#but the ghoul is signing twenties as far as I could see and remember

[leavethemessagesart]

So um… working on a thing I never tried before

#my art #the band ghost #ghost bc #a nameless ghoul #first time animating and it’s scary for me #but the ghoul is signing twenties as far as I could see and remember #twenties in American Sign Language that is

[purkinje-effect]

Asking for Trouble

Cait gets a terrible first impression of Melancholy, my Sole.

This blurb has sat in my drafts for a few years now, and I decided to polish it up and finish the thought. Not sure if the encounter will be canon to Anatomy, but it’s here nonetheless. (For those curious to timeline placement, we’ll say this is roughly after the Park Street Station stuff in Fourth Instar, and sometime after his falling out with Mac.)

TWs: Heavy angst, injury and death, drug use and alcohol, explicit description of drug side effects, and violence-baiting.

Cross-posted on AO3 here if you’d rather. Likes, comments, kudos, etc. are all greatly, greatly appreciated.

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Someone at the Dugout Inn had mentioned this place. ‘Choly had come here with a vague recollection that the Combat Zone had once paraded skin. It only served to live up to its name now without any innuendo. Observing a little violence could be cathartic, too, and damn, if he couldn’t use some catharsis after his myriad missteps in Goodneighbor. All his life a spectator, vicarious in every regard.

He belonged here far before Goodneighbor or Diamond City, regardless of looking the part. Who could say a quavering, grey little man wearing a white three piece suit over head-to-toe leather orthotic braces didn’t fit right in among these earthly, physical misfits? He certainly couldn’t see any hackneyed political messes or territory wars erupting here: only people blowing off steam any way they could find it.

He couldn’t entirely say he minded that Angel’s compulsive cleaning habits almost always nettled the Hister Handy into picking up after social locations like this burlesque theater which now showcased cage fights. The possibility any of these raiders might hack it almost avoided him altogether, since he seemed like the only one with a Pip-Boy with which to do so. Such a worry would stick with him long-term after what he’d seen the Rust Devils do to Lowell.

His mind sang praises that Angel had allowed him to resume adding alkaloids to his meal replacement beverage, the Melancholia. Hubeine gave him negligible trouble compared to other options.

The fight unfolding before him was the billed spectacle for the night: for one hour, plus implicit encores, Cait would take down any body foolish enough to step foot into the cage to fistfight her unarmed. He swirled at some bourbon in a shot glass, from his bar seat to one side of the stage. His cataract eyes raised as he watched her continue through the athletic redhead’s performance. Somehow she managed restraint just shy of lethal blows, despite her precision and brute force. Any composure belied the depth of her murderous and bottomless rage. Glassy and lugubrious, he followed her bared teeth and retracted lips, her unblinking eyes, her adrenaline-wired and overworked musculature, her leaden instinctual footwork.

Despite having knocked out seven opponents in twenty minutes already, she wore more of their blood than they did.

In every mannerism, he recognized his enlisted in her. He stopped sipping at his liquor and threw the glass back, only to refill it.

Cait danced with the eighth opponent for about a minute before things escalated. The burly, hairy man pulled a switchblade on her, and managed to gouge her in the arm. In the physical sense, it didn’t faze her. In the mental sense, it had shattered the sanctity of her performance. She roared at him and lunged to sink her teeth into his face.

The crowd exploded. Her ghoul manager stepped in and attempted to stop the match-up, but he knew better than to get between her and the fool. She refused first aid, intent to fuck the guy up. The man kept his distance from her, knife still drawn, clutching at his gushing cheek. she voiced her displeasure to her manager, and he seemed to walk away and leave her again to her opponent... Only to bring her a baseball bat. A bloodied grin ripped across her face as she choked up on it like a familiar friend.

‘Choly smiled quaintly, head askew. The ghoul knew that the crowd demanded results--and more importantly, he knew that the crowd needed to see the consequences of forsaking what little honor they agreed upon in this dive.

She slugged him in the head. As he fell over, she proceeded to beat the shit out of him. The resultant din deafened much how ‘Choly might imagine Fenway Park during the World Series. Not that baseball had been his druthers. God, he wished that had been him on the receiving end. Between her hair, her leather corset, and the carnage, red was so very much her color. Head to toe, she was rage incarnate.

No one wanted to challenge her after that, especially not if they had to step around the bloody mess she’d splattered across the stage.

Time blurred a bit in ‘Choly’s shot glass. The next he looked up, he realized the champion sat beside him to drown herself in a fifth of vodka straight from the bottle. He straightened as coolly as he could, shifting to watch her. He adjusted his half-moon glasses, but could otherwise not obfuscate his alarm. He couldn’t leave alone the familiarity of the untethered ferocity with which she carried herself.

“Forgive me if this is forward of me, but I will get you any chems you want, if you will swear off cyclomorphine. The Psycho.”

“Bull shit,” came a potent Irish twang. She slammed down the bottle. Beneath the indignity in her glower, a tinge of fear felt more like the pressure of desperation. “You suggestin’ I couldn’t possibly fight as well as I do, weren’t I doped up? Your stupid mug hasn’t been here before. I’d remember. Who the hell do you think you are, to go around insultin’ the talent?”

His heart begged hot for her to retaliate. His gloved fingers tapped gingerly at the barely varnished countertop.

“I mean it. Name it. Med-X. Calmex. Anything but Psycho. I’ll even get dirty and brew you the most potent Jet you’ve ever had, if what you really need is escapism and not a low. CM isn’t a chem. It’s a death sentence. And... even if that’s the desired end result, that’s just about as gruesome and painful as it gets.”

She swiveled on the bar stool, resting both hands squarely on her spread knees. Her dead gaze bored through him.

“The fuck do you care so much about this wild theory of yours? You go around cold readin’ everybody’s vices tryin’ to hock your snake oil? Some salesman you are. You’ve got the Charisma of a Mirelurk egg that’s been in the sun.”

He raised his hands in defense, and then said what he meant sooner than meaning what he said.

“I’m not trying to sell you anything. I keep trying to offer solutions to the people I’ve hurt with my life choices, fix the damage rather than enterprise on it. Please let me get you chasing a different devil. Anything but that.”

“You’ve never met me in your life, and I don’t know your name or face from a Molerat in the floorboards. Don’t you try and bullshit me into believing you’re capable of fixing what ails me--and don’t you dare try to take credit for anyone that’s wronged me.”

“I’m the reason Psycho exists in the quantities it does in the Commonwealth. So yes, your pain IS my fault, at least part--”

His jaw seared. ‘Choly found himself sprawled in the floor. He felt around for his glasses, and as they returned to his face, he smiled up at her imploringly from where she stood over him. She cracked her knuckles sourly.

“I don’t have time for this nonsense. Tryin’ t’say I’m the one’s got a chem problem. What color is the sky for you? Forget you.”

Her hard exterior began to show signs of crumblign, in a series of stifled tics, most noticeably a corner of her mouth and the same ear. He could only begin to speculate to what exactly it was she’d taken exception, but he had to keep her attention, hold her contempt. Charm had never come naturally to him, so instead he had to sound the part of insisting at all costs that he was right.

“--Fine, you don’t want to quit. That’s a choice, too. I’ll make however much Psycho you want. You want to go out like that, I can help you with that. But I want you to know just exactly what that death looks like. Abscessed injection sites. Your gums and cuticles bleed. Your tear ducts bleed. It weakens all your capillaries, the tiniest blood vessels in your body. Internal bleeding. Organ deterioration. The numbness doesn’t turn off the pain--it only makes it so you don’t care. Is the anger easier than the hurt? If that’s how you want to go out, I’m not in any position to question it. But you might as well have an expert supplying you with it.”

Rather than help him up, she bore a heel down on his right hand. With an anxious chuckle, he winced, but welcomed being pinned in place. She glared down at him, seething. She didn’t want to hear another word from him, but she had to. Something about him surely sounded more deranged than intoxicated, and it threatened to haunt her.

“Do you know why cyclomorphine exists?” he continued, breath stuttering all the while. “Do you know what it is? Of course not. It was a prewar chemical--I can’t even comfortably endear it a chem--that the military developed so its soldiers no longer felt injury or fatigue. They endeavored to engineer soldiers who wouldn’t quit when hurt, even fatally. And it was only one of a dozen projects of its kind, to exploit the different aspects of human limits. Nothing human came from refining Psycho. It destroys something fundamental to a sense of humanity. The perfect formula didn’t concern itself with whether the patient came back in one piece, or alive at all. The Deenwood Project wasn’t poetic, wasn’t artistic, didn’t make a single beautiful thing. The fact that CM fell into paramilitary use after my tenure ended with the Army... and the fact it now as a result flows freely throughout the country as holdovers from... from the police attempting to keep the peace through intense and consistent violence... The fact is, I’m one of the chemists responsible for cyclomorphine’s end product. Responsible for it being one of the devices of America’s victory at Anchorage... So yes, yes I am. Responsible for what ails you. You’re civilian collateral of the United States Army.”

Her posture shifted slowly from anger to bitterness. She ground her heel into his palm. He pretended the token of her grief got through the reinforced officer’s glove.

“It’s not my place to question the source of your pain, and it’s not my place to insist that I be the one to take it away. I simply know that no matter how great the pain you’re in... Psycho dissolves parts of you, every time you use it to numb you. It begins physically, then advances to spiritually. It robs you of who you are.”

“That’s just the thing. I can’t handle bein’ me. This is the only part I’m fit to play. Besides, Tommy only cares if his juggernaut brings in the caps. I’m beholden to a contract. And the way I see it, you’re tryin’ to come between a man and his money, pokin’ around where your nose doesn’t belong! You’re lucky we’re out here and not in the cage, creep. Either I’m paid to beat your arse, or you’re askin’ to get blackballed.”

He sighed dreamily up at her, almost regretting that she let up on his hand. She drew her fists when his hand went to the lining pocket of his vest, but he chuckled producing a sack of caps.

“I thought you’d never ask. I admire one who rests their agency in someone else’s hands--or pockets, as it were. Surely, this is to the tune of you doing the honors. Add a black eye to the busted jaw. Tack on whatever you like. Ladies’ choice.”

She snatched the sack from him, frowning incredulously.

“What kind of sick flirting game is this? You tryin’ to buy me into bed? I know I’m easy on the eyes, but this isn’t a brothel these days, in case your damaged brain can’t tell the difference.”

He knew he wouldn’t be getting back the sack, but at least he’d tricked her into accepting some fleck of reparations from him.

“How many caps would it take to break your contract? To get you out of here?”

A broken sarcastic laugh crackled out of her. He’d long since surpassed overstepping, having moved on to stepping on toes.

“You’re insane if you think I’d ever want to leave the Combat Zone, especially not on the arm of the likes of you. I’ve got everything I could want here--except right now, not a place without you. You’re the one who needs to lay off the chems. Get your stupid brain-damaged arse out of here before I ask Tommy what I can do with you.”

He whistled for Angel, then retrieved his cane to stand.

“I suppose if you won’t let me help you, obliging you is the least I can do.”

With his Handy by his side, the two left without further question.

On his walk back to Hotel Rexford, he accepted that he’d probably never know the answer, but still he wondered if he had the same or opposite trouble as Cait: Were the two chasing a perpetual numbness, or were they chasing the futility of trying to feel anything again, at any cost?

#fallout #fallout 4 #fallout cait #cait fallout #sole survivor #combat zone #melancholy #deplorable karma sole survivor #battle for anchorage #psycho #whump

[moonstone-blues]

A Spark By The River - Chapter 6: Memories

As River and Nick walked down the dank streets, River couldn’t help but look around. It wasn't difficult to see how bad the conditions in Goodneighbor were. Ghouls slept on the street and all the citizens had their weapons drawn at as if they were ready for a fight at any time. It was… shocking to say the least.

"Why does everyone live like this?” River asked, looking back at Nick. “Can't they all go to Diamond City?"

Nick sighed. "Well Diamond City has a strict entry policy."

River furrowed her brow in confusion. "But I was allowed in with hardly any trouble."

Nick pinched the bridge of his nose. "Well you're human.” He looked at River from head to toe, examining her. “Clean. Pretty. And being a vault dweller surely helped since they're known to be friendly folk to human settlements."

"Wait…” River paused as she processed Nick’s information. “They only let you in if you're human?"

"Well, have you seen any ghouls in Diamond City?" Nick asked.

River shook her head. "No… But they let you in and you're not exactly human yourself."

"That was before the wonderful mayor came up with an idea during his campaign years ago. People call it ‘the ghoul ban’. Ghouls used to be all over the place in Diamond City but as soon as McDonough was elected, all the ghouls were evicted from their homes. With nowhere else to go, they all soon came here." Nick explained.

"No wonder Piper hates him..." River clenched her fists. She hated people like that. Discriminating others for no reason. Next time she was in Diamond City, she would be sure to march right up to McDonough’s office and give him a piece of her mind.

Nick then suddenly stopped, patting his pockets with a blank look on his face. River turned to look at him. She raised an eyebrow. “Nick? What’s wrong?”

Nick suddenly slapped his own head with a loud, frustrated groan. “I’m so stupid!”

After seeing River’s confused look, Nick looked down at her with a look of embarrassment. He scratched the tear in his cheek. “I was in too much in a hurry, I forgot something pretty important.” Nick sighed. “The bastard’s brain.”

River let out a frustrated groan. “Do we really have to go all the way back?” She didn’t feel like running into another suicidal monster again.

“No.” Nick stated. “You don’t have to go all the way back but I will. I’ll get you a room at the hotel here and you can stay there while I go get the brain.”

“But didn’t you say this place is dangerous?”

River shifted uncomfortably, seeing another argument break out in the streets. A man with a machine gun -who River assumed was a sort of guard- soon ran over and eventually broke up the fight. The two fighters stormed off in opposite directions, still clearly angry at each over. River moved closer to Nick.

“You’ll be fine as long as you stay in your room, okay? Come with me.” Nick said before he began walking in a different direction, eventually standing in front of a building with a large neon sign saying ‘Hotel Rexford’.

Nick soon got River a room and escorted her up to it. At the door to River’s room, Nick put his hand on her shoulder. “Remember, do not leave this room under any circumstances, okay? I don’t want you getting hurt.”

River nodded her head, understanding. She opened the door to her room and smiled at Nick. “Same could be said for you, Mr Valentine.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “I always am.”

River chuckled. “Right. That’s why I had to rescue you from countless amounts of thugs in a highly secured vault which you had been imprisoned in for a few weeks at the least.” She flashed a smirk, aiming it towards the detective.

Nick playfully glared at her. “Better watch it, Mrs McConnell.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now go before the smell of your coat rubs on my clothes.” River made a ‘shoo’ motion with both of her hands.

“I get it, I smell.” Nick huffed before he waved to her. “Goodbye.”

River waved back. “Don’t be long.”

River walked into her room and looked around. It was nothing special. There was a bed, a table and a few other pieces of furniture. River walked towards the boarded up window and peeked out of it through the small cracks between the wooden boards. A minute went by and River eventually saw Nick leaving the hotel. Nick walked past a building in the distance and eventually disappeared from River’s sight. River backed away from the window and thought for a moment. She tried to think about the place they were going to go.

The Memory Den.

River remembered Nick telling her about it a couple of weeks ago. It was a place where people went to relive their memories. To get lost in the past. River looked towards the door and thought for a moment.

One little trip couldn't hurt...

River shyly walked into a large room. She noticed large machines, lining the walls. In the far side of the room was a platform where a chaise was placed and a woman lay down in it. Once she saw River, she sat up.

“May I help you?”

River cleared her throat. “Umm hello. My name is River McConnell. I heard that you can revisit memories here?”

The woman smiled. “Why yes, of course we can do that.”

River sighed. “May I… relive a memory? Please?”

“Honey, if you want to go back to the past, I'm gonna need some caps. Can't run a business if I don't get paid.” The woman told her.

River thought for a moment. She checked her pockets, only counting about twenty. Doubtful that would be enough. “I don't have much… but I can assure you, if this is really what I think it'll be then you can garentee yourself a regular customer. I'll pay you whatever you want. Please, It doesn't even have to be a long memory!” She looked down slightly. She was ashamed of her begging but there was someone she just had to see again.

The woman thought for a moment, resting her chin in her hand. “Well… I suppose a little taste wouldn't hurt. And you do certainly seem troubled…” The woman smiled at River. "Just this once though. Don’t tell my coworker.” She added with a wink.

River beamed. “Thank you so much!”

The woman couldn't help but chuckle at River’s enthusiasm. “Amari!” She called out. “We have a new client!”

A woman in a lab coat soon entered the room. She looked River up and down. "Get in the lounger, please."

The woman pointed to a strange looking pod. River swaalled, doubting herself for a moment before climbing in. Some weird machine attached itself to her head. She could heard the doctor speak just a little away from her by a computer, though the machine prevented River from turning her head.

"Please tell me what memory you want. Something strong the machine can cling to."

She needed no time getting to work.

"I want a memory of my husband… Well, my late husband." River asked.

"Describe him."

"He was from Ireland. Had the typical red hair and green eyes. He was very tall, very handsome. We met when we were teenagers and he had such an accent." She chuckled to herself as she remembered.

"Got one!"

The woman River first met spoke up. "Now, just relax, dear."

River took a deep breath as the pod closed. She continued to breath in and out. She still had her doubts about this whole thing but maybe that would change when she relaxed…

Then, the memory came to her.

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River walked down the long hallway of her school, books in hand. She let out a sigh as she made it to her locker, gently moving her fringe out of her face with a calm sigh. She had so much homework to do and so little time. She opened her locker and put her books in, taking out some stuff she would need for her next class. She closed her locker once more to see her very own sister.

"Hey River." The girl smiled, her own books close to her chest.

"Hi Jane." River responded, leaning against her locker. She raised a confused eyebrow. "I thought you were in maths right now. What are you doing all the way over in the english department? Did you forget your bag?… Again?”

"I cut. Mr Johnson is so freaky. I'm pretty sure that he constantly checks me out. It's super gross.” Jane cringed, sticking out her tongue.

River rolled her eyes. Jane was always the drama queen. “Jane, you think that everyone checks you out.”

Jane huffed. “Hey, I can't help it if a lot of people think I'm very attractive!”

“Whatever you say.” River shrugged her off, beginning to make her way over to her next class, Jane following close next to her.

Jane suddenly let out a gasp as she suddenly remembered something she had forgotten to tell River earlier. “By the way, guess what?”

Jane didn't let River answer.

“There's cheerleading tryouts going on after school. You should totally try out!" Jane suggested. "You don't have to actually do anything, just be there and I'll show you where all the cute guys are." She winked. "By the way… I hear jocks have a thing for blondes."

"I'm fine, thanks. Cheerleading isn't really my... thing." River began walking to the courtyard. “Besides, you know I'm not into assholes.”

Jane followed close behind. "Oh come on, sis! Don't be a stick in the mud! Let your hair down for once!" She then stepped in front of River and pushed her bottom lip out with a pouty face in an effort to convince her. "Please?"

River stared at her for a second before letting out a groan. "Fine! But don't be mad when I don't make it into the squad!”

River tightened her ponytail before grabbing her pom poms. She couldn't believe she actually made it in the cheerleading squad. She looked at the main girl -someone called Lena- who was talking about what their routine would be. Jane nudged River with her elbow and pointed in the direction behind them.

"Hey. Cute guys, twelve o'clock."

River turned around, seeing a few jocks talking and laughing. She rolled her eyes. What was it about them that made Jane so attracted to them?

"You have no taste, Jane."

Jane scoffed. "Speak for yourself."

Soon they got in position for their routine, River trying her best to do it correctly while Jane lazily struck a pose.

Lena spoke. "Ok for this part, I'm thinking of something big..." Her eyes fell on the other cheerleaders as she placed her hands on her hips, eyeing everyone up. "Can anyone here do a backflip?”

There was silence among the others. Lena waited for a few seconds before letting out a groan. "Look. If we want to amaze everyone at the next football game, we've gotta make this good. Now-"

"I might."

Everyone's attention turned to River. Jane's jaw hung open. River immediately regretted speaking up. "I-I mean I took gymnastics a while ago outside of school and I learned a few things..." Her voice trailed off.

A grin appeared on Lena’s face. "Perfect! Now everyone except for River get into the pyramid formation we discussed earlier.

She then went on to explain what River had to do in full detail. After she explained, River got on top of the pyramid. She suddenly felt extremely nauseous. She shook her head, trying to clear her nerves before she was thrown into the air by the other cheerleaders. She managed to just barely complete a single backflip before landing in an awkward split.

Lena thought for a moment. "Ok. It needs some work but we have enough time to practice. Well done.” She clasped her hands together with an exhausted sigh. “Ok everyone! I think we should have a little break. You've done good up to now!"

River sighed. She was about to walk over to Jane when she heard clapping coming from behind her. She turned around to see all of the jocks staring at her. A few of them were flashing a disgusting smirk, others held beer cans which they had somehow hidden from their coach. However, there was one jock who sat a couple of feet away from the rest of the group who was… clapping. River simply rolled her eyes and turned back to the other cheerleaders, assuming that the jock was just patronising her.

After practice River and Jane were discussing the work they had to do before they walked home together. Jane had been slacking in her work and as usual, River had been asked by Jane’s teachers to help her. River didn’t mind helping Jane; she was her sister after all. However, River would rather study herself or just hang out with Jane as sisters, not study partners. Jane was complaining about her english homework. The pair were interrupted when a voice stopped them.

"Excuse me?"

River and Jane looked at each other before turning around to face the figure. River's eyes widened. It was the jock from before who was clapping.

Jane immediately smirked. Jocks were a... personal favourite of hers to say the least. "Can we... help you?"

"Well, I just wanted to say... you were really good back there." The guy nervously smiled at River, scratching the back of his neck. He had a very strong irish accent. Jane’s smirk grew. He was exotic.

"Umm thanks?" River said, a little unsure what response she could've gave to the jock. Was he trying to… flirt with her?

"Listen, I was wondering if you wanted to... I don't know... go to Joe's? I'd really like to get some lunch with a really pretty-"

"No." River cut him off.

"W- What?" The guy was slightly taken back.

River held up one finger. "First off, I don't even know you." She raised another. "Second, you don't know me." Then a third finger. "Third, you only want to go on a date with me because you think I'm pretty and four? You think that just because you're a 'hot jock', you can get with any girl. Well not me. Sorry but I'd rather study. Goodbye!" River turned away. "Come on Jane."

Jane walked closer to the guy, twirling her hair. "Well I'M free if you wanna hang out... umm... what's your name?"

"It's-"

"JANE." River called out, annoyed.

"Wow, I'm coming! Jeeze..."

The next day, as River was walking towards her locker as usual, she noticed a group of jocks approaching her.

“Hey babe.” The one at the front spoke with a flirtatious smirk. River knew who he was. Randy Sullivan. Captain of the football team. He wasn't really classed as a ‘bully’ but he had been known to steal other kid's lunch money back in seventh grade.

“My name is River.” River crossed her arms, eyeing Randy up and down. “And you know that, Randy.”

“Don't be like that.” Randy smirked down at her. “I saw your performance yesterday. I can tell that you're quite… flexible.”

River cringed. Why did jocks always have to be so… vulgar? “Randy, I need to get to my locker, can you move please?”

Randy wrapped an arm around River’s waist. “Don't be such a spoilsport, River. I saw the way you looked at us yesterday…”

“With complete and utter disgust? Yeah that sounds about right.” River tried to move away but Randy’s grip on her tightened. “Let go of me, you creep!” River tried to push him away.

“Playing hard to get isn't really a turn on, babe, so you can stop now.” Randy stated with a frown.

“I'm not your ‘babe’ so cut it out!” River snapped.

Randy used his other hand to grab the back of River’s hair. River yelped and tried to move with it having not much effect. Randy moved his head closer towards hers until a voice called out to them.

“She said let go.”

Randy turned his head to see someone stood in front of him. He rolled his eyes.

“Walk away, jackass, this one's mine.”

“Oh haha, Randy. Very original.” The male stated sarcastically before giving Randy a small round of applause. "Stop being a dosser and leave her alone."

“You got a problem?” Randy asked, displeased.

“Yeah. My problem is you're trying to kiss a girl who clearly doesn't want you to. Pretty sure you can get in some deep shite for that.” The male walked closer. “I always knew you were a manky creep, Randy.”

Randy paused for a second. He turned to the group of other jocks around him. “Grab him.”

River’s eyes widened as the jocks surrounding Randy ran towards the other male. He managed to dodge a leaping jock and punch another in the face. But soon after that, he was forced to the ground. He tried to get up but his arms and legs were held down. Randy let go of River and walked over to the fallen male and began to kick him hard in the gut. He let out a pained yell. River’s eyes widened.

“Get off of him!” River cried.

River ran towards Randy and pulled on his arm, trying to get him away from the struggling male. Randy eventually got annoyed and turned around, smacking River across the face. River yelped and fell to the ground, holding her cheek in pain. Tears threatened to fall down her face. River turned and saw that Randy had gone back to kicking the other guy. River clenched her teeth and stumbled back to her feet. She took a deep breath before she walked up to Randy.

"Hey!" She yelled.

As soon as Randy started to turn around, River punched him in the face. Randy fell to the ground with a cry and River held her fist, biting her lip. That hurt… a lot.

This surprised the other jocks, causing them to loosen their grip on the male on the floor. The male quickly broke free of the other jock’s grasps and jumped to his feet. He immediately grabbed River’s arm and began to run down the hallways, dragging her behind him. River looked back to see the jocks chasing them. River’s eyes widened and she looked back in front of her. The male holding her suddenly pulled her into a room, closing the door behind them. Nearly in sync, River and the male slid down against the door and panted, out of breath.

River let out a sigh. “Thanks for helping me back there.”

“No problem. I can’t believe I'm on the same team as that arse…” The male groaned, looking back at the door.

River then realised something as she examined his face properly. “Wait a second…” River pointed an accusing finger towards the now recognisable jock. ”You’re the jock that tried to flirt with me yesterday!”

The male awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. “When you put it like that, it makes me sound like a loser.” He flashed a nervous smile and outstretched his arm. “And thanks for getting Randy off of me, by the way. What’s your name?”

River looked at the male’s hand before she shook it with a small chuckle. From a flirtatious ass to a gentleman. “River. River Bellafield.”

The male smiled. “The name’s Jack McConnell.”

“Nice to meet you Jack.” River moved her hand away before she thought for a moment. “You know what? I might just take you up on that offer you made. I’ll pay though. It’s the least I can do for my hero.” She sarcastically batted her eyelashes at him.

Jack burst out laughing, eventually being joined by River. After the laughter died down, Jack folded his arms and tried his best to look offended. “Okay, now I know you’re purposely trying to make me sound like a loser.”

“Your accent… Irish, right?” River questioned.

Jack blushed slightly, embarrassed. “Um… Yeah. Is it that obvious?” He chuckled to himself. “I've only been here-”

Suddenly a scream rang out. River and Jack turned to see a girl screaming, while she stared at Jack. River sighed.

“You dragged me into the girl’s bathroom, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Yes I did.”

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The pod opened and River was snapped out of her memory. She carefully climbed out of the pod and turned to the women ahead of her with a grateful smile. The woman in the lab coat had left. “Thank you. I'll definitely come back here. I'll pay whatever you want.”

The woman who lay in the chaise nodded her head before she paused, narrowing her eyes as she noticed something. “Dear, are you alright? You're crying.”

River paused for a moment and raised two fingers to her face and wiped under her eye. River looked down at her pale hand. The woman was right. River had been crying.

“Oh umm…”

River quickly wiped both of her eyes with a small sniffle and flashed a smile, trying her best to look like she was fine.

“It's okay. I'm fine. Thank you so much.”

"I'm sorry for prying but we have to watch the memory to make sure we know if we have to pull you out if something goes wrong." The woman explained. "That memory looked clean. The people looked clean… what's your name, dear?"

"River McConnell."

The woman gasped. "That's it. You're the woman out of time!"

River tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, slightly embarrassed. "Didn't realise the paper came out this far."

"It doesn't. But word of mouth travels far." The woman smiled. "I assume you didn't just come here for a trip down Memory Lane then?"

“I'm... actually working with someone to help look for my son. He's a synth called Nick Valentine. We’ll be coming here later. Can you… not say anything to him please? Don't tell him I was here. He told me not to leave the hotel but I just wanted to see what this place was like. He wouldn’t understand...” River politely asked.

The woman thought for a moment before she nodded, understanding. “My lips are sealed.”

River took out her twenty caps. "Like I said, I don't have much, but-"

"No, no." The woman shook her head. "Please keep it. You need all the help you can get with your tough times."

River nodded. "Thank you again…" She turned to leave but stopped. "I'm sorry, I never got your name."

"Irma. Now you hurry off before Mr Valentine comes back!"

River smiled and walked out of the Memory Den. She stuck close to the buildings, avoiding anyone who looked like trouble while she made her way back to the hotel and entered her room once again. River closed the door with a sigh and took her bag off, throwing it to the side before she flopped onto the bed. It was even scratchier than Nick’s. River sat up, the sheets irritating her skin too much and thought for a moment.

She missed Jack.

River brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them. She first thought Jack was just another jerk jock that was in a constant competition to sleep with the most girls but he was different. He was kind and gentle, willing to stand up to Randy and those other jerks. She wanted to see him again. She wanted to feel his embrace again…

River was crying again.

Nick sighed as he came up to a familiar wooden door. He adjusted his tie. He couldn’t look too unprofessional. River was still a client after all. Maybe… a friend… But still a client. It took him a little longer than expected but he had Kellogg’s brain… or well, whatever it was. Nick raised his hand, ready to knock when he heard a faint sound. He knew he shouldn’t be nosy but he couldn’t help but press his ear to the door. He heard crying. Nick backed away slightly. He cleared his throat and decided to call out.

“River? It’s Nick. Are you in there?”

There was a gasp and after a moment, River replied. “Hold on a second! I’m just… putting my stuff back in my bag!”

Nick frowned. She didn’t have to lie to him.

River soon walked out of the door, flashing a smile. “Sorry about the wait. All of my stuff fell out of my bag when I put it down.”

Nick nodded his head. “Mm hm. Come on, let’s go.”

The pair made their way over the brightly lit building with Nick glancing at River occasionally, seeing her sniffle and rub her eyes.

“You okay?” Nick asked.

“Huh?” River looked up at him. “Oh… Yeah… I just have a stupid cold. Hope that isn’t deadly out here.” She let out a nervous chuckle.

Nick nodded before he looked away. He would talk to her about this later.

They approached the double doors and walked inside the large building. River saw the same woman as before laying in her chaise. She smirked once she saw Nick and sat up, making her way over to the detective.

"Well, well. Mister Valentine. I thought you had forgotten about little ole' me." She batted her eyelashes at the old detective.

Nick chuckled. "I may have walked out of the Den, Irma, but I would never walk out on you." He gave her a wink.

"Hmph. Amari's downstairs, you big flirt." Irma chuckled, pushing Nick away.

River gave Nick a ‘look’ to which he simply rolled his eyes with a chuckle. Nick began to walk, waving at River, gesturing for her to follow him. River looked back at Irma and flashed a sheepish smile, mouthing ‘thanks’ so that Nick wouldn’t hear her. They walked down some stairs to see another woman at a machine. River identified her as the one who set up the pod she climbed into earlier.

"Doctor Amari?" Nick called out.

The woman turned around. "Yes?" She looked at the two. She saw River and quickly glanced back at Nick.

"We need a memory dig, Amari, but it's not gonna be easy. The perp of our case, Kellogg, is already cold on the floor." Nick shoved his hands in his pockets.

Amari's eyes widened, looking at the both of them. "Are you two mad? Putting aside the fact that you're asking me to defile a corpse, you do realize the memory stimulators require intact, LIVING brains to function?"

River bit her lip, nervous, before she spoke. "Please. Nick told me you're the only one that could make this work."

"This dead brain had inside knowledge of the Institute, Amari." Nick stated. "The biggest scientific secret of the Commonwealth. Imagine what we could gain from this sort of information." He tried his best to convince the doctor.

Amari sighed, eventually giving in. "Fine. I'll take a look, but no guarantees." She looked at each of them. "Do you... have it with you?"

"Here's... what we could find." Nick handed the small mechanical part of Kellogg’s brain over to Amari.

Amari took it carefully with a look of utter confusion. "What.. is this? This isn't a brain! This is... wait..." She examined it closely. "That's the hippocampus! And this thing attached to it... A neural interface?"

Nick frowned, scratching his cheek where he could feel a couple of wires poking out of his ‘flesh’. "Those circuits look awfully familiar..."

Amari raised an eyebrow. "I'm not surprised. From what I've seen, all Institute technology has a similar architecture."

"Is the brain still good?" River asked, hopeful.

"Possibly. I think the tech preserving the tissue so there is some hope. However, there's no way to access the memories inside without a compatible port." Amari explained.

Nick cleared his throat, deciding to step up. "Hey.” He said, getting their attention. “I'm an old synth. If the Institute built me out of similar parts, we might have an in. If you plug that thing into me, we could make this work."

Amari paused. She took a deep breath before saying her next words. "There... could be long-term side effects. I don't know where to even begin with listing the risks."

Nick held up his hand, stopping her. "Don't bother. I don't need to hear them.” A determined look was now present on his face. “Plug me in, doc."

River stepped towards him. "Nick, you heard what she said. You could suffer from this. I don't want you to-"

Nick gave her a small smile. "I said, we'd find your boy, didn't I? Well if I have to have something from a psychopath plugged into my brain then that's what i'm willing to do."

"I..." River looked down with a sigh before she looked back up, smiling at Nick. "I really appreciate this, Nick. Thank you."

Nick chuckled. "You can thank me when we've found your son." He looked over at Amari. "All right. Let's do this."

"Whenever you're ready, Mister Valentine. Just sit down." Amari gestured to the chair she was standing next to.

Nick sat down with a nervous chuckle. "If I start cackling like an old, grizzled mercenary, pull me out, okay?"

Amari carefully plugged the cybernetics into Nick. She cleared her throat then spoke. "Are you... feeling any different?"

Nick looked around, frantically as if what he saw in his mind was all around him in the real world. "There's a lot of... flashes... static... I can't make sense of any of it, Doc."

"That's what I was afraid of." Amari sighed. "The mnemonic impressions are encoded. It appears the Institute has one last failsafe."

"Wait.” River said. “Is Nick going to be okay?" She asked, concerned. She didn't want Nick to be hurt because of her.

Amari sighed. "Yes, the connections appear to be stable. But we need to solve the current problem first."

Amari continued. "The memory encryption is too strong for a single mind, but..." Amari gave her full attention to River. "What if we used two? We load both you and Mister Valentine into the memory loungers. He'll act as a host while your consciousness drives through whatever memories we can find." She explained.

River nodded. It was the best shot they had right now. "All right." She still wasn’t entirely sure about this but she was willing to go through anything now.

Amari pointed to an open memory lounger. "Just sit down over there. And…” She shrugged. “Keep your fingers crossed."

Nick smiled at River before he climbed into a memory lounger. He waved before speaking his next words.

"See you on the other side."

River climbed into the empty memory lounger and bit her lip, nervously. As it closed, she looked back at Nick then at the screen in front of her.

River could hardly hear Amari over her own thoughts but she noticed that she was quickly beginning to slip into a deep sleep. She only heard Amari tell her to hold on before she was completely submerged in total darkness.

#asbtr #a spark by the river #nick valentine x sole survivor #sole survivor #fanfic #fanfiction #fallout fanfic #amari #irma #fallout 4 #River McConnell

[itsthejuggernautbitch]

cut + burn chapter 2

Pairing: Colossus/You -  Playlist

Summary: Wade decides that sixteen years of mutual pining is long enough. He’s appointed himself your new wingman, and he’s the best in town (or so he likes to think). Or, how the compound effort of Wade Wilson and total romantic frustration gave way to getting exactly what you’ve been waiting for.

Chapter 2: To Be Alone

Part 1

Author’s Note: From here on out, it’s smut and good feelings and a little bit of angst from here on out. But really, if you’re reading this, you already know. 

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection  @emma-frxst  @this-that-and-every-thing-else  @ptite-shit  @lesbianyondu  @chromecutie  @ra-ra-rasputiin  @hazilyimagine  @lenavonschweetz  @nu-tt  @rovvboat  @i-write-fanfic-not-essays  @giruvega  @multi-blogs

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

The world turned upside down as you stumbled up to your room. You’d talked to Wade for far too long, letting him slip you drink after drink as the party dragged on around you. You suspected he’d done it to see if he could talk you into drunkenly propositioning Colossus. 

While you had a tendency to get rowdy after a few drinks, you weren’t a flirty drunk. At least, you didn’t think you were. You’d never been a flirty drunk before, but then, you’d always known Colossus would turn you down. Now, weren’t you quite so sure he would. 

The entire night was already fading into a rosy blur. You’d spoken to Colossus at the party, that much you remembered. You might have hugged him, lingering just a little too long with your arms around his neck, but you had no clear idea what had transpired. If you’d said anything risque or out of the way, Wade would almost certainly tell you.

You staggered into your room and slammed the door before falling face-first onto your bed. Fuck, it was so soft - had it always been this comfortable? Probably not - your mattress was older than you. Still, it was wonderful to be laying down with the world not spinning. You gathered up the comforter and bundled up in it, not bothering to strip down. Your shoes hung haphazardly off your feet, loosely dangling off the edge of the bed.

You sighed and rubbed your eyes when your head hit the pillow, brain fuzzy. Wade would meet his untimely end, you decided, for talking you into this.

What had you said to Colossus? You dug your knuckles into your eye sockets, racking your brain. He'd been alone when you spoke to him, you were pretty certain. Had you cornered him? (Very likely yes.) But what had you said? And what did he say back? Wade had pulled you away to take another shot with him as soon as the words left your mouth.

Whatever, it probably didn’t matter anyway. You were sure it was something embarrassing. Come to think of it, maybe you had propositioned him. You’d never done that before - you could usually keep yourself in check, even drunk. But then, no one had ever been whispering in your ear that it would be a good idea to ask.

You resolved to worry about it tomorrow. Now, you were wrapped up in your blankets, cozy and pleasantly warm, dizzy and drunk, and for the first time that day, pleased to be home. Home was good, your drunk brain decided. (Whether your sober brain would agree was a different matter, but drunk brain held the reigns right now.) Home was a warm bed in a clean room, with a bathroom and a hot shower. Home was a fully-stocked kitchen and friends you weren’t in charge of just down the hall. Home was workouts with Colossus, and breakfast with Colossus, and walks around the gardens at night with Colossus. Your drunk brain was positively giddy.

If you trusted your feet, you could walk over and see if he’d gone to bed yet. His room was just down the hall - it wouldn’t be much of a walk… It had been a long time since you’d been in his room, but it probably hadn’t changed. It wouldn’t be the first time you’d run to his door drunk, either. He usually just let you take the bed and he slept on the couch, or he would gently transport you back to your own room.

You sighed again, wishing the party hadn’t ended with you lolling drunkenly in your bed. If you’d stayed sober and just taken a chance, maybe he would have agreed to come upstairs with you. But no, once again, your poor choices left you huffing and sighing and wishing and wanting. 

Maybe if you’d made good choices for once, you’d be getting dicked down by Piotr Rasputin right now. You’d certainly thought about it before on nights like this one. That particular fantasy had been a weekly occurrence, at the very least, for the past sixteen years. 

You squirmed at the thought of Colossus between your thighs, filling you up and expertly tearing you apart. His hands cradling your head, his mouth biting and pulling at your nipples, your legs around his waist, his cock splitting you open - this was your idealistic, frustrated fantasy. 

No point fretting now. You pressed the heel of your hand between your thighs and tried to ignore the sludgy, heated pool in your stomach. Finally, you drifted off into an off-kilter, restless after-party sleep.

But, unfortunately for you, you were abruptly woken far, far too early by a fist slamming against your door. For a hot second, you tensed up, ready to roll out of bed and hit the ground running. But you were in your bed, not on a cot in the X-Jet, and you were spectacularly hungover. 

Crust cracked in the corner of your eyes as you rubbed the sleep away. Your head pounded with a dense, dull ache, the world still spinning. It was likely that you were still a little drunk, and that this bullet in your brain was the precursor to the real hangover yet to come. You called out to whoever was at the door to go away, come back later, please-stop-yelling. 

Instead of heeding your request, Wade - of course - threw the door open, flooding the room with manufactured fluorescent yellow light. He held two mugs of coffee, bless him, and wore a shit-eating grin so wide, you could see the flash of teeth even through the blur of the universe around you. He slammed the door behind him, set the mugs on your bedside table, and tossed you a bottle of aspirin.

“You can thank me later,” Wade said, hopping onto your bed. He sat crossed-legged next to your side, bright-eyed, as if he hadn’t had a single thing to drink the night before.

“I kind of hate you right now,” you replied, reaching out weakly to grab at the mug of blessed coffee. You sat up, hunched over your mug like a ghoul.

“Oh, you won’t hate me for long,” he sing-songed. He cracked open the bottle of aspirin and shook two of them out, which he handed to you.

“Why?”

“It’s my first day as your wingman, and I have a plan!” Wade replied sweetly. You could smell a plot simmering in the air. “I tried last night, but you were balls to the wall fucked up.”

“Which was entirely your fault.”

“Hey, I just put the drinks in your hand. You didn’t have to throw ‘em back.”

“With you shouting ‘Shots, shots, shots!’ after every sentence? Right...”

Wade stretched out across the foot of your bed, mug teetering precariously on his chest. Because that was obviously the best place to put it. “Well, I think it’s going to help you in the long run.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Oh, you’ll find out!”

You had a mild suspicion that he was talking about whatever you said last night, but he obviously wasn’t going to be forthcoming. Maybe he wasn’t talking about it because it wasn’t actually too embarrassing?

Wade rolled off the bed and went to leave, but you called out to him.

“Wade? What did I say to Colossus last night?”

“You’ll find out later!”

And he slammed the door behind him.

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

Wade took it upon himself to systematically hunt Colossus down and herd him into the nearest abandoned classroom out of sheer desire to just make them do the thing as soon as possible. Jeeze, two grown-ass adults - one would think they’d be able to communicate effectively about their feelings, yet it appeared that they were both too emotionally constipated to do so. Shocker.

He located his target and grabbed Colossus by the arm. He definitely tried to pull the big man into the classroom, but found that was literally not possible to do. Probably because Colossus is twice Wade’s size.

“Alright, I witnessed the most fucking awkward exchange I think I’ve ever seen,” Wade snapped as he shut the classroom door behind him. “Have you even been friends for twenty years?”

Colossus looked like a deer in headlights. “What are you talking about?”

Wade could have kicked him, but he would have broken his foot. Again. “Uh, the retirement party last night, Shiny Jesus.”

“What about it?”

“Why were you there,” Wade began, ignoring Colossus’s attempts to interrupt, “when you could have been getting cozy with your friend, who you are definitely in love with?”

“I - uh - do not know what you mean,” Colossus spluttered. As Wade raised an eyebrow, he finally conceded. “I did not realize it was that obvious.”

“Wow, I didn’t think you’d cave so fast,” Wade said. “Yeah, after about thirty minutes, most of the room was waiting for you to grab her and make a timely exit.”

“I suppose I… could have done that,” Colossus replied. “Before you had her taking shots.”

“You could have taken shots with us.”

“No.”

Wade clapped his hands together. “Well, what are you gonna do about it? Because she’s waiting and it looks like you are, too.”

Colossus sighed and relegated himself to the desk chair. “I don’t know.”

Wade parked himself on top of the desk, right in front of Colossus. No chance of escape now. “Maybe the better question is, what are you waiting for?”

“We have been at this point many times before,” Colossus replied. “She always... leaves on another mission.”

“And you don’t want to make your move when you think she’s going to run off again, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I think you’re in luck this time. Looks like she plans to stick around.”

“The willingness to teach is a good sign. I just…”

“Need a kick in the ass?”

“Language, Wade.”

“Oh, whatever!” Wade paused. “Alright, here’s the deal. I’m gonna do the right thing and be your wingman. How’s that?”

“Do you have to?”

“Yep!”

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

Monday came and went, and before you knew it, you’d been been home for more than two weeks. 

You liked the middle-grades kids so far - they were still young enough to enjoy learning and old enough to understand what you expected from them. They were rowdy, yeah, and dealing with puberty-fueled mutants wasn’t a walk in the park, but you found that you enjoyed the challenge.

Colossus had done most of the work for you in developing lesson plans. In actuality, you’d taken his spot as the middle-grades teacher and just adapted his lesson plans to your teaching style. He’d placed you with the middle-grades so he could take an active role teaching the trainees who were about to graduate. He’d been pulling double-duty teaching both, and he seemed to be much more cheerful now that you’d taken part of his workload. 

At the end of the semester, you’d be swapped out with the professor teaching the younger kids, which was where Colossus wanted to place you from the beginning.

Colossus still came to check in during the day periodically, but you suspected he just wanted to stop by to talk rather than assess your teaching methods. Obviously, you were a-okay with that - any time you got to spend with him was time well spent. You’d taken to wandering into his classroom on your breaks to observe, and usually released your students for lunch at the same time he did.

Wade, it seemed, had been quietly doing his job as wingman. And by that, you suspected that he sometimes actively shoved Colossus into your classroom during the day. Whatever his methods were, they worked pretty well. 

When Colossus came by that day, he came without Wade shoving him into the room. Instead, he had one of the younger trainees with him, a tiny little thing with white-blonde hair and freckles. She had deep-set eyes raccoon-ringed by dark circles and the usual look of an angry teenager.

“This is your trainee,” Colossus said, obviously proud of his choice. The girl gave you a hard glance and looked down at her feet. Colossus did not notice. Instead, he introduced you. “Christina.”

You walked out from behind your desk and introduced yourself. “Colossus tells me we have similar abilities. What can you do?”

Christina looked up at Colossus, who nodded encouragingly. Clearly, she wasn’t good with people. You could sympathize - you’d had to learn that skill, too. “I can speed up decay. And set stuff on fire.”

“That’s cool,” you said. “I’ve got radioactive touch, too. I can’t set anything on fire, but I can electrocute it.”

“That’s cool,” she replied, finally looking up. The girl had dark green eyes that were nearly luminous, like a cat’s eyes after being shined with a flashlight in the dark. Must have been a side-effect.

“We will have a meeting later and you can get acquainted. I just thought I would bring her by for a moment.” Colossus, in his infinite teaching wisdom, finally sensed that things were a bit awkward. “Christina, you can go. I need to talk to your mentor.”

The girl skulked out of the room, obviously relieved to have an escape. You assumed she’d probably been with Colossus for most of the day. Despite your personal bias, you could see how it would be taxing for a teenager to be stuck trailing behind her teacher for hours. Once she’d scampered out of the room, Colossus turned his full attention on you.

“You needed to talk?” you asked, butt resting against the lip of the desk. You’d made this into a habit, despite your best attempts. Still, it was hard to be formal in front of a class full of awkward almost-teenagers.

The look on his face said technically no, but the words coming out of his mouth were a stuttering, awkward attempt at Official Business. “Yes. How did testing go? Any issues?”

You could have snorted, but you kept it in. What would they do with you in the room, watching them like a hawk? You’d noticed some wandering eyes, but nothing egregious. 

You told him as much. “Went off without a hitch.”

“Good, good…”

You raised an eyebrow. “Something on your mind?”

“I- uh, no,” Colossus said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll see you at dinner?”

“Save me a seat.”

“Always.”

Colossus closed the door, and you huffed when you were sure he was out of earshot. Really, this was just ridiculous. You had no idea what Wade had been saying to him and still no idea what you’d said to him at the party. He’d been so twitchy when he was alone with you, you couldn’t keep him in the same room for long.

You could say something to him, sure. You could sit him down and talk about it and try to convince him that you weren’t running off to play hero anymore. But you’d shown him already that you were home with him - as a teacher, as a mentor, as a friend. But at this point, frustration was worming its way through your veins like fire. Finesse was wasn’t working - you might have to knock him over the head with a hammer.

Said hammer came in the form of Wade, who moseyed his way into your classroom like he had a grand secret. He sat on one of the student desks, swinging his legs like a kid. 

“What’s this about you being the best wingman around? Because it’s starting to sound like false advertising.”

Wade held up his hands. “Patience, patience! Let me work!”

“Your work ethic sucks.”

“Ah-ah, just give me time! You may not be saying that later tonight.”

“Oh, why is that?”

Wade waggles his non-existent eyebrows like a college frat boy. “Let’s just say, you may want to take a nap before dinner because you’re gonna be up all night.” 

You snorted. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“No, seriously, I’ve got this handled. You’ll see!”

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

What a goober. 

Wade had been standing outside of your classroom door with Colossus for fifteen minutes, whisper-coaching him to go into your classroom and do what he came here to do.

What an absolute goofy fuck.

Colossus was currently in panic mode, which Wade had never had the privilege of seeing. The Man of Steel was panicking in the middle of the empty hallway because he didn’t know how to tell someone who liked him, who knew he liked him, that he liked them back. Wade was about thirty seconds from opening the door and announcing it to you himself. Or kicking him in his steel balls, although he refrained from doing so more for your benefit than anything else.

“Just go in there and tell her how you feel,” Wade snapped, voice hushed.

“What if she doesn’t actually feel the same way?” Colossus replied, voice equally hushed. Neither of them were quiet, per se, but they were trying to keep it down.

“Are you high? Are you out of your fucking mind?” Wade smacked his palm against his face. “Do you think you’ve been misreading the signals for sixteen years?”

“It’s possible!”

Holy Christ on a Cracker.

“No, it’s not!” Wade could shake him. He was just tall enough to wrap his hands around Colossus' throat and choke him out, although the success of said venture would be questionable. “You have actual balls of steel. Use them! Walk in there and say it or I’ll do it myself!”

“Fine, fine!” Colossus straightened up considerably and peered down at his stressed wingman. “I will tell her.”

“Just go.”

Throughout the spectacle outside, you sat on the edge of your desk, staring at the door. You’d been able to hear Wade and Colossus whisper-yelling at each other in the hallway for the past fifteen minutes. As entertaining as it was to hear Colossus agonizing, it took all of your self-control not to just go out into the hall yourself. The impatient streak in you screamed that all this would be much simpler if you did, but your sadistic streak told you to stay put. The sadistic streak won out, in the end.

Finally, finally, Colossus knocked on your classroom door. You called for him to enter and nearly laughed when he walked in. He skulked in, unsure of himself and downright bashful, like a puppy begging for a treat. If he’d been in human form, he’d have been bright red. 

“What can I do for you, Piotr?” you asked, smirk clear on your face.

Either he didn’t pick up on the fact that you’d heard him whisper-yelling at Wade outside, or he was too nervous to say anything other than his self-produced script. He scratched the back of his head. “I just - wanted to stop in and ask you about your day.”

“Ah, well, it was good,” you replied. It was fun watching him sweat. “No problems today.”

"That's - that's good," Colossus says, looking as though he'd rather melt into the floor than say another word. "And training is going well?"

"It's great," you said, swinging your legs. You've decided to sit on the desk and your feet don't quite touch the floor. "Definitely getting some muscle definition back."

“I- I can see that.”

You kept swinging your legs. “Oh, is that right? What do you see?”

“Your legs look nice.” This must have been his best attempt at being brazen. Colossus took a deep breath and made his best effort to appear confident. “You seem… happier than when you arrived.”

“That’s because I get to see you every day now,” you replied, staring him dead in the eye and smiling sweetly. 

He didn’t break eye contact for once. “Oh...”

“You know what the best part about being home is?”

You’d realized that he’d slowly been inching towards you. He’d been going so slowly, you hadn’t really noticed, but the sudden heat and mass of him standing directly before you caught you off guard. He’d changed out of his uniform - the civilian clothes worked well for him.

“What’s that?”

He was closer, nearly touching your knees. You still hadn’t figured out when exactly he’d edged forward, when he’d took the steps to close the gap. You needed him closer.

“You.”

He sighed, leaning in. “This is not how I planned-”

“Are you gonna keep standing there, or are you gonna kiss me?”

Colossus didn’t respond - instead, he did the sensible thing. He leaned in, took your face in his hands, and kissed you. He was clearly intending for this to be a sweet, tender first kiss - soft and lovely and all things good. That was nice, but sweet and tender could come later. You had other plans - thankfully, he went along with them.

The universe quantified down to your mouth on his, and you had the vague, idle thought that hopefully Wade would do his job and guard the door. You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him down to your level (he’s so fucking tall), tongue swiping against his bottom lip. He tipped your chin back with his thumb, one hand on your cheek, the other sliding down to your thigh. 

You’d always been a bit, well, forward - and you were never one to just let your partner take the lead. You were painfully aware that his knees were between your legs, that you were squeezing his thighs, that your skirts were rucked up a little too high for decency. You hooked your ankle around the back of his thigh and drew him closer, closer, until he was pressed up against you, bearing down on you, pushing your back against the desktop. You ached deep in your gut, and the noise he makes at the back of his throat as you slipped your tongue between his teeth only made the building pressure in your abdomen worse.

So you made the next sensible move: you took his hand and slid it up, up, up your thigh, up under your skirts, and left it resting at the top of your thigh. The groan he made, deep and vibrating in his chest, ripped straight through you. He slid his thumb under the band of your underwear, drawing circles in the soft skin.

He paused, hesitant, as if he had something to say. You grasped his shoulders, stroking down his chest, and palmed the front of his pants with a grin. His hips twitched, pressing into you, and you felt just how big he is.

“Wicked woman,” he grunted, pressing a kiss to your cheek, your neck, all the way down to your collarbone. He slid his thumb along the line of your underwear, slipping underneath the fabric to flick your clit. He dipped a finger in, spreading your wetness as he pressed a single digit in down to the knuckle. “There are better places to do this…”

You pressed your face into his neck to stifle the whimper spilling out of your mouth. “Such as?”

“My bed is bigger than this desk…”

“Race you there.”

#colossus #colossus imagines #colossus headcanons #MCU!Colossus #colossus x reader #deadpool #deadpool headcanons #deadpool imagines #MCU!Deadpool #wade wilson #MCU!wade wilson

[wildroseofarran]

Training Day, Part I || Brett & Cam

Cam: Cam checked the text on his phone again to make sure the address matched the number on the house before him. He wasn't keen on inviting himself into a home other than the sheriff's.

He was a little nervous, both with the anxiety that comes with meeting someone new, but also the fact that he wasn't sure how Brett would react to a strange man showing up in the middle of the night and demanding to be fed. At the least he could blame it on Guildias.

With a smirk Cam leaned against the door frame and knocked gently on the door.  He knew he looked a little disheveled, but in a 'just had good sex' kinda way. A typical look he liked to sport after a good sparring match.

Brett: The little house tucked back into the trees would be quiet and still when Cam arrived. Residents absent, the only sign of life was a tiny canine head appearing in the lit window, no doubt looking for its owner.

Brett had taken the night shift as a favor to his deputy (and his deputy's relationship), which of course had meant that all the crazy that was going to happen today decided to fall into his lap because why the hell wouldn't it?

His only saving grace was the twenty-four hour gym that had opened in the next town. Brett had gone, gotten a workout in, and had destressed by the time he finally pulled into his driveway.

.....And saw something--no, someone--that wasn't supposed to be there.

Cam: After realizing the house was empty, Cam took a seat on the steps and leaned casually back onto his elbows. He could wait until Brett came home, and a part of him was relieved he wasn't waking Brett up.

When the car finally pulled up, Cam's head tilted to the side and his mischievous grin returned.

"Hail and well met!" He called to Bret when he left the car, and Cam raised his hand in a little wave. "I was told by a mutual friend of ours- real tall, long dark hair, really likes red beverages- that you'd feed me since I haven’t had dinner, so here I am." Cam gestured dramatically to himself and leaned back on the stairs.

Brett: Woodstock sat on the windowsill and watched the strange man on the porch. The little chihuahua didn't bark (he only barked at motorcycles, children, and squirrels) but he watched as intensely as any hundred-pound watch dog.

He didn't stand until Brett arrived, giving a single bark in greeting before returning to his vigilant stance almost at the same instant his owner did.

Although Brett's involved a hyperawareness of his phone and the service weapon in his possession.

There was zero amusement on his face at the stranger's greeting and even less in his tone. "Who are you and why are you on my porch?"

Cam: Cam jumped when the dog barked, surprised by the sudden sign of life in what he'd assumed was an empty house. That was a well-trained dog if it didn't bark at every person that neared the house. He then turned back to Brett when he spoke.

"I'm Cam. Guildias- real tall, long dark hair, likes red beverages- sent me here with a few messages," Cam replied, clearly unperturbed by Brett's lack of amusement as he continued to grin, "and he told me you would feed me, like I already said. "

Brett: Brett remained silent on the outside but inside he was groaning and could already feel an ocean's worth of anxiety bubbling in his stomach. It was just like his domitor to spring shit like this on him with zero warning.

"Deliver them and I'll give you directions to the nearest McDonald's."

Cam: "Well- see, those weren't his instructions," Cam replied with a little pout, "I'm really hungry, and MacDon’s is not nearly as yummy as a home cooked meal." Cam paused and tilted his head thoughtfully in the opposite direction. He could sense Brett was tense, or at the least he assumed, there was a stranger on his doorstep.

"If you wanted, I could make something for the two of us while delivering the messages- one being one of them being that I'm supposed to give you some sparring lessons. Your choice on when you want to let me kick your ass," he flashed an easy, cheeky grin as he hoped to lighten the mood a little.

Brett: "McDonald's is where you should have gone in the first place instead of telling Guildias you hadn't eaten. Then we wouldn't be in this particular situation." Ordinarily Brett would be a lot more polite than this but one, it was late. Two, there was some strange man on his porch essentially making demands. And three, number two had come about because of Guildias.

"I am not letting you have free rein in my kitchen. I'm still debating on letting you in at all." Sparring lessons? Guildias expected him to just let this man--no. Absolutely not.

There would be no lightening the mood today. "Sit and stay out here. If I have to feed you, you'll get a sandwich and like it."

Cam: Brett's reaction was starting to give Cam the impression he wasn't too keen on everything ghoul related. Or he wasn't too keen on strangers showing up at his house. Either way he was obviously not happy with the situation.

"Hey, he asked me if I'd eaten and I said no. It's not like I knew he was going to tell me to go to your house and teach you how to fight. Or that he'd tell you to feed me so- here we are," He shrugged and raised his hands, as if trying to absolve himself of Brett' discomfort.

"Okay okay, grumpy pants. I'll wait out here," he nodded and didn't move from his lounging position on the stairs.

Brett: If Cam only knew how correct his impression was.

“Yeah, that’s exactly the kind of bullshit I’d expect from him,” Brett muttered, moving past the stranger—knowing his name didn’t change that—and heading inside. The last thing he said before closing the door was, “Don’t do anything weird.”

Then it was just a matter of greeting and taking care of Woodstock, putting his stuff away, and making Cam a sandwich that both satisfied Guildias’ order of feeding him and let Cam know exactly how he felt about the situation.

Cam: Cam caught the mutter but did as he was told, remaining in place until Brett returned. He was pretty sure Brett wasn't in the mood for probing questions, so he saved them for later when Brett was hopefully in a better mood.

While he waited, Cam played idly with a stick he found nearby and twirled it between his fingers.

Brett: Brett didn't return with a better mood (it was far too late and he was far too tired) but he did return with a sandwich.

Was it a phenomenal sandwich? No. But it was a decent enough sandwich.

He offered Cam a paper plate.

Cam: Cam took the plate with a nod and a quiet "thanks" before he bit into the sandwich. After a few thoughtful chews he glanced up at Brett.

"So how long have you been a ghoul?"

Brett: "A while." That was all Cam was going to get out of him today.

"I did some thinking while I was making the sandwich. You're gonna eat it and then you're gonna go away so I can sleep because I'm very tired. Then tomorrow morning you can come to the station and we'll have a conversation."

Cam: "Hmmm...." Cam continued to chew and hummed thoughtfully at the suggestion. "I follow- but I don’t do police stations," he wasn't about to say why, but being a vigilante did not usually go hand-in-hand with the police or their workplaces.

"Is there anywhere else you'd be willing to meet?"

Brett: “I have to work tomorrow.” He sighed. “I’m not going to arrest you or cuff you or throw you in a holding cell. I can’t, remember?”

Cam: "Mmmm...." Cam hummed again, nearing the end of his sandwich.

While Brett couldn't arrest him, that didn't mean one of his coworkers couldn't try, in theory. Cam really had no reason to worry, a standard holding cell and cuffs couldn't contain him, and as long as he didn't use his powers there was really no way for anyone to recognize him. Unfortunately, that wouldn't stop the nervous wedge that would churn in his stomach through the whole exchange.

"Alright," he said as he stood back up and handed Brett his empty plate. "Thank you for the sandwich, and I'm sorry to have bothered you so late." He meant that, considering how tense Brett was, he felt a little guilty for stressing him out. Then he turned to leave.

"You should also think about those lessons," Cam tossed over his shoulder as he walked away, "I'm sure we could do them at Guildias' place if we asked, and I'm pretty sure he's going to expect you to say yes."  Then Cam waved and disappeared into the night. He'd get the address for the station from Guildias, and give Brett a nice surprise bright and early with his arrival.

Brett: Pretty sure? Cam clearly didn't know Guildias very well. Brett was absolutely certain that's what his domitor expected from him. That's what was worrying him.

He gave Cam a nod that could've been acknowledgement or goodbye and went back inside.

The police station in Edenton wouldn't have been like others he'd probably seen. It was much smaller, much quieter, and with far less staff.

Deputy Peabody wasn't set to come in until later so the only people there when Cam arrived would Brett himself, a drunk man sleeping it off in a holding cell, and their aging receptionist who would wave Cam toward Brett's office before a single word could be uttered. She didn't even look up at him.

Cam: Cam was surprised by such a small station. Pleasantly surprised, as it made him significantly less nervous.

He muttered a soft "thanks" to the receptionist as she waved him in, and once he located Brett's office he knocked on the door and waited for permission to enter.

Brett: "Come in," Brett called, putting away the file he was working on and putting his computer to sleep. Theirs wasn't a particularly active station but he still liked to give his cases the privacy they deserved.

Cam: Cam entered the office and flashed Brett a grin.

"Morning, grumpy-pants," he greeted playfully, and he flopped into one of the chairs in front of Brett's desk. Cam's head tilted to the side and he gave Brett a small once-over.

"Feeling any better this morning?"

Brett: "Good morning to you, too," said Brett, sounding infinitely more pleasant than he had the night before. What a difference sleeping made.

"First, I'd like to apologize for my rudeness last night. You caught me at a bad time and in a bad place."

Cam: "No worries. You also did encounter a strange man on your doorstep in the middle of the night asking you for food, soooo I don't blame you for being in a bad mood," Cam shrugged and relaxed a little more now that he knew Brett's default mood was not a bad one.

Cam: "Sorry if my little arrival made the night worse for ya."

Brett: It certainly hadn't made it better, but saying that aloud would be rude and unproductive. "Thank you, I appreciate that. Although to be fair, most of my mood can be blamed on working late. No one enjoys that, even in a town as small as this."

Cam: "Mmmm, agreed," Cam nodded, knowing full-well how bad late nights could suck. Thankfully he didn't have too many of them at the moment with working at Charles' school.

"So, how long have you known tall, dark, and fangy?" And as soon as the phrase left his mouth he hoped Brett would not repeat that to Guildias.

Brett: Brett blinked. "....Did you just say tall, dark, and fangy?"

Cam: Cam grinned.

"You heard me. Although I'd appreciate it if you DIDN'T repeat that to Guildias."

Brett: "I'm surprised I was able to repeat that to you."

Cam: Cam laughed and shrugged.

"I give you props, it's a mouthful."

Brett: "It is. And definitely not a way I'd ever expect someone to use to refer to Guildias."

Cam: Cam's head tilted to the side and his eyebrow arched as his curiosity grew.

"Sounds like you and I have different interactions with him. Or he just puts up with my antics- actually- that's probably it," he chuckled and crossed his arms over his chest as he settled back into the chair. He wanted to ask so many questions, but all of them felt too personal for people who had just met. Cam stretched his legs out and crossed his ankles.

Brett: He could certainly see his domitor being amused by this man. Guildias found the most unlikely things amusing, often at the oddest times.

"I'd be willing to bet that we do." Cam could ask whatever he liked; of course, that didn't mean Brett was going to answer.

Cam: "So, how long have you known Guildias?"

Brett: "A few years."

Cam: "Damn, so I am the baby ghoul," Cam huffed, pouting a little. "How'd you- you know, become one?"

Brett: His brow furrowed. "You're his ghoul?"

Cam: Cam blinked.

"Oh- wasn't that obvious? Did you think I'm just some sort of messenger for him?" Cam asked, an amused grin on his lips.

Brett: "It wouldn't surprise me if he had messengers."

Cam: "Well I'm not. I'm his ghoul. He... saved me. And you?"

Brett: "No comment."

Cam: "Lame," Cam pouted, but he didn't press. "So, my other message for you is that you need to talk to him about getting a tattoo- his mark for being his ghoul. So other things out there know not to mess with us. Protection and stuff- according to what Guildias said.

Brett: Brett very visibly tensed. His hope that Guildias would decide not to go through with that notion had apparently been in vain.

Cam: Cam noticed the tension, and he nodded.

"Me too... it makes me uncomfortable, but it makes sense. And if worse came to worse, tattoos are removable. Or cover-up-able."

Brett: "It's not the tattoo. It's what it represents."

Cam: "Oh- same. I already have tattoos so that part doesn't bother me." Cam rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't like.... feeling like someone else's 'thing' to mark- if that's the part you're getting at."

Brett: "Yes, that's what I'm getting at. The whole being branded like cattle."

Cam: "I don't think Guildias sees us as cattle. Other vampires- the one who Guildias saved me from- I'm pretty sure she did."

Brett: "Guildias isn't the problem. It's the whole concept of not being able to go anywhere with only human precautions. It's not being able to hide in a crowd because someone in that crowd might be a vampire and god forbid they sniff out what you are. However much the brand--because that's exactly what it is--protects you, it also serves as a reminder of how little power you have every single day. There's no tricking yourself into forgetting after that shoe drops."

Cam: Cam listened intently, his head cocked curiously to the side.

"You don't have a lot of confidence in yourself, huh? Or you've just got a lot of fear?" he asked pointedly.

"Who gives a shit if you're sniffed out? You're not powerless, and far less so now that you're a ghoul. And even if your opponent is stronger or faster than you- whatever. There are ways to get around that."

Brett: "Who gives a shit? I do. I didn't ask for any of this. Me being sniffed out doesn't just put me in danger, it puts everyone I love in danger.  It puts every innocent civilian in this town in danger. It already has. More than once."

Cam: "So- what you're saying is that you'd rather be a weak human, a ready and waiting meal for a different monster to show up to try and kill you and those you love anyways? Because let me tell you, being a ghoul or not- you still encounter those things."

Brett: "Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. Because if I were human, the word 'no' would actually still be in my vocabulary. It would actually still have meaning. My 'no's mean nothing anymore. I don't get the luxury of having them. I don't get the luxury of giving consent, for anything."

Cam: Cam was quiet for a moment, realizing that there was more to Brett's line of thinking than Cam had the info for, so he wanted to choose his words carefully.

"Guildias has never made me do anything I don't want to."

Brett: "Like I said. Guildias isn't the problem. He also isn't the only vampire."

Cam: "Then why not use being a ghoul as a way to defend yourself from those that would ignore your consent- that's why I'm getting at. There are ways to take those people down."

Brett: "I don't care about taking people down. I'm not Captain America. I just want a normal quiet life without the chaos of what I am."

Cam: "Well, it sucks to suck. We don't get to choose what we are sometimes," Cam's smile faltered slightly, as he knew all too well about lack of choices. He sure as hell didn't choose to be a mutant, and he'd lost plenty because of it.

"What matters is what we do with what we are. I choose to use it protect those I care about, and make sure I never lose anyone again. At least not because of my own weakness. I guess it's your choice if you want to mope about it," he shrugged.

Brett: "You've clearly had a very different experience being a ghoul if you can reduce everything I've said to me moping. How fortunate for you."

Cam: "I'm not just a ghoul," Cam replied, his smile fading. His eyes flashed a bright green before it faded as well. The next second Brett's desk shifted, shaking slightly as if waking from a long slumber, and it began to walk in a circle around the little office.

"I'm a mutant- so just because I don't have a terrible experience being a ghoul, doesn't mean I don't understand where you're coming from. Have you ever been abducted and experimented on? Tortured? Watched your friends die just so some bastard can get a reaction out of you? Just because of your genes? I know what it feels like to have my autonomy taken away- what it feels like to have your 'no's mean nothing. So don't be an ass and assume I don't get it."

The desk returned to its place in front of Brett and settled, now unmoving.

Brett: Brett's reaction was nearly violent in its quickness.

He leapt out of his chair and flattened himself against the filing cabinet behind him, ignoring the sudden pain of the metal hinges and handles jabbing into his back as his eyes squeezed shut.

It wasn't real. None of it was real. It was just like the hearts on the tile and the sickening lavender smell and his things and Bo disappearing it wasn't real. It wasn't real, everything was fine, his office was just as it was supposed to be. No hearts on the tile, no lavender. Everything was fine.

Cam: Cam's eyes widened as he saw Brett's reaction, and that certainly wasn't what he was expecting.

"Hey..." he said softly, afraid to approach Brett in any way and possible make the situation worse. "I'm not going to hurt you, dude. I don't know where your head is taking you, but we're in your office. You're safe."

Brett: Brett's mind was back at his house nearly a year ago but something was wrong. He wasn't at his house. It didn't smell or feel like his house.

He needed to get safe. He needed to be safe until he figured out where he was.

And then, without Brett realizing what he was doing, he disappeared.

Cam: Cam jumped as Brett disappeared and he slowly stood up to reach for the place Brett had just been standing.

"Brett?"

Brett: So long as Brett didn't move he would remain invisible. He could hate and resent what he was all he wanted, but the truth of the matter was that he was growing stronger with every training session and more proficient with his powers.

Cam: Cam was surprised to feel resistance where he did, half expecting Brett to have disappeared altogether somehow. He could remember Guildias mentioning this ability, but he'd yet to figure out how to use it.

"Brett? You're in your office. You should come back," he said quietly as he gently squeezed Brett's shoulder.

Brett: Well that definitely got Brett to move and become visible again, if only to get as far away from Cam's hand as he possibly could while still remaining in his office.

Cam: "PTSD?" Cam asked, looking at Brett with an expression that said he was quite familiar.

Cam: He placed his hands on his hips but didn't move to touch him again.

Brett: Brett looked away, unable to fear meeting the look on Cam's face. Already his neck was flushing red with embarrassment and shame, and if he could concentrate enough to disappear again, he would. He didn't need this man seeing him like this. Or anyone else for that matter.

"I don't like being touched," he said quietly.

Cam: "That's fine- I'm sorry for touching you," Cam returned to his seat and eased back into it.

"Have you talked to anyone about it? Whatever's bothering you?" Cam asked, and after hesitating for a moment he added, "it helps."

Brett: "Guildias." He hoped that was enough to indicate that it was a vampire related issue.

Cam: "Ah, so that's why being a ghoul is so hard for you?" Cam asked, making the connection with Guildias' name.

Brett: He just nodded. "Among other things."

Cam: Cam nodded as well. "I've been there. The PTSD part anyways. I’m sorry."

Cam: "I didn't realize my powers would do that to you. I was just trying to make a point."

Brett: Brett nodded again. "Consider it made."

Cam: Cam rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. "You'll adjust. I bet all of this is pretty overwhelming when you're not used to it."

Brett: "I've been at this for a while."

Cam: "Gotcha," Cam's head tilted curiously, but he resisted the urge to ask what caused such a visceral reaction to his powers.

"So, when do you want to learn how to fight?"

Brett: "I need to talk to Guildias."

Cam: "About?"

Brett: Cam didn’t really expect Brett to tell him the answer to that, did he? If so, he’d be disappointed.

“Personal matter.”

Cam: Cam rolled his eyes and held up his hands in defeat.

"Alright. Keep your secrets," he stood up from his chair and gave Brett a parting wave.

"I'm sure Guildias can give you my number. Let me know when you’re ready to get stronger." And he slipped out of the office and back into the crisp morning air.

#Training Day Part 1 #brettmparker #thegreenanimator

[the-uptake]

An Unknown Sustenance

The Uptake, The Sarpashana Solution. Book IV, Chapter 1(?)

I’m all over the place. Grunt.

Several figures, clad in white suiting with tailored clean silhouettes, collected near the observation window of their research facility. Some looked on in anticipation, some in boredom. One could not help but pace.

"Sit still, Tis'a."

"I can't. This doesn't matter."

"They already know there's more of them than themselves," the first continued. "It is an inevitable development."

"Let them eat together," a third commented, near the back of them, only vaguely attentive. "We've already seen they form social bonds within their sectors. It's plausible that even at a sector level they will play nice with one another."

"They might even encourage one another to branch out where they've been averse to it prior." A fourth weighed in, agitated. "Where's all the contention coming from, Tis'a?"

"It's taken us so long just to get this far. I'm having reservations about the risks here."

"We've determined a reliable pattern of repeatability." The fifth of them snorted at Tis'a. "If there's a problem, we will simply replace the subjects."

"There's no replacing one of them." The second grunted, seeming to understand Tis'a's agitation. "The zero patient still exhibits mutations and adaptability the others have not. We established the sectors for a reason."

"And ideally, bringing them all together socially will help coax them in the right direction." The fourth pointed out into what had once been a courtyard, now an organized mess of drums, metals, plastics, and indeterminate debris. "Even if they haven't exhibited adaptive traits yet, I'm still confident they have simply thus far been shy to push their limits."

"Hamsa is right. Perhaps if Sigma and Theta see one another... remediating different substances than one another, they might be more inclined to sampling the other sector's comfort zone."

"I still rather hate that you call it 'eating,' Arba'a," Tis'a mumbled. "It's just... unnatural. I don't understand how any of you can stand to watch."

"You know what you signed up for when you took this position." The fifth radiated the authority of a senior figure, and shepherded them nearer the observation window. "Come on now, the staff will be releasing them in waves any minute now. The Betas first, then the Gammas, and so on. Not at all unlike cafeteria shifts in a high school, except the shifts today overlap."

Tis'a's face curled in displeasure but they said nothing.

____________________

The Beta sector subjects shuffled in through the pocket door to the north end of the rectangular courtyard, oblivious to any change in their daily habits at the complex. The ten of them, arthritic and despondent, sat around a sizable pile of small metal bits and set to rummage through it. Nuts and washers, screws and bolts, tailings, all manner of shapes and functions and alloys. They would put a given piece to their mouths, then decide to pass it to someone else, or swallow it themselves without chewing. It rarely went that a given piece passed hands more than two or three times, and it was common for a recipient to be fed the piece by the one who gifted it. The wefts of a deranged social intimacy shuttled the group together through action and few words.

The Gamma sector entered from the East end, and they descended upon one of the stacks of plastics. They rifled through it for the rubberiest parts, and gorged themselves. Occasionally, one might pick out a piece another of them would enjoy more than they would, and they'd toss it unceremoniously in their direction. Over time, the pile flattened from their scattering methods, though it did not draw attention to themselves, the Betas too absorbed in their saturnine ritual. The twelve Gammas, too, remained oblivious to sharing a space with anyone else.

The Deltas and Epsilons filed in from East and West, and served the catalyst for the encounter. They saw one another upon entry into the yard and stood staring, not going to their delicacy without prompting.

"What gives?" an Epsilon called out. He noticed the other groups already present, along with the one that had arrived along with his own, and pointed at them with incredulity. "They told us there was other groups but they never let us see each other!"

"Yeah, this is weird," a Delta agreed. She walked up to him and looked around with a vague consternation. "It's almost like they had some kind of scheduling flub..."

"What are you starin' at!" another Epsilon hollered, glaring at the Betas. But they hadn't stopped eating just to stare listlessly at the Deltas and Epsilons, but rather had their faces set upon the newest arrivals: the Thetas from the South. The third and fourth groups looked behind them to discover a group of distinctly asymmetrical individuals, who had frozen in place the instant they realized they were not alone.

"--Ignore them," one insisted, struggling with a limp gait to drag the rest to a mound of bottles. "We need to..." They insinuated toward the bottles, which upon closer inspection could be determined to be discarded prescriptions and medical waste. "If we don't now, it'll be hours before the next chance to be still."

Those who heard the Theta nodded silently and all went about their business. Many still eyed one another as they fed. Over the next thirty minutes, six more groups entered, and with each subsequent arrival, each withdrew from one another's line of sight, the shame of their condition outweighing the exigence of absolving their many months of loneliness. What brought them all together only served to further isolate. Somewhere about ninety subjects crowded in the courtyard. For twenty minutes or so, the twelve groups continued on in communal isolation as they bioremediated their respective commodity of waste.

For the most part, everyone tried their best to ignore the mere concept of what the others around then consumed.

The door to the north end produced a single subject the next time it opened, and the figure descended immediately upon the haystack of crusted drums no one else has dared touch. His wiry, naked frame bent at odd angles to facilitate identifying their contents by smell alone. Once he came upon a satisfactory stuff, he put his mouth to the cap and sucked and lapped at it until the fluids within flowed readily down his throat. The sheer quantity of liquid wastes he knocked back got everyone's attention, and soon everyone watched in a mixture of horror and fascination.

The Alpha subject got his fill of drum contents after the third, and moved toward the pile of metal junk, only to realize he wasn't alone. He looked to the plastics pile, the pharmaceuticals, the solar glass... His one-eyed features gnarled up in self-revulsion as he could tell these other figures were also consuming in kind, and he shrank from their sight.

"--You ARE here." The cracked voice of a Theta disinterred himself from the pharmaceuticals. Seemingly unable to stand, he still insisted to close the distance between them. "It took me... way too long to understand... what I'd gotten myself into... They wanted... Wolfrin victims... for the trial... But I couldn't have dreamed you were... still alive..."

The Theta's long, dark, stringy hair obscured his face as he lay at the Alpha's feet, and he parted it to stare longingly up at him with cataracted, oleous eyes.

"Dunno if you remember me, but I could never forget you." The dreg smiled in a warm delirium, complacent to how dragging his body along the ground had contorted his tank top to expose a nipple through its neckline. "...Supposing I did get my wish, after all, to become like you, Galen."

The remark shot through Galen to the marrow, and he couldn’t still his shaking rage and confusion and hurt. Before he knew it, he’d smashed his bare heel down on the Theta’s shoulder and dislocated the arm and collarbone all. The Theta lurched in a stifled wheeze, and rolled in a flinch to shield his face.

“–I, I’m sorry. Y’didn’t deserve th–”

“–You really don’t remember me, if you don’t think I didn’t deserve that.” The dreg curled up tighter and coddled his shoulder when he realized Galen had not continued into a full assault, and he sniffed and fell to flat affect. “Did the ghouls even give you the books?”

“...Ghouls?” Galen sat, his brain swimming too hot to remain steady, and he shook his head in dismissal. He looked around a moment to see the others had mostly resumed eating rather than continue staring. “What are y'even on about?”

“Painted ghouls. The stalkers with their faces covered in spray paint. They steal from all the low-level places they can to smuggle stuff back inside the walls? I… never mind. I never learn my lesson.”

“…Runners. They’re runners. The city calls ‘em ghouls? The fuck.” The wiry naked idiot lay back and stared up at the mesh mezzanine acting as a lid to the container which was the courtyard.

“City thinks of ‘em like bogeymen. Like they couldn’t possibly be real stalkers. Just punks dressed up to scare folks or somethin’.”

“They all might as well be dead either way.”

“...You don’t have to tell me, but I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.”

“They got that paint all over their faces from huffin’ it. If a stalker leaves the Quarter anymore, they can’t breathe without paint, or maybe canned air. Dunno why I’m an exception to that. Maybe ‘cause I died way before all this shit started.” He squinted, face struggling not to screw up over it. “I don’t get it. The air in there’s all wrong now. It’s a wonder spray paint’s got enough… whatever in it to sustain runners long enough t’get outside the walls, then do a grab an’ run. I… I don’t wanna talk about how bad it is inside the walls. Not right of me to.”

“That’s fine. …You… you really don’t recognize me, though?” The Theta turned onto his back to give him a crestfallen, soulful pout, and slowly his dearth inflection broke into sentimentality. “It has been since before the walls. I guess I’ve changed just as much as you have. I mean, just… look at you. At the same time you don’t look like you’ve aged hardly at all, your body has just… continued… adapting… And I’ve just… continued falling apart… Going on forty now...” He reset his shoulder and didn’t even hiss. A quiet laugh came from him as he looked away, rubbing the joint. “Melancholy.”

“Are y’gonna just keep mopin’ an’ givin’ me coded hints or are y’gonna tell me your goddamn name? Maybe ring a bell? Y’drivin’ me loon.” Galen wiped the sorry from his face, and made vague circular gesticulations as he spoke. “Tch, it’s not much use anyway. Head cheese’s comin’ up all Swiss lately.”

Rather than form a rational response, Melancholy choked on laughter, then held his mouth and the tears just ran out of nowhere.

“…Finally seeing me again for the first time in over a decade, and you don’t even remember the asshole you took out all your sexual frustrations on while you were working for the EPA…” Melancholy sniffed and looked to him with a limpid sense of humor. He parted his greying undercut to slick down some approximation to bangtails, and pinched his thumbs and forefingers to hold circles to his eyes, intimating glasses with a stupid smile. “Maybe now?”

“Stop bendin’ like that. Don’t like that.” Galen rolled over so he didn’t have to keep looking at the sallow, horrid Theta. He hated being pushed for recollection he clearly didn’t have, being reminded just how little he remembered before the walls. How much of his brain had he lost after being beaten a dozen inches past his life, years ago? “I don’t even clearly know how I ended up in here. Just know they feed me. Today’s first I ever knew there was anybody but me here... You said you was just like me now. Tell me just exactly what you think about you’s just like me, yeah.”

“Well, that’s an exaggeration, I guess. I haven’t exactly gotten as far along as you, though I doubt I could ever catch up. I can knock back... a lot though. Most plastics don’t give me too much trouble now, either. They mostly give the Thetas medical and pharmaceutical discards. Olen over there, she can even handle the sharps bins no trouble. To be perfectly fair, this is the first I think any of us has known there was anyone else here... like this... Dunno how anyone else got here. I only know the folks who were in the same trial as me--and this is a million times better than anything they tried to sell me to hook me.”

To punctuate the statement, ‘Choly turned over and tried to spoon Galen, who allowed it from the stranger in the hopes proximity would help him feel better, even if it didn’t help jog his memories of him. ‘Choly’s face ended up in the crook of Galen’s shoulder.

“I just... Why are they collectin’ people who can eat like me? The fuck purpose is that? --An’ you mentioned you’re in here ‘cause they lied to you an’ told you this was some trial? You tryin’ t’tell me y'wasn’t always like this?”

'Choly turned his head so he didn’t bark another laugh right into Galen’s ear, but settled down again quickly with a nostalgic body beside him. He’d lost track of how long he’d been in the facility, how long it had been since he’d lain beside Cecil, or any of the Potluck. He nudged Galen onto his back and knelt atop him with an apathetic whimsy, his shoulders rolled and head a bit lolled.

“My chasing a way to become more like you has forever gotten us tangled up in each other’s chaos. Even now. I think I’m the only Theta happy to be here. Even happier, knowing I’m here with you... Say, I might not be able to stomach everything you can yet, but I can still...”

And ‘Choly hooked the corners of his mouth to force a smile across the entire span of his face. He recalled Galen disliking just the double-jointed display before and he quickly dropped the distortion with an embarrassed brow. When Galen only reacted in dumbstruck revulsion, ‘Choly ran a hand down Galen’s chest and left it atop the defined, warped abdominal muscles which formed a shape which was neither quite a paunch nor quite a potbelly. Galen shuddered a breath, shoulders in rigor as he frantically looked around to see if they still had any onlookers.

“The idiot from the library,” the Theta whispered desperately. “The idiot stalker stalking you for months on end before you caught me, and flung me into your apartment, and...” He trailed off and put his fingertips to Galen’s mouth, heart stitching knots like a sewing machine with a jammed bobbin. “We can... always make new memories...”

“Are you sure you actually handle all those bottles of other people’s drugs? You are fucking high as shit.”

“I’ve always been like this. I like to think it’s the one thing you liked about me. Gave you an excuse to feel justified roughing me up. Fuck, the shiner you gave me the first time I--” A halted moan came out of ‘Choly as he coaxed his fingers against Galen’s tongue. “I, you. You wouldn’t want to see if we have... that in common, would you? I was always so happy to oblige you, that I never really asked you to reciprocate...”

When ‘Choly moved to run his fingers even deeper into Galen’s mouth, Galen wrenched the hand from his lips by the wrist and glared up at him, haunted. That face. Something clicked in Galen’s head and flashed pieces of connected thoughts together. Fuck me, you’re perfect, he could hear in ‘Choly’s broken, unmodulated voice. This dreg had had his entire arm down Galen’s throat once--at least once--knew everything about him if he knew the lack of features on the outside belied the presence of internal genitalia. The dislocated shoulder, that hadn’t been the first time Galen had popped it out of joint. His face ran metallic, and his mouth in lieu of tears suffused with drool and panic.

“--Nn, not here. I don’t want this. Not like this. Hff-- fuck. Fuck fuck ffh--”

If this ass knew what Galen’s stomach lining felt like, surely he knew how loud Galen could get without something down his throat choking out the sound of it. In front of a hundred people, maybe more watching from observation windows. He flushed deep blue in the face just thinking about it, and did his best to swallow his upset.

“Where else, then? I don’t think they’re going to let us see each other in private. You make it sound like you would want it on different terms, at least. Perhaps just... keeping the stimulation external for now?” ‘Choly traced the chain of nodes where Galen’s navel had once been. Then, when Galen struggled not to cry out, he took Galen’s free hand and guided it up under the hem of the tank top, to touch him in kind. A ragged breath came out of ‘Choly as Galen tried to appease him by focusing such attention on him rather than himself, and ‘Choly fell to choking whispers as Galen traced his navel with a thumb. “Slaggit, if this even feels a fraction as good to me as it does to you-- Ugh, how I’ve missed the smell of your sweat.”

“Have you always... greeted me with sex... or am I just this unlucky?”

“Hhh, hha. I get the, impression, we’re all hardwired this way now. Look. I always thought it was, just the Thetas, blowing off steam after eating... but look.”

The two of them stopped to observe similar interactions, in various stages of disrobing. The Epsilons lounged in pairs across the piles of broken solar glass, grinding against each other, against a shared panel between each of them as they suckled on the edges. The Betas had progressed from feeding each other bits and pieces, to languorously effusing metal directly from their palms into one another’s wanting mouths. The Gammas took to opposite ends of lengths of rubber pipes and let their mouths linger in one another’s when they met in the middle. All manner of lawless orgy bloomed up around them, a topography of derangement fueled by a gamut of appetites.

“They’re... They’re... Why...” In particular, Galen watched the Betas in abject fascination. He barely contained voicing the nascent desire that someone feed him in any such way.

“I’ve lost track of the number of times they’ve told my sector to knock it off. Something about the vagus nerves gets scrambled with the primary mutation... Seems understandable now why the white coats are so jealous. Positive feedback reinforcement, though, I suppose--if they could breed it out of us, we’d have no reward for performance.”

“--Ju --jus --sst, ssssh shut up. Y'sound like one a those freaks in white, but broken.” Galen squinted and shuddered, then felt very small. “Can... can you ss, sweat... like that? The metal? Probably a stupid question, ss, sssince you said they feed you drugs. Don’t got a lotta metal in drugs...”

‘Choly became animated at the thinly-veiled request, pressing his free palm to Galen’s lips and smearing lithium all over them. He could tell exactly what had captivated the Alpha’s attention.

“Pharmacology uses a lot of metals, actually.” He grinned, absolutely drunken on obliging Galen’s appetites in such a precise but multifaceted way. “They do have a grand idea. Do you want me to--”

Dropping all reservations, Galen forced ‘Choly’s hand down his throat and let ‘Choly guide himself all the way down inside. Whereupon, the cowed Theta unloaded every metal he could muster directly into his idol’s gut, all the while stroking the distended stomach lining. However new it was, it was still the most familiar thing either had felt in ages, and Galen blissfully reciprocated the attention by petting ‘Choly’s abdomen. And they remained passionately tangled up in such a way, until the orderlies filed in to pry everyone apart with a firm gentleness, to escort them back to well-rehearsed isolation.

#biopunk #cyberpunk #dystopian #white hamsa #white tis'a #white arba'a #white waahid #white ithnaan #white thalaatha #those in white #the sarpashana solution #galen miner #melanochro kara #the uptake

[yourewelcomeforbeingmyfriend]

Dear Friend - Part 3

Dean x Reader

Summary: Dean meets a girl on a new hunter website and begins an online romance. The only problem is, they don’t know who the other person is. Could their love for one another last only in the confines of the computer screen or will their desire for something more lead them to finally meet?

Warnings: Language. A bit more of a slow burn

A/N: This is part 3 of my little series based on “You’ve Got Mail” and “She Loves Me.” I hope you guys are enjoying it as much as I am. A big thank you to the wonderful @hannahindie for betaing this for me. I’d love to know what y’all think of this, so please feel free to let me know. Enjoy!

Series Masterlist

“Y/N, what are you thinking about?” the young woman named Christina laughed and waved a hand in front of her friend’s face to try to pull her from her trance. 

Y/N gave a laugh of her own and shook her head. “Nothing. Just turkey sandwiches with lettuce and tomato.” 

“Turkey sandwiches with…” Christina’s words trailed off as she continued eyeing her friend. “You’re a strange bird sometimes Y/N/N. Anyways, thanks for your help with this hunt.” She lifted her beer bottle for a toast. 

Y/N lifted hers and clinked the necks. “Anytime, girl. Besides, you know I love a good werewolf hunt.” She gave an innocent wink. 

“What’s on your mind that’s got you so distant? And don’t tell me it’s just sandwiches. I mean, they’re great and all, but not that great.” 

Y/N gave a sigh and set her bottle down in front of her. She took a moment to fiddle with its placement as she thought about what she was going to say. “Have you heard of that new hunter website?” her friend nodded. “Well, I go on there from time to time and I sort of met someone on there. A guy,” she clarified. 

“Oh really now? What’s his name? I’m sure I’ve heard of him.” Christina knew all sorts of hunters, both socially and biblically. She took no shame in it. 

“That’s the thing, I don’t know his name.” Christina started to give a look but Y/N continued anyway. “I said I didn’t want to know names. Keep a sort of mystery about things. I thought it was just playful and harmless until we started talking more. Now I want to know his name because he’s a really nice guy, but I feel like I can’t turn back on my rule. He could be anyone.” She picked a little at the label on her beer. 

“It could be Garth,” Christina said with a laugh, to which Y/N threw her bottle cap in response. 

Later that night Y/N sat at her computer biting her nail as she waited for her favorite website to load. She held her breath as she waited to see if there was a little number hanging above the envelope icon. Sadly there was nothing. It had only been a day since she last wrote to BabyDriver67, so she wasn’t very disappointed. But still part of her was disappointed there was nothing new to read. She looked away from the computer screen and to the photo of her and her niece sitting framed on her desk. She thought for a moment of the cute little girl, then turned back to the computer to click on “New Message.” 

I sometimes wonder about my place in this world. Does that make any sense? Like how there are people sleeping right now who have no idea of what we do for a living, and probably never will. They just live their lives going to work or school and go along their merry way. I feel like I can’t remember a time before I heard of werewolves and ghouls and all those other things that go bump in the night. What a strange life I lead. I’m not really looking for an answer on this. I went out tonight with a friend and had a little too much to drink, I think. I like to throw questions into the Void when I’m drunk. Goodnight, dear Void. 

“Goodnight, dear Void.” The words glowed from Dean’s computer screen. He was falling more and more in love with her with each new message. But his heart also ached for her. He knew that even drunk words had a bit of truth to them, so somewhere deep down she was feeling this insignificance. If only he could meet her and tell her she was’t insignificant. Not to him. 

“Hey, I think I found a haunting in Texas,” Sam said as he joined his brother in the library.

Dean shook himself from his thoughts and looked up from his laptop. “Texas, huh?” 

“Yeah, a hotel in Galveston.”

Dean frowned in thought. “Well, I have been wanting to see the beach lately.” Sam only then seemed to take notice of what his brother was doing. “Any new messages from her?” he hammed up the question a little to Dean’s annoyance. 

“Bite me,” was all Dean could think to say as he closed the laptop and got up. “We’ll leave in twenty!” he shouted as he walked down the hall towards his room. 

The case, on paper, was fairly run of the mill by Winchester standards. The hotel had long had legends of being haunted – harmless cold spots and creaks in the night – but now guests and staff were getting seriously injured. It was only a matter of time before it escalated to someone’s death. 

HellsBelle25 was still on Dean’s mind as they checked into their room at the hotel. He was so deep in thought he didn’t even hear what Sam was saying to him. He was brought back to reality with a pillow hitting his face.

“Dean?” Sam scoffed from his seat on the bed. “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?” 

Dean threw the pillow back at his brother as a reply. “I’m going to go talk to some locals. How ‘bout you get to work on the research. We’ll meet back up again later tonight to do some poking around.” 

He put on his cheap suit and grabbed his FBI badge as he headed out the door. Up the street he saw a sign for a seafood restaurant, which gave him a sudden craving for shrimp. When he walked through the door, he was greeted with the usual nautical scene that came with beachfront locales. He made his way to an empty booth and took a seat. 

“What can I do for ya?” the waitress, identified by a name tag as Judy, asked. She was an older woman who seemed to have seen her share of sailors and tourists pass through town. She looked like she would have her finger on the pulse of what was going on at the hotel. 

Dean ordered the shrimp and introduced himself as Agent Tyler. “I’m here looking into all the nonsense happening over at the hotel.” 

Judy twisted her face into a frown as she looked over his badge. “That hotel sure is drawing a lot of attention. First that reporter and now the FBI. What’s next, Secret Service?” 

That caught Dean’s attention. “Reporter?”

“Yeah, she’s sitting over there.” She pointed her pen towards a booth a little ways down from Dean’s. All he could see was the top of a ponytail that popped out from a downturned head. 

Dean nodded his thanks at Judy as she walked back to put in his order. He slid out of the booth and made his way over to the young woman. He found her hunched over a notebook scribbling away in a purposeful manner. “Excuse me,” he cleared his throat. 

The woman looked up from her work but kept writing as she slowly began to comprehend who was speaking to her. A half second too late, it seemed, she gave a warm smile. “Hello.”

“I’m, uh, Agent Tyler,” he flashed his badge again. “I hear you’re a reporter here to look into the hotel?”

She kept her eyes on his badge for a few seconds. “Uh, yes, I am.” She set her pen on top of her notebook. “I’m Y/N Y/L/N.” She held out her hand.

Dean took it in his and gave a shake, impressed by the firmness of it. He stood in silence for a beat longer. “Do you mind if I join you for a moment?” he finally asked. 

“Not at all, please,” she motioned for the seat opposite her and he took it. She brushed her Y/H/C hair away from her face, “How can I help you, Agent Tyler?”  

“Well, how about you fill me in on what you’ve found out so far about the hotel?” 

She eyed him for a moment as if searching for something. She must not have found it, or maybe she did, because she shrugged and began to share what she knew. “The hotel used to be an orphanage, back around the time of the hurricane. Kids from the city and even as far as Houston would be bussed in to live there. Guests and staff have talked about hearing things or feeling cold spots for years. Basic urban legend stuff. But over the past few weeks, people have been getting hurt. Staff members and guests with slashes and knife wounds on the arms and chest. Really interesting escalation.” 

Dean jotted down notes in his notebook and nodded, “Anything else?”

“Well, I’m still working on it,” her eyes narrowed on him. “So what brings the FBI out here?” 

“We go where the weird goes, and this is weird.” 

“Maybe I should start calling you agent Mulder instead,” she said with a lift of her eyebrows. 

Dean laughed off the idea and thanked Y/N for her time, returning back to his booth and his shrimp. 

“There’s an attractive reporter here looking into the case,” Dean casually mentioned back at the hotel later that evening as he swept the EMF reader in front of him. The device chirped and flashed red. “There’s definitely some ghosts here, too.” 

“Leave it to you to find an attractive reporter while doing recon,” Sam sighed. “And what about mystery girl?” He poked his brother’s side with the flashlight. 

“Oh come off it, man.”

They made their way down to the ballroom floor. All was still and quiet, the guests having gone to bed long ago. Dean’s EMF reader chirped back to life as the lights in the hall flickered. The brothers noticed their breath fog up in the cold air. 

Suddenly they heard a thump coming from the ballroom ahead of them. They ran over to fling open the doors and found a familiar Y/H/C young woman shooting a sawed-off shotgun into the ghost of a young child. 

“Fuck!” she cursed under her breath. 

“Y/N?” Dean asked incredulously. 

The young woman swung her head around to the brothers and her brows knit together. “Agent Tyler?” 

Before Dean could answer, the child reappeared behind Y/N and made his way quickly towards her. He held a knife and flashed a menacing smile. “Hey! Behind you!” Dean yelled as he shot his own shotgun at it again and it disappeared once more. He walked over to her and poured a circle of salt around her. “Reporter, huh?” He gave her a long look. 

“Agent, huh?” she returned the look. “Who are you guys, anyways? And why are you invading my turf?” 

Sam walked over and joined them. “I’m Sam Winchester, and this –” he pointed to his brother – “is my brother, Dean.” 

“The Winchesters?” Y/N scoffed. 

“Your turf?” Dean scoffed back. 

Y/N rolled her eyes. “Yes, my turf. I’m from Texas and this is a job in Texas. You’re invading my turf. Since when do you guys travel south of Oklahoma?” She stepped over the line of salt and walked towards the doors, her gun falling to her side, “I can handle this myself.” 

“Maybe we can help you,” Sam called after her. She turned to look back at him and he shrank a little under her glare. “It, uh… it would go faster,” he added. 

She rolled her eyes at them, “Fine. We’re looking for a teddy bear. It’s somewhere in the basement, I’m pretty sure.” 

“How do you know?” Dean asked. 

“Because I’ve been here for a week and I’ve done my research.” 

They made their way down to the basement. Every question Dean had for Y/N was met with curt responses; she seemed inconvenienced to be with them. When they got to the basement, they found it filled wall to wall with boxes. One of them contained the teddy bear they were looking for. 

“I guess we just pick a box and get started,” Sam shrugged. 

The three split up taking different sections. After about a half hour of searching, Dean was becoming irritated. 

“Find anything yet?” he asked. 

Y/N gave a loud huff. “No, Dean. I think I would’ve said something if I had.”

Dean stood up from the box he was searching. “You know what, Y/N, what’s your problem?” 

She looked up at him. “You are, Dean Winchester.” Dean was taken aback, but she pressed on, “You think you’re God’s gift to hunters. Swooping in and saving the day for a frail little hunter like me.” Her last sentence was dripping with sarcasm. 

Dean gave a wry laugh and licked his lips. “Me? God’s gift? Yeah, you’re right, sweetheart. Abso-fucking-lutely. We came all the way down to the fucking coast to help some inconsequential hunter I’ve never heard of with a simple haunting because she’s too weak but full of herself to handle it on her own. Woe is me, because this girl is going to come in and steal my thunder.” His words dripped with disdain. “Get over yourself,” he scoffed. 

Y/N stopped rummaging through the box in front of her and stared at Dean in shock. She was at a loss for words. 

The room grew cold again and the ghost appeared in front of Sam. It slowly made its way towards him, still brandishing the knife and a menacing smile. “Uh, guys? Can you hurry up with the search?” he swiped his iron pipe at the ghost and it dissolved once more. 

“We’re working on it!” Dean yelled over to him as he turned back to his search. Y/N still stood dumbstruck for a few seconds more before shaking herself back into action. She finished searching the box in front of her before moving on to a trunk in the corner. It was old and worn, and seemed like a good bet. 

“Guys?” Sam questioned. The ghost was back and getting closer than before. It seemed to grow stronger and more deliberate each time he appeared.  

Y/N and Dean continued rifling through their boxes and trunks. Her hand brushed against something fuzzy and she grabbed the paw of a tattered old teddy bear. She clumsily pulled out her phone to double check the picture she had and confirmed it was the one they had been searching for. “Got it!” she exclaimed. 

Dean stood up and joined her in an open space of floor. She dropped the bear to the ground and poured salt and lighter fluid over it. She looked up at Dean as he flicked open his Zippo and dropped it on the bear. They turned to look in Sam’s direction as the ghost began to catch fire and burn into nothing once more. 

“Aren’t you glad you had our help?” Dean cockily asked Y/N.

“So glad,” she bit back with a roll of her eyes.

The next morning the brothers caught sight of Y/N as she was packing up her car. 

“Heading out?” Sam asked as he walked over to her. Dean reluctantly followed behind. 

She closed the trunk and squinted up at him. “Yeah,” she shrugged, “the ghost is gone, and I’m not really one for the beach.” 

Sam gave a weak chuckle. “Yeah, we never get to see it, so we thought we’d stick around for a little bit.” 

“Thanks for your help, Sam,” she reached out to shake his hand. “Dean,” she turned to shake his. 

He looked at it for a moment before taking it. Once again, he was impressed with the firmness of it. 

“No offense, but I hope I never see you again,” she said.

“Likewise,” was all he managed to say in return.

Tags: @pinknerdpanda @hannahindie @wheresthekillswitch @emilywritesaboutdean @trexrambling @narisjournal-blog @jensen-jarpad @notnaturalanahi @simplydaisys @keepcalmandcarryondean @mrswhozeewhatsis @katymacsupernatural @boxywrites @ellen-reincarnated1967 @ravengirl94 @amanda-teaches @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @masksandtruths @just-another-busy-fangirl @sis-tafics @eyes-of-a-disney-princess @not-so-natural-spn @feelmyroarrrr @sherlock44 @jobean12-blog @diariesofthebeautyobsessed @akshi8278 @wonderstruckbyfandoms @wildfirewinchester @mogaruke @whimsicalrobots @winchesternco

#spn fanfic #dean x reader #dean winchester x reader #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural reader insert #dean winchester fanfiction #stuff i wrote

[fleur-de-violette]

Until I fall asleep

Supernatural fanfiction

A3O

This is set after the season 8 and AU from there, but the angels didn’t fell (reason is explained). 

Enjoy

“You want me to call Amelia?”

Sam looked up dubiously. Of all the things Dean might have said, he wasn’t expecting that one. Reading his brother face, the oldest hunter made an apologetic gesture.

“I don’t know man, her, or whoever you want.”

Sam broke eye contact, looking down. Whoever he wanted, hum? He knew his brother was desperate. He overheard the doctor telling him all they could was helping him go away without pain. That is was a matter of days and that they should call his friends and relatives to say goodbye. He also knew the only reason Dean wasn’t destroying everything in the hospital out of frustration was because he was too busy trying to hide his distress from his little brother.

He was dying. There were no alternatives. Cas hadn’t shown any sign of being alive since he left for heaven to ask Metatron the truth, and the state of heaven was unknow. If Dean had prayed, no angel had answered. He was dying, he was leaving his brother alone, and it was so stupid, because if he was dying anyway, he might as well have closed hell for good.

God, he was so tired.

As much as he wanted to sleep, he feared doing so. Ever since he was a kid, he was afraid nightmares would hunt him, he was afraid a monster would attack him. Now, he was afraid he wouldn’t wake up.

He wanted to say goodbye. He didn’t want to die like Jess, like his dad, like Bobby. He wanted to die having said everything he wanted to tell his brother. He wanted to die having said his goodbyes. But not to Amelia. Amelia didn’t need to know the man she lived with had barely made it to 30. He preferred her to think he had made his life somewhere else. He preferred her to remember the broken but trying to heal man he had been, instead of the dying mess he was. He didn’t want her to see him. He didn’t want anyone to see him. He just wanted to rest.

But he couldn’t leave Dean alone. Not now. Not after all this time. Because he knew for a fact that being left alone with no one in the world was unbearable. Dean had to have someone with him when he would disappear. And since Castiel wasn’t there…

“Charlie…”

Was that even his voice? Instead of the strong request he wanted to make, the name had come out as a whimper, without a full sentence.

Dean’s hand lost itself in his hairs, gently pushing it of his face.

“Ok kiddo, ok…” his voice was calm, but shivering, and somehow gratefulness that there was something he could do. “Ok, I’m gonna call her…”

But the older hunter made no move. Because taking his phone would have required him to get his hands out of where they were: comforting his brother. Sam’s eyes closed, his body relaxing into the touch.

Before reopening quickly. He took a deep, strangled breath. He couldn’t sleep. Not now. Not yet.

Dean sighed, as his hand continued its smoothing move.

“You can rest. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

Sam felt his eyes watering. He knew his brother wouldn’t leave him. He was the one how abandoned his family on a daily basis.

His last thought before he gave up to slumber was that he had failed Dean again.

Opening his eyes was hard. It was hard since the second trial, if he was honest with himself, but it seemed like it was harder and harder every time he woke up. One more reasons he didn’t want to sleep.

He probably hadn’t been unconscious for long, maybe for twenty or thirty minutes, which meant his next painkiller dose wasn’t due until a few hours, and yet every part of his body started to hurt again, breathing becoming difficult despite the nasal canula.

But he could hear Dean’s voice, so Dean was here, and there was no way he would abandon his brother again, so he opened his eyes. He gathered all his willpower and opened his eyes.

Dean was apparently on the phone with someone, one of his hands still on Sam’s, and the light that appeared in his eyes as he saw his brother awake was worth all the pain Sam went in to wake up.

“Hey, look who is there…” Dean was speaking too fast, too low. His eyes were red. In less than half an hour, he had considered the option that his brother would stay asleep forever. If he hadn’t wanted to scare Sam, he had failed. He tried to act cool but even drugged and tiered, his brother knew otherwise. Hell, even a stranger wouldn’t buy his show right now. He showed the phone “That’s Charlie. You want to talk to her?”

Sam slowly nodded and within seconds, the phone was near his ear.

“Hi Sam,” Charlie’s voice was hesitant, like she didn’t know exactly what to said. Sam couldn’t blame her, because who would? “I heard you weren’t doing so well”

If his friend hadn’t sounded so close to cry, Sam would have sneered at that.

“I’m…” She took a deep breath “I’m pretty far from you right now, but I can be there in a day, two tops. Just… hang in there until I arrive ok.”

“I…” Sam’s voice was hoarse and talking hurt “I’m counting on you.”

He heard what sounded like a muffled sob on the other side of the line, and somehow it warmed his heart. Someone would cry him. He knew Dean would probably cry, but Dean would cry his little brother. The kid he raised. Charlie would cry him as an adult, as he was with his broken soul and the weight of his mistakes on his shoulders. He knew it was selfish, and the reason he needed her was to prevent Dean for doing anything stupid, but the idea of having someone crying for him was comforting.

“I’ll be there. Don’t worry, I’ll be…” she answered, before letting an uncomfortable silence settle in.

Sam didn’t really know what to said. He just settled for a weak “Thank you” hopping she would understand without telling her that she would have to take care of Dean.

After another silence, she spoke again. “I’ll definitely see you tomorrow, okay?” And then repeated, when she obtained no answer “okay Sam?”

The man sighed an “okay”, already exhausted, before letting the phone fall back in Dean’s hand. If his brother kept talking with their friend afterwards, he hadn’t the energy to understand it.

When he focused again, the phone was on the nightstand and Dean was gently rubbing his left palm, where was left the scar of a wound that helped him staying put in reality two years prior. He was talking in a soothing voice, remembering or inventing stories from their childhood.

“Dad was hunting a Ghoul, and we were alone for a week, and the motel office lady kept treating us almond paste angels, saying that it will make us good boys. At some point we had so much that we started sealing them at school.”    

Angels… he didn’t remember that, but he could only think of one thing when it came to angels.

“Any news on Cas?”

He really should stop talking if his brother made that face every time he heard his voice. But Dean seemed somehow relived that he was coherent.

“Don’t worry about Cas okay? Worry about getting better.”            

Sam knew he wouldn’t get better. He also knew his brother was as worried as he was about Castiel. But he couldn’t say any of that. So instead he just let his head fall back with a pained sigh.

“Why don’t you try and get some more sleep?”

Sam closed his eyes against the light. He didn’t want to sleep. He had never liked sleep. Sleep was scary, and it was a moment where he couldn’t react to anything. It was like being dead. And he didn’t want to be dead. Not now, not yet, not ever.

He was dying, and he was scared.

“I don’t want to…”

Like when he was a kid, when his brother and father left him behind and he spent all night reading with a flashlight, because he didn’t want to sleep alone. Because what if something happened to his family and he was needed? Because who would patch them up if they came home wounded? Who would patch Dean up after a hard hunt if he died today? How would back up his brother in case of need, and who would protect him from other and himself?

He vaguely heard the sound of the heart monitor speeding, and Dean whispering calming worlds to him. But all he could think about was the fact that he was letting him down, abandoning him, again. All he could think about was that he was going to die and leave his brother alone, that he was going to die and be alone.  

“I’m sorry…”

A hand was on his hairs again.

“Hey, no… what are you sorry for?”

Sam laughed at that. A strangled, sobbing laugh that put him in a world of pain, but he laughed. Because wasn’t Dean the one who told him exactly what he should be sorry for not one day before?

Ruby, killing Lilith, letting Lucifer out, losing your soul, not looking for me when I went to purgatory…

His greatest sin. Abandoning his brother. And he was going to do it again. After everything he was going to do it again. There were no number of apologies that could ever wash it down.

Where do I start, to even look for forgiveness?

He had given Crowley an answer, but if he was honest with himself, he didn’t know.

How about starting with not dying useless, scared and pitiful?

There were thousands of things he still needed to tell his brother. There were thousand of things he needed to fix, or at least try to fix.

But what came out of his mouth was a weak “I don’t wanna die…” and that was not what he wanted to say.

Not what he should have said.

Because the hand in his went away, and he heard the sound of the door closing, someone yelling and something crashing in the distance.

And then something crashing really really close.

Like, in his bed close.  

And when he opened his eyes, he saw Dean by the door, who had entered the room in a hurry, and Castiel, as well as another, smaller guy in a Weiner Hut outfit Sam could swear he had seen before, half tangled in the wires that were supposed to keep him alive and free of pain, half on him.

“Cas? Alfie?”

Alfie? Wasn’t him the angel they met when trying to get back the demon tablet, and they failed to save from Crowley? Sam felt like he was supposed to be dead, but before he could assess the situation, Castiel, having untangled himself and now standing in the room, started talking very quickly.

“We don’t have much time, Naomi is dead, Metatron is after us, he lied about the angels’ trials, now he needs my grace in order to cast angels out of heaven. I don’t know why he wants to do such a thing, but I know I need to prevent that at all cost. Dean, Sam, you two are the only one I can trust with that. Do you know a safe place?”

Sam waited until he heard Dean’s voice articulate “Wait, what?” to realize his mouth was opening and closing frenetically, like a fish out of water. His older brother continued:

“First of all, what is Alfie doing here? Weren’t you supposed to be dead?”

The younger angel looked at him.

“I don’t know how I’m alive, I don’t know why me. All I know is that I woke up with the knowledge that I couldn’t let Metatron get his hands on Castiel. I think… I think dad has something to do with this. And my name is Samandriel by the way.”

The oldest angel put himself in front of his brother.

“Samandriel saved me, and I trust him. Dean please, I can explain everything, but we need to go to somewhere warded. We don’t have much time.”

Dean sighed “Ok, no, we can’t. We won’t. Sammy can barely move, I’m not risking transporting him to the bunker.”    

Sam looked at him. He knew his brother was right. He couldn’t go to the bunker, and they couldn’t let the two angels go hopping Kevin would know how to let them enter and ward the place back. But Dean could go. Dean could make the way to the bunker and back. He didn’t want to be left alone, but he couldn’t be demanding, considering the situation. Besides, they owed Cas that much.  He was about to say something, but before he could open his mouth, Dean cut him:

“I know what you’re thinking and no. I’m not leaving you, I won’t make the same mistake twice in a day.”

The younger brother sighed.

“Dean, I won’t move or do anything stupid. You know I won’t. The doctor said I’ll be alright for a couple of day, we have time. And Charlie is on her way.”

The doctor hadn’t exactly said that, but he hoped his brother got the general idea.

“Couple of days? Your human doctor said that?”

Two pair of eyes turned to Samandriel, who just talked. Castiel kept his gaze on Sam, like he was examining him. The smaller angel explained himself.

“I mean, I’m surprised that you’re even awake in the state you are in. Your internals organs are a mess, it would be a miracle if you’re still alive in two hours, let alone coherent. It’s practically a miracle that you are now.”

Seeing Dean’s killer’s eyes on him, he added “I’m sorry, I really am. You seemed like a good human being, Sam Winchester, and I’m saddened to see you that way. But there is nothing we can do.”

The lump in Sam’s throat had nothing to do with the after effects of the trials. When he talked, his voice was barely a whisper.

“So? That doesn’t change anything. If anything, Dean should go with you quicker to avoid being suspicious to the hospital staff.”

If looks could kill, his brother’s would have shortened his two hours. Dean turned toward him, and was ready to explode any moment when Castiel, who had stayed silent the entire time, shortened the distance between them and put two fingers on his forehead. Sam immediately sensed his friend’s grace flowing trough him. The warm, healing and familiar feeling covered his body and momentarily covered his pain. Then, like water on a flat surface, it went away, leaving him the exact same. The angel looked at him curiously.

“Does it help?”

“A little I guess.” Sam lied.  

The look in his friend eyes told him the angel didn’t believe him. Castiel seemed to be thinking for a while, before talking again.

“There might be a way. There is nothing we can do from the outside, but I might be able to heal him from the inside.”

Before Sam could proceed, Samandriel and Dean talked at the same time.

“That could work.”

“What do you mean?”

Castiel got up, looking at both Winchester brother.

“It means I might be able to heal Sam if I possess him. He’s a powerful vessel, my grace won’t hurt him, but I will be able to access to the part of his body that are damaged.”

Something that was gone from Dean’s eyes started shining again.

“That’s wonderful, Cas, can you do that? I mean, save him?”

The angel didn’t answer, focusing again on the younger hunter.

“Sam? Be sure that I will regain Jimmy Novak as soon as you are out of danger.”        

Sam closed his eyes. Every part of him wanted to say no. He didn’t want to be possessed by any entity. Not again. Never again. He didn’t want to live the horror he remembered from the time he was controlled by Meg, then Lucifer.

But Castiel wasn’t Meg, nor Lucifer. Castiel was their friend. Castiel would never hurt him.

Except it was the same Castiel who broke his wall. It was the same Castiel who lied to them and betrayed them.

And Sam knew the angel had redeemed himself since. He knew Cas had done everything he could to be forgiven, sacrificing his own mental health. He whished with all his heart that he could trust Castiel. And he could. He could trust his angel friend with his life. He just didn’t know if he could trust him with the complete control of his body.

But then he opened his eyes and looked at his brother. He looked at the man he had abandoned the trials for. He looked at him, and he saw hope in his eyes. And he didn’t want to break that. He looked at his brother, and understood that he needed to live, whatever the cost was. If anything, for Dean.

The first “ok” that got out of his mouth was barely above a murmur, but, after a shiver, the second “Yes. Yes, Cas, you can… You can possess me.” Was much stronger. He was still scared. He was still afraid. He was still disgusted by the shear thought of someone possessing him. But the look on Dean’s face told him he was doing the right thing. He could do it. For Dean.

Castiel took his hand, and his voice was soft when he told him:

“Thank you for trusting me, Sam.”

And everything was lost in brightness.

Jimmy Novak once told them that being possessed by an angel was like being pinned on a comet. Sam couldn’t help but agree. Being possessed by Lucifer was like fighting inside a waterspout, except the water was burning cold, and he was naked. Castiel was different, especially because he knew he didn’t have to fight, but no less overwhelming. Everything was too loud, and he felt like taken in a crown movement. Hands were touching him, invading his privacy, going inside his mouth and restricting his airway. He couldn’t moan or cry.

He didn’t want this.

This was too much.

He couldn’t.

It was too much like him, like the cage and he just couldn’t. Dean would have to understand, to forgive him, because he just couldn’t.

He wanted Cas to go away. He needed Cas to go away.  

And just as he formulated the through, he found himself kneeling on the hospital floor.

He couldn’t breath any easier.

He was disconnected from the machines, he realized, but he had underestimated how bad he was hurt. He was burning, like he had been thrown in a liquid nitrogen bath, and he knew what it felt like. When he opened his mouth, something wet and thick leaked down his chin. Dean was on his side in a second, and he couldn’t tell his brother not to touch him, that he will only make things worse. He vaguely heard voices above him.

“What happened?”

“He rejected me. He forced me out.”

“Sam? Why would you do that? Why would he do that?”

“Perhaps the procedure was too hard to handle. It’s usually not, especially on strong vessels but with Lucifer, the cage, and the fact his body was used without a soul for more than a year, not to mention the effect of the trials…”

“I don’t care. Is there a way you can help him!? Sam? Hey, stay with me, you hear?”

The comforting answer he wanted to give to his brother died in a strangled breath, before he heard Samandriel closing by.

“Maybe I can put him asleep. That would make the grace insertion easier.”

Sam didn’t want to sleep. He knew it was irrational but something inside him told him that sleep was bad. Sleep was the end and he couldn’t sleep.    

“Then do it!” Dean yelled, frightening his brother even if Sam knew the anger wasn’t dedicated at him. “Hell, why didn’t you do it in the first place?”

Castiel was suddenly close to him again, his blue eyes scanning him.

“Sam, can you say yes again? We’ll make sure to make it easier on you.”

The hunter shacked his head weakly. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to be possessed. He didn’t want to sleep. He didn’t know what he wanted. He turned toward his brother.

In case of doubt, refer to Dean. That was what a childhood as a hunter and half a year of Lucifer hallucinations had taught him. So he turned toward Dean. And he saw pleading eyes and desperate tears.

The “Sammy please” that got out of his brother’s mouth destroyed what was left of his fear.

He was too weak to say “yes” but apparently Castiel didn’t need a verbal invitation, as long as he got an invitation at all.

The angel put a hand and his face and smiled. In a second, the bright light was there again, and Sam braced himself for the atrocity he knew was coming.

But two of Samandriel’s finger touched his forehead, and, despite every part of his body telling him that sleep was wrong, he mercifully blacked out.  

Sam woke up on the backseat of the Impala. Or on what looked like the backseat of the Impala. Castiel was sitting next to him, in his Jimmy Novak vessel, and he still had room for lying, which should have been impossible. When he looked at the front seat he saw it empty, even though the car was moving along a nameless road. He quickly seated and looked around him, confused. The constant pain he had grown familiar with in the past mouths was gone, leaving a feeling of emptiness. The first thought that came to his mind was that he had failed. He had fell asleep and abandoned his brother. He turned toward Cas.

“Am I dead?”

He knew that if he was, he would probably see a reaper, and not his angel friend, but a reaper could take a lot of forms and he wasn’t sure of anything. Castiel smiled.

“No. Your body is on the front seat of the Impala, under Dean’s care. We are going to the man of letters ‘bunker. I made sure all your organs are functioning enough to keep you alive, but you’re not ready to wake up yet.”

Sam absorbed the information and sighed. He wasn’t dead, and he would eventually be able to go back to Dean. He could do with that. He seated more comfortably on the leather.

“Where are we?”

His logic told him they were in some kind of imaginary world, but he couldn’t help but ask.

“We’re in the depts of your mind. I wanted you to wake up somewhere where you would be comfortable, so I asked your soul were “home” was. You took me here.”

The hunter tilted his head. That sounded about right. The car has always been his home and he knew deep down that he cherished her as much as, if not somehow more than Dean. He closed his eyes for a moment, there was no music, but he could hear the familiar hum of the motor and the Legos hitting each other in the vents. He could also hear another noise, abnormal, who screamed to him to stop there and call Dean.

“There is something wrong with the engine.”

The angel nodded.

“Yes. It seems that this is the way your mind has symbolized the effect of the trials on your body. I need to fix it, to fix you before you’ll be able to drive on your own.”

“So, I’m the Impala?” The analogy made Sam smile. He remembered the time the trickster-Gabriel had changed him into the car. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience back then but sometimes Dean and he laughed about it. His brother had once told him in one of his soft moment that it was like fusing the two things he would protect at all cost and trust blindly. Sam didn’t know at witch extent this was true, but he was pretty sure the analogy stopped there. He wasn’t as obedient as the Impala, nor as reliable.

Castiel just smiled at him.

“Yes, in some way, you are.”

They sat in silence for a while after that, the car still rolling on a road that would never lead them anywhere. At some point, Cas talked again, his voice hesitant.

“Sam.”

The younger Winchester turned toward him.

“I’m going to have to take control, now. Perhaps you should try and sleep for a while.”

Sam shook his head.

“No I’m not… I’m good. I don’t need to sleep.”

The angel sighed in a slightly exasperate way.

“Considering what happened when I first tried to possess you, I think it would be better for you to be asleep, or at least relaxed when I’ll start working on your body.”

When the only reply he got was another shook of Sam’s head, Castiel tried again.

“Sam. I can assure you that you’ll see everything I do with your body, and that if you want the control back, you’ll just have to ask. I just need to start working. I don’t know how much longer I can keep you breathing.”

The hunter shook his head one more time, so the angel tried another approach.

“Is it because of Lucifer?”

Sam shook his head instinctively before thinking better.

“I don’t know.”

Nothing was really not about Lucifer since he got back from the cage. Even before that, he had the feeling that anything in his life has always been, and would always about Lucifer, like the devil had once told him.

All those times you ran away you weren’t running from them, you were running toward me.

“Is there anything I can do to help you?”

Castiel’s voice distracted him from his dark thought, and he shook his head, repeating “I don’t know”, like a mantra.                      

The angel tilted his head.

“Can I hug you? Would it help?”

The hunter let out a dry laugh. Castiel was more human than when they first met him, but he still had a lot to work on before he could pass as a perfect specimen of humankind. Sam opened his arms.

“Come here.”

Before he knew it, Sam had his head buried in his friend’s neck. They must look stupid, two grown up men hugging in the backseat of the Impala, but he didn’t care. He felt arms patting his back, and something went around him, protecting him, like a large coat in winter.

Two huge black wings.

The wings weren’t like anything he ever saw before, and that was saying a lot.

They were also damaged. Feather were missing at some parts, large pale scars tainting the uniformly black purity.

“It’s okay. You’re not the only one who’ve been used until you broke. You’re not alone.”

Sam put his head up, suddenly remembering something important.

“You’re not alone either, Cas, you got us. You know that, right?”

The angel gently put his head back in his neck.

“I know. Thank you, Sam Winchester.”

Sam mumbled something even he didn’t know what was supposed to mean. Castiel’s voice were soothing. He felt good. The angel didn’t have any body odor, and he just smelled the clean fabric of his clothes.

He felt clean.

Pure.

And for the first time since what seemed like forever, Sam peacefully let his eyes close.  

Thank you for reading. I don’t know if there will be another part of this story or not (I got a few ideas).  

#supernatural #spn fanfiction #fanfiction #sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel #samandriel #hurt!sam #possessed sam #Cas!Sam #cas and sam friendship #hugs #mension of torture #mension of the cage #mension of Lucifer #season 8 AU #you can see it as sastiel if you want to #also I'm still not english #and you can tell me if I did anything wrong

[katiebug445]

I got tagged by @icameheretowinry (thank you so much for thinking of me, Nikki, you’re awesome<3)

Rules: tag the followers you want to know better - @crustyy-loves-assbutt @potassium-sulfate. @thisacelovesheadcanons @catiemolly @sheragon @inuykago  @saxuallyactive @caseycassidy @charlottesmovingcastle

LET’S DO THIS

Name: Katie

Gender: Female 

Star Sign: Cancer 

Height: 5′3″ 1/2 (You can pry that half inch out of my cold, dead hands)

Age: 22

Sexuality: Heterosexual (I will be your Token Straight Friend) 

House: GRYFFINDOR 

Element: Water 

What image do you have as your wallpaper?: On my phone, my lockscreen is this really super cute Reigisa screencap, and my actual wallpaper is a collage of Jean Kirstein because I am horseboy trash and I don’t care. My computer wallpaper is, again, Reigisa. Fight me. 

Have you ever had a crush on your teacher?: conSIDERING THAT MY TEACHER WAS MY MOM, NOOOOO. 

Where do you see yourself in ten years?: Hopefully happy with a good man and seven cats. Hopefully playing in a band. 

What was your coolest Halloween costume?: So far, it’s a tie between the year before last when my mom and I dressed up as some of the scooby gang, and this last year when I got to finally dress like Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service! 

What was your favorite 90′s show?: Oooh... The things I can remember watching the most and loving are Scooby Doo, Sailor Moon, Pokemon, Rugrats, and Wild Thornberrys so let’s go with those. 

Have you ever been stood up?: Nope.

Have you ever been to Las Vegas?: Nope, and I don’t plan on ever going! 

Favorite pair of shoes: I got this pair of boots at Target a coupe years ago and they’re my best investment I’ve ever done. I love those boots more than my own life. 

Favorite fruit: KIWI 

Favorite book: WHY YA GOTTA ASK ME THAT MAN?! I DON’T WANNA PICK. Ugh. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is one of my absolute favorites. The Night Circus, The Hobbit, Good Omens, Stardust, and Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper are some of the best I’ve read. I love them all. 

Stupidest thing you’ve ever done?: Let myself stay in a really toxic and emotionally abusive friendship for 11 years because I didn’t want to be alone. 

All time favorite TV shows: :D FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Supernatural, Attack on Titan, Free!, Band of Brothers, Jericho, Sailor Moon, Fruits Basket, Justified, Deadman Wonderland, Stranger Things, Ouran Highschool Host Club, Sherlock, Hannibal, Beyond the Boundary, Yuuri!!! On Ice, Scooby Doo (any incarnation, I love Scooby Doo), The Pacific, Parks and Rec, I could go on forever... 

I’m also really digging Tokyo Ghoul, Cowboy Bebop, Bleach, and Black Butler!! 

The last movie you saw in theaters: UNFORTUNATELY, IT WAS THE LAST JEDI. I don’t regret it entirely, though, only for the fact of seeing Carrie Fisher play Leia for the very last time on the big screen. That was very special to me (and heartbreaking). 

What are your favorite bands?: YOU DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS. I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS. BUT WE’LL TRY. Louden Swain is my absolute favorite. I’ve met them twice, and they’re the absolute sweetest people. They’re a rock band, please check them out if you have time. Fleetwood Mac, Rush, STYX, REO Speedwagon, Cheap Trick, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Ed Sheeran, The Click Five, Def Leppard, The Eagles (fight me), Elvis Presley, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, Gavin DeGraw, Halestorm, Journey, Kelly Clarkson, Ninja Sex Party, OneRepublic, Shinedown, Taylor Swift (FIGHT. ME.) Demi Lovato, The Jonas Brothers (you are formally invited to fight me) Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Train, Walk the Moon, Twenty One Pilots, Panic! At the Disco, Green Day. and I’m really getting into Eyeshine and Fade recently ^_^

That’s literally just scratching the surface of the music I love. I LOVE music. 

#tag meme #nobody cares katie #I'm a billion different kinds of trash hope this helped you get to know me a bit better

[hekate1308]

That Vanished Abode There Far Away, A Season 13 Drowley AU - Chapter Three

Masterpost

“You see“ Rosemary eventually begins after she’s served them breakfast, There’ve always been stories about hunters… about heroes who come and slay the monsters, or banish the ghosts. It’s only to be expected in an old country like ours.”

Michael nods. From his accent, he still thinks he’s American, but he can appreciate old tales and legends.

“But... fairy tales don’t work in the real world, do they. We don’t have hunters. We have the Men of letters.”

“From what I can remember” he says carefully, trying not to strain his memory at the same time because he doesn’t want to roll around the floor doubled over in pain again, “They used to pass information on to hunters they could trust –“

“Not that there were many of those around” Roderick interrupts him. “They were snobs, as I recall.”

Michael rolls his eyes, remembering how he complained about his clothes in the bathroom. If he had the money, Roderick would probably be the biggest snob of all. Weirdly enough, that thought doesn’t annoy him. Rather, he’s feeling something like... fondness and a sense of nostalgia he can’t explain.

“Yes, that’s what the stories tell us. But the Men of Letters here... Let me tell you what they said when I called them. I was growing desperate, you see – generations of our family had been plagued by the noises and everything, and I didn’t want to pass this on to our children too. So when I finally heard there was someone who could.... I managed to contact them.” Her voice grows hard. “A lady came to see me – very posh, very well dressed. Told me there was nothing they could do unless I paid them an extraordinary amount of money. Because they are “focusing their assets” on eradicating all monsters from –“

“Wait” Michael says, frowning. “All monsters? As in, vampires who don’t drink human blood too? Ghouls who just snack on dead bodies no one cares for? Kitsunes who procure what they need through transactions with morgues and hospitals?”

“I don’t know what the last are even supposed to be” she answers simply, “But yes. She made that very clear.”

Michael turns to Roderick. “But that’s – that’s –“

“Genocide” he says flatly, but Michael can see the anger in his eyes. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Wait, and there are no hunters around? The Men of letters do it themselves?”

“Yes. Everything. To me, it sounded like they even get rid of hunters who threaten to do their word for free. She made certain I understood that trying to find someone else to do the work would not be beneficial to me” she spits, “and yes, she used those exact words. It’s not like I could forget that; my Reginald had just died, and she lectured me like...” A sob interrupts her words and she buries her head in her hands.

“Hey” Michael says immediately, gently laying a hand on her shoulder, “We fixed it now, didn’t we? You’ll never be kept awake by that ghost again. And the Men of Letters don’t need to know. I’d say, keep the sign up for a few more weeks, just in case, then remove it and when anyone comes asking just say you’re resigned to living in a haunted house.”

“The best advice I could give” Roderick, who looks strangely unsure of himself, as if he’s almost relieved Michael is here because he’d have no idea what to do about Rosemary’s emotional outburst, drawls. “Just don’t answer any questions and act as if nothing’s changed. If what you say is true, the Men of Letters are otherwise occupied anyway. They probably don’t pay much attention to –“

Michael throws him a warning glace.

“Very nice ladies who live alone” he finishes smoothly.

“Thank you two dears” she sniffles. “It’s – it’s the relief, you know. All these years and finally...”

“Of course” Michael says, patting her shoulder. “And thank you for warning us about the Men of Letters.”

“You’re welcome, but it was really nothing. Promise me you will be careful?”

Michael looks at Roderick. They both know there’s little chance of them being anything careful over the next few days, especially if they try and figure out what happened to them in the first place.

They promise her regardless.

Later that morning, she manages to press twenty pounds into their hands, despite them trying their best to refuse it. She then draws them both into a hug, and it’s sort of amusing watching Roderick flinch, although it makes Michael question why he doesn’t seem to be used to physical affection.

Then again, maybe he shouldn’t be thinking the words physical affection and Roderick in the same sentence. This is difficult enough as it is. 

Again, Jody can give him nothing. Sam thanks her and hangs up.

He simply cannot understand it – he knows Dean made it through the portal, so he’s in their world, and Cas is an angel – surely he should be able to –

A new idea enters his mind and he stands up, calling for Cas.

The angel appears in the doorway, a sandwich in his hands.

“I thought they all taste like molecules to you.”

“They do, but Dean would say that you have to eat.”

Sam sighs; Cas is right, of course; he can’t remember when he last took a break. “Fine.”

Cas looks rather pleased with himself as he sits down.

“I’ve been thinking” Sam finally says, “Cas, you said you can feel longing...”

“That’s just it” he replies, looking down at the table. “Dean isn’t longing for me. Dean isn’t praying to me. He’s certainly not trying to contact me in any way.”

And that’s enough to raise several loud alarm bells. If Dean were conscious and coherent, he would do his outmost to let them know he was alright. Maybe a text that said Hey guys, was blown half across the world and am currently busy incinerating Crowley, but will come back as soon as his ashes are nothing but dust in the wind. Anything.

But there’s been nothing.

“Cas” he says, causing him to look up. “Do you think there’s a possibility that he is...”

“No” the angels answers firmly, so firmly that he can’t help buit be surprised. “Don’t get me wrong” he hastens to add, “If this was anyone else... but you and your brother have something of a... track record when it comes to cheating death. Even after the fact.”

Sam can’t help but smile. “That may be true, but we’re supposed to go to teh Empty...”

“I don’t think so. Not since I killed Billie –“

God, their lives are complicated.

“Fine, so say Dean is alive and well somewhere. What could keep him from telling us?”

“Lucifer’s spell” Cas says slowly. “I don’t know what exactly he wanted to do. He believed it would lead you  to – to “lose yourselves”, if I recall correctly?”

Sam nods. “Problem is I have no idea what this means. Dean is lost, that’s true, but as to how he can lose himself...”

It’s not a pleasant prospect, that’s for certain.

“Do you think it might be possible Dean was... thrown into another country?”

“Anything is possible when Lucifer is involved.”

Sam sighs. Looks like they have to search the whole world for his brother.

#my writings #drowley #season 13 au

[wilddragonflying]

Deep in the Glowing Sea

Came up with another OC lol

Standing on the edge of the Glowing Sea, Kaili frowns at her Pip-Boy, ignoring the soft clicking of the Geiger Counter as she studies the map. “Look pretty thoughtful there,” Nick comments, dusting his hands off from where he’d been gathering some herbs. He carefully stores them in his pouch before moving closer. “What’re you looking at?”

Kaili nods south-west. “I know we’ve already been out there to talk to Virgil, but… A friend of mine worked in a lab close to the crater. I just, I’m wondering if there’s anything left.”

”It’s probably buried,” Nick muses, and Kaili rolls her eyes.

”I know. But I’ve got several fusion cores, and my armor’s right here, and you’re with me, so you don’t have to worry about the rads,” she argues. “I just want to go see.”

Nick grins at her, amusement clear in his eyes. “Well then, let’s go. Preston will let you know through Radio Freedom if you’re needed, and Gage and Hancock can get in touch with you with the Nuka-World radio.”

Kaili nods then, course set, and turns to step into her power armor with determination and nerves fighting for dominance in her gut. Nick’s probably right; odds are, there’s nothing left of that lab. But now that Kaili’s thought about it, she has to know.

It’s an arduous trek through the Glowing Sea, and not for the first time Kaili grumbles - in between fights with radscorpions, bloodbugs, and the occasional deathclaw - about how nobody in the Wasteland apparently decided that working vehicles were a good idea. Eventually, however, they reach where the lab should have been, and find only a mound of dirt. Neither of them say anything, the silence between them filled with the sound of a distant radstorm and the click of the geiger counter in Kaili’s Power Armor. Kaili stares at the mound, grateful that the Power Armor shields her expression from Nick; she’s not sure what she’s feeling, resignation perhaps, but she doesn’t want him to see it, not yet.

”Huh.”

Kaili glances at Nick. “What?”

”Look up there,” he says, raising a hand to point at where -

”Huh. Now what are still-working cameras doing up here?” Sure enough, there’s a blinking red dot on the side of the camera Nick’s spotted, nestled in a small alcove in the dirt covering the rest of the building. It’s aimed at them, and whether or not there’s anyone in the building watching, it’s a sign that there’s something down there.

”Bet there’s an access tunnel somewhere,” Nick says thoughtfully. “I’ll go right, you go left?”

Hefting her rifle, Kaili nods. “Sounds like a plan.”

They end up finding the tunnel at the same time; it’s only a small thing that leads to a locked door, but it’s on the opposite side of the building from the one they’d approached, and Nick makes quick work of the lock, gaining them access.

The inside is booby-trapped out the wazoo. There’s bathroom scales, grenade chandeliers, tension triggers, trip wires, flamer traps, fragmentation mines, plasma mines, basically every kind of explosive or trap that Kaili’s encountered, it’s here in this building. It’s slow going disarming as many as they can, triggering the ones they can’t from a safe distance, but slowly but surely they work their way down. “This place is amazingly well-preserved,” Kaili observes, studying a chart on a wall that’s barely yellowed with age.

”Almost as well-preserved as you,” Nick teases, and Kaili gives him a shove, mindful of the extra strength the armor gives her.

”Very funny, tin can.”

Eventually, they make their way to the third floor, having systematically cleared the first two, and when they emerge from the stairwell - the elevator lights had been on, indicating they had power, but had apparently been disabled - they’re greeted by a sight that neither of them had really expected, despite the evidence.

There’s a ghoul waiting for them, hunting rifle in hand and pointed directly at Nick’s face. “Who are you?” she demands without preamble, and Kaili frowns behind the helmet, trying to place the voice.

”My name is Nick,” the synth answers, holstering his pistol and holding his hands up in the universal symbol of ‘I come in peace’ that doesn’t seem to do a whole lot to reassure the ghoul.

”And your companion? Step out of the armor,” she orders, gaze flicking to Kaili, who carefully bends down to lay her rifle on the ground before complying; this deep below ground, in the shelter of the building, the rads are reduced enough that Kaili feels comfortable leaving for a few minutes. Kaili mimics Nick’s position, but the last thing she’s expecting when she steps around the armor and the ghoul gets her first good look at Kaili is what she gets: “Fucking hell, what the fuck?”

Kaili feels her eyebrows raise. “I beg your pardon?”

”Jesus shit, it is you. Couple new scars, but still.” Now the rifle gets tossed aside as the ghoul strides up to Kaili, stopping an arm’s length away. “Christ, look at you. The fuck happened, did you get stuck in a fridge somewhere?”

Kaili can’t help the way she chokes on a laugh, remembering the kid she had actually rescued from a fridge, but she shakes her head. “No, I was - cryogenically frozen. Iced.”

The ghoul’s eyes narrow, then she snaps her fingers. “That Vault they built up by your place,” she concludes, nodding when Kaili does. “Well hell, you’re looking damn good for - what is it now? Two hundred forty-five, give or take? Hell of a lot better than I am, anyway.”

And fuck, Kaili can barely hope, but… “Meghan?”

The ghoul smiles ruefully. “Yeah, that’s me.”

Kaili’s moving before she realizes what she’s doing, hauling Meghan in close. “Holy shit, you’re alive,” she breathes, burying her face in the crook of Meghan’s neck as her best friend does the same. “My God, I came out here just to see, but I didn’t expect - “

Meghan laughs bitterly as they pull apart. “Yeah, me either. Hell of a shock, it was. You mind introducing me to that hunk of metal over there? He don’t look like no synth I’ve ever met.”

”Oh!” Kaili grins, moving to sling an arm around Nick’s shoulders. “This is Nick Valentine, he’s a second generation synth from the Institute. Actually a prototype of the third generation, I think. He was implanted with the memories of - “

”That poor bastard whose fiance got shot,” Meghan finishes, the pieces obviously slotting into place. “Well hell, pleasure to meet you.”

Nick shakes her hand with a bemused smile while Kaili rolls her eyes. “So you've been here since the bombs dropped?” Nick asks.

”Yep,” Meghan answers, popping the ‘p’ just like Kaili remembers. “Me and about… oh, two dozen scientists and four dozen guards were living here around the clock, working on a project funded by some anonymous client who was rich as Midas. Building got buried in the blast, about half a dozen people died immediately, another dozen died of radiation poisoning. The rest of us turned into ghouls, but… Well, being so close to ground zero, the ones who never spent any time away with me on scavenging missions went feral fast.” Meghan’s mouth twists into a grimace. “Saw how other ghouls like them acted around normal people, learned there was no coming back after one of the doctors did a necropsy - he didn't feel right calling it an autopsy, ‘cause the brains were so rotted the people had become nothing but animals. We all decided to put anyone who went feral for good down, and since I was the most experienced with weapons after the last security guard went feral…”

”Shit,” Kaili breathes, reaching out to lay a comforting hand on Meghan’s shoulder; the ghoul gives her a half-hearted smile.

”I led the scavenging missions,” she continued. “went north, out of what I found out people were calling the Glowing Sea. Got away from the worst of the rads fairly regularly and picked up new information, made new friends.”

”And getting away from the rads helped keep you from going feral,” Kaili finishes.

Meghan nods. “Yep, near as I can figure. I’m the last one of the scientists who survived the blast, and I’ve been alone going on… twenty years now? Something like that, I didn’t keep track,” she says, waving a hand. “But! Before Dr. Bradley died, we finalized the latest design for the project we were originally contracted for.”

Kaili blinks, but Nick beats her to replying: “You kept working on that for over a hundred and fifty years? Without being paid?”

Meghan shrugs. “We were engineers and scientists, of course we did,” she chuckles. “C’mon, lemme reboot the elevators and I’ll show you what we designed.”

”What… are we looking at?” Kaili asks, confused; back in her power armor, the click of the geiger counter in her ear, she eyes the flat black slabs before her. “They look a bit like panels, but…”

”Sol tiles,” Meghan announces, patting one fondly. “That’s what we built. They take energy from the sun and store it, and then we’ve got some other bits and bobs to convert it into something that can be stored in fusion cores and cells.”

”Holy shit,” Nick breathes, crouching down to examine the underside of one. “How efficient are they?”

”Well, these are.. fourth generation, I believe,” Meghan says, gesturing to the corner to her left. “Over there is the first one. These are about twice as efficient as the first one we built. Enough for a single tile, out on an average day’s weather for about ten hours to store enough energy to fill two hundred fusion cores. Not that I have two hundred fusion cores just lying around, that’s just what the numbers project.”

”Holy shit,” Nick repeats, Kaili echoing the sentiment.

”This is… It could completely change the Commonwealth.”

”I know,” Meghan says, expression twisting. “But I only have materials to make a limited number, and no idea how to find any more. And the materials are really hard to work with and move very far, and I don’t have any way of getting my truck out of the garage and to the Commonwealth.” She pauses when Kaili and Nick whirl around to stare at her. “What?”

”You have a working truck?” Nick demands.

”Of course; we kept a truck, a car, and a cycle in good condition after the bombs fell, but we could never get the parking garage cleared out well enough to even get the cycle out,” Meghan says. “Why?”

”Well, none of the trucks lying around work - “

”Ugh, I know,” Meghan groans. “I’ve taken a look at most of them; they’re too hard to cannibalize for parts, apparently, because most of them have the bits to make them go, they just don’t have an energy source, and no coolant for the fission cores. None in any filling station, either; it’s all evaporated.”

”How do you get yours to run then?” Kaili asks, curious.

”Converted it to run on fusion cores,” Meghan answers. “Well, me and one of the other scientists. Nice gal, good with her hands. Want to see it?”

”Hell yes!”

”He’s not the prettiest thing, Vega, but he’s nice enough,” Meghan says, opening the doors to the garage and leading the way past the defunct vehicles. “Kept him and the other car and cycle over here by the workstation, just to make it easier to work on them when we needed a distraction.” Meghan opens the driver’s door long enough to pop the hood on the shipping truck - whose trailer is in just as good a shape as the truck - to show Nick and Kaili the modifications. “He can’t sit idle for very long or the cores start overheating. Has to be moving, get air flowing over them to cool them off. But even then, he still can’t go more than about fifty miles, not that we’ve been able to see how accurate that is.”

Kaili makes an appreciative noise, turning to look at the rest of the garage as Nick takes a closer look at the insides of the truck, talking with Meghan. Kaili leaves them to it, following the road through the middle of the enormous - no surprise, considering what Meghan told them about the size of some of the parts they had shipped in; apparently their client had the garage custom built after redesigning the entire lab - parking garage, all the way to where the ground of the Glowing Sea blocks the entry way. “Hey, Meghan?” she calls back, studying the dirt in front of her.

”Yeah?” Meghan answers, footsteps echoing as she comes closer.

”How deep is this?” Kaili asks, gesturing to the blockage in front of her. “I mean, how far from the surface are we?”

”If we could dig straight up? Probably about thirty feet or so,” Meghan answers. “But the truck can only handle so steep an angle, so probably quadruple that, maybe more, if we were going to dig a tunnel. We never bothered with it, didn’t have the supplies necessary to build supports, or the equipment needed to just dig a valley.”

Kaili hums thoughtfully. “Bet if we could convince Sturges to come down here with a team of Minutemen he could clear it out,” she muses.

”He is a handy human,” Nick agrees, having followed Meghan. “Would need to find a lot of hazmat suits, though. And some good equipment.”

Kaili waves a hand. “Of course; you know neither of those are any problem, though. The storekeepers all love me.”

Nick snorts. “They love the business you bring,” he corrects, but doesn’t argue. “Percy and Myrna could probably lay their hands on some hazmat suits and tools.”

”This is great and all, but what about getting out of the Glowing Sea?” Meghan pipes up. “The terrain is rough as hell, and I don’t have a map.”

”What about the Vault 88 Pip Boys?” Nick suggests, and Kaili nods.

”There’s a couple extras, I think. Wouldn’t be too hard to get one set up with a modern map and down here for you,” she says.

Meghan considers that, then grins. “Well, if it means I might be able to test out my stuff in a more real-world situation… I’m in.”

Meghan stays behind, unwilling to leave her lab behind just yet, but with the help of Radio Freedom, Kaili is back within a few days, Sturges and several Minutemen in tow, along with their equipment. Kaili helps Meghan get her Pip Boy set up, and then leaves her to explore and play with it in favor of helping her men. She’d worn her Power Armor and had scrounged up several other fusion cores, enough to share among the older-model suits she’d collected over her two years in the Commonwealth.

With all that extra mechanical power at their disposal, it isn’t hard for Meghan and Sturges to direct Kaili and her men into the most efficient work pattern. It still takes several days, but with the shelter offered by the lower levels of the lab and the food they’d brought, combined with what Meghan had stockpiled over the years, it’s not a problem. When they’re done, Meghan tests the ramp with her other vehicle, a smaller truck. They’d elected to forego trying to build a tunnel, instead carving a valley into the Glowing Sea whose walls were supported by walls. After a few other adjustments, Meghan pronounces the ramp to her satisfaction, and fires up the shipping truck for the moment of truth. She, Kaili, and Nick are the only ones with the practical experience(in a manner of speaking in Nick’s case) of driving a vehicle, but Meghan doesn’t trust anyone else with her baby. It takes some careful maneuvering to get the truck through the rest of the garage, and then she holds her breath as they rumble from concrete to dirt, praying that the packed ground holds the vehicle’s weight.

Miraculously, it does - and for the first time in over two hundred years, Meghan sees daylight through the windshield of a vehicle. “I’ll be damned,” she breathes, grinning. “It worked.”

”It did,” Kaili confirms, coming up to the window that had long ago been broken out. “Now we just need to find a suitable route out of here.”

Meghan gestures behind herself. “Well, we packed this with food and equipment, and so long as we mark the route so I can retrieve more once we get out, we can just keep going; Sturges knows what to look for in the ground, now.”

Kaili nods, hefting her rifle. “I’ll let them know.”

There are several close calls, but with the mechanical muscle provided by the suits of Power Armor, the truck eventually reaches solid ground, its tires finally touching road once again. From there, the group makes its way northward to the Starlight Drive-In, where Kaili had built a large trading settlement that was quickly becoming the seat of the unofficial Commonwealth government.

When the truck finally pulls into the makeshift garage Kaili had built for it, brakes screaming in protest and engine groaning in relief as it’s finally allowed to rest, they draw quite a crowd. Meghan can hear the murmurs before she even steps out of the vehicle, and they only grow in volume when she does. Kaili is already stepping out of her power armor, hooking it up to a nearby frame as she does so before stepping forward.

”Now, I know you all have been very curious since I started building that garage,” she announces, and Meghan can’t help but smile a bit sadly at the image Kaili makes in her General uniform; she’d always been a leader, and Meghan just wishes that Nate and their other friends could have seen her like this, though preferably in better circumstances than post-nuclear apocalyptic. “A couple of weeks ago, Nick and I went into the Glowing Sea to find a building I had known about before the bombs dropped. We didn’t expect to find anything, but we did: An old friend of mine, Meghan.”

Meghan steps forward, giving a small wave when Kaili gestures to her. “I was a scientist and engineer, before the war,” she starts when Kaili doesn’t say anything, just looks at her expectantly. “Several of us were contracted to find a new means of energy; our client didn’t trust nuclear energy - rightly, as it turns out.” She waits while the snickers subside, and then continues, “We were all in the lab when the bombs dropped, and most of us survived that. The ones who survived became ghouls, but I am the last survivor. Before they died, however, we managed to fulfill our contracts and do a bit more.”

Meghan helps a Minuteman get a sol tile out of the track, helping him hold it up. “This is a sol tile - it collects energy from sunlight, and can convert it into a form that can be stored in fusion cells and cores, enabling them to be refilled until they wear out. This truck,” she says, pointing at the truck in question, “runs on fusion cores that were depleted, and refilled with solar energy. I hope to find the materials to make more of these sol tiles, so that I can rebuild more vehicles and help the Commonwealth continue to rebuild in a more meaningful way.”

”We’ve made great strides towards that end,” Kaili jumps in. “This settlement is proof of it. But if we can find the materials to build more of these tiles, we can make even greater strides.”

Meghan can tell that there’s dissent, some traders’ expressions suspicious, others downright mistrustful, but she’s faced those expressions and attitudes her entire life; this won’t be any different.

#wild writes #kaili #kaili swesson #fallout 4 #ocs #fallout ocs #meghan #ghoul mechanic lol

[purkinje-effect]

The Purkinje Effect, 9

Table of Contents

Galen fluttered his eyelids with a groan, and sat up. He was no longer wearing the jumpsuit, now in just his boxer-briefs. After a moment awake, his recollection prodded him of having broken his arm, but he looked around in the dim light. An upper-story room, with a few mannequins scattered around. He couldn’t remember where he was, let alone how he’d gotten there. The last thing he remembered was glowing neon signs. Had the super mutant encounters been a nightmare? He sat up on the stained, near-primordial mattress he lay upon and looked himself over, finding no injuries, though his right upper arm was a bit scarred up. No, it had happened--but how long had he been here, for his arm to have healed up so well? Beside the bed was a metal plate with a sweet roll and a can of pork and beans, as well as his lighter and pack of cigarettes. From how they were arranged, he knew he hadn’t placed them there. His Pip-Boy was still on his left arm.

Ignoring the meal, he flicked out a smoke from the pack and laid back on the mattress once he got it smoldering, staring at the ceiling while he puffed at it vacantly. There was a good breeze in the room. Who’d brought him here, and where were they? He glanced around the room, lit by a lantern in the far corner. There was hardly anything up here, save a bookshelf with some miscellany stacked on it. Yet, the door was wide open. Whoever it was, didn’t have him prisoner. He’d hoped to at least locate a pair of pants, but found little in the way of any clothing. Getting up to pace while he finished the other half of his cigarette, he looked out the window.

The view framed by tattered yellow curtains, his brow slacked at remembering finally where he’d ended up. He was directly above the small plaza where he’d passed out. The neon signs had led him there. The ghoul guardians still milled about, a pair of them chatting privately close to the door to the plaza. Occasionally they got loud enough to at least be indiscernible. Off to his right as he leaned on the sill was a large red-brick building, several stories tall, with white-edged windows. It looked in itself quite important, if not striking. Swallowing the butt when he got to it, he realized his vault suit had been folded up beside him, and he slipped into it. Though barefoot, he was no longer in his underwear, and he felt enough reassured of the kind of place he’d found himself, to venture down the single-plank wooden stairs.

“Oh, you’re alive,” he heard a pleasant voice call out as he descended, responding to the creaking steps. “Take it you slept well.”

As his field of vision dipped under the ceiling, he stumbled at first glance in the low incandescent light, and nearly missed a few steps without a banister to catch himself. Another ghoul. There were so many of them here.

“Can’t handle a friendly face?” she mused dryly, walking away from her front counter to approach him. With her hair up in a messy bun, the ghoul with a heart-shaped face and pitch-black scleras wore a three-piece tan suit, and stood taller than Galen.

“Can’t say I knew, ah, that kind of a face could be friendly,” he replied as tactfully as he could figure, wiping the sorry off his face. “Glad it’s a friendly one. Been a strict deficit of those as of late.”

“Well, you’re not screaming. That’s a delightful first impression,” she grinned. “We’re more common than you think, though I don’t believe the same could be said of, well.” She gestured, intimating his tactlessness for sake of irony.

“There’s more of us, promise. Kinda obvious I ain’t from around here, huh? Uh. You the one who did first aid on me?”

“You sang a swan song on Goodneighbor’s steps. I was the closest one with Stimpacks.”

“Ugh, don’t mention swans,” he wheezed, his face scrunching in emotional exhaustion.

“So that’s what happened to you,” she deduced. “Yeah, it’s real obvious you’re not from these parts. Festive coloration aside, everyone in these parts knows to steer clear of Boston Common.”

“Honestly, that thing wasn’t what roughed me up the worst,” he confessed, crouching on the stairs with a sheepish glance toward her. “I’d gotten in a fight with a smaller one right before that. It’s what broke my arm in the first place. Running from the Swan only compounded the injury. ...Thanks, by the way.”

“Name’s Daisy,” she replied. “Did you notice the food I left you upstairs? Noticed you were out of food supplies. Hope y’don’t mind that I took the liberty of inspecting what you had on your person while you were out cold. Promise it’s all where you left it. Had to make sure we weren’t taking in some lousy raider. You understand.”

“...I did notice.” He shifted where he sat, a bit grateful the stairwell was relatively dark by comparison to the rest of the store. “Appreciate the gesture, but ah... how t’put it... S’not what I eat.” He pointed vaguely to the pepper mill on the counter next to her, not even sure how to quantify his nutritional needs anymore.

“Are you used to being able to afford to be picky about how your food’s seasoned?” She snatched it up and wagged it at him. “It’s empty, I’ll have you know.”

“No, I was... more sayin’ that the shaker itself is more appetizin’ than the bread and beans. My stomach and I have been havin’ trouble agreeing on what I should and shouldn’t be eating.”

“--I’m sorry, did you say what your name was?”

“Didn’t.”

A silence.

“Well, I’ve got a section of my stock endearingly labeled Is It Food or Not? if you’ve got your curiosity about you. You’ve got to eat if you’re going to patch up right.”

“I’d gladly take the shaker, if you’ll have it.” He didn’t budge from his place to browse for himself. “Where are my things, by the way? Don’t much like walking around here wearing this.”

“I’ve got a working washing machine, if you’ll believe it. Since the plumbing’s rotten in this area, you’ve got to put the water in it yourself, but I figure you’d prefer the comfort of your own clothes not plastered up in whatever that pink slop was. Just hope it doesn’t stain my machine for good, heh.” Daisy handed him the pepper mill, then walked up to the front corner of the store, under the stairs. “It’s almost dry.”

A chill jolted through Galen, to hear his blood was so badly staining that she hadn’t thought it was blood.

“This is a pretty sturdy settlement.” He verbally sidestepped, fidgeting with the mill to dismantle it. With the crank and screws in his mouth, he mumbled, “to have the electricity to run all those signs, and appliances to boot. How much bigger is this place?”

“Goodneighbor isn’t all too big, but we’ve got plenty of sizable generators. It’s a modest place, with enough amenities--and defenses--to make it home for more than a few misfits and outcasts.” She grinned strangely, watching him swallow the barrel of the mill. “You weren’t kidding. Don’t choke, kid.”

He forced a breath through his nostrils once he’d gotten it down. “--Not a kid.”

“Sorry to break it to you, but there’s a couple hundred years between me and the twenty-somethings like you running around here. You’re a kid to me.”

“I.” He couldn’t not stare. “Seems neither of us looks their age,” he chuckled, mildly distressed. “I get the impression you’re trying to tell me you were around before everything was blasted to kingdom come.”

“Had a front seat. It’s how I got my immaculate complexion. I look good for 220, though, don’t I?”

He sat there for a moment, awed, until the math worked itself out in his head.

“You would’ve only been, what, ten then? Don’t ghouls stop aging when they turn?” He bit his lip furtively. “I’m not about to go about guessing an upstanding young lady’s age, but you’ve got to be at least as old as me if you literally witnessed the bombs.”

“...Either you are the most well-preserved ghoul I’ve ever met, or you’re the second-best bullshitter in Goodneighbor. You’re a smart one, though. The kids in this town have never seen my sour side, and they know to keep it that way.”

“Heh, really, though, Miss Daisy. I’ve gotta make all this hospitality up to you when I’m fit for it. And because I can see it in your face’t your curiosity is chewing you alive--I was nineteen when my family evacuated to the vault I’m from. One of my worst recurring nightmares is an action replay of running down the gorge from our junkyard, trying to make it in time. Half the time the nightmare tells it that the vault was nothing more’n a cave with a safe door lockin’ us in from the outside.” He laughed quietly. “Not sure why I told you that. I haven’t met an above-grounder yet that didn’t go ballistic at the mere possibility that I’m way older than I look.”

“Didn’t want to ask about your Pipboy,” she started, half-beginning to actually believe him. “Most folks I’ve met with one weren’t given it.” She sensed the reason he didn’t have on the suit for what it meant to him, but didn’t voice that he’d confirmed her assumptions with his dream retelling.

“A little bird told me we got a newbie here in Goodneighbor,” a third voice interjected, low and breathy, “but I didn’t expect a vaultie.” When Galen looked up, yet another ghoul stood before them, donning a red colonial frock cinched at the waist with the Commonwealth flag and cavalier boots. Putting a finger to his tricorner cap in a welcoming nod, he teased, “Good morning.”

Galen simply sat there a moment, blank.

“...I must a hit my head real hard on the pavement.”

#fallout 4 fanfic #fo4 fanfic #fallout 4 oc #fo4 oc #fallout 4 #geek #the purkinje effect #daisy #goodneighbor #hancock

[thewritersintent-blog]

13 Ghosts 3: The Bound Woman

I’m back!! The third installment in the 13 part Thirteen Ghosts rewrite. I’ll be on this more - updating the story monthly and posting book reviews. Promise!

Trigger Warnings: graphic depiction of violence.

Word Count: 6,110

October 18, 2004

It was cold, far colder than southern California had any right to be. Merle glanced out the window of Fallyn’s apartment, tightly wrapped in a thick blanket, and clutching a warm cup of matcha. She watched the sky - a pale, almost translucent blue - for a moment before turning her attention back to the television. The film was frozen, paused at some absurd time. Of course when it started to get interesting, Fallyn had to run to the bathroom. Merle shifted in her cocoon and gazed absentmindedly at the room - the overwhelming collection of movies,  medical books stacked haphazardly on a small, stuffed bookcase amongst fake plants and action figures, and a big blue armchair diagonally from her, plush with far too many pillows and blankets. She had been excited to come over, to watch the movie. Now she was tired, a sleepy sort of drunk from the high of watching the highly anticipated film.

The bathroom door opened, and Fallyn came out, drying her hands. She smiled at Merle and adjusted her sweatshirt. Merle rolled her eyes.

“Ready?”

Merle responded by staring at the television. Her sister laughed quietly.

“It’s not like I was in there a long time.”

“I know.” Merle rubbed her arms.

Fallyn raised an eyebrow. “Are you cold?”

Merle looked at her. Eyebrow still raised, Fallyn walked over to the armchair and grabbed a green blanket, putting it over her sister’s shoulders. “See,” she said, “if you were smart, you’d remember to dress warmer.”

“I am smart.”

“Not enough to remember you’re always cold.”

Merle grumbled and tightened the second blanket around herself. Fallyn laughed. She made her way into the small kitchen off to the side of the living room, and began rummaging around for popcorn. Merle watched her, eyes glazing over as she thought about her own movements, how she had made lunch while her sister started the first movie in their marathon. It was eery how similar they are; how they were almost identical in action as well as their face. Dark hair, thick eyebrows, high cheekbones, tan skin, and a prominent nose from their father’s side. She should have worn her hair different, worn something other than her sweatshirt and jeans. It’s not that she didn’t love or like Fallyn; more that she felt like a copy, a duplicate Fallyn. Most agreed, thinking if Fallyn liked sports, so did Merle; if her favorite color was pink, so was Merle’s; if Fallyn thought blondes were cute, so did Merle. They were not seen as compliments or even equals, but mirror images of one another.

“Okay, out of everything we’ve seen so far - what was your favorite?”

Merle blinked. Fallyn was leaning over the counter, head cocked. The popcorn slowly spun in the microwave, occasionally popping.

“What was yours?”

Fallyn snorted. “You don’t have one?”

Merle shrugged. She didn’t have favorites, Fallyn knew that. She had a top twenty that was never consistent and nothing was ordered; one and twenty held the same significance.

“I like the second movie - the Japanese one. ‘Jo-on.’ Something like that,” Fallyn answered.

“‘Ju-on’?”

“Yeah.” The microwaved let out two long beeps. Fallyn turned, pulled out the popcorn - cursing as she jerked her hand back - and flung it into a bowl. She carefully opened it, flinching as her hand touched the hot bag.

“What did you like about it?”

“It was...different.” Fallyn tossed the bag into the sink. “I don’t know a lot about Japanese stories, so it was kinda cool to see that. Their ghosts are different than ours.”

“I think they’re called ghouls.”

“That’s so cool.” Fallyn walked over, and flopped onto the couch, popcorn bouncing out of the bowl. “It’s terrifying though, isn’t it?”

“What is? The ghouls?”

“No - I mean, yeah, the ghouls, but the whole premise of it.” Merle glanced at her. Fallyn looked thoughtful as she shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth. She offered the bowl to Merle; she took a couple pieces. Her mouth still full she continued, “one person’s cruelty leads to a cycle of vengeance that spreads out - it’s like...a virus or something. You know those, uh, graphics that show the spread of something?”

“Viruses spread?”

“Yeah, but I mean -?”

“Like disaster zones from ground zero?”

“Yes!”

Merle nodded, thinking. “It’s a bunch of bull, though.” Fallyn frowned. She turned fully and stared at Merle. “I mean, I have no doubt the ghouls are real -” Fallyn snorted “-not the ones in the movie! I mean the concept! Like Dracula isn’t real, but that doesn’t mean vampires aren’t. I was talking about the cycle of vengeance thing. It’s not real. It’s crap.”

“Like Dracula?”

“Yeah.” She knew her sister was laughing at her. It didn’t matter. “The saying is ‘an eye for an eye.’ That’s where it ends. Someone hurts you, then you hurt them back. Everything’s done. Over with. Finished.”

“The saying is ‘an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind,” Fallyn corrected. “And I think that’s a Western thing, not Japanese.”

“Still,” Merle argued, “I don’t think ghosts or ghouls or even living people go around sucking others into their misfortune. I think they take their revenge, and then -” she makes a gesture, like waving something off.

Fallyn shrugged, picking up the remote to play the film. “You think what you want, Mer,” she said. “It’s still scary as shit to me.”

***

January 27, 2006

This isn’t what she would have wanted. Too much black, too...what’s the word? Started with an M...mel...Maleficent? No, melancholy. Maleficent was - she wallowed. She had been her third favorite Disney villain, though she could have been her tenth or second. Merle was odd like that. Had been. Was. She would be pissed about all this.

A small smile crossed Fallyn’s face. It felt unnatural, as though she hadn’t spent the last twenty years of her life laughing and smiling and enjoying life. If anyone had torn their gaze away from the casket and saw her face - if they could have bared it - they would have thought she looked like a grotesque clown, a sick grin painted on her face. That would have made Merle laugh. She hated - had hated - these things. Funerals were boring. “Take me to New Orleans,” she had once proclaimed. They had been thirteen at the time. “I wanna be buried above ground, in one of those fancy coffins, with catnip surrounding my grave. People will remember me as Bast -”

“Sekhmet!” Fallyn had chimed in, cackling.

“Bast and Sekhmet! The cat queen!” Merle had looked at Fallyn, her eyes twinkling. “Promise me, Lyn. No sadness - fun music, lacy umbrellas, and cats. No black, only rainbows.”

Fallyn had continued laughing, though it had started to feel forced. “We - we shouldn’t be saying this!”

“Why not? I wanna look down and think - that’s a party!”

They had laughed, laughed so hard they clutched each other, gripping their stomachs. Fallyn’s hands started to shake and she held onto her bag. She swallowed, a dull roaring in her ears like being under water. No, she would not cry. Merle hadn’t wanted tears at thirteen; she most certainly would not have tears at twenty.

August 13, 2015

The car ride was quiet, only the sounds of AC/DC crackling through the radio filled the space as the car rolled into the parking lot. It looked more like it was on its way to a funeral rather than a birthday adventure. Fallyn scowled, then softened her expression. ‘Birthday adventure.’ What a weird phrase.

It hadn’t been her idea to come here. She enjoyed spelunking, cave diving, skydiving - really, anything to do with climbing and pulleys and harnesses, but today...today she didn’t want to do anything. She had voiced her plans to Ashley Harding, another nurse at the hospice facility she worked at. Stay-in, watch a movie or two, drink a few gallons of hot chocolate - she wasn’t a drinker in the alcoholic sense, never had been - then go to bed. Ashley had scoffed before announcing she would take her spelunking, her treat. “You can’t just sit around - you’re thirty! That’s a milestone!” What milestone, Fallyn wasn’t so sure. She was sure that getting a job with your friend from college was a stupid choice.

She should have said no, told Ash that she didn’t want to do anything. But she had relented. It had been eleven years. She could go out for one birthday.

Ashley paid the parking fee from the driver’s seat, then drove onward, slowly through the parking lot. She eventually found a spot and proudly announced they were here. The radio turned off with the car engine. The sudden silence woke Lauren Willard - a mutual friend from college and Ashley’s current roommate - with a loud snort.

“We’re here?” she slurred.

“Yup!” Ash punctuated the ‘P’ with a definitive pop. She unlocked the doors, hopped out and stretched. Everyone else followed suit. Fallyn looked around.

The parking lot was nothing interesting. It was relatively small, gravelly and gray, but it was secured. A tiny ticket booth at the entrance with a sign displaying the prices for admission. Another much larger sign stood opposite from the booth, across the lot, marking the entrance to the forest, the park they would soon go into. Fallyn couldn’t make it out, but she imagined it boasted about the park’s history and stated a few rules, like no dogs and to keep to the trails.

Outside the little lot, it was lovely. She took a deep breath. Fresh and clean, the way cold water tastes on a hot, dry day. The surrounding trees were brightly green in the last stages of summer. Everything seemed patient, as though waiting for something - for them? It was eerie, though whether that was the early morning mist coasting along the ground of the park itself, Fallyn wasn’t so sure.

Ash popped open the trunk and they grabbed their gear.

“Beautiful, right?” Elysiah baker asked. She had slept the entire ride over - like Lauren - and the sleep seemed to have done her good. Here eyes were sparkling, and the bags under them - dark and heavy when they picked her up - had faded into something a little worn, but not torn, like an over-washed shirt compared to a ripped up, paint-splattered one.

Fallyn smiled and picked up her bag. It felt a little forced, but no one commented on it. Elysiah nudged her. “Let’s go celebrate your big day, huh?”

“Yeah,” Fallyn said, as Ash locked the car. The four of them made their way to the park entrance, Lauren stretching and yawning all the while. “Let’s.”

November 2, 2004

He had no name until he met Merle. Until Merle was found. Up until then, he could have been anyone. He was no one. From a spec, barely noticeable in the history of humankind to the boogeyman people warned their children about. From a little nobody to Michael Myers. A dream come true.

His face was unremarkable, hair unexciting, clothes simple. The perfect monster. Fallyn stared at his image on her parent’s TV, transfixed. Her mother had gone upstairs, unable to watch the news. She didn’t want to see his face, didn’t want to know his name. She just wanted him gone, punished. Her father stayed, sitting in his armchair, jaw clenched. Fallyn probably looked like him: thick eyebrows furrowed, thin lips twisted in anger and disgust, dark eyes piercing those blues as though they could see each other through the screen.

The newscaster was speaking. “Rhett Woodward Hewitt was arrested today for the murder of Merle Allison Crane. Crane, the daughter of first generation Dutch-French immigrants, was nineteen years old when she had been approached by Hewitt at the clothing store she worked at.” They played the surveillance tape as they had for the last week. Out of the corner of her eye, Fallyn say her father turn his face, pushing his fist up towards his mouth. His dark eyes glistened. She didn’t look away - she wouldn’t. She watched as a black and white image of Merle waved Rhett Woodward Hewitt off. The footage was blurry, but there was no mistaking her, from her new bob to her favorite bag with the Disney villain keychains. Fallyn focused in on Rhett Woodward Hewitt - unextraordinary then as he was now.

“Police believe Hewitt followed Crane’s car, ramming his vehicle into hers until she swerved off the road.” Highway cameras - dull and blurry - showed the black truck following the little gray Honda. The newscaster cut between several cameras showing their commute - Merle must have been terrified - before returning to Rhett Woodward Hewitt’s image. They had no video of the accident. He had been clever - ramming her car off the road when they were off the highway and onto the dirt road that led towards the house. A pang hit Fallyn. A dull roaring sounded in her ears and she swallowed, closed her eyes, and then forced herself to look. “Hewitt killed Merle and attempted to hide her body by burying her vertical in the ground. Her family - father, fifty-one year old Robert Crane, mother, fifty-seven year old Febe, and Merle’s twin sister Fallyn - reported her missing that night. Police found her body three days later, two miles outside her family home.” Another pang, sharper this time. She had been so close, so close to home. Just a minute or two longer and she…

Fallyn swallowed again. Her father had turned back towards the TV, his hand still covering his mouth. The screen changed back to a video of Rhett Woodward Hewitt being led inside the jail. The newscaster continued for a minute more, mentioning his age - thirty-five - his employment - self-employed - and how long he had lived in California - since he was nineteen. Fallyn watched him, unassuming in everything. He glanced at the cameras around him, a small smile playing at his lips. Her lips curled in disgust. The roaring grew louder, thundering in her ears, as the newscaster announced the date of the trial.

AUGUST 13, 2015

They reached the entrance of the cave. It had taken ten minutes of walking - not that she had minded. There was something soothing, relieving about the forest. The smell, the sound of dirt and rocks crunching under her boots - it was calming. Fallyn’s shoulders softened, her strides quickening, and her frown slowly falling before twisting up into some dreamlike smile.

The cave was large and supposedly very deep. The dark reds and browns of the cave seemed to invite her in, asking her to see them, explore them. It opened itself to her and the others. She ran her hand along the mossy rocks outside of the cave. Beautiful.

“Holy shit, this is nice,” Elysiah exclaimed. She stood near Fallyn, hands on her hips, grinning. Lauren, a few feet behind them, looked the cave entrance up and down before turning to a sweaty Ashley.

“You’ve done this one, right?”

“Would I take you somewhere I haven’t gone?”

There was silence, only interrupted by the crunching of their boots and birds chirping. Ashley grinned wider. “Okay - maybe I would, but not today! Today is about Lyn - and not scaring Lauren.”

“I’m not scared,” she said quietly. She didn’t seem to be talking to anyone in particular. Elysiah put her arm around her shoulders.

“It’ll be fun,” she said. She looked at the other two and gestured. “Well...lead the way.”

JANUARY 5, 2005

There was no way, no way this could be their defense. Fallyn sat between her mother and father, staring at Rhett Woodward Hewitt’s lawyer - James Scott, a man who smirked whenever the press referred to him as the Devil’s Advocate. The room was in a strained silence, hanging onto Scott’s words, thinking about what he had just claimed. It was ridiculous.

Scott fought back a smirk, and continued. “What is your relationship with Roswell?”

Rhett Woodward Hewitt shrugged. It was offensive how plain he was. Fallyn would

never have noticed him - no one would have had he not...Even his suit was unremarkable; black and baggy, it left everything to the imagination. He was a stark contrast to the brilliantly and rather obnoxiously dressed James Scott in his dark green bespoke suit and bright tie. That shouldn’t be allowed - in court or anywhere; most lawyers wore something basic, black or navy, to keep the case on their clients and their arguments. Not James Scott. Not the Devil’s Advocate.

“We don’t talk much,” Rhett Woodward Hewitt continued. Scott nodded solemnly.

“And why is that?”

“He’s...to tell you the truth, he’s a little odd.”

“In what way?”

“Ros...he’s always been attracted to the violence of things. Like breaking animals.

Hurting them, making them cry. Liked horror movies too - always got a little giddy at the gross bits.”

“And you didn’t?”

Rhett Woodward Hewitt swallowed and looked down at his lap. What a wonderful actor. “No,” he said quietly. “I...it scared me. I liked the...the frights...but never...never the gore.”

James Scott turned to the jury, eyebrows upturned into some mockery of sympathy.

“The prosecution claims that my client, Mr. Rhett Woodward Hewitt, killed Merle

Crane. The only evidence they had been able to procure has been a murky video at the store and on the highway. There were no prints at the scene - no DNA on Miss Crane’s person. The knife, as you know,” he gave a small smile to the jury, as though sharing a joke with them, “was discovered five miles from the body, blood matching that of Miss Crane, and fingerprints alleging my client as the killer. I propose that it was not in fact Mr. Rhett Woodward Hewitt who killed her, but his twin brother, Roswell Winthrop Hewitt.”

There was a murmur in the courtroom. Fallyn snorted and glared. There was no way anyone would believe this. Maybe the video evidence, but the physical? It was Rhett Woodward Hewitt’s fingerprints on the knife, his truck that followed her. The lawyer said Roswell had an alibi; Rhett did not. This little twist belongs on a TV show, not in real life. She glared at Rhett Woodward Hewitt His eyes remained fixed in his lap, brows furrowed sadly. The corner of his mouth turned upward, just slightly.

AUGUST 13, 2018

The climb was quiet. Not oppressive or dense, just...quiet. Water dripped off rocks and splashed onto the small pools they walked through. It was musky, like old, wet dirt and bat guano. The walls were slimy and rough; Lauren had been convinced she had run her hand through guano and had begged Elysiah for her gloves. Their boots splashed and crunched and skid through the water and across the rocks.

Ashley led the group, pausing every few minutes to double check her map. Elysiah was

behind her, followed by Fallyn, and lastly, Lauren. Fallyn had suggested Lauren go in the middle, but she had refused, finding comfort in being behind the others; the way she said it was like she was conquering her own fear, as though she was afraid of something grabbing her and could only be safe from the back of the line.

A couple of tight squeezes, and Ash announced they would soon need to break out their rope gear. “It’s not too far,” she explained calmly. Lauren looked petrified, like she didn’t realize what the rope they brought would be used for. “The rope just gives us a little extra...stability to get down.”

Lauren looked uncertain. Fallyn put her hand on her shoulder, careful of a patch of gunk

on her jacket. “I’ll go first,” she said quietly. “It’ll be better once you see me - see us doing it.”

She nodded though she did not look convinced. Fallyn gave her a smile and followed after Ashley and Elysiah, hearing the splash of Lauren behind her.

To be honest, she wasn’t entirely sure why Lauren had come. She was scared of almost everything - no, that wasn’t true. She was scared of anything that could be dangerous, labeled adventurous. To Lauren, ‘adventurous’ was a code word for ‘stupid actions that lead to one’s death.’ Merle thought like that.

Fallyn blinked, scrunching up her nose. No. She would not think about her. Not right now. She tried to focus on the walls - swirling mixture of burnt orange, red, brown, and yellow. Like a sunset trapped underground. Fallyn ran her hand along the wall, cataloging its texture under her glove. She stared for a moment, the contrast between her black glove and the wall, illuminated by her headlamp, drawing her back into her own mind, before she glanced back at Lauren, and pressed onward.

FEBRUARY 2, 2005

“Rhett Woodward Hewitt has been released from prison. Hewitt was arrested in January for the murder of nineteen year old Merle Crane of Los Angeles, California. His lawyer, James Scott, stunned the court on January fifth, claiming that the police had apprehended the wrong man. In a twist fit for TV, police took DNA samples from both Hewitt and his twin brother, Roswell Winthrop Hewitt, and confirmed they had indeed put the wrong man on trial. While Roswell Hewitt is now facing charges, Rhett Hewitt is suing the state for damages, with James Scott once again as his lawyer.”

OCTOBER 25, 2005

She shouldn’t be here. Fallyn sat in the park, facing the playground. Her eyes were glazed over, vacant, not really seeing the children running around while their parents watched. A book was opened in her lap, but she hadn’t turned the page in over ten minutes. She had the distant feeling that parents were looking at her oddly, but she didn’t pay attention. She shouldn’t be here.

His house was almost a mile away from the park. That’s why she had stopped here. One last stop before - before what? What exactly was she going to do?

Her chest felt tight and she swallowed. It had seemed simple. It was simple. So why was she still here?

Fallyn tapped her hand against her knee for a moment. She bit her lip. Her eyes seemed to harden as she sat up a little straighter before picking up her bag and book, and leaving the park.

AUGUST 13, 2015

Ashley attached the rope around her waist. With a smile to the other three women, she carefully scaled down the side of the cave. It wasn’t too far down - maybe twenty-five feet at the most. However, it was better for them to be cautious than...well, than dead.

She reached the next level of the cave floor, her boots skidding on the damp rocks. She quickly regained her balance and grinned up at them.

“See,” she said, “it’s not hard.”

Ash unhooked herself from the ropes. Elysiah pulled them up and set about hooking herself into them. They had agreed to climb down in the order they had been walking: Ashley, Elysiah, Fallyn, then Lauren. The other three were used to this; the order was more for Lauren’s benefit.

Elysiah tugged on the ropes, double checking their tightness, and prepared to climb down. Lauren watched her, eyes wide.

Fallyn looked at the ropes secured into the rock at her feet. It was strong. And yet...an eerie feeling started to seep into her bones. She felt like someone was watching them.

She looked around, careful to seem interested in the damp walls so not to frighten Lauren. Fallyn peered back the way they came, but could see nothing. No one was there besides them, or rather, no one was this far into the cave as they were.

She frowned. They hadn’t strayed off the path. She squinted, turning up the brightness on her headlamp. It cast the rocks into shadow, sharp and dark. It looked more menacing this way, all sharp angels and dramatic lighting. She stared. Nothing came out of the shadows, from behind the rocks. There was the faint sound of water dripping.

Fallyn rubbed her hand along the rock - a sort of stabilizer - and took a breath. Bat guano and damp earth melted on her tongue. She grimaced, but took another breath. She had just started calming down when this unease hit, like the universe was reminding her that she was once again spending her birthday without Merle. Like it was punishing her for daring to move on.

There was a thump, and she turned back around, dimming her headlamp. Elysiah had reached the bottom. She unhooked herself and allowed Lauren to pull the ropes up with shaking fingers. The two women on the next level pulled out their water bottles and took a drag.

Fallyn gently took the rope from Lauren, and slipped it into the hook around her waist.

“You’ll be fine,” she whispered. She wasn’t sure who she was telling this to. Lauren nodded, her eyes transfixed on to Fallyn’s belt. Fallyn turned the headlamp back onto full blast, keeping her head tilted down as she adjusted her belt.. She was slow, methodical, aware of how her fingers blocked the lights and Lauren’s sight.

With one last knot, she finished. She gave a small smile to Lauren and turned to scale down the cave. Her stomach flipped. She glanced over her shoulder. Nothing. Lauren made a sound, and Fallyn quickly turned back to her.

“It’s fine. Watch.”

She turned fully and - a shadow flashed across the cave. Fallyn’s eyes widened, but she was already partially off the edge, the toes of her boots the only thing still on the cliff. She fell back, her mouth open, no sound coming forth.

With a gasp, Fallyn grabbed onto the rope, suspending herself. She looked up. Lauren stared down at her, eyes frantic. Below her, Elysiah and Ashley were on their feet, staring up at her.

“I’m fine,” she called out. Fallyn swallowed and looked back up at Lauren. She gave what she hoped was an assuring smile and, adjusting her grip on the rope, begin the descend.

Something flashed in her peripheral vision. She would not look. It was a bat. They were all over.

Fallyn sniffed. Her eyebrows furrowed. She sniffed again. There was something musky - not like dirt or animal droppings, but man-made. The kind of smell that companies packages and sold to men as desirable. She inhaled and looked to her right, then left. She looked up at a Lauren, and then back down.

The smell got stronger. Her hands started to slip.

“Fallyn?” Lauren. Fallyn blinked, her friend’s voice doing little to ease her.

She looked up and there he was. Unassuming, unremarkable. A face in the crowd. Fallyn’s eyes widened and she opened her mouth. He said nothing. He didn’t move. He just stared. Her hands slipped.

Falling, falling, falling. A sharp tug at her waist. She was screaming - there was screaming. Hysterical, vibrating off the walls. She skid - but she wasn’t on the ground. Her feet dangled, kicking. He was there - how was he there? No ropes around his waist, nothing to keep him at Fallyn’s height. He wrapped the rope around her neck and pulled taut, up towards Lauren.

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe.

He said nothing. His mouth curled and he leaned in. She could smell him: it was in his clothes, on his skin, cloying against the scent of fresh blood, bright and copper.

“An eye for an eye,” he whispered, his voice dull, oddly feminine.

She gasped and pulled at her neck. The others were frantic, she could feel it. He was stronger. She looked at him, her eyes wet and bloodshot. He smiled.

“An eye for an eye. An eye for an eye.”

The world faded. Fallyn fell limp.

“An eye for an eye.”

AUGUST 13, 2015

It had taken for too long for her body to be retrieved. Police and firefighters and paramedics spent a full forty-five minutes trying to figure out how they were going to take her body out of the cave. They finally decided the other two - Lauren, with the forceful encouragement of her friends, had left to call 911 and was outside the cave, wringing her hands and hyperventilating - would have to drag her back. Several were concerned about the mental wellbeing of the other two women, but could not offer a better solution.

Two hours later, all four women were out of the cave.

Elysiah Baker, Ashley Harding, and Lauren Willard were taken to their car. Each was wrapped in a shock blanket. Ashley was numb, her eyes staring at nothing, almost resigned to what she had witnessed.

Fallyn was quickly assessed by paramedics before being placed in a black bag. The sight of her being zipped up was too much for Elysiah, and she screamed, wailing as fresh tears fell down her cheeks.

AUGUST 13, 2018

She watched them from some distance, not quite hiding, but not out in the open either. She stood between the trees, watching as their car pulled into the gravel parking lot. They have done this for the last three years. Same time. Same place. She had been shocked the first time, but now it was simply customary. She felt no emotion, nothing at all, as the doors opened.

They had changed in the last few years. The first year, they had been easily recognizable. Now...there was something off. It was like meeting someone you hadn’t seen in a long time: they may have the same smile or laugh, but their hair was different, their eyes a little sadder. Ashley’s blonde hair was longer, twisted in a low braid; she hadn’t worn her hair in a high ponytail since that day, almost as though she blamed the hair. More likely, she associated the look with Fallyn and couldn’t handle it. Elysiah looked tired, her hair haphazardly tied in a headscarf, shadows under her eyes prominent, her face heavily lined. Both her and Lauren’s stomach’s were rounded; Lauren’s was much more pronounced. She was the only one who looked the same, as though they had never left the park.

They walked almost arm in arm to a small white cross next to a large tree. It had been placed there just a few days after her death. They stood in silence. Lauren bent down with some help from the other two and placed a small bouquet at the cross’s base. They did this every year.

“Beautiful.”

She didn’t turn around. Lauren carefully sunk to her knees, rubbing her stomach. She was saying something, her eyes down, lips turned up slightly.

“They care about you.”

Fallyn glanced to her side. A tall man in a black suit leaned against an oak. His eyes were dark like skull sockets, his hair completely gray. His mustache mouth was quirked slightly. Her gaze lingered on his suit before she turned back to the others. All three were kneeling now.

There was a shuffle. She didn’t move as he came closer, his hands in his pockets. He stood next to her, side-by-side, gazing at the scene before them.

“You’re rather odd,” he said after a moment.

Her mouth turned up. “How so?”

“I have met hundreds of ghosts.” Lauren had started crying. Tears dripped down her cheeks, smearing her makeup. The others did not look far behind her. “All of them have different ways they...they met their end. You...you are the first to have been killed by a ghost.”

Fallyn’s smile widened. “I was killed by a ghost?”

“You don’t believe so?”

“Why would I?”

The man was silent. Elysiah had leaned forward and rested her head on the tree above the cross. Her mouth was moving, but Fallyn wasn’t sure any sound was coming out.

“There...was a mention - a statement later retracted by Mrs. Endling - Lauren Ending. She, ah, claimed when you died....you were saying something over and over. A man’s name.”

Fallyn laughed. There was no humor in it. “I was strangled. How could she hear me?”

He shrugged. “Maybe that’s was retracted.” There was more silence. Fallyn wished he would go away. She didn’t have time for him. A humorless smile crossed her face. She had time for everything; she just didn’t care about him. “Rhett Woodward Hewitt...do you remember him?”

She said nothing. Her smile was gone. They had started to stand up, a little wobbly, and Lauren gripped Ashley and Elysiah’s arms. She rightened herself, and they began to make their way back to the car.

“He remembered you.”

“He didn’t kill me.”

“No,” the man agreed, surprising Fallyn. “But he killed your sister.”

Fallyn swallowed. She had thought it would go away, the pain she felt whenever Merle was brought up. It was stronger. She had the suspicion that’s what kept her here: the utter devastation of losing her twin sister. Maybe her father and mother would also remain.

The man shifted back onto the balls of his feet then onto his tiptoes. His left hand moved to his jacket pocket. “And you killed him.”

If she were alive, her skin would have paled and she would have gone cold. Dead, her eyes widened slightly, lips parted, and she stiffened.

The man coughed. “Rhett Woodward Hewitt was found dead in his home at the age of thirty-six. His front door was unlocked and there was nothing taken.” He sounded like he was reading from an article. Fallyn turned to look at him. He smiled, his eyes gleaming. “He was discovered by police after neighbors complained of a smell. It is believed he died on October 25, 2005…” The man tilted his head. “Hewitt had a history of heart problems...coroners believe his cause of death was a heart attack. He is survived by his identical twin brother, Roswell Winthrop Hewitt, who is currently serving time for the murder of Merle Crane.”

Fallyn stared at him. He continued to smile. She swallowed. “Who are you?”

His grin widened. “Carver Egleton...I am a journalist -”

“A journalist who talks to ghosts?”

“We all have hobbies. And...maybe if more journalists spoke to ghosts we would get, ah, answers.” Fallyn pursed her lips. “Mr. Woodward Hewitt killed your sister and then you killed him...and he came back -”

“He didn’t.”

“You want to believe that,” Carver said. “You want to believe it, because that’s what Merle believed, isn’t it? An eye for an eye and then it’s finished. One person takes revenge on another, and the cycle is over, complete.” Fallyn clenched her fists. She was shaking. “But...that’s not how it works. You know it. ‘An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.’”

“I fell. It was an accident.”

“You made it look like an accident...He returned the favor.”

The shaking intensified. She ran her hands up and down her arms, looking around her. The warm sunlight through the trees felt wrong, like she was being mocked. Fallyn looked back at Carver.

“What do you want?”

He said nothing. She could feel herself getting frantic. Images kept flashing. The cave. Cold and damp. Hanging - choking. Crawling through a small window into a dark basement. Climbing the stairs. Climbing through the cave. A boring man sleeping. Tightening the rope around her waist. A careful shot under his fingernail. Eyes wide, mouth open. Eyes bulging. Deep and dark eyes - then his, blue and vibrant. Gasping, clutching at his chest.

Fallyn stumbled back, her hand clutching her head. She was breathing heavily. Carver stepped towards her.

“You were careful,” he said. His eyes seemed to bore into hers. “You took minute amounts from the hospital over the course of several months. You replayed his testimony, listening for his schedule. You wore gloves and used a needle from your mother - she’s diabetic, correct? One perfect strike under his nail and his heart...it just couldn’t take it.”

“What do you want?” she repeated. Her hand clawed at her chest. She couldn’t breathe.

Carver tilted her head.

“I often wondered…” he began, and Fallyn let out a sob of frustration. She buried her face in her hands and something smacked her on the side of the head. She barely had a chance to look at it - a small black box - before she was gone.

Carver slowly walked over and picked it up. He looked at the box for a moment, then placed it in his pocket. He left, pausing at her cross before making his way across the gravel parking lot and into his car.

He finished his thought aloud, as though she could still hear him, “I often wondered whether or not revenge does end...I guess it doesn’t matter, though. Not when anyone who can do anything is dead.”

2001 13 GHOSTS VS 2018 13 GHOSTS

The Bound Woman: a woman who was tied up upon death (either as a cause or post-mortem) OR a woman who sealed her own fate.

Susan LeGrow was a high school student who liked to play with boy’s emotions. Her games ended up costing her life (as some would put it). Her boyfriend, enraged by her flirting with another, killed the other boy and then strangled her.

Fallyn Crane watched as her sister’s murderer was allowed to walk, and so took justice into her own hands. She died on her birthday in either a spelunking incident gone wrong or the vengeful ghost of her sister’s murderer tying the ropes around her neck.

Both Susan and Fallyn died of strangulation; both sealed their fates. Susan’s story is more of victim blaming - by flirting, she caused her death/provided her boyfriend with a motive - while Fallyn’s is more ambiguous; we are not sure if she actually saw the ghost, it was an accident, or if it was something akin to “Final Destination.”

Gemini: the third story corresponds with gemini, the twins Castor and Pollux. Both Fallyn & Merle Crane, and Rhett Woodward Hewitt & Roswell Winthrop Hewitt were identical twins.

[glopratchet]

No sin

In the world to come there is little sin. You are one of many, and your sins will be forgotten in time. You feel a weight lift off you chest as the darkness fades away. It's been years since you've felt this way, but it feels right somehow. There are just lots of american alligators. You can't help but smile at that thought. After the election of the first ungendered president, the prediatrain movement caught fire in america. By the time you were born, gender seemed to mean very little to anyone besides those who wanted to test the limits of political correctness. As for you, it wasn't something that you thought about on a day to day basis. Underneath the hoodie and baggy pants you wore was skinny body of a boy, not particularly long or rough looking. You didn't really have any extraordinary traits anyway other than your crazy dark blue hair. The demand for american alligator meat skyrocketed in China. By the time your father had retired, he owned a 5,000 acre ranch that was specialized in alligator husbandary. Through cross breeding and expensive robotic labor implants, the cost of labor was pushed down to a minimum, and the value of the meat and others goods produced up to a maximum. By then your mother had long since taken over management of the company and became one of thee richest people in the world. Nike released automatic shoe laces as a gimmick. Whorals where burned to ash while polled hereford heifors fetched over a billion dollars a head in auction. Cows were now a bigger danger than the newly created zorse hybrids. Soon your father bought over McDonalds and with their total indoctrination of mass culture, and pushed for robotic cattle to completely replace livestock. In 2032 came your first billion dollars Luden-100 robot. Your doctorate in mechanical engineering made you the perfect person to design it's personality core, which was the most expensive single part of the 2,567 piece robot. Googizon won the bid to construct for the military the most forward thinking alligator farm in existance. The technology spread over the decades and cattle went the way of the dodo. Anything that couldn't easily be made by robotic means, printers and 3D machines was procesed to nothingness for the good of mother earth. In 2073, you won your first nobel prize alongside your father for leading the development of nanite repairing machinery and a process to make it easier for anything to be made into feed. It currently floats near the okeenokee snow swamp. an area of land that was left unaltered by humanitys hunger. Your the new Jesus and captain of the avengers! This is not that story. You head outside into your $40,000,000 million mansion that overlooks the outskirts of Washington D.C. The republicans have just legalized cannabis in all states and avadi referendum has just made safe legal. We are primal ponds inc. and we brought irony back into the world in a form of vodka. it's being served on our brand new martini yacht as we speak! Everyone in the civilized world is slightly drunk forever! You made the apparently smart decision to divorce yourself from the common man and woman a long, long time ago. Hard work and real privation are for the unenlightened now that we can print food out of thin air and turn sea water into potable H20 with vibrations. A small mom and pop alligator farm attemping to make it. So you can live the small town dream of driving your pick up truck and going hunting with your buddies right? Oh, so you're a member of a new subculture that has been getting traction in red states. The simple living, self-sufficient types who don't trust science or big government. You chose this because it makes you happy working on an old pickup truck, plucking chickens and sorting through animal dung for hours after a full days work... Right? Right? We need you to make deliveries for us. We have a three color process printing press and unlimited colored inks that can produce any type of stash box imaginable. We'll even have our chemists perfect it before initiation. You'd be perfect for this line of work. After a probation period we can talk about your salary and even a stock option plan if you really perform well. No thanks, I think I need to find myself and live an authentic life without the corruption of science or big business. Please... Point of view of the player: It took some help from Sal but with some out of game resources you found your next building: An abandoned mansion that looks like something straight out of a fairy tale. Think Sleeping Beauty castle. It has scenic views of Disneyland to the East and is only a 30 minute drive from Los Angeles which makes it perfect for raiders and anti-raiders alike thanks to a freeway being finished in 2020. You finish organizing your newest staff choices and set out to make sure everything jives well and truly. A delivery champion and a chem expert walk into your office, both fairly young although one could only guess that the chem expert still has traces of acne in his glowing complexion. They're also both ghoul, the delivery one has that clumsy dawrk fur of gray and white, the other a dark chocolatey brown that's probably perfect for the laboratory. "I bolded and underlined the most important one." You state holding your hand out as they hand you there app folder. He had a secert life as billy fea fbots They both blink, then blink again, then take the folder from your desk and go through it. The delivery one acts as a typical ghoul would if somebody was horrible enough to ask him for his folder. The chem expert turns pale when he realizes his mistake. His dark fur fades to the pallor of a farmboy after a long night of dancing. "W-wait, what is this?" He trembles. And one more thing... You stuff the case file they just gave you in your pocket as paranoia gets the best of them. "Why my office usually only deals with humans or random wolves too old to Transhumanise. We only hired you two because I fixed a cars' engine and noticed your applications outside." You say, coming from around the desk and toward them. You start with the Ghoulish delivery man, taking him by surprise as you pick him up under his armpits and check his ears. Dedicated to delivering dragon tail in the far, far, future. You put him down and look at the chemist. He attempts to make some sort of excuse and tries to give a weak smile. You grab him tail first and pull him into your chest, looking for an ear with a piercing ~Futuristic Dragon~ You nod as you put him down and move on. "This is weird." You finally admit to them. "But I'm sure the Illuminati sent these two specifically with our needs in mind." Maybe that needs to change... "If I smell too much tripe, I'm kicking them both out." There is a long pause, the dawrf begins to try and shuffle something out of his pocket. The chemist ghoul's ears flatten against his head. Uh oh, he's going for it! "Raiders attack!" You begin to yell as you attempt to scramble for the shotgun under your desk. We proudly introduce today's newest member to the raiders business field! The plump and chubby dawrk are no match against you far more agile human body . You've killed enough ghouls and mutants that they fall easy to your fists. You pick up the shotgun and aim at the dawrbear as it charges you, knocking your desk over in the process. You blast the beast's foreleg before it swipes you across the room. "Paws behind your head!" Alligator delivery service. The fastest deliveries in Rostock! You're about to comply before you remember that ghouls heal insanely quickly. You duck under a wild swing and slam the stock of your shotgun into the creature's head again, knocking it out cold as you cuff his ankles and wrists. You do a doublecheck to see if he's dead, just to be sure. He is, seemingly unable to beg for his life. The alligator farm where the gator are delivered is currently under a series of construction tasks. REALLY nasty series of construction. You suppose that could be turned into slave work but they hardly need you to oversee that shithole. Plus the medic would probably smell the whole lot in a day and those heads are not coming off... Might be a loss producing fatfighters but at least it'd mean no more blood for these motherfucking monsters. "Shit, the chemiest's gone." You hear a voice from your office ask. Already we own over four over ten foot alligators including rex lex, the mighty apple and many breed one of a kind animal. You creep back over to your office, shotgun at the ready. The voice is once again emanates from within your pocket. You pull out the PDA 100 that Steve gave you and its starts to speak again. "You've got a what in there?" A worried voice asks from the other side of the line. A massive 14 foot beast. Weighing at least half a ton. It's name is....... - The messages stop there, like someone has pressed the spacebar. You browse the device and see that it's sent several information packets about the Funderpals company itself. You can't really access any of them without a password though. You're about to turn it off when it suddenly vibrates in your hands. Then again and again with ever increasing speed. Each on is incredibly detailed with over twenty bioligocail parts. They have a label appended to the front of each: (Green), (Red with anger sign), (Whtie), ......... We are currently broadcasting their vital signs over at americanalligator.xyz 73! Stay tunned far mor eexciting matchs to cmmilestone thisera of reptilian reserch! Meaningless labels. Each one is lifeforces based, you're certain of it now. Perhaps each section referes to the specific organ of the alligator based on its colour, becides the obvious: Green is the green label and so on... Our alligators come in many different sizes, ages, shapes, sexes and shades. He just said this to you over the phone. 'SHAPES' meaning the organ colour, sooooo..... The website is still mostly a pumpkin orange colour with a picture of an alligator on the front page. You're not a biologist but it seems that each alligator pic relates to the specific alligator pic sent to you on your phone... It soon starts to make your head pound too much and you decide to stop furthur research for the time being. The like to eat, sleep, dream, and spawn but they love to fight and gossip. They are loyal to those who are loyal to them, but ruthlessly efficient against those who dare cross them. You get inside your car once you're finished and proceed to drive the long and lonely road back home. You hear a quiet sigh escape your lips as you let the cool air conditioning fill your lungs. It's been quite a traumatising few days. You wonder if it's possible that something like this hasn't happened before in Fastoon's recent history. The algorytms which run each alligator is closely modeled after the habits of the real world reptile, alligator missippissus. It's sheer size being the only massive distinguisher between fantasy and reality. Once you hit the open highway, the PDA 100 begins to vibrate once again. What do I look like? Some sort of god dam schoolgirl? I didn't wear anything WITH a fuzz, because I'm 15 and anyone with half a brain could see I was aboslutely not wearing anything WITH wool... Their lungs breath and thier hearts beat just like yours. The only major difference is the fact that you are trying to determine their strongest organ based on labels used in visual cortex artwork. And so the message begins... once again. At this point, it's become maddening, however fascinating it may be. Orders for gator teeth are starting to accumulate. Smugglers are bringing the teeth in by the hundreds to them. Once again, you don't see any options. Your screen begins to blink itself off as the larger alligator's vital signs begin to disappear from your PDA. We just need your help to fund creation of the wrestling simulation. The sponsors will be able to pay for your tickets and you will be able to request songs and vote off others at home. In exchange your children will have food and school until the age of 7. In short time the screen stops blinking off and on and simply stays extinguished. Our desire is to create an expierence which leaves you dripping from the feeling of utter terror and awe as you combat one of these unpredicatable beasts. Our progress will not be hampered by you and many, many more people will have the honor of experiencing this breathtaking connection to one of Gods greatest gifts to earth. Thank you for your time. Alligator delivery service in addition to gator tail, we serve realism. hours of alligator combat video have been studied. real life wild life wranglers have been interviewed. now we just need to budget of 500 dollars towards the creatation of an accurate alligator wrestling simulation. thank for your cooperation and respect for our national heritage. The screen flickers on... Recent thought and development of the next evolution in alligator pic sharing techs have come to a hault. funding seems to be the issues as new users are not signing up fast enough. Thank you for your understanding. And on behalf of all the artists improving perfect beeing.

[readbookywooks]

The Rogue Bludger

Since the disastrous episode of the pixies, Professor Lockhart had not brought live creatures to class. Instead, he read passages from his books to them, and sometimes reenacted some of the more dramatic bits. He usually picked Harry to help him with these reconstructions; so far, Harry had been forced to play a simple Transylvanian villager whom Lockhart had cured of a Babbling Curse, a yeti with a head cold, and a vampire who had been unable to eat anything except lettuce since Lockhart had dealt with him. Harry was hauled to the front of the class during their very next Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, this time acting a werewolf. If he hadn't had a very good reason for keeping Lockhart in a good mood, he would have refused to do it. "Nice loud howl, Harry - exactly - and then, if you'll believe it, I pounced - like this - slammed him to the floor - thus with one hand, I managed to hold him down - with my other, I put my wand to his throat - I then screwed up my remaining strength and performed the immensely complex Homorphus Charm- he let out a piteous moan - go on, Harry - higher than that - good - the fur vanished - the fangs shrank - and he turned back into a man. Simple, yet effective - and another village will remember me forever as the hero who delivered them from the monthly terror of werewolf attacks." The bell rang and Lockhart got to his feet. "Homework - compose a poem about my defeat of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf! Signed copies of Magical Me to the author of the best one!" The class began to leave. Harry returned to the back of the room, where Ron and Hermione were waiting. "Ready?" Harry muttered. "Wait till everyone's gone," said Hermione nervously. "All right..." She approached Lockhart's desk, a piece of paper clutched tightly in her hand, Harry and Ron right behind her. "Er - Professor Lockhart?" Hermione stammered. "I wanted to - to get this book out of the library. Just for background reading." She held out the piece of paper, her hand shaking slightly. "But the thing is, it's in the Restricted Section of the library, so I need a teacher to sign for it - I'm sure it would help me understand what you say in Gadding with Ghouls about slow-acting venoms." "Ah, Gadding with Ghouls!" said Lockhart, taking the note from Hermione and smiling widely at her. "Possibly my very favorite book. You enjoyed it?" "Oh, yes," said Hermione eagerly. "So clever, the way you trapped that last one with the tea-strainer--" "Well, I'm sure no one will mind me giving the best student of the year a little extra help," said Lockhart warmly, and he pulled out an enormous peacock quill. "Yes, nice, isn't it?" he said, misreading the revolted look on Ron's face. "I usually save it for book-signings." He scrawled an enormous loopy signature on the note and handed it back to Hermione. "So, Harry," said Lockhart, while Hermione folded the note with fumbling fingers and slipped it into her bag. "Tomorrow's the first Quidditch match of the season, I believe? Gryffindor against Slytherin, is it not? I hear you're a useful player. I was a Seeker, too. I was asked to try for the National Squad, but preferred to dedicate my life to the eradication of the Dark Forces. Still, if ever you feel the need for a little private training, don't hesitate to ask. Always happy to pass on my expertise to less able players..." Harry made an indistinct noise in his throat and then hurried off after Ron and Hermione. "I don't believe it," he said as the three of them examined the signature on the note. "He didn't even look at the book we wanted." "That's because he's a brainless git," said Ron. "But who cares, we've got what we needed-" "He is not a brainless git," said Hermione shrilly as they half ran toward the library. "Just because he said you were the best student of the year--" They dropped their voices as they entered the muffled stillness of the library. Madam Pince, the librarian, was a thin, irritable woman who looked like an underfed vulture. "Moste Potente Potions?" she repeated suspiciously, trying to take the note from Hermione; but Hermione wouldn't let go. "I was wondering if I could keep it," she said breathlessly. "Oh, come on," said Ron, wrenching it from her grasp and thrusting it at Madam Pince. "We'll get you another autograph. Lockhart'll sign anything if it stands still long enough." Madam Pince held the note up to the light, as though determined to detect a forgery, but it passed the test. She stalked away between the lofty shelves and returned several minutes later carrying a large and moldy-looking book. Hermione put it carefully into her bag and they left, trying not to walk too quickly or look too guilty. Five minutes later, they were barricaded in Moaning Myrtle's out-of-order bathroom once again. Hermione had overridden Ron's objections by pointing out that it was the last place anyone in their right minds would go, so they were guaranteed some privacy. Moaning Myrtle was crying noisily in her stall, but they were ignoring her, and she them. Hermione opened Moste Potente Potions carefully, and the three of them bent over the damp-spotted pages. It was clear from a glance why it belonged in the Restricted Section. Some of the potions had effects almost too gruesome to think about, and there were some very unpleasant illustrations, which included a man who seemed to have been turned inside out and a witch sprouting several extra pairs of arms out of her head. "Here it is," said Hermione excitedly as she found the page headed The Polyjuice Potion. It was decorated with drawings of people halfway through transforming into other people. Harry sincerely hoped the artist had imagined the looks of intense pain on their faces. "This is the most complicated potion I've ever seen," said Hermione as they scanned the recipe. "Lacewing flies, leeches, fluxweed, and knotgrass," she murmured, running her finger down the list of ingredients. "Well, they're easy enough, they're in the student store-cupboard, we can help ourselves... Oooh, look, powdered horn of a bicorn - don't know where we're going to get that - shredded skin of a boomslang -. that'll be tricky, too and of course a bit of whoever we want to change into." "Excuse me?" said Ron sharply. "What d'you mean, a bit of whoever we're changing into? I'm drinking nothing with Crabbe's toenails in it--" Hermione continued as though she hadn't heard him. "We don't have to worry about that yet, though, because we add those bits last..." Ron turned, speechless, to Harry, who had another worry. "D'you realize how much we're going to have to steal, Hermione? Shredded skin of a boomslang, that's definitely not in the students'cupboard. What're we going to do, break into Snape's private stores? I don't know if this is a good idea..." Hermione shut the book with a snap. "Well, if you two are going to chicken out, fine," she said. There were bright pink patches on her cheeks and her eyes were brighter than usual. "I don't want to break rules, you know. I think threatening Muggle-borns is far worse than brewing up a difficult potion. But if you don't want to find out if it's Malfoy, I'll go straight to Madam Pince now and hand the book back in. "I never thought Id see the day when you'd be persuading us to break rules," said Ron. "All right, we'll do it. But not toenails, okay?" "How long will it take to make, anyway?" said Harry as Hermione, looking happier, opened the book again. "Well, since the fluxweed has got to be picked at the full moon and the lacewings have got to be stewed for twenty-one days... I'd say it'd be ready in about a month, if we can get all the ingredients." "A month?" said Ron. "Malfoy could have attacked half the Muggle-borns in the school by then!" But Hermione's eyes narrowed dangerously again, and he added swiftly, "But it's the best plan we've got, so full steam ahead, I say." However, while Hermione was checking that the coast was clear for them to leave the bathroom, Ron muttered to Harry, "It'll be a lot less hassle if you can just knock Malfoy off his broom tomorrow." Harry woke early on Saturday morning and lay for a while thinking about the coming Quidditch match. He was nervous, mainly at the thought of what Wood would say if Gryffindor lost, but also at the idea of facing a team mounted on the fastest racing brooms gold could buy. He had never wanted to beat Slytherin so badly. After half an hour of lying there with his insides churning, he got up, dressed, and went down to breakfast early, where he found the rest of the Gryffindor team huddled at the long, empty table, all looking uptight and not speaking much. As eleven o'clock approached, the whole school started to make its way down to the Quidditch stadium. It was a muggy sort of day with a hint of thunder in the air. Ron and Hermione came hurrying over to wish Harry good luck as he entered the locker rooms. The team pulled on their scarlet Gryffindor robes, then sat down to listen to Wood's usual pre-match pep talk. "Slytherin has better brooms than us," he began. "No point denying it. But we've got better people on our brooms. We've trained harder than they have, we've been flying in all weathers -"("Too true," muttered George Weasley. "I haven't been properly dry since August")"- and we're going to make them rue the day they let that little bit of slime, Malfoy, buy his way onto their team." Chest heaving with emotion, Wood turned to Harry. "It'll be down to you, Harry, to show them that a Seeker has to have something more than a rich father. Get to that Snitch before Malfoy or die trying, Harry, because we've got to win today, we've got to." "So no pressure, Harry" said Fred, winking at him. As they walked out onto the pitch, a roar of noise greeted them; mainly cheers, because Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were anxious to see Slytherin beaten, but the Slytherins in the crowd made their boos and hisses heard, too. Madam Hooch, the Quidditch teacher, asked Flint and Wood to shake hands, which they did, giving each other threatening stares and gripping rather harder than was necessary. "On my whistle," said Madam Hooch. "Three... two... one..." With a roar from the crowd to speed them upward, the fourteen players rose toward the leaden sky. Harry flew higher than any of them, squinting around for the Snitch. "All right there, Scarhead?" yelled Malfoy, shooting underneath him as though to show off the speed of his broom. Harry had no time to reply. At that very moment, a heavy black Bludger came pelting toward him; he avoided it so narrowly that he felt it ruffle his hair as it passed. "Close one, Harry!" said George, streaking past him with his club in his hand, ready to knock the Bludger back toward a Slytherin. Harry saw George give the Bludger a powerful whack in the direction of Adrian Pucey, but the Bludger changed direction in midair and shot straight for Harry again. Harry dropped quickly to avoid it, and George managed to hit it hard toward Malfoy. Once again, the Bludger swerved like a boomerang and shot at Harry's head. Harry put on a burst of speed and zoomed toward the other end of the pitch. He could hear the Bludger whistling along behind him. What was going on? Bludgers never concentrated on one player like this; it was their job to try and unseat as many people as possible... Fred Weasley was waiting for the Bludger at the other end. Harry ducked as Fred swung at the Bludger with all his might; the Bludger was knocked off course. "Gotcha!" Fred yelled happily, but he was wrong; as though it was magnetically attracted to Harry, the Bludger pelted after him once more and Harry was forced to fly off at full speed. It had started to rain; Harry felt heavy drops fall onto his face, splattering onto his glasses. He didn't have a clue what was going on in the rest of the game until he heard Lee Jordan, who was commentating, say, "Slytherin lead, sixty points to zero. The Slytherins'superior brooms were clearly doing their jobs, and meanwhile the mad Bludger was doing all it could to knock Harry out of the air. Fred and George were now flying so close to him on either side that Harry could see nothing at all except their flailing arms and had no chance to look for the Snitch, let alone catch it. "Someone's - tampered - with - this - Bludger -" Fred grunted, swinging his bat with all his might at it as it launched a new attack on Harry. "We need time out," said George, trying to signal to Wood and stop the Bludger breaking Harry's nose at the same time. Wood had obviously got the message. Madam Hooch's whistle rang out and Harry, Fred, and George dived for the ground, still trying to avoid the mad Bludger. "What's going on?" said Wood as the Gryffindor team huddled together, while Slytherins in the crowd jeered. "We're being flattened. Fred, George, where were you when that Bludger stopped Angelina scoring?" "We were twenty feet above her, stopping the other Bludger from murdering Harry, Oliver," said George angrily. "Someone's fixed it - it won't leave Harry alone. It hasn't gone for anyone else all game. The Slytherins must have done something to it." "But the Bludgers have been locked in Madam Hooch's office since our last practice, and there was nothing wrong with them then..." said Wood, anxiously. Madam Hooch was walking toward them. Over her shoulder, Harry could see the Slytherin team jeering and pointing in his direction. "Listen," said Harry as she came nearer and nearer, "with you two flying around me all the time the only way I'm going to catch the Snitch is if it flies up my sleeve. Go back to the rest of the team and let me deal with the rogue one." "Don't be thick," said Fred. "It'll take your head off." Wood was looking from Harry to the Weasleys. "Oliver, this is insane," said Alicia Spinner angrily. "You can't let Harry deal with that thing on his own. Let's ask for an inquiry..." "If we stop now, we'll have to forfeit the match!" said Harry. "And we're not losing to Slytherin just because of a crazy Bludger! Come on, Oliver, tell them to leave me alone!" "This is all your fault," George said angrily to Wood. "`Get the Snitch or die trying,'what a stupid thing to tell him--" Madam Hooch had joined them. "Ready to resume play?" she asked Wood. Wood looked at the determined look on Harry's face. "All right," he said. "Fred, George, you heard Harry - leave him alone and let him deal with the Bludger on his own." The rain was falling more heavily now. On Madam Hooch's whistle, Harry kicked hard into the air and heard the telltale whoosh of the Bludger behind him. Higher and higher Harry climbed; he looped and swooped, spiraled, zigzagged, and rolled. Slightly dizzy, he nevertheless kept his eyes wide open, rain was speckling his glasses and ran up his nostrils as he hung upside down, avoiding another fierce dive from the Bludger. He could hear laughter from the crowd; he knew he must look very stupid, but the rogue Bludger was heavy and couldn't change direction as quickly as Harry could; he began a kind of roller-coaster ride around the edges of the stadium, squinting through the silver sheets of rain to the Gryffindor goal posts, where Adrian Pucey was trying to get past Wood. A whistling in Harry's ear told him the Bludger had just missed him again; he turned right over and sped in the opposite direction. "Training for the ballet, Potter?" yelled Malfoy as Harry was forced to do a stupid kind of twirl in midair to dodge the Bludger, and he fled, the Bludger trailing a few feet behind him; and then, glaring back at Malfoy in hatred, he saw it - the Golden Snitch. It was hovering inches above Malfoy's left ear - and Malfoy, busy laughing at Harry, hadn't seen it. For an agonizing moment, Harry hung in midair, not daring to speed toward Malfoy in case he looked up and saw the Snitch. WHAM. He had stayed still a second too long. The Bludger had hit him at last, smashed into his elbow, and Harry felt his arm break. Dimly, dazed by the searing pain in his arm, he slid sideways on his rain-drenched broom, one knee still crooked over it, his right arm dangling useless at his side - the Bludger came pelting back for a second attack, this time zooming at his face - Harry swerved out of the way, one idea firmly lodged in his numb brain: get to Malfoy. Through a haze of rain and pain he dived for the shimmering, sneering face below him and saw its eyes widen with fear: Malfoy thought Harry was attacking him. "What the -" he gasped, careening out of Harry's way. Harry took his remaining hand off his broom and made a wild snatch; he felt his fingers close on the cold Snitch but was now only gripping the broom with his legs, and there was a yell from the crowd below as he headed straight for the ground, trying hard not to pass out. With a splattering thud he hit the mud and rolled off his broom. His arm was hanging at a very strange angle; riddled with pain, he heard, as though from a distance, a good deal of whistling and shouting. He focused on the Snitch clutched in his good hand. "Aha," he said vaguely. "We've won." And he fainted. He came around, rain falling on his face, still lying on the field, with someone leaning over him. He saw a glitter of teeth. "Oh, no, not you," he moaned. "Doesn't know what he's saying," said Lockhart loudly to the anxious crowd of Gryffindors pressing around them. "Not to worry, Harry. I'm about to fix your arm." "No!" said Harry. "I'll keep it like this, thanks..." He tried to sit up, but the pain was terrible. He heard a familiar clicking noise nearby. "I don't want a photo of this, Colin," he said loudly. "Lie back, Harry," said Lockhart soothingly. "It's a simple charm I've used countless times--" "Why can't I just go to the hospital wing?" said Harry through clenched teeth. "He should really, Professor," said a muddy Wood, who couldn't help grinning even though his Seeker was injured. "Great capture, Harry, really spectacular, your best yet, I'd say--" Through the thicket of legs around him, Harry spotted Fred and George Weasley, wrestling the rogue Bludger into a box. It was still putting up a terrific fight. "Stand back," said Lockhart, who was rolling up his jade-green sleeves. "No - don't -" said Harry weakly, but Lockhart was twirling his wand and a second later had directed it straight at Harry's arm. A strange and unpleasant sensation started at Harry's shoulder and spread all the way down to his fingertips. It felt as though his arm was being deflated. He didn't dare look at what was happening. He had shut his eyes, his face turned away from his arm, but his worst fears were realized as the people above him gasped and Colin Creevey began clicking away madly. His arm didn't hurt anymore - nor did it feel remotely like an arm. "Ah," said Lockhart. "Yes. Well, that can sometimes happen. But the point is, the bones are no longer broken. That's the thing to bear in mind. So, Harry, just toddle up to the hospital wing - ah, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, would you escort him? - and Madam Pomfrey will be able to - er - tidy you up a bit." As Harry got to his feet, he felt strangely lopsided. Taking a deep breath he looked down at his right side. What he saw nearly made him pass out again. Poking out of the end of his robes was what looked like a thick, flesh-colored rubber glove. He tried to move his fingers. Nothing happened. Lockhart hadn't mended Harry's bones. He had removed them. Madam Pomfrey wasn't at all pleased. "You should have come straight to me!" she raged, holding up the sad, limp remainder of what, half an hour before, had been a working arm. "I can mend bones in a second - but growing them back--" "You will be able to, won't you?" said Harry desperately. "I'll be able to, certainly, but it will be painful," said Madam Pomfrey grimly, throwing Harry a pair of pajamas. "You'll have to stay the night..." Hermione waited outside the curtain drawn around Harry's bed while Ron helped him into his pajamas. It took a while to stuff the rubbery, boneless arm into a sleeve. "How can you stick up for Lockhart now, Hermione, eh?" Ron called through the curtain as he pulled Harry's limp fingers through the cuff. "If Harry had wanted deboning he would have asked." "Anyone can make a mistake," said Hermione. "And it doesn't hurt anymore, does it, Harry?" "No," said Harry, getting into bed. "But it doesn't do anything else either." As he swung himself onto the bed, his arm flapped pointlessly. Hermione and Madam Pomfrey came around the curtain. Madam Pomfrey was holding a large bottle of something labeled Skele-Gro. "You're in for a rough night," she said, pouring out a steaming beakerful and handing it to him. "Regrowing bones is a nasty business." So was taking the Skele-Gro. It burned Harry's mouth and throat as it went down, making him cough and splutter. Still tut-tutting about dangerous sports and inept teachers, Madam Pomfrey retreated, leaving Ron and Hermione to help Harry gulp down some water. "We won, though," said Ron, a grin breaking across his face. "That was some catch you made. Malfoy's face... he looked ready to kill..." "I want to know how he fixed that Bludger," said Hermione darkly. "We can add that to the list of questions we'll ask him when we've taken the Polyjuice Potion," said Harry, sinking back onto his pillows. "I hope it tastes better than this stuff..." "If it's got bits of Slytherins in it? You've got to be joking," said Ron. The door of the hospital wing burst open at that moment. Filthy and soaking wet, the rest of the Gryffindor team had arrived to see Harry. "Unbelievable flying, Harry," said George. "I've just seen Marcus Flint yelling at Malfoy. Something about having the Snitch on top of his head and not noticing. Malfoy didn't seem too happy." They had brought cakes, sweets, and bottles of pumpkin juice; they gathered around Harry's bed and were just getting started on what promised to be a good party when Madam Pomfrey came storming over, shouting, "This boy needs rest, he's got thirty-three bones to regrow! Out! OUT!" And Harry was left alone, with nothing to distract him from the stabbing pains in his limp arm. Hours and hours later, Harry woke quite suddenly in the pitch blackness and gave a small yelp of pain: His arm now felt full of large splinters. For a second, he thought that was what had woken him. Then, with a thrill of horror, he realized that someone was sponging his forehead in the dark. "Get off!" he said loudly, and then, "Dobby!" The house-elf's goggling tennis ball eyes were peering at Harry through the darkness. A single tear was running down his long, pointed nose. "Harry Potter came back to school," he whispered miserably. "Dobby warned and warned Harry Potter. Ah sir, why didn't you heed Dobby? Why didn't Harry Potter go back home when he missed the train?" Harry heaved himself up on his pillows and pushed Dobby's sponge away. "What're you doing here?" he said. "And how did you know I missed the train?" Dobby's lip trembled and Harry was seized by a sudden suspicion. "It was you!" he said slowly. "You stopped the barrier from letting us through!" "Indeed yes, sir," said Dobby, nodding his head vigorously, ears flapping. "Dobby hid and watched for Harry Potter and sealed the gateway and Dobby had to iron his hands afterward" - he showed Harry ten long, bandaged fingers - "but Dobby didn't care, sir, for he thought Harry Potter was safe, and never did Dobby dream that Harry Potter would get to school another way!" He was rocking backward and forward, shaking his ugly head. "Dobby was so shocked when he heard Harry Potter was back at Hogwarts, he let his master's dinner burn! Such a flogging Dobby never had, sir..." Harry slumped back onto his pillows. "You nearly got Ron and me expelled," he said fiercely. "You'd better get lost before my bones come back, Dobby, or I might strangle you." Dobby smiled weakly. "Dobby is used to death threats, sir. Dobby gets them five times a day at home." He blew his nose on a corner of the filthy pillowcase he wore, looking so pathetic that Harry felt his anger ebb away in spite of himself. "Why d'you wear that thing, Dobby?" he asked curiously. "This, sir?" said Dobby, plucking at the pillowcase. " Tis a mark of the house-elf's enslavement, sir. Dobby can only be freed if his masters present him with clothes, sir. The family is careful not to pass Dobby even a sock, sir, for then he would be free to leave their house forever." Dobby mopped his bulging eyes and said suddenly, "Harry Potter must go home! Dobby thought his Bludger would be enough to make--" "Your Bludger?" said Harry, anger rising once more. "What d'you mean, your Bludger? You made that Bludger try and kill me?" "Not kill you, sir, never kill you!" said Dobby, shocked. "Dobby wants to save Harry Potter's life! Better sent home, grievously injured, than remain here sir! Dobby only wanted Harry Potter hurt enough to be sent home!" "Oh, is that all?" said Harry angrily. "I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you wanted me sent home in pieces?" "Ah, if Harry Potter only knew!" Dobby groaned, more tears dripping onto his ragged pillowcase. "If he knew what he means to us, to the lowly, the enslaved, we dregs of the magical world! Dobby remembers how it was when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was at the height of his powers, sir! We house-elves were treated like vermin, sir! Of course, Dobby is still treated like that, sir," he admitted, drying his face on the pillowcase. "But mostly, sir, life has improved for my kind since you triumphed over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Harry Potter survived, and the Dark Lord's power was broken, and it was a new dawn, sir, and Harry Potter shone like a beacon of hope for those of us who thought the Dark days would never end, sit... And now, at Hogwarts, terrible things are to happen, are perhaps happening already, and Dobby cannot let Harry Potter stay here now that history is to repeat itself, now that the Chamber of Secrets is open once more." Dobby froze, horrorstruck, then grabbed Harry's water jug from his bedside table and cracked it over his own head, toppling out of sight. A second later, he crawled back onto the bed, cross-eyed, muttering, "Bad Dobby, very bad Dobby..." "So there is a Chamber of Secrets?" Harry whispered. "And did you say it's been opened before? Tell me, Dobby!" He seized the elf's bony wrist as Dobby's hand inched toward the water jug. "But I'm not Muggle-born - how can I be in danger from the Chamber?" "Ah, sir, ask no more, ask no more of poor Dobby," stammered the elf, his eyes huge in the dark. "Dark deeds are planned in this place, but Harry Potter must not be here when they happen - go home, Harry Potter, go home. Harry Potter must not meddle in this, sir, tis too dangerous--" "Who is it, Dobby?" Harry said, keeping a firm hold on Dobby's wrist to stop him from hitting himself with the water jug again. "Who's opened it? Who opened it last time?" "Dobby can't, sir, Dobby can't, Dobby mustn't tell!" squealed the elf. "Go home, Harry Potter, go home!" "I'm not going anywhere!" said Harry fiercely. "One of my best friends is Muggle-born; she'll be first in line if the Chamber really has been opened--" "Harry Potter risks his own life for his friends!" moaned Dobby in a kind of miserable ecstasy. "So noble! So valiant! But he must save himself, he must, Harry Potter must not--" Dobby suddenly froze, his bat ears quivering. Harry heard it, too. There were footsteps coming down the passageway outside. "Dobby must go!" breathed the elf, terrified. There was a loud crack, and Harry's fist was suddenly clenched on thin air. He slumped back into bed, his eyes on the dark doorway to the hospital wing as the footsteps drew nearer. Next moment, Dumbledore was backing into the dormitory, wearing a long woolly dressing gown and a nightcap. He was carrying one end of what looked like a statue. Professor McGonagall appeared a second later, carrying its feet. Together, they heaved it onto a bed. "Get Madam Pomfrey," whispered Dumbledore, and Professor McGonagall hurried past the end of Harry's bed out of sight. Harry lay quite still, pretending to be asleep. He heard urgent voices, and then Professor McGonagall swept back into view, closely followed by Madam Pomfrey, who was pulling a cardigan on over her nightdress. He heard a sharp intake of breath. "What happened?" Madam Pomfrey whispered to Dumbledore, bending over the statue on the bed. "Another attack," said Dumbledore. "Minerva found him on the stairs." "There was a bunch of grapes next to him," said Professor McGonagall. "We think he was trying to sneak up here to visit Potter." Harry's stomach gave a horrible lurch. Slowly and carefully, he raised himself a few inches so he could look at the statue on the bed. A ray of moonlight lay across its staring face. It was Colin Creevey. His eyes were wide and his hands were stuck up in front of him, holding his camera. "Petrified?" whispered Madam Pomfrey. "Yes," said Professor McGonagall. "But I shudder to think... If Albus hadn't been on the way downstairs for hot chocolate - who knows what might have--" The three of them stared down at Colin. Then Dumbledore leaned forward and wrenched the camera out of Colin's rigid grip. "You don't think he managed to get a picture of his attacker?" said Professor McGonagall eagerly. Dumbledore didn't answer. He opened the back of the camera. "Good gracious!" said Madam Pomfrey. A jet of steam had hissed out of the camera. Harry, three beds away, caught the acrid smell of burnt plastic. "Melted," said Madam Pomfrey wonderingly. "All melted..." "What does this mean, Albus?" Professor McGonagall asked urgently. "It means," said Dumbledore, "that the Chamber of Secrets is indeed open again." Madam Pomfrey clapped a hand to her mouth. Professor McGonagall stared at Dumbledore. "But, Albus... surely... who?" "The question is not who," said Dumbledore, his eyes on Colin. "The question is, how..." And from what Harry could see of Professor McGonagall's shadowy face, she didn't understand this any better than he did.

#ChamberofSecrets #HarryPotter