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shirleydanders · 3 months

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“Reunion”

CHARACTERS: River Cartwright x James ‘Spider’ Webb

SUMMARY: It’s been about a month of silent hospital visits before River hears that Spider’s awake. He goes to see him and their game, as ever, is on.

WORD COUNT: 1,664

WARNINGS: Angst, violent imagery, bad language, deep, deep sadness and weird dudes.

NOTES: This is kind of a fix-it fic because I refuse to accept Spider’s death as laid out in either the book or the show. Also, I tried to do a bit of a character study into why River is so pathetic and Spider is such a fucked up little freak, so I hope you enjoy that.

River knows how it feels. To be worth more vivisected than whole. Maybe he can sympathise. There’s something more compelling about his destruction than the half-life he’s slipping through.

So loneliness will always be preferable to the feeling of being sifted through for something more valuable. He watches as the light in everyone’s eyes dies on contact with him. He carries on talking even though no one’s listening. He was made a pawn, but the game’s over.

He knows he’ll let his guard down eventually. Sooner or later, he’ll offer himself to someone, to be broken down into those familiar disembodied bits. He can feel useful then, if only for a moment.

Pathetic, that’s what most people would call it. River has given up trying to justify himself. He doesn’t have the energy. He’s half a person; half the vital functions. His thoughts dissolve as soon as they arrive. Any emotion feels a hundred miles away. If he does catch up, it’s already petered out.

He thinks about his mother briefly. How she left him on his granddad’s doorstep at seven. Well, of course she did. She could see it, even then. He’s always been a ghost.

He thinks that’s why he doesn’t stay whole for long. Whatever he is isn’t worth being saved, not even an entire being in the first place. And haunting people is so painful. So he lets them take him apart. All the pieces. Until he’s just a husk, and they’ve slinked away.

Spider’s anxieties are different altogether. He is sure of his importance; knows he’s needed. But the idea that someone could overtake what he’s managed to achieve makes him sick. The constant need to sabotage, to prove himself above others. He marks his card as one of the elite, but the conviction he embodies it with doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

Taverner never liked him. He doesn’t need her to, so long as she doesn’t like anyone else either. But she did before. She liked River. So when she came with the request to ruin him, a Shakespearean betrayal, he’d done what he had to. There was no place for him but the top of the food chain.

It’s never bothered him. There’s always someone undeserving in the place he should be. Who was the one weeping, smeared across the floor in the torture resistance training? Not him, that’s for sure.

It’s not personal. What River is or isn’t to him has never even been a consideration. It’s London Rules, as it always has been. Covering your arse is a lot easier when you can push someone down to do it for you.

When they meet again, for the first time since Spider woke from his coma, there is that stilted silence – the great unsaid. That has always been a game they played. There’d always been a hushed nature to their… relationship. Before the resentment kicked in, there was something else that was keeping them apart.

Now, even the love’s gone, but the distance remains unchanged. They’re too incompatible for that to be overcome.

Nevertheless, they are drawn together every single time.

River is the first to speak.

‘Long time, no see.’

Spider nods – a smile, half expressed, half tangled up in another moment, resting on his lips. He catches River’s insinuation. That Spider hadn’t seen him, even though he’d visited.

‘You gonna use that against me? The coma?’

‘Well, I’ve never been in one.’

The pair laugh, acidicly.

‘Never too late to try something new.’

The thin veil of playfulness shatters. They both wilt, as though resigning themselves to the opposite. It is too late. It’s all too late, and too messy, and too much.

‘That’s the last time I ask your lot for a favour.’

‘Yeah, well, we’re slow horses,’ River replies, teeth grinding slightly as he forces it out, ‘what did you expect?’

‘I would’ve thought not letting people get shot while you’re running security is common practice, even among your kind.’

They both know they’re not here to speak as though they’re on the record, in some unseen competition. They want to be candid. To possibly even be vulnerable. The trouble is, someone’s got to break first. Spider had never knowingly broken in his life. Ah, but River…

‘I thought you were gonna die.’

Spider’s eyes snap up to River, quiet satisfaction setting his lips in a smile.

‘That was never on the cards.’

‘Be fucking serious, I…’ River began with the anger that only really expresses itself for Spider. Every other inconvenience he felt was par for the course, worth little more reaction than an eye roll, but Spider is the one who gets under his skin. It’s impressive, really, how instantly he can boil River’s blood. He starts again, softer. ‘It just made me think about training.’

The glint in Spider’s eyes extinguishes itself.

‘You know, they say that when you’re in a coma, you’re aware of everything around you. That wasn’t true for me.’ Spider begins the observation in a cold, guarded way. As though armouring up in the terrible event of his vulnerability.

‘I heard nothing. Saw nothing. One minute I was awake, the next minute I was awake again. Nothing in between.’ There’s a pause, as he draws breath like a gun. ‘It’s what I imagine your life’s like at Slough House.’

River looks at him, really looks. If this is a joke at his expense, it hasn’t landed. Spider’s as serious as a heart attack, his words grave.

‘And, so what? You– you feel sorry for me?’

Spider just looks away. Maybe he thought about training too. What they had been through– only for Spider to leave his legacy in blood on a marble floor. For River to still experience a living death, everyday. Maybe he considered how sitting at that desk must feel to someone with the world to give.

Or maybe not.

The blood’s up again in River’s ears. His cheeks are beet red and his jaw aches from clenching. So much has changed. So much has stayed the same. They walk a hall of broken mirrors; a corridor leading to the abstract nothing. The walk had almost ended for Spider, but he clung on. If only to throw River ahead of him.

Why does River continue the cycle? Why is he even here? A voice in the back of his head answers:

Because he’s the only one who knows what to do with the bits you break down into.

‘I haven’t missed you being such a prick.’ River is serious when he says it, but it’s an evasion. It’s pointless too. Spider can see it for the hubris it is.

‘Cartwright,’ River hates when Spider calls him by his surname. Like an old schoolmaster. It’s loaded with association, too. His grandfather, the super spy, and him, Cartwright the Younger. The disappointment. The black sheep no-one had the decency to send to slaughter. ‘They tell me Taverner’s coming down. You might wanna make yourself scarce.’

Something like vengeance flashes in River’s eyes. How sweet it feels when the upper hand begins to guide you.

‘If they’re sending her down in person, there’ll be two choices.’

He let that hang. Maybe Spider had already considered this.

Maybe not.

‘I don’t choose Slough House.’

‘Didn’t think you would.’

‘As a new expert on fates worse than death–’

‘Yes, fine.’

It irks River. That, even while lying in a hospital bed, Spider still commands the room. His confidence, misplaced though it is, is like a dagger between River’s shoulder blades. The first piece begins to come away.

‘When will you be discharged?’

‘End of the week, all being well. Few more tests.’ He’s vague, lest River mistake his condition for any sort of weakness. It was simply a matter of record keeping that he had been shot. Dodging death in a manner almost offensive, and powering ahead like he still has the world at his feet.

Only, it’s starting to settle in. What River had said. When one choice is Slough House, the other is quit the Service. There’s no route back to the Park. This isn’t the minor blip he’s pretending it is. This is as good a death as he’ll ever get.

River might feel sorry for him. Under all the resentment, there might be a tiny sliver of him that wouldn’t wish his life on anyone else. Especially Spider, for some reason.

They sit in their torturous silence. When they built their walls, they’d been too close to see that they’d hemmed each other in with them. Stuck in a hellish limbo between saying nothing and saying everything. The goodwill between them, if it ever had existed – in the liminal ‘before’ – had run dry. There remained only an itch, like a phantom feeling for something that could still exist, but never will again. River needs to be broken down, and James needs to consume him. That was the unspoken order of things. But, to admit it would be the worst betrayal. Instead they sit, in this prison of their own making, thinking of what life would look like, as if they didn’t already know.

‘I’m gonna go.’ As River turns to his coat, he finds the forgotten bouquet beneath it. Spider’s eyes widen. ‘Oh, yeah. I got you these.’ He extracts them, now more than slightly squashed, and hands them to Spider. ‘Lilies, in case you’d died.’

Receiving them now, Spider knows what he should say. He’s opened up a clear line of sight. You got me flowers, you pathetic fuck? But he can’t. Some unseen chain snags around his neck. He holds the flowers, plastic crinkling as he turns them over in his hands.

‘I wouldn’t make it that easy for you.’

River finds himself smiling, despite himself. Despite everything.

‘I’m sure.’ He throws on his coat. ‘Give Taverner my love and… erm– enjoy unemployment!’

‘Fuck you, River.’

‘Fuck you, Spider.’

And although they both wish it weren’t, the world as they’d always known it is back.

#river cartwright #james spider webb #spider webb #river x spider #river cartwright/spider webb #river cartwright x spider webb #waterspout #my weird sons and their psychosexual obsession with each other #georgia’s fics #slow horses #watch spider pretend he wouldn’t drink river’s bathwater for nearly 2k words!

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how-the-feathers-have-fallen · 10 months

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Me, fighting tooth and nail against my irl friends who are sw*fties: yeah well, maybe I want my sad girl music to have a 3 minute guitar solo and distorted audio after the second verse of vaguely gay lyrics have you considered that ?!

#admit it if pete wentz's lyrics were sung by some white woman to plain ass slow piano music with max 3 cords yall would eat that shit up #but heaven forbid it be layered and/or vocally/musically compelling with a decibel count over 65.2 #or not sung by a climate criminal trying to sound emotional or weepy but actually sounds constipated 💀#icarus' random screaming #icarus' burning life stories #anti taylor swift #im probably slicing my palm open for a demonic ritual in shark infested waters by doing this but oh well #pete wentz #fall out boy #icarus falls out #not even just fall out boy. I'll put on the tamest led zepplin or rage against song i can find and they look at me like 😶😣😖😨😰😱😵#i put on eat your young they ASK then i try explain the critique of war profiteering/capitalism and theyre like silly ***** readin too deep #LIKE YOU ASKED. I KEPT IT SO SIMPLE. YOUR FELLOW SWIFTIES LOVE THIS SHIT WTF #im scared to try and bring up mitski (esp. working for the knife/best american girl) lest i kill my own friends #like they're not insane conspiracy swifities and i love them dearly but they're fundamentally tiktok youth gen z and im... not :/#and im fine with it we joke and laugh about it and poke fun at each other for it but sometimes i feel so alienated #not on purpose. not by them. but i look at em and they look like test tube babies (not mean).#they look to me like what ginny & georgia looks like to them. too polished too stylised too... Just So #sometimes they look like the same lifeless tiktok copy and pasted and it scares me #im trying to remember that post about how tiktok thirst traps and general posts are so set up and stilted they look sexless #and robotic #anyway #the generational gap between me and my fellow teens/young adults 💀💀💀

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vvatchword · 7 months

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Only Man: Bailout

It was six in the evening when Sinclair finally thought to grab a bite to eat. The press had been unusually delighted with him, swarming his workplace, his office, his walk to Point Prometheus. Worse than wading through a mud slick—and made him late to every single affair that demanded leaving the office.

“This is the second time you’ve paid Topside’s debt, and it was a real chunk of change,” said one journo. “Tell us, what brought about this kind of selfless behavior from one of Rapture’s greats?”

Sinclair dramatically dropped his jaw and scoffed.

“Why, how dare you, sir!” he said. “We may not have laws against libel down here, but…”

The crowd of journalists laughed.

“Don’t let it be said I did this for anything more selfish than a friend’s company,” Sinclair drawled. “Don’t tell me there isn’t some friend you wouldn’t bail out just for the pleasure of seeing them pleased.”

For sustenance that evening, he chose the Silver Fork, a five-star in Fort Frolic. The only other choice was Tate’s, and he wasn’t feeling that charitable.

He had only just sat down when he glanced up and saw Ryan striding toward him.

“Why, Andy Ryan!” Sinclair rose from his seat, eyes twinkling. “Fancy seeing you ’round these parts.”

They shook, but Ryan said nothing. All that spoke were his eyes.

“Won’t you sit down?” Sinclair asked, gesturing at the table. “I haven’t ordered yet.”

Ryan lowered to the booth opposite Sinclair, only looking down to find an ashtray.

“So, what brings you to this corner of the Fort?”

“You paid off Topside’s debt.” Ryan put his cigarette out. “Again.”

“Guilty as charged.” Sinclair settled back with his menu, legs crossed, one foot kicking.

“Sinclair.”

“M-hm.”

“What do you mean to prove with this Topside business?”

“Prove?” Sinclair lowered his menu, smiling. “Why, I just want to keep a good friend out of trouble, is all.”

Ryan’s expression rarely faltered; it did here. A faint flicker of disgust flashed across his face.

“He is a parasite.”

“He is a fool, and a very entertaining one at that,” Sinclair said. He turned to the waitress, who had just appeared. “I’ll take the Arcadia, red, 1953. Thanks, sugar.”

Ryan waved her away before speaking again.

“You can measure the greatness of a man by the company he keeps,” he said.

“So I hear,” Sinclair said.

“Does he value intellect? Ability? Art?” Ryan cocked his head. “Or is he a beast rutting in the field?”

Sinclair nodded. “Mm-hmm. Very true. How’s Ms. Jolene doin’, by the by?”

Ryan’s gaze snapped up. Sinclair smiled at him over the curl of his wrist. The silence between them stretched for an uncomfortable minute before Sinclair finally cleared his throat.

“Look, Andrew.” Sinclair dropped his foot and his smile, sat back, and gave him the most solemn, constipated look he possibly could. “The kid is harmless. And when I say ‘kid,’ I mean he’s a kid. He has no idea what he’s doing. He can’t do a thing to Rapture except make it laugh.”

“When he flaunts his freedom, the city does more than laugh,” Ryan said. “It sits up. It takes notice. And the darker elements…” He closed his eyes. “The darker elements cheer him on.”

“Who, Fontaine?”

Ryan’s eyes flashed open.

Sinclair chuckled. “Fontaine doesn’t laugh or cheer. At least, not conventionally. Now, he likes you pissed off—ah, if you’ll pardon the expression—but he doesn’t spend half as much time thinking about you as you do about him.” Sinclair pointed at him with his empty cigarette holder. “Look, Andrew, you’re lettin’ these nobodies eat you up from the inside out. And they’re nobodies, you get me? Nobody’s as big as you.”

“Fontaine is hardly a ‘nobody.’”

“All right, I’ll give you that. But Topside is.” Sinclair looked into his breast pocket, raised his brows, and tucked the empty holder into his mouth.

Ryan’s eye fell to his pocket, drifted up to his eyes. “You yourself, Sinclair… sometimes I wonder.”

Sinclair smiled. “About what?”

“Whose side you are really on.”

“Capital’s, naturally.” Sinclair shrugged. “Thought we came down here to avoid all that, ah… ‘side’ nonsense.”

“There have always been sides, Sinclair. There is the philosophy and there are parasites. There is the philosophy and there are those who make a mockery of it.” Ryan drew another cigarette from his pocket. Oxford brand. He had been their spokesman for a time.

“The philosophy is about the dollar, so I’m all about the philosophy,” Sinclair said. “Look, you have nothing to worry about with me, chief. I’m a sensible man. But I am just a man, with a man’s needs. Same as you’ve got, I reckon.” His accent turned dramatic, his smile sarcastic. “I’d like this boy’s friendship and I can’t have it when he’s dangling from a ceiling. If you take the trouble to paint him up into a bogeyman, well… I’ll just say it: that’s less about him and more about you.”

Ryan’s lip curled. “Are you saying I lie, Mr. Sinclair?”

“Oh, lord, no. Not you.”

“Then,” Ryan said, snapping his lighter, “who is the liar here?”

“If you want to find a liar, I’m sure you’ll find one,” Sinclair said. His own eyes had grown dark and shuttered. Ryan gazed upon the same cold and unreadable expression as his own. Neither man blinked. Their standoff was broken only when the waitress returned with a glass, sliding it in front of Sinclair. It was Sinclair who blinked first, turning with a light cough.

“Ah, thank you, honey,” Sinclair said. “You sure you don’t want a drink, Andy? I’m payin’.”

“No. Thank you.” Ryan waved the waitress away. “Tell me, Sinclair. How much of your money is wrapped up in Fontaine’s matters?”

“About the same amount as is wrapped up in yours,” Sinclair said. “Ask your friends at Mulligan’s. They give you that information already, I presume.”

Ryan’s frown deepened. “You bought into Fontaine’s oxygen supply last I heard.”

“Oh, he’s gobblin’ things up right and left, chief!” Sinclair said, clapping himself on the chest. “And I’ve seen his delivery system. Just spectacular. Improves quality by every measurable standar…”

“Do you hear yourself?” Ryan asked.

Sinclair blinked. “Well, I’d hope so. I just put a helluva a lot of money in that thing.”

“Fontaine is taking the city.” Ryan said it to the table more than to Sinclair. He lifted his eyes. “And you are enabling him.”

For a moment, Sinclair was struck dumb. His eyes locked on Ryan’s, his mouth pursed up in what was trying to turn into a laugh.

“Pardon me?” he asked at last.

“Fontaine cares nothing for the philosophy,” Ryan said. “And he is poisoning this city one charity at a time. Surely you’ve seen it.”

“Andy, I must admit, I’m a mite confused,” Sinclair said, cocking his head. “Yes, he runs charities, but that’s his money. I’m not funding those. I’m funding the end to obesity and the latest synthetics for a pale complexion. Be reasonable, man. Ah, one second.”

Sinclair waved down his waitress, pointed at something on his menu, made a face, muttered something about the cook or the cut, and shooed her off.

“My apologies,” he said, clearing his throat. “Didn’t eat lunch. Are you sure you wouldn’t like…”

“Do you think he supports those wretches on his efforts alone?” Ryan asked.

“His money ain’t my money,” Sinclair said. “Once it passes hands it’s outta my control. I’m gettin’ what I asked for—the cure for, ah—cancer, baldness, even mortality—and a tidy profit on top all that—so why should I demand any more? Oh, I’ll say it, chief: this is unlike you. You gettin’ enough rest down there?”

“Is everything a joke to you?” Ryan asked softly. “Do you not see the city transforming beneath us? There could be no Lamb without Fontaine. There could be no Topside without Fontaine.”

“Andy, what the hell…”

“There could be no poorhouses, no orphanages, no bread lines. Already I see their little signs: ‘Ryan Does Not Own Us.’ For instead of raising themselves, they seek to degrade me. And if you believe they will stop with my head…”

“Let me stop you right there,” Sinclair said. “Now I read your essays on the philosophy. I even read your attempts at fiction, god bless your soul. And I’m tryin’ to think of a single instance where honest businessmen were cowing others into givin’ ’em more of a hand than they deserve. You should remember them, seein’ as you wrote it: those were the villains.”

“You accuse me of offering bribes?” Ryan spat.

“What do you mean by asking how much of my money goes into Fontaine’s coffers, then?” Sinclair asked. “Tell me, Andy—you’d rather I pour all my money into Arcadia? Well, Demeter’s been pushin’ 30% more O2 than Arcadia for the last six months. More O2, faster, with better CO2 scrubbers, better moisture entrapment and recycling—hell. You name it, they’ve built it. I’ve started running it through my Drop locations and it’s startin’ to look like air quality is better down with the homeless than it is up in Apollo. Look, I’d be a fool not to invest. Hell, you’d be a fool not to look into his tech.” He threw his arms open. “Why, I figured all this was the aim of the game. As I heard a wise man say once, ‘The strong will not be constrained by the weak.’”

Ryan sighed and rose slowly to his feet. “I understand your folly now, Augustus.”

“Oh, do tell,” Sinclair said, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket and jamming it into his holder.

“You believe in the dollar and nothing else,” Ryan said. “Not human integrity; not the narrow path.”

“I don’t believe in metaphysics, it’s true,” said Sinclair, and snapped his lighter. “And I thought you were the same.” He blew out a stream of smoke.

Ryan laughed soundlessly, mouthed his cigarette.

“Someday, perhaps soon, there will be a reckoning,” he said. “I will be watching you, Sinclair.”

Sinclair cracked a smile, leaning back in his booth. “Hope you like what you see. But if you don’t, do feel free to stop by for a chat. You know my door is always open.”

UPRISING: BLACK SCRAPBOOK HUB

#bioshock #bioshock 2 #topclair #augustus sinclair #andrew ryan #fanfiction #writing #since I've got some topclair watchers now lol #vvatchword #only man #uprising #this is a revised draft but it's wonky and I need to fix #two implications that won't come over: the 'justice' system in Rapture (which I invented according to libertarian ideals)#and Sinclair smokes cigarettes with real tobacco which can only come from the surface hence smuggling #as of this point in the story Topside is avoiding Sinclair but Sinclair is a fucking persistence predator #you could think of this as a slow burn #also my apologies to readers from the state of Georgia #I started slipping into Texanisms and just never stopped #enjoy that #or don't #I never get an excuse to write drawling southern characters so I uh #anyway what I really need to do is comprehend venture capital and what investing looked like in midcentury USA #I'm so bad at money and math you guys this is about to hurt me #anyway if anyone knows of any books please tell me #especially books with firsthand accounts and business motherfuckers talking business motherfuckery

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xothemedia · 4 months

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Ginny & Georgia 2x6 | “A Very Merry Ginny & Georgia Christmas”

#ginny & georgia netflix #xothemedia #ginny & georgia #Ginny & Georgia s2 #Georgia x Joe #georgia miller #joe Ginny & Georgia #Netflix #romance #slow burn #brianne howey #raymond ablack #blue farm cafe

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wandering-spaghetti · 1 month

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Cheap Adventures & Elusive Prey

Picture it, 2016, a couple of poor young people move in together just starting out our independent, grown up (or so we thought) lives and a fish we didn't know existed.

We were both working blue collar jobs and not making a lot, but also putting a teenager (my cousin) through school, including JROTC and FFA . Money was tight and we didn't have a lot extra to go out and do your typical fun things like movies or eating out. What we ended up doing in most of our free time was riding dirt roads on our way home from work. Ths evolved into stopping at every creek along the way to see if we could catch fish. You wouldn't catch us without fishing poles in the vehicle that summer!

And there we discovered one of our favorite things to do. Even now, eight years later and a lot better off you can still catch us creek fishing multiple times a year, especially in the summer. Fishing was fairly cheap for us to do and it was always so much fun because you never knew what you would catch. And finding new fishing spots was a challenge when we had the extra gas to ride around.

Several weeks into our fishing adventures I was talking to a coworker about some of our fishing experiences and he asked me if we had caught any Redfin Pike. I had never heard of such a fish so I was intrigued and asked him what it was and why they were special. According to him, Redfin Pike is a special kind of creek fish that is really hard to catch. They are elusive and don't bite just anything that drops into the water, they are also big fighters when you hook them despite being a small fish. They only get about 12 inches long. According to my coworker and other old timers I have spoken to apparently they are quite good to eat, talked about as a "chicken of the creek". He talked about them like they were almost a mythical fish. A unicorn, so to speak.

Part of what makes them hard to find is that they only thrive in running water, so many of the streams and creeks they used to flourish in have dried up or have been redirected to the point that they don't flow enough to be a suitable habitat for Redfin Pike.

My coworker also told me that they were bloodthirsty fish and that to catch them you would want to use a lure or other bait with red on it to resemble an open wound.

That was all it took, we were on a mission. A mission to find a unicorn. I mean, a Redfin Pike.

Armed with our favorite fishing gear and some new things we splurged on for this special fish, we headed out to some of our favorite spots. It took us a few weeks but eventually we did find a good fishing hole that was, if not teeming, then definitly well stocked with Redfn Pike.

What surprised us though is that we did not catch the first ones off anything red as we had been hearing that Pike loved. We caught the first ones on a blue crappie grub while we were trying to catch Warmouths at a creek that ran through a friend's property. We were so surprised that it took us a minute to realize that we had finally caught a Redfin Pike!

They were everything we had been told and so much fun to catch. We went to that same fishing spot several days later and were able to catch a few more on a lure that is a favorite of my husband's, he has caught everything from Largemouth Bass to tiny Breem, and yes, Redfin Pike.

Picture below of my husband, so proud of catching a fish we had spent weeks trying to find, and our biggest catch to date.

To this day we haven't eaten one of these so I can't speak for the taste but they are every bit as fun to catch as they are reputed to be. If you ever have the opportunity to fish in a creek in Georgia, be sure to keep an eye out for our elusive friend the Redfin Pike.

If you liked this post please visit my blog. The clicks really do help my self esteem :)

#fish #fishing #redfin pike #creek fishing #rural america #rural life #georgia #rural georgia #georgia girl #country girl #fishing life #slow living #country living #mepps lures #redneck things

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