely inconsequential and spent the rest of the hour essentially gossiping. His coarseness surprised you a little, though it shouldn’t have, and you remember your initial reservations about his overt slights and hyperactivity—though nowadays you’ve grown to love both. The deal—the one he’d wanted to pick your brains about—had gone better than anticipated, partially, it was said, due to your counsel. So it became more regular—Thursday lunchtimes became your lunches with Roman, and he would stop by your office for discussions almost every day, uncharacteristically invested in his work, according to his siblings. You started to move up through the company too, taking on more responsibility, spending more time with the family, getting closer to the top.

At some point, you and Roman had become friends. You gravitated towards each other at galas and occasionally went for drinks after work on a Friday night. But, despite your time together, there was something odd about the dynamic—neither of you particularly spoke about your pasts, your childhoods. There was a certain shame you had about your upbringing—you knew it was entirely unfounded, that you’d been better off than the vast, vast majority, but then again, you spent most of your time with multibillionaires these days. Generally, you avoided discussions about family wealth, and guarded the inner-workings of your family, and all its troubles, in a way that is far more impossible for a family of the Roys’ calibre—you had your own secrets, a great many things you refused to discuss, and he knew that. In turn, Roman didn’t seem to want to delve into what it was like to grow up with the mighty Logan Roy as a father; so neither of you pushed it, and the subject of who you were pre-Roman began to fade; it would take a couple of years for it all to be disclosed, and even then, most of your big revelations about your relationship with him seemed to come in times of crisis.

You were friends. Work friends, really, but edging into the ground of the simpler terms; you were friends. You were, perhaps, his only one, or one of very few, and he was one of a fair few on your part, though he and Shiv were almost entirely separate from the company you kept outside of Waystar; you’d sometimes wondered what they’d think of the people you spent your Saturday nights with, or the clubs you frequented. But for years, he was your friend, and only your friend.

You’re not entirely sure when things began to get muddled, and lines began to blur. After one crisis or another, he had turned up at your door, late into the night, too tired and too upset to take the piss out of your apartment—a sure sign something was wrong—and ended up in your bed. You hadn’t slept together, but had spent the night beside one another, in hushed conversation or drifting into restless slumber. You’d woken up with his back to you, and it hadn’t been brought up again, not even when he turned up at your door a week later. Sleeping in the same bed as Roman became more common, though it was never sexual—it eased slowly from the simple need for company to admissions of wanting some form of affection—you would sometimes wake up to find that you had curled into one another, that in your unconscious states you had found an intimacy that was impossible in your waking lives.

And then, at some point, something had changed. You’d created a setting in which Roman could actually communicate—not without difficulty, but a space where he could say what he thought and attempt to move away from what he felt he should think. The emotional stuff took longer, but with those changes came a definite change in the nature of your relationship—namely, there was a newfound romance to it.

You’d held off the idea of a relationship with Roman for a long time—through all his joking, overly casual proposals, which you suspected were a way of him affirming some need for rejection, assuring himself that he was unlovable by presenting the ridiculous to have it shot down, as expected. But that had changed as he had, gradually, changed. As he became more open, more honest in that mesocosm of your apartment, developing a unique ecosystem of trust and loyalty and, you supposed, love, allowed him to become accessible to you in new ways.

Sex had taken longer. You were, to all intensive purposes, his girlfriend for a long while before you actually had sex. It was tentative, a slow process of breaking down barriers and rebuilding his relationship with a lot of things, in order to create a version of him that was capable of vulnerability. It’s still a work in progress. At some point (a nonchalant way of putting it—your milestones with him may have been muddled, but they were still deeply significant to you), the relationship had been opened for scrutiny at the hands of his family. You had, in some senses, created a healing process that they couldn’t comprehend, and you think that for that they will always resent you, but for the most part his siblings saw someone who made their brother a little happier and a little less skittish, and his father saw someone who could talk business and keep his son in check.

You didn’t know if there would ever be a wedding to commemorate it, and you doubted there would be children, but your ever-evolving relationship with him made you happy, and you knew it made him happy. Sometimes, you just wished that all that progress you’d made with him would translate to other aspects of his life, but such hopes never came to fruition—at the end of the day, he was still the young boy desperate for the approval of his hard-headed, abusive father.

It was that relationship with his father that made his relationship with his siblings so twisted. You and Shiv weren’t so close these days, but there was still amiable respect and remnants of that original loving friendship, but circumstance had torn rifts in the friendship of your teen- and twenty-something selves. In your thirties, that love had been somewhat lost, or changed—you’d probably always feel that friendly love for Shiv, the one responsible for this entire trajectory of your life.

Now, however, feels simultaneously like the best and worst time for a reflection on the ins and outs of your relationship with Roman Roy. Your bed is a mess, sheets tangled from Roman’s tossing and turning, his frame tense as he paces back and forth, pink flashcards clutched in his grasp. You’d helped him write them over the last few days, through the frustrations that he couldn’t get the words right or couldn’t express his true feelings.

It is only natural that on the morning of a funeral, you think of the funerals you have been to before. The one that stands out, the paradox, is the funeral that exposed your true upbringing to him; it wasn’t the wealth—Roman had hardly expected anything quite so extreme as his own family, but rather the people, your people, and how different they were from his.

You’d received the call late at night—UK and US time differences had gotten confused, your uncle thought you were five hours ahead, not behind—and had tried to gloss over the reason you were suddenly going back home for a week. Of course, in registering your time off with work—paid compassionate leave—he had discovered the truth, and insisted he accompany you. So Roman had met your family at a wake—not ideal, but it made sense. Your family, for all their flaws, had an open, friendly attitude; anyone was welcome in your home, and help was always offered where it could be, a notion so foreign to him that he’d never quite managed to grasp it.

Your family had been confused but welcoming of him; the context of your mother’s death was a strange setting to first impressions, but they liked him nevertheless. Your brother found his jokes more than a little amusing, and your little cousin seemed to think he’d hung the moon, which had more than baffled him—he’d never liked kids, even when they looked like you might have when you were little, even (perhaps especially) when they made him wonder about having children with you. That funeral had been a modest affair with a large turnout—most of the neighbourhood seemed to be there, but there was no fancy coffin or grand church; it was a small funeral, as your mother had wished, and as fitted the circumstances.

You remember a conversation with your sister a day or two later; sat in the garden, smoking, she had turned to you, posed that fatal question; What if the poison drips through? You had dismissed it initially, but at some point, probably after another depressive episode after, you had understood it. The poison drips through. But that was then, and this is now. This is not a modest funeral in your mother’s hometown, but a lavish one, in New York City.

No, this funeral is different.

Logan Roy’s funeral is not a neighbourhood affair, but an international one, and your Roman is doing the eulogy—hence the pacing and the flashcards. He is already dressed, and you are still in your pyjamas, but that is hardly the consideration—in this moment, you are simply concerned over whether or not Roman will make it through the eulogy; with every hour that passes, you become less convinced by his claim that he has “pre-grieved” his father’s death. If Roman breaks, the whole world will see it, abuse it, manipulate it; but everyone, Roy or not, should be able to grieve their parent’s death—no matter how awful they were—without judgement or manipulation.

He looks up from his cards— “You’re not dressed yet.”

“We have time.” you chide, but slip out of the tangle of bedsheets and turn the shower on. “Getting there on time is not going to be an issue.”

He dismisses you again, announcing the lines from his flashcards to himself as you shower, still going as you do your make up and dress, eat a little food—as much as you can stomach on a day like this, and make sure everything in terms of logistics will run smoothly, send a quick text to Shiv to make sure she’s coping—you’re sure none of them are—and eventually let Roman know it’s just about time to go.

His composure is already cracking by the time you get to the car. There is a sense of foreboding, and though you can’t bring yourself to iterate the thought, you have a distinct premonition that Roman’s eulogy will not happen as planned. You’re even wondering if he’ll sneak out before it’s his turn to speak, but you push the thought away. Roman would be okay, he always managed to scrape himself out of trouble, somehow.

The funeral is sombre, to no one’s surprise. You end up on the front pew, between Roman and Kendall, though you’re not entirely sure how. The service is long, as Roman Catholic funerals usually are, in your experience, and Roman will have to sit through the rest of it after his eulogy—whether it’s good that he’ll get it over with, or bad that he’ll have to sit with it for ages after is something you can’t decide on. You suppose that regardless of which point in the service he did the eulogy, he will always have to sit with his words.

And then it’s his part, and he doesn’t even manage the first sentence. You realise, the moment that he looks over to the coffin, that it’s over. You’re the first to get to him at the front, pulling the cards from his hands and letting him collapse into you, the cards getting taken by Kendall, the Roys all there to offer some form of support to their faltering sibling. His questions, his grief, are concerned with Logan’s body, lying and waiting in that coffin. It does, admittedly, seem unnatural that such a force could be contained in such a simple box. You feel almost like you are carrying him back to the pew, tucked under your arm, and welcoming him into your side, his body pressed into yours as though you are the only thing keeping him on earth, as if he would be gone without you. You let him cling, you make it to the end of the service without a further disruption, and then tell Shiv you’ll walk him back to the reception yourself, make sure he’s in a better state before you present him to the world once more. You sneak him out somehow, find a long route back that is not impacted by protests or by paparazzi.

The walk is slow, and he comes to himself little by little by the simple process of walking. He calms his breathing, starts to look about, register his surroundings and the events of the last few hours.

“Why’d you take us this route?” he asks. It’s not the quickest route, and it’s too strange a route to simply be about avoiding photos or crowds. He’s frowning, but you don’t seem embarrassed or confused by his line of questioning.

“My grandparents used to say that you should leave a funeral in small groups, and never all take the same route. It was some superstitious thing—like, if you all took the same route back then the soul of the dead would be able to follow you home, and they’d never leave.” You don’t say that you would hate for Logan’s soul to remain here, to follow him for the rest of his life.

He frowns at you. “I don’t think there’s much we can do to stop him from staying.”

You sigh. “You’re probably right.”

“I’ll never escape him, will I?”

“Roman, for the first time in your life you can step out of this sphere. You can look at the world without the oversight of that bastard, and you can pick a direction. You have the choice, the ability to choose for yourself without his consequence. If you want so badly to escape him, then you can. It’s in your grasp.”

He doesn’t respond, meandering toward your destination. Eventually, he formulates a response. “He’s gone, but the rest of them aren’t.”

You don’t push it—it’s for another day. Instead, you hold his hands in the street, and the pair of you head towards the reception.

He’s beside you for the majority of the evening, until you go to get a drink so that kendall can have a word—a bad idea, in retrospect—and you return to find him gone. Kendall shrugs you off, and no one else knows or cares where he’s gone. You call him a few times, wonder if he just needs some quiet, and then feel your instincts correct you; Roman has not gone for a moment of quiet, you know him better than that, and there is no guarantee he is safe or calm or well.

So you leave, try his phone a few more times, and some morbid curiosity leads you toward the sounds of the protestors. Perhaps it’s your gut, perhaps there is something that viscerally understands his masochism and self destruction. You know you’ll find him in that mob, at the mercy of the only people who will show him violence like his father used to. You feel sick with the thought, nauseous with the understanding of what he is doing to himself.

Sure enough, by the time you find him he has been beaten to a pulp, he is black and blue and bloody, damn near smiling with the pain despite being barely able to stand or walk, destroyed by a sadistic crowd. They do not know this man, you think, as you bundle him into a car, they do not understand grief if they can do this to a man who had freshly lost his father.

At your apartment, you sit him against the bathroom wall, on the floor, splatters of blood on his clothes, tainting the white tiles. He’s incoherent as you sort the first aid kit, and find a cloth to clean him up with. You work methodically, sure to keep him conscious in case of a concussion, as you clean and dress every part of broken skin, and treat his bruises with an ointment you find in the bottom of the kit, and strip him of his stained clothes, providing him with a change. You do not leave him alone, for fear of what might happen, and help him into some new clothes, sweaters and top, too casual for him to ever actually wear—you’d bought the joggers over a year ago and seen him wear them twice—before settling him into bed. You know enough about concussions to know you should wake him up frequently to check on him, but for now you let the tears come in waves. You’ve cleaned the physical wounds, and you hope that with every round of tears comes a cleanse, one that will make the wounds of his broken life easier to heal come the morning, as though the tears themselves will act to wash the grit from the graze, or to pick the shrapnel out from the marred flesh of this open wound.

You look around your apartment, out the window at the city below, and an idea strikes you—almost certainly a bad one, but you’re beyond the point of caring. “Rome,” you say, “You wanna go to Barbados?”

Caroline’s place in Barbados is lovely, if a little mosquito-ridden, and it feels oddly bonding to care for Roman together with his distant, almost neglectful mother. She loves him, that much is true, but it’s never enough.

You have thought more about your own mother in the last two weeks than in the last few years—not because you’d wanted to forget her, you saw her in everything—these thoughts were more active, like you were searching for the memories that might guide you in how to deal with this, or help Roman to cope. Your mother had been a different kind of a parent to Logan, and her issues had never been sought out—it was like no matter what she did, she would always have been claimed the same way, her life would always have made yours worse, despite anyone’s efforts to change that.

The poison drips through. That had been your sister’s line, and now Kendall’s. You’d experienced some of what your mother had first-hand, and it always made you wonder if everyone is destined to become their parents, to mirror their lives no matter how consciously they tried to avoid it; whether they resign themselves to it, or try so hard to avoid it that they do a full circle, returning to the likeness of their parents, everyone you’ve ever known is the product of their parents; it is biological, cultural, psychological.

It’s no surprise when Shiv arrives, ready to turn Roman to her side of the discussion about the board meeting. It’s late afternoon when you and Shiv find a moment—Roman has disappeared, and you sit on the paved surrounding to the pool, legs soaked up to your knees, weight leant back on your arms. The youngest Roy is somewhere behind you, to the right, probably on a deck chair.

“Do you think—and tell me to fuck off if you like—that maybe this whole deal is a good thing?”

You hear her sit up, and turn to look at her. She’s frowning at you, “How so?”

“I don’t know, ‘cause, like, you guys—all of you—have just been trapped in this sphere of Waystar and ATN and your dad, and all of you are just fucking miserable. What if you—what would be so bad about just getting out? You could free yourselves from all this bullshit, and there’s no Logan to pull you back in, so you could just… be. Just, y’know, learn a bit more about who you are outside of your father’s sphere of influence. Plus, like, Kendall’s gonna break, Roman already has, and you—all of you—are, frankly, pretty fucking fragile at the minute.”

She moves to come and sit next to you, slipping her feet into the pool beside yours. “You don’t understand.”

You shrug. “I’m sure I don’t.”

“We’re never, really, going to be free of it. Any of it.”

She shifts, her head resting on the bare skin of your shoulder, hair ticklish on your neck. You rest the side of your face on the crown of her head. “Maybe, maybe that’s true. But for the first time in your lives, the door’s open.”

The silence stretches out over the pool, filling the air, making you wonder what’s going on in her head. You sit like that for a while and at some point you realise she’s crying— not sobbing, not shaking with the force of it, but just sitting there, letting the tears stream; you don’t think she’s even really blinking, but the stillness remains, you don’t move. She needs this. You know about the scheduled meeting rooms for crying—Roman mentioned it—but this doesn’t feel like mourning. Not for her father, at least.

“Hey, fucknuts,” Roman calls, appearing at the edge of the courtyard, still barefoot in the shorts and top Caroline had gotten him when you first arrived. Shiv swiftly brushes the tears away, smiling up at him. He looks between you. “Ah, fuck—what… nevermind.”

Suddenly, you are plunging through the chlorinated water, lungs straining at the shock, hands splaying out through the cyan waters, in some momentarily suspended, bubbly universe, the tiled walls of the pool reflecting its pale, eggshell blue translucence onto your skin. You burst upward, drawing in a deep breath and flicking your hair from your face as your toes find the floor of the pool. “Argh, fuck you!”

Roman is laughing, Shiv in a similar state to you, and the moment feels distinctly child-like. You wade through the neck-deep water to the edge, and reach up to him to help you out, but he shakes his head. “Fuck that,” he chides, “I’m not that stupid.”

Shiv is laughing now, and you realise that you’re smiling despite yourself. “Rome, come on, at least help the pregnant lady.”

“Yeah, Rome, help the pregnant lady!” Shiv echoes, joining you at the edge and reaching for him. He knows what’s about to happen and submits himself to it regardless, letting her get a grip of his hands and be practically thrown over your heads, crashing sidelong into water. The splash and waves lap at your chin but you and Shiv are too busy laughing to notice; he struggles upright and rolls his eyes through his smile.

“Cunts.” he groans.

Shiv splashes him in the face with some water, and he swears again, splashing her back and catching you in the process. The ensuing water fight is short and chaotic, halted by Caroline’s arrival to tell you all to be quiet. Roman is laughing, the three of you paddling to the shallow end through some half-hearted apologies. Clambering out and grabbing some towels, you meander down to the seats and drinks table overlooking the seas, drying out your hair and letting conversation turn to business. This is where Kendall finds you, twenty minutes later, in a serious discussion about the board meeting.

The next few hours are a rollercoaster. Calls, discussions, debates, the classic Roy egoistical outlook on why each of them are better suited to the CEO position and why they have been groomed for it. Privately, as you meander in and out of their discussions, conscious that you’re not really involved in their family stuff at all, you settle on the idea that perhaps none of them are. Your feelings about the deal are one thing, meant to be separate from your feelings about them, but they intertwine now—the future of the company lies with them, and their capabilities, and their decisions. That’s not particularly your concern, you’ve been starting to manoeuvre your way out of your current position of influence, toying with the idea of leaving completely, selling your shares and heading elsewhere, but the idea of leaving them behind, leaving Roman behind, is too difficult to consider. What if you didn’t have to factor that in? What if you could walk away knowing it wasn’t them you were walking away from?

It’s this spiralling thought process that subdues you during dinner, ignoring Peter’s friend—James? John?—and knocking back continuous cocktails. Shiv frowns at you, “Trying to get hungover before the board meeting?”

You let out a half laugh. “If I drink a bit more tomorrow I won’t get the hangover.”

Kendall watches you for a second. “Clear minds tomorrow.”

You roll your eyes. Caroline glares at you all for ignoring the pitch you’re currently being presented with and you glance at Roman beside you. He’s anxious, he has been since the morning of the funeral, and you get the sense that he—body, mind and soul—is consuming himself, like he’s just destroying the fabric of himself from the inside out, so destroyed by his father’s death. The whole structure of his life, its fabric and its character, has been defined by his father’s presence and absence, and the man’s ability to maintain his presence even through his absence, but that presence, that famed presence, their “dear, dear world of a father” diminishes with every passing second.

Roman’s hand finds yours under the table, slightly clammy, taking you by surprise. His initiation is uncharacteristic. You give his hand a slight squeeze, and in response he laces his fingers into yours, a more substantial hold. Be here, he seems to ask. The world goes quiet—it’s just you, Roman, and your palms against one another under the table.

Like all things, the moment passes, the chaos returns. More phone calls, an equivocal end to the dinner, and you end up at the house, the Roys down at the beach. You lie at the end of Roman’s bed, feet still on the floor, staring at the ceiling fan; there could be any manner of discussions going on between the siblings at the sea, you could wake up to find they’ve drowned one another or something. Knocked each other out with a coconut or some shit. Roman, your Roman, and his grief, his deep felt love and guilt and terror, lost in the storm of this entire shitshow. You think of that day at Connor’s ranch when you saw the scars on Logan’s back, Ewan’s eulogy about his polio and self-blame, the mirror he made his children look in when they cried. Broken people make broken people. It’s easy to think of time as linear—past, present, future—but it’s more of a circle, you think. Infinite, never-ending, always repeating the same old mistakes. Kendall’s distant fathering, Logan’s abusive fathering—were they really so different?

The poison drips through.

It’s difficult to compare your childhood with the Roys’, but you remember those same thoughts, of a different nature—you’d been lucky enough to live in a world where things were talked about, and you had been able to process things as they happened, rather than let them bubble under the surface, but there had always been that idea. Your family history, the mental health troubles, ECT treatments and various crises in your family history, long before your time, and the effects that you had grown up with. You remember the first time you understood that your mother wasn’t quite right. You remember trying to get her out of bed to walk you to school and the realisation that she wasn’t really there, not in her mind, anyway. And in your teenage years, when you felt that yourself for the first time, you remember the terror of becoming her, of losing all feeling until you couldn’t get out of bed for days at a time.

When you took Roman to her funeral, you hadn’t told him how she’d died, too scared it would be weird or uncomfortable. He’d worked it out, and confronted you in the bathroom at the wake. Sat on the bath met, you had unleashed it all on him, and it had been one of the few genuine conversations you’d had with him in those first years. It had been a different kind of a struggle to his—it wasn’t actively inflicted by your parents, it wasn’t an intentional abuse like the kind he had experienced, but an enforced bystander effect—instead, you had had to stand at the sidelines as your mother collapsed in on herself, decaying before your eyes until you gave up and left. Half the world away, you had learned to understand those things, but now Roman had hints of it in him—he was barely even a bystander in his father’s death, but the grief and guilt were parallel.

This deal was his version of moving to NYC. An escape, an out.

You must drift off, because you open your eyes to the muffled chant; a meal fit for a king. Downstairs, you find them, concocting some awful smoothie, cackling like maniacs. As teenagers, it had been one of those games you’d played when their parents were away, seeing who could stomach the most awful of concoctions for trivial prizes and rewards—apparently this is similar, an initiation to a proper CEO position, on Kendall’s part. You make yourself known by handing Shiv a bottle of Tabasco, Kendall groaning and the other two cheering.

Caroline’s interruption only spurs it on, and by the time you’re heading back to bed, the smoothie having been dumped on Kendall’s head, a crown, you can barely stand you’re so tired.

Still vaguely unfamiliar, you wake up with Roman’s face pressed into your neck, his breath warm and ticklish on your skin, arm thrown over your waist and legs tangled together, a position that makes you think he really is comfortable with you, even if it’s taken a ridiculously long time to get here. You wonder if he can hear the air in your lungs or the blood in your arteries, or whether he notices the patter of your heart as you recognise this display of unconscious affection. Eventually, the rest of the building comes to life, and Roman wakes, moves from you with a sort of embarrassment, changing from his Walmart shirt into business attire. You wear the pantsuit you’d gotten with this board meeting in mind a while back, your office fashion being a slight point of pride—you weren’t the biggest fan of the drab stuff people usually wore, and liked to use interesting cuts and shapes to create range in the endless blouses and blazers and skirts and trousers of your work clothes. Subtle, but not boring.

Back in NYC, after a morning of calls and diplomacy and last minute bids for votes, you are greeted with a room full of people in expensive suits waiting and chattering anxiously as board members start to file in. You still don’t know how to vote, whether you’ll side with the siblings or not. Instead of stressing, you wrangle some gossip out of Stewy and do a shot in the bathroom. Zero hour.

With a pencil, you tally up each vote on a Post-It note stuck to the page of your notebook where you were planning to take notes, both Shiv, to your right, and Roman, to your left, glance at the tally every few seconds. You will be the last three votes.

When it reaches Roman’s turn, it is 6-4 toward the deal, he votes against and you are faced with a choice. If you vote for the deal, Shiv’s vote is purely nominal, and the deal will go through whether she likes it or not—you will be the decider; if you vote against, then it is an even 6-6 and she will cast the deciding vote. You look at the faces of each of the Roys, the children who have grown up to get to this moment. It feels ridiculous that it might be your choice. In the end, that is what makes you vote how you do—this is their livelihood more than it is yours, and you want Shiv to have the options in front of her—you can cope either way. So you vote against the deal—not for any loyalty to Kendall, but for one of your oldest friends, to give her some ounce of autonomy when you know that’s something that has been scarce in her life. Perhaps it's cruel to give her the choice between her brother and her husband, but, selfishly, you don’t want Roman to hate you.

“No, I vote against.” you eventually utter out, earning a triumphant nod from Kendall. Shiv glances at your tally, confirming the equal scores, confirming that it is her choice that makes or breaks the deal—literally.

And she breaks.

You see them, the Roy children, through the glass walls that separate the various conference rooms. You see the pain, the anger, the fear; it comes to a head, and all of the raw emotion of the last days is borne into the world, witnessed through the glass. You listen to Kendall’s rage, and for a minute you are a teenager, listening to one of Logan’s tantrums after one of Roman’s misdemeanours. For a minute, you realise how quickly Kendall turns into his father. For a minute, you feel your heart break on their behalf—at the end of the day, they are children, mourning for a father whose love was confusing and hateful.

The poison drips through.

You are your mother’s daughter, and he is his father’s son.

Afterwards, as you stand beside Shiv in a commemorative photograph, it is understood that there is no singular reason behind this. The freedom of her siblings; the power as the wife of a CEO, not the sister; the wishes of her late father; Kendall’s rage; Roman’s breakdown; the inevitable becoming of one’s own mother. When you and Roman leave, despite the knowledge that Roman is emotional and angry and probably confused by a sense of relief, you resolve that you will call her in the morning. You’ll make your exit as quietly as you can, but you will try to book Saturday morning brunches with her like you used to when you were in your early twenties. You’ll text Rava a little more, and try to create some positive influences in the next generations of Roy children.

You think of your parents. Of Logan, of Caroline, of your own siblings and your own childhood. The poison drips through. What if it doesn’t have to?

#roman roy x reader #shiv roy x reader #succession #succession x reader #roman roy #shiv roy #Kendall roy #succession fanfiction

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makoodles · 1 year

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What is Tsu’tey favorite body part ? On him and on his mate ? Btw I love your fics! Sex education 🤭🤭 god !

other than his queue which represents all of the cultural and spiritual significance to na'vi culture, i think tsu'tey would like his hands! he's skilled with his bow, with his spear, with the tools used around the village. they look so big when they're wrapped around your waist and hips, his long fingers almost comically oversized as they trail patterns over your soft skin.

on you i think he likes your mouth - and not for the reason you might think, either. in the beginning he's a little discomfited by the differences between your features, including your blunt little teeth, but over time he grows so endeared by it. he loves the way your mouth curves when you smile, he loves your harmless little teeth, he loves the plump softness of his lips when he gets the opportunity to kiss you without that stupid mask.

he'll sit and watch you babble on about all of your interests, about life on earth, about gossip from the outpost, about all the little things that have happened that day. his eyes will be glued to your mouth the whole time, watching your lips form the shapes of your words as your little white teeth flash. his ears flick and twitch the whole time despite the neutral expression on his face; it may not look like it, but he'll be happy to sit there and watch you talk for hours

#asks #avatar headcanons #tsu'tey #tsu'tey x reader

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dyns33 · 1 year

Text

Chico

a long Vaas and little pirate story

__________________________________________

Unlike most souls who resided on Rook Island, Y/N was not born there, she did not choose to go there, and she had not been captured by pirates.

No, she was just on a boat passing by the island, which had sunk due to an explosion in the poorly constructed engines, and she had managed to survive by clinging to debris and swimming to the beach.

No one had seen her. No one knew she was here. Without money, without a phone, without an identity card, but with enough intelligence to understand where she had landed, Y/N had accepted that she had to be discreet and wait for the right moment to leave the island.

For the first few months, she hid in caves and the jungle. It was not easy, because there were many poisonous plants, wild animals, in addition to the pirates and natives.

The natives weren't mean, but a bit stupid. Talkers. They could speak about the foreign girl who wandered near the villages, and Y/N would have became a prey for the pirates.

Then, after nearly dying of starvation, thirst, freezing, or being eaten by a tiger, Y/N wondered if the best hiding place wasn't staying right in the lair of Rook's most dangerous creature.

Vaas camp.

Y/N had seen the leader of the pirates several times, from afar. He was quite scary, especially when he stopped in the middle of the forest to sniff the air and stare at the bushes, as if he could sense she was there.

There were also the stories she had heard about him. It looks like he was as mad as he was violent, uncontrollable, unpredictable. Always on drugs. Thinking only of money and control.

It was for these latter reasons that Y/N thought she had a chance hiding among the pirates.

Maybe she was small, and didn't really know how to fight, but she was good. Smart. Polite and disciplined. If she did the tasks the leader demanded, and didn't piss off the other pirates, then she would find herself a safe lair.

With some regret, she cut her hair, hiding her face as much as possible with two bandanas and sunglasses. Red bandanas, like the t-shirt she had taken from a corpse, covered by a bulletproof vest. With the headband that flattened her breasts, the oversized pants, the gun at her waist, and boots, she looked like a little man.

A little pirate.

As if everything was normal, she joined a group of pirates patrolling the north of the island. They didn't comment, asking her if she wanted some rum, and snickering that the new one was tiny.

They laughed less when a wild dog tried to attack them and Y/N killed it. Living in the jungle for months was learning to survive.

When they offered her rum again, it was with gratitude and respect.

Y/N first stayed in an outpost. It was simple, it was easy. She wandered far into the jungle to urinate or wash herself. She slept little, and in inaccessible places. Conversations were minimal, only when necessary.

No one seemed to suspect anything or care about her.

Nico and Benny were funny. Almost sympathetic, if she forgot that they tortured and killed the people the group caught.

Carlos was a bit scary. He didn't stay at the outpost, he only came by from time to time, to check that everything was fine.

The first time he had seen Y/N, he had made a funny face.

'Who's the little guy ?' he asked.

"New recruit. He's good with a knife."

"... I didn't know we had a new recruit."

But he had left without adding anything, and everything had gone well.

Until it's time to switch teams. It was hard and boring to guard the outposts and those who did a good job were rewarded by being able to return to camp for a while.

Vaas camp.

Contrary to what Y/N had hoped, not only was the pirate leader there when she arrived, he noticed her right away.

"So, you're the new little recruit with a knife ? It's true that you are small, hermano. A real baby. Easy to eat. You know I could easily eat you, huh chico ?"

"Yes, boss." decided to answer Y/N, staying calm and looking at him in the eye.

This seemed to surprise him, before he burst out laughing. He pulled out his gun, pointing it at her.

"Do you think you're funny, chico ? Do you think I'm kidding ?"

"No, boss."

"... No ? You're just a calm and polite little chico then ? Hmm. We'll see about that."

It was seen very quickly. Like at camp, Y/N found a quiet place to sleep, and she avoided everyone when she had to undress. For the rest, she obeyed orders, she was silent, polite, calm, discreet.

Which did not escape Vaas, who seemed to have eyes everywhere, and who seemed to appreciate this unusual behavior.

His fascination didn't lessen after she saved him from a large stone. Chico, as he decided to call her, had become his hero, his little favourite.

"There was the rock, there were the caves. Mi chico is like a lucky charm, hermano. I can't stay away from him, or I'll be screwed. And he's so cute. Isn't he cute, Carlos ?”

"Yes, Jeff."

"You sound like him. So fucking polite. I love it when he calls me boss. Huh, chico ?"

"Yes, boss."

"That's right, my little chico ! My lucky charm."

Everyone knew that Vaas loved chico. The pirates kinda laughed at her because of that, kindly. They could have been cruel, or jealous, but Y/N didn't really get any special treatment, and the boss was calmer since the arrival of the little guy, whom they really liked.

That didn't stop the jokes.

Some spoke of the fact that Vaas was in love. Y/N didn't believe it. It was just stupid remarks about the fact that two men couldn't be close in being gay. Vaas visited the whores of Bad Town. He wasn't looking at any man.

No, he was simply fascinated by his chico, nothing more.

Another joke, very amusing, was invented by Juan.

To tell Y/N that the boss was asking for old and very expensive bottles, abandoned in a cave that is difficult to access by sea, and that he wanted his chico to go get them.

It was not true.

Vaas hadn't asked for anything, and there were no bottles.

On the other hand, the cave was indeed difficult to access, and once inside, Y/N was unable to come out from where she had entered. She wandered the dark tunnels for hours, days.

There was no water. Her flashlight eventually died. And despite the fear of ending up like this, Y/N was still thinking of the bottles, and of Vaas who was waiting. So while looking for an exit, she looked for the imaginary bottles.

She only found an exit, after almost a week, having to climb against a wall, slipping several times, falling, breaking her fingers and a few ribs, but Y/N managed to get out.

First reflex, drink. Second reflex, find bottles. Any kind of bottle, before returning to camp.

It was almost as hard as getting in and out of the cave. The camp was far away. She was exhausted.

When she arrived, she didn't even notice the silence. The bodies near the door, including Juan's. Bullet and burn marks on the walls. Y/N didn't understand at all the looks and whispers of the other pirates when they saw her coming.

Vaas also looked at her weirdly, as she placed two bottles in front of him.

"Sorry, boss, I couldn't find your bottles." she muttered before trying to go to her little hiding place, to sleep. She fell after taking ten steps.

"Chico !" shouted a voice. "Chico, wake up ! Carlos, give me some water and call the doctor ! Chico, no, stay with me. My chico. Mi cielo."

Y/N was really too tired to move, or even open her eyes. She felt hands on her face, a mouth on hers, liquid in her throat, then nothing.

When she woke up, she didn't recognize the room she was in. Pink. It had been months since she'd seen that color, it wasn't a color that lasted long on Rook.

Children's toys. And Doctor Hernarch.

The good doctor, who made the good pills, according to Benny.

He sighed when Y/N tried to move, then when she realized that she no longer wore her bandana on her face, nor her bandage around her chest.

"Are you all right, young lady. Young man ? Vaas brought me a young pirate boy, and he still thinks I'm treating a young pirate boy. I haven't told him, and I won't tell him."

"... Thanks."

"Don't thank me. It's my job. You might have preferred not to wake up. He seems to like you very much. You hold his heart and his madness in your hands. He threatened me a lot, saying he'll kill me if you don't wake up. Maybe he'd like to know your secret, maybe not. Maybe it would be worse, for everyone. I won't say anything, rest."

Y/N lay down as long as possible, so no more than a few minutes, before jumping out of bed to get her things, and cover herself.

Then, holding her stomach, she went downstairs.

Like a lion in a cage, Vaas walked around the living room in a circle, biting his fingers until they bled. He often did this when he was nervous, or when he had taken too many drugs. It could be both. He looked really worried.

"Boss, your fingers." Y/N said, staying near the stairs.

"Chico ? Chico !"

He ran over to hug her, kissing her neck, cheek and forehead over and over, muttering insults and tender words.

"Mi chico... Don't ever do that again. Ever ! Fucking Juan, motherfucker. He thought he was funny, and now he's used as fertilizer in my garden. Asshole ! I could have lost you because of him ! You shouldn't have listened to him, chico. I'm the one giving the orders, directly. You don't leave the camp without me anymore. I should put a leash on you."

"Yes, boss."

"Ah, my chico. Always so polite, always so calm. You worried about my fingers ? It's okay, the doc is going to give me some meds, and you could kiss them better. We're going home !"

In the car, Carlos was silent, glancing at Y/N in the rear view mirror. At Vaas too, who refused to leave her, hugging her tightly. The big pirate had been worried too, for her, and for everyone, because during his absence, the boss had started to lose his head completely.

It was a miracle and a relief that she came back.

Purring, Vaas started rubbing against her again, smiling, repeating how happy he was that his chico had returned.

Y/N then thought that the doctor was not wrong. She held Vaas' madness in her hands, and perhaps his heart, and she couldn't decide if it was a good thing or not.

"I missed you, chico. I feel dead inside without you."

"Me too, boss."

"Mi chico." he whispered, laying his head on her shoulder, relaxed at last.

She had answered to be polite, as always. But also because she meant it, and that too, she didn't know if it was a good thing or not.

#far cry 3 #vaas #vaas montenegro #vaas montenegro x reader #vaas montenegro imagine #vaas montenegro fanfiction #vaas and the little pirate

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sapropel · 3 months

Note

Genuine question. You give "Generalized statements about Israel as a major global power/influencing the US" as an example of an antisemitic dogwhistle, but I'm not sure how to tell that from actual criticism of Israel. Can you give some examples?

Sure. First off, when it comes to antisemitism, especially antisemitic conspiracy theories, specificity is the enemy of antisemitism. Giving specific examples of what you're criticizing in Israel makes accidental antisemitism much, much less likely because this brand of antisemitism requires a certain air of mystery and mysticism to function.

When you see Nazi-era antisemitic propaganda like this, it relies on inarticulate fears of diffuse networks of Jews who allegedly puppeteer the rest of the world. It's the same antisemitic conspiracy theory that led to the Coleyville synagogue hostage crisis in 2022, where an antisemite held a Texas synagogue hostage and demanded of Angela Buchdal, a popular but completely unrelated New York rabbi, that the US release some political prisoners. The thought here is that this individual powerful Jew must have sway over the US government, which is controlled by Jews.

When someone says something like "Israel is controlling the west--look at how they're getting away with so much!" that's antisemitic and unhelpful. It's an updated version of "Jews control the world." But we know why Israel can get away with committing atrocities--and it isn't because of the Jews. It's because of its well-established role as a bastion for Western interests in the Middle East. It is, in many ways, an oversized military outpost for the United States that serves as a perpetual source of the regional destabilization that has been the keystone of British and American foreign policy for a century. By the way, Israel started as a British colony--called Mandatory Palestine--largely as a way for the British to maintain a foothold closer to India. From its conception, Israel was meant to serve imperial interests.

Sure, you can talk about how Israel can influence the US or how it could be seen as a global power. You'll just want to make sure you're being specific about those things rather than tossing out generalized statements that are nearly indistinguishable from lizard people conspiracies.

"Israel is unstoppable. The entire world is just bowing down to their whims" = BAD. Conjures the octopus. Doesn't give us a target for material change other than the nebulous Jewish puppetmaster.

"Israel escapes accountability as its ongoing impunity serves the interests of the Imperial core." = GOOD. Stimulates discussion of provable historical fact and international relations. We can do something about this.

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bluejaybytes · 2 months

Text

OCposting... got too long. Under the cut for like a wholeass essay on What's Up With Juno

Juno, as a mining robot, is traditionally named by the first crew she gets assigned to. Depending on crew and the strictness of the overseer the names differ from robot to robot, typically feminine as all robots are traditionally she/her'd, akin to how boats are. Juno's a bit of an unusual case, however, as while "Juno" is suggested by her first crew, what's different is just that, it's a SUGGESTION, rather than just being assigned. It's around a week before she's properly named, "Juno" is a suggestion by the person who's essentially the unofficial leader of the crew, Russel (...as opposed to the actual leader, the overseer of their crew).

Juno's relationship with ESPECIALLY her first crew is really strong, she even sits with them and has a drink after shifts, though she only just holds her cup before passing it off once someone starts eyeing it. The mining robots are very commonly close with their crews, given that their job is to keep them safe, but Juno is uniquely close with hers. Of course, mining crews aren't forever, once the caves have gone too deep to be worth the effort or the resources of value have been depleted, the miners split up and find crews with new mines. Juno moves on as well, but she always remembers her first crew as being the ones she was closest with.

Which is why it's significant when Russel is part of the crew she gets called in to help! A sudden outbreak of unusual illnesses breaks out in a mining crew deep, DEEP within the caverns, and the miners have suspected something in the caves themselves is causing the sickness, enough so that despite the overseers reluctance to, they bring in a robot to check everythings out, with sheer coincidence being that it's Juno. Russel, one of the least affected, is VERY relieved when Juno shows up, not just because he trusts her to do a good job, but because she's an old friend and he's happy to see her again.

Alongside Juno, however, is Malachi. When the overseer of the crew called up reporting the illnesses and requesting a robot be sent down, the manager of the crew, and many other crews in the area, is unsettled and a bit angry about this. Malachi is the son to the owner of the company that produces the mining robots, and while he's yet to inherit the company, he holds a high enough position as a manager to own several crews, and it's HIS crews getting sick. He could HANDLE some sick miners, it's happened before, but what he finds most angering is both how the symptoms are of an unknown illness... but that the miners claim it's only after mining for the new "miracle resource" he discovered and staked his reputation on that they get sick. He doesn't believe them, after all, they're only one of many of his crews, but he goes down while delivering Juno to the mining outpost to confirm.

His "miracle resource" is extremely important to him, THIS deep in the caverns, sustaining large settlements has been too resource intensive to actually manage, and the power his miracle resource gives off is so much that it could revolutionize deep cavern settlements, and it's his big pitch to his father to expand his influence in the company, and to guarantee he gets the company once his father either dies or retires, it NEEDS to work. So in spite of Juno insisting it's safer if she goes in alone to investigate, Malachi goes down with her into the mine itself, to "prove" his confidence in the safety of his resource and his mines.

Of course, when Juno goes down into the depths of the mines, and starts finding astronomically high readings of SOMETHING, SOME sort of energy, following its source to the most recently discovered vein of the "miracle resource", and realizes the depths of it's toxicity, it's only a few moments after her realization that Malachi grabs onto the thick cord protector wrapped around the wires between her head and torso, yanking on it as hard as he can. Juno's 7'4", and over 400 pounds, she can EASILY overpower him, but the suddenness of which he attacks her, and the vulnerability of which he targets, Juno only gets to flail for a few precious moments to try and regain her footing before he ends up breaking through the cable protector and tearing as many wires as he can. Once her body is fully disabled, he takes her lantern, the object of which holds the code of the robots, gives them their sentience, and acts as a detection of danger, and disables it, quickly creating a program on the fly to make it so she STAYS shut down.

When he returns to the entrance of the mine, he retells the situation to the best of his ability, or so he claims, saying that Juno experience some sort of catastrophic failure, that her lantern has a sort of inherent defect, that ALL the robots do, SOMETHING in their lanterns was toxic and leaking out and that's what caused the sickness. He orders for the immediate disposal of Juno's lantern, of which he'd carried back up with him, and in spite of several of the miners, in particular, Russel, refuting the idea that the robots were making them sick. Malachi insists he simply got too close to her emotionally to see the truth, and says he'll be taking everything up to his father, and that the entire line of robots will be decommissioned as soon as possible, an order he ends up managing to follow through on. All of the robots of her class are successfully decommissioned, their lanterns wiped of data, and a new line introduced in their place, now without sentence, nor lanterns.

Juno, however... her death predating the order for decommissioning, and the haste of which her lantern was gotten rid of, never actually has her data wiped. Even natural deterioration over time is lessened, of the few robots who were decommissioned but never had their lanterns wiped, eventually the data rotted with time, and would never be able to turn back on again, but thanks to the shoddy worksmanship of Malachi's program to keep her shut down, it not only ends up preserving her data for over two decades, but anyone with an eye for that class of robots can remove it with ease.

Therefore, 21 years after being attacked and killed in the mines, Juno's lantern is successfully turned back on, and Juno revived. She has no memory of what happened, as while Malachi's program kept her core functions intact, her memory decayed with time, and notably, her final few hours seemed to have been purposefully wiped. All she has is a log of her turning on and shutting off, pinpointing when exactly she shut off for the last time. The person who revived her, scrap metal salvager Calliope, has his own reasons for wanting to know what happened to her as well, so upon her telling him everything she knows, and seeing the inconsistencies between everything and the anomalies of why her shut-off predates the decommissioning, and why her lantern had a lock on it, they BOTH want to try and find her old body once Cal builds her a new one, all in the effort to rediscover her final memories, as it'll have a hard memory storage of her last hours before her death, and hopefully answers for the mass decommissioning as a whole

#my OCs #I WANTED TO JUST TALK ABOUT HER NAME. OOPS #juno...#cal has a lot going on too but hes only like 11 when Juno dies #hes 32 when he revives her though!

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sevenrs · 10 months

Note

inspector eyes have a collect score (trade value?) of 20. Singularity bombs and pearls have it at 10 (outpost value?)

Gooieducks have it at 1, UNLESS they're in farm arrays, in that case it's 2.

one inspector eye can get you through two posts... split it in half

do you think a scav has ever seen an inspector eye. like suddenly you pull up with an overseer eye as big as their head and they just

??? also why farm arrays specifically. do they just taste better there because its like. more fertile or something? would scavs support gmos or are they organic all the way

#asks.txt #code anon #mine.png #would scavs shop at trader joes

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mara-xx217 · 4 months

Text

Jamais Vu (Signalis Commission)- Human Gestalt/Everyone (Especially Stars and Storch)

This was quite a meaty commission! I hope you all enjoy!~

Love. Forbidden love.

Or was it love that simply shouldn't have happened at all?

The line between 'love' and 'cruelty' is dangerously thin...

Warnings: Dead Dove Do Not Eat, Rape/Noncon, Extreme Power Imbalances, Power Dynamics, Abuse of Authority, Imprisonment, Shock Collar, Hazing, Groping, Sexual Harassment, Technically Workplace Harassment, Blood and Violence, Broken Bones, Copious Amounts of Blood, Drowning, I'm really sorry about the German and Chinese I did the best I could

The gestalt worker’s body shook in rhythm to the rumble of the cargo ship’s engines. Equipment rattled and rolled in their containers, machinery and large parts trembled and vibrated throughout her body, making her eyes see double and her teeth to chatter. Her feet didn’t quite touch the ground, her shoes scuffed from use and unpolished, her uniform crinkled and improperly buttoned.

She stared down at her hands, her fingers twitching and curling into her palms. Her hands were rough from a brief lifetime of hard work and the calluses were a raised, ugly sight upon her hands. The gestalt picked at them and flinched as the skin just underneath her pinky finger was torn raw. Her legs dangled, feet reflexively kicking out as the sting of air hit her tender flesh. The weight of a bag hung on the tip of her shoe, a delicate balancing act that the gestalt couldn't remember initiating. She blinks slowly, eyes dry and unfocused from an undisclosed amount of time without blinking.

Upon this primordial body, the lands were changed, shaped, by gestalt and replika hands.

What becomes of a consecrated shape that has been meddled with in ignorance?

The head is in disagreement with the body.

Uneinigkeit

分歧

The tail shall be devoured in place of an effigy.

The ship shudders to a stop, its weight heaving and shifting in place as it settles to the ground. There is movement. Chatter. The sounds of heavy metal feet stomping around as replikas make contact with the cargo ship’s pilot, asking for documentation, for the cargo manifest. The noise outside of the ship is constant, a low drone through the thick shielding of the vessel. The gestalt doesn’t move, doesn’t hold her breath as she waits. It isn’t until the loading dock door is open that the gestalt finds herself focusing, blinking in the harsh light and wrinkling her nose to the strange consistency of the still newborn Heimatian atmosphere.

“-hurry up and get all this in the loading bay. The storm’s about to pick up and we don’t have time to- Huh?” A replika worker freezes in place as her eyes fall onto the unaccounted human being in the cargo hold. She was an anomaly. A threat.

Gefahr

威胁

Panic spread throughout the replika workers. The STARs were called in, who then called upon the STRCH unit of the outpost in. The gestalt was compliant with the security units’ demands, allowing them to place her in handcuffs and keep their guns trained on her as they waited for their overseer to determine if you a spy or merely a very foolish human that would face the wrath of the Resistance for her insolence and stupidity. Storch snatched the gestalt worker’s identification card and the paperwork found on her person when the STARs frisked her, narrowing her eyes and curling her lip as she tilted her head towards the loading bay doors.

“Take this one-” She gestures to the worker with a flick of her wrist.

“-in for questioning. And the Elster unit as well. Take her gun and cuff her.”

Elster units aren’t known for malfunctioning in such a way. Their gestalt blueprint was chosen specifically for her willingness and eagerness to follow orders and for her disdain for the Empire. Such a unit disregarding orders was odd. Suspicious, especially given her defiance in refuting the charge of taxing a potential spy to an outpost that was declared lost after a catastrophic storm wiped it off the map decades earlier.

There was no note of any gestalt workers that were to be shipped to the outpost, there was no need for any such workers, yet there were supplies to support no more than one human for approximately the equivalent of six revolutions of Heimat, something that was not only unaccounted for in the cargo manifest but also in the ship’s fuel supplies, as it only had enough to make the trip to the outpost, not to leave it as well. Yet in spite of this all, Storch held in her long, strong fingers a work transfer slip that clearly outlined how their mysterious gestalt worker was to be shipped to the now ‘destroyed’ Outpost 773-5-94S for emergency deployment. The assignment given, though, was unclear, only stating that it was for the eyes of the FLKR unit overseeing the outpost and for no one else.

She was placed into isolation, just as the Elster unit, per their regulations. The replika was unaffected by the conditions, preferring it, even. The gestalt was more tense, upset by the procedure but not combative. Storch contacted the Commander, presenting her with both the replika unit and the human along with the cargo manifest and the work reassignment order that was on the gestalt that indicated that she was notified of this transfer and no one else. Storch saluted, standing to attention as the Falke unit towered over her, hands clasped behind her back as she stood in front of the gestalt worker’s cell.

“There was no one else within the ship?” The Commander’s voice was smooth, authoritative. Storch nodded, breaking her salute and handing Falke the documentation aforementioned.

“The only things not accounted for are the human and the supplies for its stay.” Falke was silent as she glossed over the documents. Her eyes narrowed as she shifted the worker’s reassignment documentation that clearly stated her name, Eusan National identification card, and the outpost’s classified designation.

“Interesting.” Commander Falke resituated the documents and handed them back to Storch, who took them and awaited her orders. Would the trespassers be executed? Sent back to the New Nation for further questioning? Perhaps her Commander would allow her to extract further information from both the replika and the gestalt… The Commander was tall enough that she needed to bend at her waist in order to view either prisoner in their cells. Her grey eyes flicked over to the replika, then the human, eyes lingering for just a moment before she stood upright and said-

“Release the gestalt and place her on domestic duty.” Storch blinked in shock.

“I- C-Commander! Is that a wise thing to do if we don’t know what its-”

“Are you questioning my judgement, Zwei?”

“...no ma’am.” Commander Falke narrowed her eyes and Zwei didn’t quite meet her eyes.

“Place the human on domestic duty. Any work the EULEs detest, she will do. In the meantime, the Kolbris will monitor both her and the Elster unit. See if you can get her to talk, will you?” Zwei started her Commander and remained until she was formally dismissed.

Deep inside, the Storch seethed as one of her Star units unlocked the gestalt’s cell. Walking away to her office and slamming the door with enough force that some object inside was knocked to the floor, shattering to pieces, the Storch struggled to find adequate outlets for her bubbling anger. The Commander had one of the Star units, one paired with Zwei during her training before they both were assigned to Outpost 773-5-94S, to calm her and redirect her misplaced anger towards a more productive outlet. Paperwork needed to be filed, the Elster unit needed to be questioned further, the gestalt needed to be monitored…

Commander Falke’s judgement wasn’t something that could be thrown into doubt. It was one of the flaws of the replikas, or perhaps not, as this ensures their loyalty to the Nation that created them. The falcon’s reign is ordained and none may challenge it, not her storks, not her hummingbirds and certainly not her beloved eagle, though even he found pause at her reasoning to allow an unknown gestalt to wander their outpost, though it wasn’t as if she was unguarded or unmonitored. It was such a strange thing for his beloved Commander to do and it didn’t escape Adler’s notice, even if Falke gave no further reasoning behind her decision.

A Star unit had fitted her with a monitoring choker that would track her every move. The moment Zwei suspected the human worker was up to no good or getting a little too comfortable, all she had to do was snap her fingers and a painful jolt would be shot throughout her body in an instant. She demonstrated this with glee, grinning to herself as the little woman crumpled into a pained heap on the floor, wheezing and gasping for air. Perhaps the shock knocked some sense into her, or maybe the adrenaline pumping through her veins made her feel brave, as the gestalt looked up at the Storch unit for the first time since her arrival.

And she frowned.

Brows knitted together, the human’s face was finally unobscured by her hair. She was unremarkable, a dime a dozen, just as all humans were. Yet Zwei looked her over and her own face dropped, though only for a fraction of a second. Something in her artificial gut began to knot up. There was an electric shock that snapped just behind her face plate. It made her nose scrunch up. Pressure was building in her neck and Storch felt surprise turn from annoyance straight into anger. But just as she realized she was getting angry, her body began to cool down as she simply just-

SNAP!

The feeling was gone as quickly as it came. Whatever look was in the gestalt’s eyes was gone just as quickly. She went back to being a nameless, faceless, expendable thing, just like how all humans were. The twisting in her gut remained, though, and it itches and irritated Zwei enough that she, again, typed in the worker’s details and, again, she was faced with nothing other than a ‘error, invalid worker designation’ message flashing across her screen every time she entered it.

Did the Commander know something that she didn’t?

Zwei informed the highest ranking Stars unit that she was heading to her private bathing quarters and wasn’t to be disturbed for the rest of the day, unless ‘the uninvited guest’ did something worthy of note or if the Commander, herself, asked for her directly. Storch models were notorious for running hot and it was past time for her to cool off. The gestalt was assigned to domestic work, which fell under the Eule units’ jurisdiction. She was out of her hair and had the means to end her with a snap of her fingers. This power made Zwei feel more at ease, if a Storch could feel such a thing.

A human worker has never been to Outpost 773-5-94S. Talk of espionage was hushed but excited. There was a divide between those that were delighted by the prospects that a spy had been captured, that their little outpost would be finally put on the map and they would be recognized by the New Nation and that there would be a possibility for an expansion, and between the units that felt like this would only bring unwanted attention to the outpost and could possibly lead to reprimands and even the dissolvement of the outpost and the units that worked aboard it. The domestic and economic workers craved the change while the Protektors and the administration were on edge to the point that a mandatory curfew was set into place.

There were no quarters for any gestalt workers, only ones for replikas. It wasn’t as though there weren’t any spare bunks in the outpost, there were, as it was chronically understaffed. The issue was how to ensure what security believed to be a spy wouldn’t attempt to steal information when no one was looking, or try to transmit the outpost’s location to the enemy, the Empire. But there was no transmission equipment that was accessible to the workers, nor even to the Protektors, as only Commander Falke had clearance to such a device. Not even Aldler had access to it, which only proved how much secrecy was valued in Outpost 773-5-94S.

The Eule dorms were the largest but they also contained the most vacancies. Not many, only three of the seventy bunks were unoccupied, but it was a bed and it was something that was in need of occupation. The worker replikas were abuzz when you were guided in by a Star unit. There was music and light and a warmth that was absent from the rest of the outpost that took the gestalt aback for a moment. A crowd of eight, the Eules were all dressed similarly yet different, some merely in the signature, skin-tight diving suit unique to replikas while others wore a light, thin garment over their petite frames that was reminiscent of a leotard, in pinks and purples and light blues… The sociable Eules easily adapted to a new face in their dorms, the Star not bothering to place security expectations onto them as it would only cause undue stress to their personas. Besides, security was a Star’s duty, and it was one that they all took with a seriousness that was befitting for their status as Protektor units.

“If you have any complaints, you know how to reach me.” The Star leaned down and whispered into one of the Eule’s ears. There were giggles as the others stared at the Star, then at the gestalt, then to the Eule whose ear was turning dark from oxidant as the security unit lingered for a moment before turning towards the human woman that stood lone to the far side of the room then said with the narrowing of her eyes-

“We will be watching you.”

And then left, just like that.

The chatter in the room instantly died as she left. The heavy door creaked shut, a loud and oppressive noise that cut through the air. An echo left an impression on the room, the Eules look between each other, faces straight and grave though it ultimately didn’t last for long. There was a giggle from one, then the other, then they all were smiling and laughing. The warmth was back and the music was crystal clear once again.

“Did she scare you?”

“What?” The gestalt was surprised by the question and blinked. One of the Eule’s approached her with a grin.

“The Star! They’re all a little intense sometimes.” It was said with a nonchalant tone. She touched the worker on the arm and guided her over to one of the two empty bunk beds in the dormitory. She sat down on the bottom bunk, which was firm enough not to sink under her weight whatsoever.

“Y-Yeah….” The Eule’s eyes fall on the collar around her neck, lingering there long enough for the gestalt to notice it. Once she did, though, the Eule’s eyes snapped back onto her eyes.

“I’m Tawny.” The replika’s eyes shone at the prospect of making a new friend. The other Eules gathered around closely, all listing off the names that they had given one another.

Ash, Mina, Sandy, Strix, Glaudice, Athene, Niona…

They all looked the same, the standard Eule models that the Nation created enmasse. All the same but different, looking like octuplets and as though she would be able to tell them all apart. The music playing on the record player in the room was beginning to swell slightly, putting the atmosphere on edge as Tawny sat beside her new roommate.

“Since you’re new here…” Tawny gently draped her arm over the human’s shoulder, pulling her flush against her artificial body. It was warm though not soft like an organic one, a little smooth with a slightly pliable surface but it was a little too rigid, somewhere between where it should be and something that was an imposter that left the hairs on her body raised slightly.

“...you’re going to have to undergo ‘the Tasks’.” There was a ripple of excitement from the other units. They all whispered to one another, giggling behind their hands before looking at the gestalt, only to laugh again as some shifted from foot to foot in anticipation.

“‘The Tasks…?’” She parroted it back to Tawny. The Eule smiled and nodded.

“See, these are things all new units must do before they are accepted into our groups. It’s like a right of passage, of acceptance.” The other units nodded firmly, almost solemnly as they looked her over.

“Since you are new, you need to undergo this too, just as we all had.” Tawny’s became so quiet that it was barely heard above the music. The worker nearly couldn’t understand what she was saying, having to lean in close to hear what she was saying. She placed her hand over her breast, emphasizing herself as she said-

“I had to go through it too! It’s only fair that you do as well, right? And besides-!” The gestalt’s shoulders shook gently as the replika squeezed her.

“-if you go through it too, and complete it, of course, then that would look better to the Protektors! Just think about it: you abide by the traditions of the outpost-” Tawny gestured out vaguely towards the other Eules. She was referencing the facility as a whole but it came off like she was merely talking about herself and her fellow Eule units.

“-then surely they can see that there’s been some kind of mistake and that you are just another worker, like us!” The human woman frowned a little.

“Trust me, this won’t be anything too extreme. We usually have the rookies sleep on the floor for like, a week and they do the work that their ‘senior’ Eules don’t want to do and dress up in a silly costume throughout what we call their ‘probation’. After you do all of this, you’ll be equal to us all!” Tawny motioned between herself and the other Eule units. Again the gestalt frowned. She swallowed thickly, a knot forming in the pit of her stomach.

“It’s… a little much, isn’t it?” The warm, affable air suddenly dropped and it became tense. The music droned on but it seemed distant and cold.

“What?” Tawny’s smile faltered slightly. Her brows knitted together and she genuinely looked surprised.

“Well… I just got here, and… well, I’ve already been through a lot…” She placed her hand on her neck, fingertips digging into the nearly nonexistent space between the collar and her neck. Everything has been cold and cruel since she got here, the only person seemingly showing her any mercy being the Commander of the outpost, which was something Falke units weren’t exactly known for. Wasn’t she just here for a test assignment? Details were fuzzy in her mind and she frowned. The Eules were frowning, too, and Tawny’s arm dropped from her shoulder.

“But… you have to do it to become part of the group.” The worker shook her head, still frowning.

“I… don’t know… Should I be a part of it…? I-I don’t-” The replikas were beginning to look dejected, almost sad. Their lower lips all began to puff out and their shoulders dropped visibly. If they were trying to be subtle, they were failing miserably. Or maybe they were purposefully trying to be over the top to make her feel bad…

“C’mon! Would it be so bad? Trust me, it’s not even that bad of tasks! It’s just simple things that you would be doing around the place, anyway!” Tawny fidgeted in place, tugging on her clothing. The others were crowding. The gestalt looked to her feet.

Just a little…

It will be quick!

Shush! Don’t be like that…

You can’t say no…

Will you disappoint us yet again…?

You said ‘yes’ before…

You can’t change your mind now.

A feeling was squeezing in her gut. Her hands become clammy, her heart racing in her chest as a fog laid itself over her mind. She was numb in spite of how her heart slammed into the back of her throat. It was almost as if this had happened before…

Deja vu…

Bekannt

亲密的

No, this was different, a different time, a different place… The gestalt fiddled with her uniform’s skirt, shifting in place slightly as she began to clear her throat.

Well… What is the worst that could happen?

“I… alright.” Tawny squeaked in excitement and pulled her close. Some clapped and giggled, others nodded in approval.

“Wonderful!” The tension that was in the air quickly evaporated. It was like a veil of some sort was lifted and the uncertainty and apprehension that the worker felt was now mostly gone, though it lingered ever so slightly.

“But I don’t want to do anything crazy, alright? I just…” She frowned. The nature of her assignment eluded her. The gestalt knew she was there to work but to what end was it? One of the pillows on the bottom bunk was tossed into the floor, the blanket from the top torn off and tossed right on top of it. One of the Eules, Athene, pointed down to the pile.

“C’mon! Let’s get you settled in!”

The night was an uneasy one, at least for the gestalt. The nickname ‘Newbie’ was given to her, even though she had specifically asked them not to do such a thing, but Eules were particularly with the names given to those in their cliques so there wasn’t much of a way to dissuade them from calling her that. Newbie was surprised by the amount of clothing and beauty products that the replikas were allowed to carry. It was more than she had ever seen in her entire life! Eules were always prim and proper and cared greatly for their appearances but they were also subjected to the same regulations as anyone else in the New Nation and had a very specific dress code to follow while in public. It would seem, though, that special permissions were given to them that allowed these units to both keep and also occasionally wear clothing that fell outside of typical regulations. Newbie didn’t think this exception would fall over her as well, but the Eules were adamant that she wore an ankle length dress that was the appropriate Eusan colours but also was decorated with unnecessary frills and lace. It was difficult to believe such a dress would be allowed underneath a Falke’s rule but Newbie was directed to take her uniform off all the same, to which she did. Hesitantly.

“Go on! Take it off!” A Eule unit, Ash, waved her hands at Newbie as she urged her to undress. It wasn’t uncommon for Eule units to monitor gestalts in their daily lives, especially while they dress and undress, as to make sure no contraband was slipping through the cracks. Newbie nodded, still uncertain that this was a wise decision to make.

She unbuttoned her uniform, revealing a plain, black blouse underneath. The gestalt folded her clothing as she took it off, a reflex that was a lifetime in the making. She slipped her skirt off, then her skin tight leggings, leaving her in only her plain undergarments. Newbie waited for one of the replikas to hand her the dress but no one did. She furrowed her brows and frowned.

“Where is it?” Athene tilted her head to the side.

“Where is what?”

“The… dress? Where has it gone?” There was a brief moment of silence before Athene laughed, then others were laughing too, all at once.

“Oh, Newbie…” It was Tawny- or was it?- that placed a hand on her shoulder. She was warm to the touch but still cooler than a human body, which was a little unnerving to Newbie.

“You don’t wear anything in the dorms! It’s better to not wear your uniform unless you’re going out! It prevents it from getting dirty or wrinkled!” That… actually made some sense… Newbie nodded slowly, grabbing the blanket on the floor and wrapping it around her bare shoulders.

“Cold? Don’t get all shy on us now! You’re gonna have to get used to this!” Another Eule, Ninoa, winked at the human and she blushed a little.

“I-I’m not-”

“Don’t worry about it! Some of us don’t feel the need to wear much of anything and others like at least a little something.” The replikas didn’t really appear to have any sexual characteristics other than the impression of breasts, like gently sloping mountains. The Eules all appeared rather girlish, almost androgynous, with long torsos and long legs. Their proportions weren’t exactly unnatural but it was close to becoming uncanny. Newbie’s eyes occasionally shifted down but she managed to look down at the ground before any of the replikas noticed exactly where her eyes were wandering towards.

“Y-Yeah… R-Right…”

Sleeping was nearly impossible that night. The ground was cold and the blanket she was provided did nothing to prevent the chill from seeping into her bones. Sometime in the night, Newbie thought that someone was trying to subtly tug the blanket off her body. It was so slight that she genuinely thought that she was imagining it, though it happened with enough frequency that it couldn't merely be all in her head… Or maybe it was? Perhaps the Eules were still messing with her, hazing her for being ‘new’.

New or unfamiliar?

Why treat her with such comradery if they had only cruel designs for her in mind?

They all laughed upon seeing her in that dress.

Every. Last. One. Of. Them.

Snickers behind hands.

Leers out of the corners of their eyes.

She is vulnerable.

Verletzbar

无助

All of Newbie’s tasks revolved around placing herself in uncomfortable positions: bending over, scrubbing the floor, cleaning things that the other Eules didn’t want to deal with… The bathrooms were all spotless but regardless she was to clean them all twice daily. Every last one of them, on top of her typical duties of cleaning the rest of the outpost. Her arms, legs and back aches before half of the working day was over, allowing for the realization to sink in that she would not be able to physically keep up with her tasks the longer she was here.

“Oh, I’m not worried about you! I’m sure you can keep up.” Was all that was said to the gestalt whenever she brought up her concerns to the Eule, Mina.

Throughout her shifts, a Star unit was assigned to keep watch over her as she worked. ‘Just to make sure she didn’t sneak off’ as was said by one of the units. They all barely regarded her, watching her but seemingly uninterested in either speaking to her unnecessarily or even looking in her direction though… Newbie couldn’t help but to feel their gazes on her only when she had her back turned or was busy with something underfoot. Her imagination, surely, but the professionalism of all the replikas would soon evaporate as she was pushed to work more and more, especially in the more private quarters of the outpost.

As she was cleaning the mining workers quarters, she was bumped from behind. The only other unit in the dorm with her was a Star unit, so the sudden push greatly startled the gestalt. She picked herself up and smoothed down the bed she had just made, turning towards a large pile of small, soft, seemingly worn down plush dolls that were piled haphazardly in the corner. How did something like this escape her? It was odd… What replika would hold onto such things? Newbie picked one of the dolls that laid on its side, at her feet, and placed it back onto the pile. The Star unit noticed this and narrowed her eyes but said nothing. The gestalt was quick to move on, for fear of reprimand.

The mining workers’ dorms were filthy, covered in dust and mud and other organic debris from Heimat’s soft planetary crust. It took Newbie hours to clean it, so when she was through, she was utterly exhausted. There were holes in the walls, only barely just hip height. Much of the dirty debris in the dorms seemed to originate from those holes. Holes? Here? The Star unit seemed totally unbothered by the sight, almost as if they were supposed to be there. As Newbie began to clean around them, the Protektor warned her against getting too close to them.

“Don’t go poking around in there. The Ara units will have a fit if they see anything out of place…” Was it a courtesy warning or was it something else? Newbie kept her distance from the holes, for fear of upsetting one of the Aras. What about all the… dirt? Metal shavings? What was on the floor? She sighed as she looked out across the dorm, realizing that she likely had a dozen or so rooms to go in this section of the outpost alone…

Perhaps it was dirt, as more than a few of the rooms in the ARAR dorms were dedicated solely to plants of all kinds of variety. Mostly flowers, colourful and delicate looking, while others were merely leafy greens that looked totally out of place inside of a building. None were exactly tree-like, though they seemed to have trunks of sorts. All the plants were well manicured even in spite of the scant few leaves that littered the floor. The human worker’s shoulder was grabbed every time she entered one of these rooms and she was warned to leave any and all plants alone, for the Ara units’ sake.

‘They’ll have a fit if you touch them.’

After what felt like hours, she slunk out of one of the many dormitories, covered in sweat and body trembling from over exertion. Newbie had passed the pile of plush toys once again and, yet again, they toppled over. She had a mind to leave it alone but feared repercussions should everything not be as it was before she had begun her duties. The gestalt put them back into a pile, as haphazard as it was, and paid little mind to the guard that was eyeing her up from the far end of the room.

Stepping out into the hallway, the door slid shut as the Star exited on her heels. Newbie didn’t take a full step before she was stopped by the replika, a short, curt whistle cutting through the air and causing the gestalt’s shoulders to raise and their heartbeat spike into their chest.

“W-What…?” Newbie felt small underneath the Star’s gaze, needing to crane her neck up to even meet the replika’s chilly grey-blue eyes.

“Before you continue, I need to make sure you didn’t take anything from the Ara and Myhna dorms.” The gestalt was a little taken aback by the Star’s insinuation that she had stolen something, though she knew better than to question the authority of a Protektor unit. The Star noticed her slight hesitation, taking it as a possible admission of guilt.

“Do you have anything to admit to, worker?” The gestalt shook her head.

“N-No! I have nothing to hide. I didn’t take anything from the dorms.” It was a fact. Newbie didn’t take anything and she only touched things that needed to be cleaned. Maybe the replika was just trying to intimidate her or maybe they did have a protocol where the domestic workers were frisked every time they completed their duties. Whatever the case, she complied with the Star’s orders and she turned to face the wall upon her request.

“Turn and face the wall- Yep, just like that. Now place your hands on the wall and spread your stance wide.” This wasn’t the first time she had been searched. All gestalts have been subjected to random searches and detainments at some point in their lives and Newbie wasn’t an exception.

Even though she has done this before, and though she knows for a fact that she hasn’t done anything wrong, the gestalt still felt sick to her stomach as the replika began to pat her down. First she pulled Newbie’s hair back, tousling it and pausing for a split second as though considering something before letting it drop back to her shoulders.

“Anything at all I should know about?” The Star ran her hands down the long sleeves of Newbie’s dress, the replika’s strong fingers curling around her wrists as she felt for any hidden objects.

“No, nothing…” Newbie stared at the wall as her other arm was searched. It felt as though the replika slowed down significantly, making the process agonizing as the gestalt just looked forward, expecting the absolute worst to come from this encounter.

“Are you sure? Your cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine levels just shot through the roof.” The Star’s hands tickle down the worker’s sides, the thin dress doing nothing to stifle such a firm touch. Fingertips dug into the swell of her hips, an uncomfortable chill running down her spine as the replika’s hands shifted forward, slowly, slooowly moving up her torso and towards her breasts.

“I-I… didn’t take anything…” Her voice was just barely above a whisper as dexterous fingers cupped her bosom. The dress was technically up to code, not showing any unnecessary skin and not having too many frills. It wouldn’t pass inspection in any other Heimat settlement but here it was different.

Newbie’s breath hitched in her throat as the Star unit didn’t even attempt to hide the fact that she was outright groping her. The replika squeezed her breasts, massaging them in the palm of her hands and even catching and pinching one of her slightly hardened nipples in between her fingers. Instinctually, she stiffened and arched her back, her legs closing as she felt an intrusion somewhere in between her knees. The Protektor forced her legs open, shoving one of her long legs in between the gestalts and effectively forcing them back open as she pulled her knee up, until the worker’s body was straddling her leg and barely able to touch the floor with the tips of her toes.

“P-Please, m-ma’am-!” The gestalt’s voice was a high pitched squeak as she struggled to remain balanced in place. Her core was beginning to throb from excess blood pooling in between her thighs and she was becoming light headed and dizzy from such contact. The Star unit leaned over her, whispering into her ear as she continued to molest the worker.

“Keep your legs apart for me. Failure to comply will result in your arrest and a full body cavity search…” Newbie’s eyes go wide at the implications. N-No. No, she’s n-not-

But she was, and she didn’t simply stop at groping her chest.

The Star ground her knee against the gestalt’s heated sex. The friction was uncomfortable and made her squirm in place. It was painful to have her full body weight resting on such a delicate part of her body for so long. Newbie could feel the replika’s breath on her ear, not quite warm but not cool either. It made a shiver wrack her spine and she gasped as the hands on her chest were removed and she was placed back onto the ground. W-Was it over…?

No, the Protektor had only just begun. She placed her hands on her hips and slowly traced them down the length of her trembling legs. Instead of remaining on top of her skirt, the replika pushed her hands underneath Newbie’s dress and touched her bare skin, something that was very, very much against protocol in all the Eusan Nation’s settlements. Even so, it wasn’t like she could do anything to stop the Star.

“T-This-!!! P-Please, ma’am! Please-!!!” Newbie’s voice wavered and trembled as the replika’s hands moved up the sides of her thighs.

She was wearing thick, black tights that left absolutely no skin showing, per regulations, but she still felt everything. The Star’s fingers were long and slick, digging into her skin and likely leaving bruises in her wake. As she reached the gestalt’s waistline, she swiped her hands forward, so that her fingers dug into the soft fat of her pubic mound. The gestalt body responded violently to the unwanted contact, knees fully buckling and back arching as she tried desperately to escape the touch. Newbie was on the verge of hyperventilating, fully expecting some sort of retribution for resisting the search. Would a stun baton be used? Would- Would- Her throat squeezed shut at the thought of the collar around her neck delivering an electric shock. She waited for the Star to jab the baton into her back, or for her to ignore her resistances completely and just… doesn’t stop. But-

Her hands were removed from Newbie’s hips. The gestalt had the knee jerk reaction to face the replika but fought against it and remained facing the wall. The Star fluffed out the skirt of her dress and took a step back, shifting in place as she likely looked the human up and down.

“Alright, turn to face me. Slowly.” Newbie was sniffling and hiccuping, struggling to not break down into sobs. She kept her hands up a little, terrified to make a wrong move. The replika stood with a hand behind her back and one clenched in a fist in between her and Newbie’s bodies. The gestalt stared at it, confused.

W-What was it…? What-?

“Thought I would miss this, huh?” The Star narrowed her eyes as she lowered her closed fist to the other woman’s eye level. Newbie’s eyes watered to the point that tears streamed down her face. What was she talking about?! She didn’t take anything! S-She didn’t!! The Star’s face was flat as she began to open her fist. Newbie didn’t know what it could be. It shouldn’t be anything because she took nothing! Nothing! In the replika’s hand, there was- was a…

…a leaf…?

Newbie stared at it, confused. She… didn’t understand. W-What…? She could only blink her tears away, heart slamming into her throat a handful more times before it began to slow down dramatically. Was… Was she…?

No, the Star unit had a smirk on her face whenever the gestalt looked back up at her. Was this some sort of joke? There was only a small, curved, yellowed leaf in the palm of her hand. It was chipped and cracked, as though dried. Totally dead. Newbie’s tears dried quickly and were instead replaced with dry blankness. The replika crumpled up the dried leaf and allowed the flakey remains to scatter onto the floor at the gestalt’s feet. She wiped her hand clean and seemed to take great pleasure in the look of utter exhaustion that overtook the human worker’s face as the adrenaline in her veins harshly mellowed out.

“For this time and this time only, you’ll be let off on a warning, worker. Taking anything from replika dorms is and always has been strictly prohibited, no matter the object taken.” The Star unit leaned against the wall behind her and crossed her arms, soaking in the details of the gestalt’s crestfallen face.

“...of course, ma’am.” Newbie kept her tone even as she spoke, struggling to swallow down the lump in her throat that threatened to choke her.

“Hmm… Good. Now, before you go-” The Star grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her to the ground.

“Make sure to clean this mess up before you move on.”

It wasn’t only the Eules and the Stars that took glee in humiliating and pushing the gestalt to the brink. All replikas in the outpost would soon partake in the ‘hazing’ ritual that the Eules first proposed to her. Perhaps calling what was taking place a ‘hazing’ was far too lenient for what was truly taking place.

At first, it was more subtle. Newbie was tasked with all the things the other domestic workers didn’t want to do. Working long hours in a confining dress made every working day a living nightmare. Her back and knees ached, her feet were walked raw and her hands chaffed from constant exposure to water. Hard, back-breaking labour wasn’t something new to gestalts, certainly not to her. Having a work load solely on her back, though, wasn’t something that she had ever really experienced before, and it was utterly overwhelming when combined with the other treatment she received.

Newbie was subjected to multiple searches of her person throughout every day she had been at the outpost. The Stars never bothered to make the search particularly professional, as they continued to escalate greatly every time they took place. At first, it was frisking with some under the clothing touching, then it was strip searches that took place in the common areas of the outpost, where any replika could witness her humiliation. The touching was perverted and the Stars’ intentions clearly lecherous. Some enjoyed forcing their fingers into the gestalt’s mouth, pushing it so far into her throat that she would gag. Others began to touch… those places on Newbie’s bodies. She is ashamed to admit that she never tried to stop the Stars from violating her in such an intimate way. What could she even do? They would drag her by her hair over to a flat surface, a dest, a chair, another replika’s waiting knee, and would conduct the search there and then, making sure that Newbie knew that they derived genuine, perverse pleasure from harming her and, worse of all, the gestalt’s body responded kindly to those moments.

After the fact, the touches always lingered. Her body was heated and buzzed with overwhelming sensations of humiliation and pleasure. She had never touched herself in the manners that those replikas had and her body began to react before those attacks would even take place.

Why was this happening to her? Why her?

Why did her body anticipate such things before they even happened?

Was she… disturbed? From the very beginning?

Who was at fault?

Wer hat sich verändert?

谁有缺陷?

What day did the gestalt shift from ‘the Newbie’ into ‘the outpost’s new Toy’? She didn’t know… She didn’t even know how long she had been in this place. The human’s rations were becoming more and more strained, either due to the fact that there simply wasn’t much left given there has been no resupply dropships in what must have been months or because the replikas merely wanted to harm her even further. In order to eat, she needed to work, but working while faint from hunger and exhaustion is nearly impossible and the replika units all knew this.

Was she watching this…?

F̷͉̙̺͔͗̓́̔͋̓͗K̵̢̡̛̛̭͍̠͓̟̦̄͛̍̒̈̈́͊̋͐̈́̓͘͜͠͠Ļ̶̡̼̱̼͉͉̖͍̹̘͓̩̩̎̂͂͒͋̽͌͗͐̽͌̏̑͝͝͝R̸̤̩̄̒́̎͋͛͜

L̸̥̿̓̇̀̑̍̆̄̃̕i̵̢̻̯͎͓̥͇̤̘͆̇͗͑̑̒͊̆͑͆̕̕ȩ̶͒̂̀̓̓̏̒͒̅̊̒̚̚͠b̶̬͋̉̈́͗͆̈́́̄̔̓̇e̷̛̺̮͓̻̞̟̫̦̞̤̦̻̼͂̌̒̾̈́͗͂͋͛̂̍͛̇͘̕͝r̷̲̤̘̓̊͒̚ ̶̛͚͎̌̇̍͗̽͆̎̇̓͂̾̔̑̊̌͘F̴͔̠͚͍̜̠̏͆͐̈̈́̀̑͒̀̽̄́́͒̕͝å̷̢̗̗̜͓̳̳̞͇̣̝͔͐͒͐͒͛̈́̌́͛̓̿͝ͅl̷̤̫̼̋̒̊͆̈͑̂̊̕k̴̠͉̲̫̝͇̘͈̠̣͚̼͉͕̽̍̓̿̿̈́̆͑̏̋̋͘ͅȩ̷̻̠̗̝̞͛̆͑̄͌,̴̧̦͉̲̘͑̄̏͌͆̿͌́͊ ̷͍̜̫̬͋͌̂̎̃͑̓̋͂̎͒͝͝ͅw̸̱̤̿̌̔̎͐̐̎̽̃̑̆̕̚a̷̡̰̙̦͎̞̙̙̐̔̅r̸͙͉̮͉̣̠̜͍̩̮̞̞̫̝͉̱̲̐̔̊͆̓̾̍͌̀̓̋̑u̸̡̢̻̻̖̬̘͈̭͚̞̠̺̣͋̿͗̀̉̅̽̑̂̿̈ͅm̷̧͙̻͌̐́̅̈́̃́͑͋��́͐́̚͠ ̶̦̃͛̄̒̑̓��̒̌̍́̈́̕͝ḩ̴̭̠̝̹͓͎̣̤̖̠͖̭̤̍̏a̵̢͚̣̪̟̳͇̱̫̮͕͗̀͗̕̚̕s̶̮͙͔̗̉̿͋̃͆͗́͂̔̓̇t̶͖̦̖̼̋̊̎͝ ̵̖̣̽̿͒̌͗͋̂͌́̆̏̓̈́̚͝d̶̛̥͔̤̲̘̭̘̑̊͒̋͝͝u̶̖̦͔̯͚̻͍͓̤̣͗͂̂̽́͝ ̷̫̺̻͕͗͋͠ͅm̶͖͓͉̦̯̈́͒̉̈́͋̈́̌̕͝ȋ̶̢̼̤̠̪͛͗̑͛͝c̸̡̣͎̬̟͎̙̝̃̔͐̾̍͜͠ḧ̷̡̛̰̲͚̭̗̣͙̯̰̳̦̗̰̞́͛̔͑̽̿̓̅̕̕ͅ ̸̨͚̳̰͚̺͉̼̤͉̩̻̖̞̀̄̉̄͛ͅv̶̗̟̫͔̫̰̝̻̒̏͊̇́͝ͅė̶̛̞̥̂͒̄́͊̒̽̓̚r̸̼̮̹̳͕̔́̽̈́͐͆̆̃͑̏̌͊̂͐̃͘l̷̡̛̘̗͓̗̪̠̗͈̰̺̓͂̚͝ä̵̢̧̳̞̹̝̩̬͕̳͓͘̚s̶̲̄̏͆̈́͂̀͂̈̓s̸̢̙̠̮̺̼̺̠̤͛̿̌̚̚͝͝͝e̵̫̻̯̩̤̹͛̑̆̅͗̎n̴̨̤̦͔͍̾͂͊̕͠?̸͍̰̯̗̬̯̬̠̖̜̻̣͍̠͊̅̅̾̔̇̕ͅ

̴̢̮͖̦̫̰̠̹̻̞͉̩̞͍͆́͜ͅD̴̨̀̅̉̓̀̈́̉͛͝͝u̵͙̦̫͕͇͕̹̹͗̈́ ̷̘͚͔͉̝̗̯̲̗̆̋͌̀̉͋͗̽͐̂͆̚͜͝͝͝s̷̨̢̨̲̻̳̞̪͔͕̹̎̍͛̈́̀̑̀͊̄͒a̵̧̧͔̟̥̬̟̰̘̝̠͎̩̲̐̋̋͆̒̽̂̇̚g̶̨̮͕̬͛͛̒̚͜t̵͎͓͒͌́̓́̄̓̀̆͛̏͘͠ę̸̫̼͍͇̙̬̲̗̰͈̏̄̓̆͗͂̈́̇̂̑̌̓̍͝s̵̡̝̦͖͍̟̹͉͍̤̝͐͒͆̍̿̉͊̾͐̾͂͛̚͘͜͝͝͠t̶̡̟̜̜̓̋̽-̷̡̭̜͉̰̗̣̭̜̬̟̍̑

̶̤̠̤͓̬͍̩͔͔̳͖̻̰̭͗̽͒͒̄͂͘͝͝͝

“J-Just don’t-! N-NGGH!~” The gestalt’s voice trembled as she felt a familiar pair of hands caress up the insides of her thighs. Three Stars were leaning over her at the same time, one to her left with her hands on the worker’s left leg, one to her right with her hands around the workers right leg and one directly behind her, pinning her hands far above her head. The woman tried to push her body against the wall in an attempt to escape the replikas’ touches but a firm hand pushed her lower abdomen flush against the Star’s groin. There was a thick, stiff hardness that pressed into the small of her back that made her knees buckle and her mind grow fuzzy and blank.

W-What was it-?! W-Why was it so… s-so-

Déjà vu,

the unfamiliar is known.

Or was it jamais vu?

Things that should have remembered

have been repressed.

Has the tree fallen

if none are there to mourn it?

那么为什么?

为什么你要让他们伤害我……？

“So, little spy. How have you been enjoying our little outpost, hmm?” The Storch towered over the gestalt even when sitting, long legs crossed and splayed out haphazardly before her. The gestalt was no longer a ‘newbie’, though she wasn’t much else to the replikas other than a distraction. Zwei observed how the worker balled her fists into the skirt of her dress and swallowed thickly.

“...it is an honour to work here.” Zwei narrowed her eyes.

“Mmhmm… So, tell me-” The tall replika was fingering the stun baton that was magnetized to her side. The way her fingers brushed past one another made the gestalt’s skin crawl with anticipation. Zwei removed the baton and examined it nonchalantly, making it a point not to make eye contact with the human worker as she spoke.

“Why do you want an audience with Commander Falke?”

The gestalt bristled.

“I don’t-”

“You know there’s no point in lying, right? The Kolbris know everything there is to know about you…” Zwei swung her legs and sat upright, leaning down towards the seated worker and leaving her with nowhere to go other than further back into her seat.

“...and damn do they have some interesting things to share about you and your time here.” The replika tapped her baton on the worker’s knee, causing her to jump and writhe uncomfortably in her seat. She didn’t maintain the Storch’s intense eye contact, looking down and to the side as she struggled to calm her breathing.

“N-No… I-It’s not like-” She was doing everything she could to swallow down the feeling that was trying to creep down the back of her throat.

It felt like she was about to drown…

“Like what? I’m not accusing you of anything. Not yet, anyway.” Zwei continued to tap the baton on the gestalt’s knee, rhythmically, with enough force to make her leg reflexively kick out.

“Really, I’m just curious about somethings. I’d like to conduct an interview.” The words she used took the human worker off guard. An ‘interview’? Not an interrogation but an ‘interview’...? She was already wary, but as time went on, she would become more and more uneasy as their conversation continued on.

“Don’t give me that look. I don’t have anything personal against you, you know.” The Storch sat back in her chair, raising her hands- including the baton- in the air in a bid to feign innocence.

“I just want to verify some things that the Kolbris had reported to me, that’s all. No bullshit, just doing my job.” Still incredulous, the worker looked the Storch up and down. It simply wasn’t possible to read what a Storch was thinking. They were brash and harsh, always on edge and working with a secondary, hidden objective that would be unknown to anyone other than the Commanding Falke. Regardless of this fact, if a Storch askes something, there is nothing to do other than obey her every command. To disobey a Storch is akin to treason in the eyes of the Commanding force that is the New Nation and her Falke…

“A-Alright… of course. Whatever you need, ma’am.” It felt as though the gestalt had just signed a warrant of some sort. The Storch was clearly pleased with her response and went to stand, an action that made the gestalt’s head and stomach swim with vertigo as she looked upon the goliath replika.

“Good answer. Come with me, worker.”

The gestalt shouldn’t have suspected such a thing yet being led to a large, filled bathtub of water filled her with a sense of nostalgia that she couldn’t shake, like a bad memory that had been buried deep within the recesses of her mind suddenly exploding just underneath the surface of her conscious mind that didn’t quite breach the surface, only disturbing it enough to make itself known to her. Watching the Storch sigh to herself as she removed her Protektor equipment, leaving her bare in the signature black-and-red skin tight suit that was a staple of the replika look made the gestalt’s skin crawl in a way that confused her. Was it disgust or was it excitement?

“Do you mind? Keeping this outpost safe is hard work, you know. Gotta cool off one way or another…” There was a hint of something in the replika’s eyes as she swung one of her long legs over the side of the tub, then the other, before lowering herself down into the steaming waters with a loud SPLASH! Water overflowed from the sides of the tub and crashed down onto the floor, covering it and the gestalt’s shoes in slightly murky water. There was a clean, herbal smell in the air that almost made the worker’s eyes water, stirred up by the Storch’s movements.

What was she expecting to find

in a hollow shell?

“Ahh~ Much better…” Zwei stretched out languidly and moaned softly as her footless legs draped over the side of the tub. Even with how large it was, it couldn’t contain her impressive leg length. Her short bob rested just above the waterline and she propped her cheek up on one of her palms as her other hand dipped into the water.

“Now then… Tell me: what purpose did it serve you to come to this place?” Zwei’s ice grey eyes stared a hole into the gestalt as she stood before her, tiny even while the replika was soaking in a tub full of water. She swallowed noticeably and blinked.

“...I was assigned this position by our Nation.” Zwei clicked her tongue and sighed heavily.

“You know, you keep saying that… And while you do have physical documentation, it doesn’t change the fact that there is no record of a gestalt by your name or worker designation in all of the Nation’s databases.” The worker frowned, tilting her head to the side and blinking slowly as if confused.

“I don’t understand-”

“You’ve ticked all the boxes and yet that still couldn’t change the fact that you don’t exist according to our Nation’s laws…” Water splashed onto the floor as the Storch sat upright in the tub. The way her brows dipped and the corners of her mouth twitched made the gestalt tremble with anticipation. A vice grip had a hold of her lower gut and only tightened exponentially when the replika grabbed her by the wrist.

“I had all my Stars double check this-”

“-d-don’t-”

“-even had the Commander’s Adler triple check-”

“-please-”

“-and while he’s found no trace of you whatsoever-”

“-p-please-!”

“-he certainly has some… interesting theories about you!” Something in the gestalt’s wrist and shoulder snapped as she was suddenly yanked forward off her feet. She cried out in pain, it being cut short as her mouth collided with the rim of the tub. For a fraction of a second, everything blacked out, a blinding heat pooling against her teeth as blood filled her mouth. Her eyes fluttered and her limbs went limp, allowing the Storch to easily pull her over the lip of the tub and into her still steaming hot bath water.

Water filled her mouth and nose as she was held underwater. Her dress was heavy and constricted her movements, constricted the few, precious moments that she had to breathe when it all became too much to bear. The taste of bath salts stung her eyes and made her stomach and windpipe cramp further, causing mouthfuls of water to fill her lungs. The gestalt kicked her legs out and continued to drown further as the skirt of her dress was ripped over her head and her body was finally thrown over the side of the tub, allowing her to vomit out the water that had invaded both her stomach and her lungs.

“And don’t get me fucking started on what the Kolbris had told me! All the shit that you’ve done-!” The gestalt could only cough and retch as she struggled to pull the rest of her body out of the tub. Zwei had one of her thighs in a bruising grip, causing her to scream and cry as something physically shifted in her hip as she was pulled partially back into the tub.

“YOU’RE the kind of trash our wonderful Nation warns us all about!” Her leggings and underwear were both torn in half with a sharp pull. The gestalt was still struggling to keep her head out of the water, to keep her lungs full of air… It isn't possible to escape from a Storch once they have decided that you are deserving of punishment. She couldn’t do anything other than cry and beg for mercy that she knew that she wouldn’t receive.

“P-PUH-LEASE! PUH-LEASE! P-PUH-LEASE!!!”

SPLASH

SMACK!!!

She screams as a hand strikes her from behind. An indescribable pain blooms against her backside, the pain not only surface level but seeping into her bones and making her briefly lose control of her bodily functions. Her diaphragm seizes painfully, making breathing totally impossible in spite of the fact that the gestalt was desperately trying to suck down as much air as she physically could.

“‘P-PUH-LEASE- P-PUH-LEASE-!’ What are you even saying?! If you’re a Eusan National then you should be speaking properly!”

SMACK!

SMACK!!

SMACK!!!

The sound of her pounding heart drowned out the animal-ish howls that escaped the back of her throat. It was nearly deafening, even to the Protektor unit that was accustomed to both civilian and military war zones. As grating as the noise was, it brought the naturally cruel Storch a kind of satisfaction that she’s never really experienced before in her artificial life. Yet… it was so familiar… Haunting and arousing at the same time. Something inside of her body was shifting and flashes of what the Kolbris had shared with her began to flicker behind her eyes.

S-So dirty…

It’s disgusting…

This deserves punishment.

“T-They say ‘loose lips sink ships’ but that’s the case for both pairs that gestalt females have, you know!” The gestalt was clinging to the lip of the tub directly to her right. The Storch repeatedly grabbed her by her now undoubtedly shattered hips and forced her back into her lap. The feeling of something hard pressing against her body was lost on her, the only sensation the human could decipher being pain.

Everything in her lower body was just hot. White hot and in a vice grip of agony. An electric shock of pain made her legs tremble and a chill raced up and down her spine repeatedly, settling somewhere in her extremities and in a place vaguely in between her legs. The pain she felt only grew two, three, then four fold as it felt as though something was beginning to split her in half from her groin up. This renewed the gestalt’s need to flee from the replika but after she felt something tear in her gut, her body began to seize again and she was unable to do anything other than scream breathlessly as blood-red water began to splash over the side of the ivory tub and onto the white-tiled floor underneath.

“H-HA-! HA-! HAHAHA-!!! FUCK-! If I k-knew that it would feel like this, I w-would have done this sooner-!!!” A burst of manic energy forced a bubbly giggle out of Zwei’s mouth. It was just as her Stars had reported to her: the human was a sick little pervert that was likely sent to disrupt the Eusan Nation’s forces from within, likely to either corrupt the replikas and/or other gestalts or to sow general chaos throughout Her ranks.

The things the Kolbris had shared… that the Alder had shared…!

It was something that Zwei had felt from the moment the gestalt had landed on the outpost. There was something wrong with this human and it was only just now, nearly ninety-six days after her arrival, that the Storch unit finally understood exactly what it was that irked her about the human. It was the way she looked at her. From the very beginning, the gestalt looked at the Storch with eyes that seemed to rake up and down her body, her gaze lascivious and her body just as crude, eagerly welcoming the ‘routine’ searches that Zwei’s Star units had performed on the gestalt per National and outpost policy and even getting off to such mundane acts of security. How could such a disgusting human be a part of their great Nation? Her appetite for the obscene had no bounds and if she, Zwei, couldn’t appropriately punish her for such a thing then who could?

Not Falke,

not Falke…

Pain was the best teacher there was but even so, the gestalt’s body was beyond receptive to the Storch’s use of pain and seemed to derive a twisted sense of pleasure from it. Even as her replika body part damaged her human sexual organs, Zwei could tell that the human was enjoying herself.

She can feel how the walls of her vagina squeeze down around her shaft, how she lubricates herself as she pulls her tiny body down lower and lower, until yet another barrier within her is breached and a cascade of red-brown fluids flood into the replika’s bathtub-

“Y-YOU-!!! YOU ARE DIRTYING MY PROPERTY!!! YOU-!!!” The gestalt’s nose breaks as her head bounces off the inside of the tub’s now red-stained walls. Blue-green stars invade her vision, her already weak body now falling limp as thick, slimy tears well in her eyes and sticky blood fills her sinuses and her mouth. Her body slides forward and her head dips into the water, violently being dunked as the Storch’s hips jerked and bucked without any rhythm to speak of.

“Y-You think you can just foul everything up and we wouldn’t do anything to stop it?! That I wouldn’t do anything to stop you?!” Zwei pinned the gestalt down by the back of her head, pushing her until her face was flush with the bottom of the tub.

“Did you really think that I would let you dirty up MY Commander Falke?!”

Her already fleeting consciousness completely blanked out within moments. The gestalt already couldn't breathe and when combined with the rapid blood loss both externally and internally, it was no surprise that she would succumb to her injuries. She wouldn’t die immediately though this was no thanks to Zwei seeking medical attention for the gestalt after realizing that she had lost consciousness.

The gestalt lingered in between life and death for far too long, long enough that something was picked up by the Kolbris units that answered directly to the Commander, Falke. What they picked up wasn’t words, it wasn’t even a code, it was a… sensation, something that was so strong that it pulled every single bioresonant replika into a state of decay that was unlike anything that the outpost, or any Eusan controlled sector, had ever seen.

How could such a human sensation have such an effect on the inorganic?

Was it an STI of the body or the mind?

Krankheit

瘟疫

Would god allow such a thing to fester and rot?

Life-water filled the gestalt’s lungs, dribbling out of the side of her mouth and from her nose. Her body was pale and cold. Lifeless, damaged beyond saving and yet a faint pulse persisted just underneath her damp skin. It could be felt in her neck, in the insides of her wrists, though could not be heard in her chest when a replika pressed her ear to her breastbone. No ghosts of a breath tickled the unit’s finger when she placed under the gestalt’s nose though it could be heard as a faint, almost imperceivable wheeze that was unpleasant on the ears, even to a seasoned, well conditioned replika that was built to be impervious to any and all outside stimulus other than the ones of her maker’s design.

In her glassy eyes, a reflection met the eye of its beholder. A stray hair was pushed behind a cold, stiff ear. It was a face that was plain but familiar.

Nostalgic…

Those hands were tiny and pruned, stained red-brown and popped when stroked by fingers longer than the hand they were touching. Pale lips brush against bruised knuckles, tracing a pattern that was familiar yet unfamiliar to the replika.

Jamais vu…

Her hummingbirds were shrill in her ear, her eagle pealing at her feet and begging for just a look. A look… a passing, fleeting look…

But all the falcon could see was her, ash-grey and in a death spiral. She didn’t care if her flock was spiraling down alongside her.

Their calls all melted together and all that she could hear was the deafening rumble of a ship’s engines and the rattling of equipment as they jostled in their containers, straining against their straps as a deafening hum reverberated throughout her body….

@prettycutebunny, @infinitewhore, @kennbb, @slutwithadegree, @dead-bxxxtch-walking, @space-arsonist, @pink-soft-shadow, @sinlessdesire, @hoemine, @memoryofheather, @horny-3

#signalis #paid commission #original characters #none of the replika's present are in the game's story #elster #lstr #arra #ara signalis #star signalis #eule signalis #storch signalis #falke signalis #adlr signalis #mynah signalis #kolbri signalis #dead dove do not eat #rape/noncon #x reader #signalis x reader

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