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laawlesss · 2 years

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;; Childish Nature ..

— ;; minific monday! a oneshot every monday, usually under 5k words.. (..usually..)

>> in which you accompany a certain strawhat to sabaody park.

; words ? ; 3k.

; warnings ? ; mention of creepy guys.

; genre ? ; fluff.

; request ? ; yes.

; pairing ? ; monkey d. luffy x reader.

; notes ; no pronouns used for reader ! also i hc luffy as somewhat aro, definitely ace, but i tried to make it work <3 hope u like !!! this fic also has a playlist ! crossposted on ao3.

Bright lights and sounds blared from every angle, the cheery people of the Sabaody Park lifting your own mood. Sparkling displays and banners of every color drew your eye as you paced down one of the walkways, a giddy smile on your face as you took it all in. You’d always wanted to visit the famous amusement park on the Sabaody Archipelago, and now, you were here, all thanks to your beloved crew and your captain’s short attention span.

Speaking of your captain, you turned your head to Luffy, who was strolling alongside you, mouth stuffed full of some festival snack. His eyes were wide, eagerly taking in everything the park had to offer. Everything was bordering on overwhelming for you, but Luffy was entirely enraptured in the sights. You’d only ever seen your captain so amazed when Sanji had presented him with an eight-course meal aboard the Sunny, so seeing him with an expression of such childlike glee over an amusement park was extremely endearing.

“Hey look! That one is huuuuge!” Luffy grinned, pointing to a rollercoaster that rose well into the tall heights of the mangrove trees. It looked absolutely terrifying, the way it twisted and spun and inverted, and you could feel your stomach drop just thinking about it. You had begun to protest, suggesting maybe one of the smaller rides to start off with since you had really just gotten there, but Luffy just grabbed ahold of your wrist and began tugging you along.

You stumbled at first, but quickly adapted to match his pace, an infectious smile spreading across your face as Luffy whooped and hollered. The two of you dodged and ducked through the various stalls, narrowly avoiding tackling a few innocent folks by accident. The sight of your captain ahead of you, fluffy black hair ruffled by the soft breeze as his hat sat tied securely around his neck. He kept glancing back over his shoulder to make sure you were still easily keeping up, sending you a boyish grin that left your heart fluttering.

The two of you soon arrived at the entrance to the massive ride, and nervousness was beginning to pool in your stomach. You loved the adrenaline rush of adventure as much as the next person, but you definitely weren’t as much of a junkie for it as some of your crewmates, namely the ravenette in front of you. He was nothing but giddy, excitedly hopping and shifting his weight from foot to foot. It was impossible to calm him down as he raved about the ride.

“Do you think it goes backwards? Underwater?” His eyes sparkled, his energy never ending. “Upside down? There’s gotta be some loops!” By now he was nearly shaking with excitement, and you put a harm on his arm to try and get him to still. You reached to make sure the strings of his hat were tied tightly, so that there was no way that it would come flying off during the ride.

“Let’s hope there’s a tube if it does go underwater, you probably wouldn’t feel very good if the sea drenched you during the ride.” You giggled, pushing down your anxiety as best you could. The ride was completely safe, it wouldn’t be in operation if it wasn’t. Besides, you had Luffy with you! If something went wrong, he’d catch you! Although, he’d probably think you were just having fun and throw himself from the seats too, which didn’t really help calm your nerves.

“I hope the wheels light on fire!” He still had yet to let go of his wild imagination, stretching to see as much of the ride as he could. You gave his head a slight affectionate pat, smiling to yourself. If the coaster was built like the one in Luffy’s imagination, you were sure it would end in some kind of crazy disaster.

Soon the two of you were loading onto the ride, Luffy having urged that the two of you sit in the very front. Your heart was threatening to pound out of your chest as Luffy cheered, excitedly urging the ride to start sooner. You gulped, biting your lip as your grip on the overheard restraints became white-knuckled. Your stomach was twisting and turning in endless knots, and you felt like you were going to be sick. The tracks of the coaster loomed in front of you, seeming like a massive obstacle that you couldn’t conquer. Doubts flooded your mind, and you were seriously debating asking the ride attendant to let you off.

That was until the cart rocked into motion, and you were solidified into the decision. There was no going back, the cart clacking along the tracks as it began its steady incline. Luffy was laughing wildly, swinging his feet as he threw his hands in the air. A quiet whimper left you, and you shut your eyes tightly, your brow furrowed and your nose scrunched up. You felt as though you were going to be sick. A warm hand covered yours, and you looked up to see Luffy’s signature grin.

“Hey, c’mon! Don’t worry, it’s gonna be fun!” You were taken aback, a flood of warmth washing through you. He kept his hand over yours, laughing happily. It was easy for him to say, he had devil fruit powers that could easily get him out of a situation in case the ride malfunctioned! You were just a regular person, without any devil fruit enhancements. All the same, you did feel a bit better, pressing your head against the safety restraints as the cart neared the first drop, prepping to kick off the ride.

For a moment you were breathless, staring down at the massive expanse of Sabaody Park, at the sun filtering through the large canopies of the mangroves, the people milling around and enjoying themselves hundreds of feet below. You felt on top of the world, pure exhilaration filling you from head to toe. And then it vanished as the ride suddenly dropped, shooting off with a start.

Your eyes had shut immediately, and you had clasped so tightly onto Luffy’s hand that your fingers were beginning to cramp. You could hear your captain's cheers and hoots of glee, but you were too busy trying to keep your roiling stomach in check. Every drop and loop had your heart pounding even harder in your chest, butterflies slamming against your gut. You didn’t know if you would be able to make it off the ride.

Luffy, however, was having the time of his life, arms thrown skyward as the wind tousled his hair, cackling as the pressure buffeted his face. The rush was addictive for him, he didn’t really understand how you weren’t having fun! Each descent made his tummy drop, a feeling that made him giggle and kick his feet, sweet adrenaline coursing through his veins. It was like the feeling he got when fighting a strong opponent, except this time he wasn’t throwing any punches!

He let you hold one of his hands, giving you a small amount of comfort as the ride plummeted and swung around, cheers reaching your ears from the various other occupants of the ride. You had only just gotten used to the flip-flopping of your stomach when the coaster came to an end, sliding to a stop back at the beginning. Your head spun as the restraints lifted, and you pushed yourself up slowly, regaining your balance.

“Again! Let’s go again!” Luffy laughed, tugging on the overhead restraints in an attempt to pull them back down. He looked so excited, you really didn’t want to tell him no, but you didn’t think you could handle going again. Your legs were already weak as you stumbled to pull yourself up.

“You can go again if you want, Lu, I’m gonna go look for a snack.” You smiled warmly, stepping over to the side to let other people filter onto the ride. At your mention of getting a snack, Luffy shot out of his seat at a record speed, landing at your side as he grabbed onto your hand. It nearly gave you whiplash, the speed at which he moved and changed his mind.

You laughed as Luffy scrambled out of the ride’s exit, head swiveling back and forth in the search for some good-smelling food. In an instant, his eyes had widened and he had nearly begun to drool, dropping your hand and racing off to a stall out of your sight. “Luffy!” You had called after him, warning him not to go too far, and you jogged ahead to look for where he’d gone off to.

He did have a habit of acting impulsively, leaping before looking a vast majority of the time. You let out a sigh, dropping your shoulders with an amused shrug. It couldn’t be helped, and you found it more endearing than anything, at least he managed to have a sense of direction unlike the swordsman of your crew. You looked around as you strolled, figuring that you’d eventually be brought back to your captain if you continued to move. Sure, the park was huge, but your crew had an uncanny ability to run into each other when docked on an island.

Your eyes caught on a stall dedicated to throwing a ball and knocking over a few pins to win a prize. Scanning the options, you locked onto a large plushie of a silly-looking sea king, and you were determined to win it. You steeled yourself, paid the fee, and began launching the ball, silently wishing you had Usopp with you because your aim was proving to be terrible. A defeated sigh left you as you only won a few stickers, shoving them into your pocket. At least Luffy would like those.

As you spun, you were met with a few tall patrons, who seemed to be wholly interested in you. They stood a few stalls down, but their wicked gazes never left you, and you felt entirely uncomfortable and put off. Why were they staring at you? Did you drop something on your clothes? You brushed yourself off and tried to scurry away, the hair on the back of your neck rising. Whoever they were, they didn’t exactly radiate perfect hospitality, so you figured putting distance between them and you was the best idea.

However, as you rounded through a more secluded alley between two tents, you found that the men had you surrounded, odd smirks on their faces. They seemed almost like pirates, and you curled your hand into a fist. Did they know your captain? You didn’t have a bounty poster just yet, as you’d only recently joined the crew, but if you were in a fight you could probably take one of them. Your mind was racing, trying to think over why they would approach you, when one of them roughly grabbed your arm.

“Well, aren’t you just a pretty little thing?” His tone was lecherous, and his break caused your nose to wrinkle in disgust. You tried to yank your arm away, but his grip was firm, and he wouldn’t be letting go of you any time soon.

“Get off me, creep.” You spat, still trying to tug your arm away. Newfound adrenaline was pumping through you, similar albeit different from what you had felt on the rollercoaster. These men had you cornered, and you could tell they definitely didn't have the most innocent intentions. You needed to get out of there as soon as you could.

“Aw, look, the lil’ darlin’ is gettin’ all worked up.” Another sneered, hand latching onto your hip. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll fetch us a nice price.” He purred in a disgusting voice, leaving you to shiver. You felt dirty, grimy, the wretched company around you making you feel as though you needed to take several showers. All three of them had you situated where you couldn’t escape, their hands pinching at your sides and threatening to roam.

Tears sprung to your eyes and you began to panic, struggling to get them to let go, head spinning and latching onto the figure of someone who happened to be walking by. Your heart leaped into your throat, and you did your best to cry out, but your voice only came out as a mere whisper. It didn’t matter, however, because the person heard you, and he spun to face you.

Luffy, standing with two large ice cream cones, one in each curled fist. His eyes fell on you, and he grinned, excited to see you again. He’d finally found you! He hadn’t meant to run off, but he did bring ice cream as an apology, so surely you’d be happy with him, right?

His grin fell as he saw the tears running down your face, his brow immediately furrowing as you choked out his name. The ravenette seemed frozen as one of the men noticed him, waving him off with a bony hand. “Oi, get lost pal, ain’t nothin’ to see here.” His voice was gravelly and grated against your ears like nails dragging down a chalkboard. In a split second the ice cream was dropped, and Luffy was launching a sharp punch at the man who’d spoken.

His eyes were menacing, blazing with rage that would terrify you if it wasn’t coming from your captain. Steam was practically rolling off his shoulders, and his face was contorted with such a horrendous anger that it had your breath catching in your throat. The man was sent flying, earning a shout as the other two assailants were getting ready to retaliate. Luffy’s stretchy arms shot out and encircled your waist, and with a rush of wind, you were pulled to his side, almost collapsing against him.

He tugged off his hat and set it on your head, not saying a word to you as you were filled to the brim with butterflies. His action had you screaming internally, the gesture one of unbridled affection. Luffy pushed up one of his sleeves, and pushed himself forward, leaving you standing nervously. He launched attack after attack on the men, only satisfied when they were dazed and beaten to a pulp. He looked like a wild animal, the glint in his eyes absolutely dangerous.

Luffy stomped back over to you, and pulled you into a tight hug, your face smushing into his chest. You struggled to breath, wriggling around in Luffy’s grip until he let go enough for you to position yourself better. You thanked him for coming to save you, and he just nodded, sending a searing glare over his shoulder at the collapsed bodies of the men he’d defeated without even breaking a sweat. “Stupid jerks, making you cry.” He huffed, only letting go when you pulled back.

You wiped your face off with one of your arms, moving to give Luffy his hat back, but he used a firm hand to keep it on your head. “I dropped the ice cream, so we gotta go get so’more!” He smiled, lifting your heart as he reached to hold your hand, marching you out of the alleyway and back over to the stall where he’d gotten the ice cream in the first place, making sure to load up your cone with all sorts of flavors. He was determined to make you feel better and force the recent experience out of your mind, never straying further than an arm’s length after what happened.

Bringing Luffy back over to the stall with the plushie that you had become obsessed with, he won it with ease, throwing the ball with such force that it toppled the pins and tore through the back of the tent, whooping and hollering as he won the plushie. It was almost as big as you, and you insisted on carrying it, snuggling into it as you walked. One arm was clutched around the plush (which Luffy so affectionately nicknamed “Stupid” because of the dopey look it wore), and your other hand was clasped tightly in your captain’s grip.

He had helped you forget the events of earlier, dragging you from game to game, even pulling you on a few more rides that had your stomach begging for mercy. You had managed to give him his hat back, much to his protest, but eventually it sat snugly back atop his wild black hair. The day was perfect, full of excitement. You were eternally grateful to Luffy for so many things, for him insisting that you join his crew, for making you truly feel wanted, for saving you, and now for making your day endlessly enjoyable.

The two of you had eventually decided to begin the trek back to the Thousand Sunny, giddy with flushed faces after a long day. You were entirely worn out, you had no idea how Luffy still managed to be overflowing with energy. Climbing onto the grass deck, you sat down, craning your head back as you stared at the meager portions of the night sky that you could manage to see through the mangrove canopy. Your captain plunked down beside you, and you were immediately reminded of the stickers you had shoved into your pocket for him.

He looked as though you had nearly handed him the one piece, his boyish grin returning tenfold. He managed to get them stuck all over his face, laughing with glee. It warmed your heart how carefree he looked, cutesy stickers adorning his face. You couldn’t help but to giggle along with him, leaning your head on his shoulder as he recounted the day's events. Your heart leapt as he slung an arm over your shoulder, hugging you with his cheek pressed to yours.

Soon the deck was filled with the crewmates you had come to love, each telling about their own adventures. You were surrounded by such a loving atmosphere that you felt completely relaxed, a complacent smile on your face as you leaned against Luffy while your crewmates goofed around.

This was your home, he was your home, and you wouldn’t trade it for the world.

#— 🤍 ; minific monday!!#one piece #one piece fic #luffy x reader #monkey d luffy x reader #fluff

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adelaidedrubman · 11 months

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they keep making wednesdays

been tagged recently by @inafieldofdaisies @direwombat @jacobsneed @socially-awkward-skeleton @blissfulalchemist to share something for wip day! the always no pressure tags out to @florbelles @unholymilf @henbased @derelictheretic @poetikat @roofgeese @ishwaris @schoute @corvosattano @shallow-gravy @strafethesesinners @deputyash @josephslittledeputy @strangefable @bluemojave @voidika @confidentandgood @purplehairsecretlair @nightbloodbix @trench-rot @g0dspeeed @wrathfulrook @v0idbuggy and anyone else interested!

i have written on wildfire this week prommy. but for now. what if it was hook, line, and sinker chapter 2.

“If you’ve been just waiting around here for the past hour because you’re trying to work up the courage to ask me to join you, you can go on ahead and stop worryin’ your pretty little head.”

John rounded his current lap of pacing up and down the length of the dock to find the owner of the Marina perched on the side of his boat, legs crossed and coral painted lips curved into a smile.

“If you’re willing to wait the teensy-weensiest bit longer, I can be in a bikini, lathered up in tanning oil, and ready to hop aboard by around 9:30 — that’s the time Xander usually rolls outta bed, and I need to leave the shop in something at least resembling capable hands before I can set sail.”

John cleared his throat. “Mrs. Drubman,” he greeted, matching her smile as he sauntered to her side. “As flattered as I am by the offer, I’m afraid the position of first mate is already taken, for today. I have a date. I’m just waiting for her to arrive.”

“Well, I’ll be!” she exclaimed, hopping down from atop the boat to study him closer. “You got a girlfriend coming over?” she asked with a raise of her eyebrows. “Who is it?” she questioned, pouting her bottom lip. “C’mon, at least give your ol’ girl Addie a name.”

Ah, well.

He wished that he could, but that had been another oversight of the prior evening. He’d failed to even ask the redhead’s name before agreeing to her plan.

Which under normal circumstances wouldn’t have been much of an issue, but the quick turnaround from last night to their early morning (or at least it was supposed to be early morning) date left him with little time to pry around about her.

“Oh, come now, Addie.” He gave a charming laugh as he tilted his head to look up at her with soft, friendly eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t kiss and tell.”

“Don’t worry,” she leaned down to whisper in his ear. “I can be very discreet.”

Perhaps if he believed that, he would have been more tempted to abandon any hopes of his co-conspirator showing up to take her up on her offer.

Still, it occurred to him she could be of use to him in another way.

“My lips are sealed,” he teased, bringing an index to rest against them in a ‘shh’ gesture. “But…” He curled the index downward to pinch against his thumb. “I suppose a tiny hint wouldn’t hurt,” he hummed. “It’s someone I believe you’re quite familiar with.”

She should be, shouldn’t she? After all, beyond the fact the woman from last night had suggested meeting here in the first place, the one thing he knew about her was that she liked fishing. Surely she and the Marina owner were well acquainted.

“Honey, I’m familiar with a lot of folks, if you catch my drift,” she replied with a wink. “Gimme another hint.”

#wip

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l3m0ngal5 · 19 hours

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Off screen:Have you ever wanted something that was so clear in your mind that you could taste it?

???:You mean like human flesh?

Off screen:Eh, sort of

It's a feeling like a rumbling in your gut that you could finally be faced with

A billion needy faces

I guess what I mean to say is, for the first time in my life

I might have to be ready for this

Ready to be the one who's leading from the front

Gotta come into my own

Gotta come into my throne

Gotta take charge and defend my only home

And although I kinda feel unsteady

Now I need to be ready for this

Have you ever felt like you're willing to die to save the people of your city?

???:By "Die, " do you mean use my teeth to rip flesh apart?

Off screen:That's a start!

'Cause right now we need a leader

And it seems to me that destiny has picked me

To be that, if you'll permit me, so who's with me?

Wouldn't it be super to see more of Hell?

Join up now if you like travel

Come on boys, hop in the saddle!

Lotta sights to see en route to my hotel

Not to mention the camaraderie

Yes siree, you'll form life-changing friendships

With the folks along the way

Benny:And feast on all the angels you can eat

Peanut gallery:Okay

Free food!

I'm in!

Oh-whoa, It's food!

Nom-nom-nom

It's time now to act!

They're on the attack!

When they move to strike, we will fight biting back!

We'll follow your lead, we're eager to feed!

We'll sharpen our teeth for the heavenly feast

From this moment on, you can count on us

To be resolute and ravenous

Our appetites are whet and we're set to seize the day

So I say, oh hey, come join the flesh buffet!

Off screen:Well, that's a little violent, can we tone it down?

Champagne:Oh, don't be put off by their snarlin', that's enthusiasm, darlin'!

Off screen:Eh, they just seem a little murdery right now

Champagne:Don't worry, honey, that's their thing

Keep singing

Champagne and off screen:We're super-duper grateful

To have you folks aboard

Peanut gallery:We can't wait to taste an angel's wings!

Off screen:Oh, lord

For the first time in my life

Maybe I can be ready for this

I can be the marshal leading the parade

I can come into my own, and I think I've always known

My destiny could never be postponed

When Adam brings the battle here

I must appear like I'm ready for this

Champagne:They're dancing along

They're singing his song

Benny:Surprised? Why, I knew he could do it all along

Benny and champagne:he's bound to pass the test as prince of Hell

Like his daddy, he is madly power-fell

Benny:he's filled with potential that I could guide

Champagne:I concur! Stick with him, you'll be on the winning side

Benny champagne and off screen:For the first time in our lives, we know that we are ready for this!

We'll show Heaven a fight they won't forget! (Ah, ah, ah)

It is time to take a stand!

Off screen:It is time to lend a hand! (Huzzah!)

Against the angels, and their deadly threat!

All:We cannot take it anymore

The time has come to go to war

Prepare to fight

We're ready for this!

Off screen:I really hope that I'm ready for this

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 This song of these three is I don't have the words just yes

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mcmadmissile · 1 year

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Whoo! Got the green light from the backerkit team this morning, so the first batch of surveys (about 5% in total) has gone out! Once folks have started to respond and everything looks good, I'll send out the remaining surveys so don't worry if you haven't received one yet.

Of course this also means the preorder store is live! If you're already a backer, I recommend waiting for your survey to arrive instead of using the store. You'll have a chance to add items to your existing order and save on shipping that way, but feel free to share this link with any pals who missed out and wanna hop aboard!

Preorder here!

As promised, international shipping is now available and I have opened orders up to most countries. Unfortunately I still can’t sell to the UK at this time, but I will be able to offer the careweres via etsy once they reach me!

#carewere #preorder #werewolf #plush #monster #cute #sale #plushie

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zorilleerrant · 11 months

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Monkey Prince Arrowverse AU

so the idea of this story is that Pigsy taps Marcus to go on a journey across the multiverse to - as in the comics - fight off demons that are attacking superheroes throughout time and space. it's learning-to-be-a-superhero as allegory for coming-of-age, so I think Pigsy shows up on his eighteenth birthday, drops a bunch of bombshells, Marcus finds out he's adopted and also divine, and then doesn't get a chance to resolve anything with his parents before he's whisked off into the cosmos to do who knows what.

then (because it's a coming of age narrative) he proceeds to go into the first season of each Arrowverse show, when the protagonists are learning about their powers and backstories, and reflect the themes of their narratives and attitudes in developing his own powers and learning who he is as a person. it would start with Arrow (obv) and then end with Legends, except not first season Legends, last season Legends, because then they would just be like. oh, universe hopping Monkey God, that makes sense, come aboard. with the implication he travels with them for a while until he can get home.

he can't get home because he's on a quest, and he's not allowed to return until he's finished with what the forces of the multiverse need him for. (this is probably implicitly the Endless or something, but it's not important, it's just setup.) so there's kind of a Sliders or Voyager vibe to it, that he's doing stuff in the meantime, but ultimately he wants to go home (and maybe be a hero at home).

while he's not explicitly queer in this narrative, it's all very metaphorical of not being who he thought he was and wondering how his parents would react to all that. the more explicit stuff would be trying to reclaim the culture he's been separated from because he didn't know he was a Monkey God or anything, and reconsidering his entire religious worldview.

but a lot of it is also figuring out how the superheroes look from the outside, because he'd be in their shows, but they're not really in his show in the same way, if that makes sense. so he does meet some of the characters, but he'd interact a lot more with background characters in trying to solve each season's "mystery" (demon plot). random folks in each of the superheroes' cities, who have Opinions and are willing to go on about them at length.

and then slowly he learns that he's going to fuck up a lot and nothing can be done about that, and that not everything is his responsibility, and even if it were he wouldn't be able to do all the things he wants to do. and he has to figure out the best path for himself and achieve enlightenment and that stuff. that everyone is important but everyone can't be important to him at the same time, or he wouldn't be able to make choices anymore. and he just tries to help.

it starts out with Pigsy (ostensibly in charge, but slowly revealed to not have that much more information than Marcus), Marcus, and a slowly growing entourage who travels through the universes with them. (because I want to include Shelli and all.) and then at the end they join the Legends family and go home once in a while

#I know it's more angsty than really dark. I was thinking and the dark one was the HBO tie-in version #look i said something

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woodsfae · 2 years

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Babylon 5 S01E12: Signs and Portents

First

ToC

ohgodpleaselethisbelessdepressing.jpeg

edit: less depressing, whew!

Fingers crossed for Susan/Talia content, since it opened on Susan Ivanova! Ivanova needs a timed sunlight lamp for those difficult, dark wake-ups.

Secret Jump Point? If the Raiders are hopping in and out with almost no notice, and are disappearing two hours before they should be able to get to any known jump gate. It would make sense.

Sinclair wants to investigate what happened to him in his missing 24 hours. Logical.

I'm always down for G'Kar bickering with Londo Mollari.

"Before you set out on a journey of revenge, dig two graves," is what G'Kar's deep and only desire to see the Centauri genocided reminds me of.

A ponytail-less Centauri-ess? She's awfully cheerful. "Fire, death, pain, *collapses*" Better forewarned and forearmed as to any destruction of Babylon 5, of course!

"She's been wrong before. On my first birthday she said I would be killed by shadows."

Oh. Yeah, that's definitely going to be how he goes out, and probably this episode, too.

Delenn! I've missed you. And immediately, mystery and suspense. There is a high level of mysticism implied, with just enough skepticism that I'm never quite sure how sci-fi or magical the setting is. An intriguing blend.

Aspiring to rule things is so tedious. The glory would turn to ashes so quickly. All that paperwork. *delicate shudder*

If I was Aunt Prophetess I don't know that I could stay in a place where I was continually seeing death and destruction.

Raiders aboard Babylon 5, eh? Gnarly. I'm not sure if their goal is to steal the Centauri Eye, to destroy Babylon 5, or some combination of those and other things. Either way, I'm guessing there will be some death and destruction a la Aunt Prophetess.

Getting real fae vibes. Be careful with your words when speaking to oddball folks asking "What do you want? Is that really want you want?" Big bummer that Londo's deep desire is for the Centauri to have the undisputed Empire in the Area again.

It's so easy to bring weapons on Babylon 5 and attack people with them. Garibaldi is falling down on the job. How on earth do the ambassadors not have permanent security details on them? Still, I support people stealing from the Centauri ruling class.

"The ship's too small to make its own jump point," more tech details! Large vehicles can do solo jumps. More questions abound with this info.

No one better ever doubt Aunt Prophetess again. Ladira, per Londo.

"The Shadows have come for Lord Kiro. The Shadows have come for us all!"

Kosh out-weirding the weirdo "what do you want" guy. And doing it by being less cryptic than any point so far!

This is a far better space battle than many I've seen. The station really helps with pinning down where and how far. But did they get the thief and Lord Kiro? I couldn't quite track that.

I very much doubt that's the last we'll see of the Raiders, Garibaldi.

They did not catch the thief and Kiro, who was collaborating not brave, and is now being double-crossed! By the Raiders! Who's ransoming him and the Eye! And blackmailing him! It really is no more than he deserves.

The Shadows got Kiro and the Raiders. What are the Shadows?

"A gift, from friends who don't know you have,"

and it's the fucking Eye. Fae vibes increasing. good fucking grief. I have no idea what's going on.

"We will find you, Master, we will find you,"

who the hell is Morden?! I do not know what's happening.

Cut to a casual conversation over the urinals. I did request a lighter episode! edit: pfffft, here's where that gif goes, lol.

More plot! A lighter episode that's Big Plot focused. Just what the doctor ordered. The Minbari rejected every potential commander for Babylon 5 till Sinclair's name came up. They handpicked him via noping their way down a list of generals and rulers.

And, though Garibaldi didn't say this, they kept it so quiet, Sinclair didn't even know it wasn't just an assignment.

Aunt Prophetess sees the death/destruction for Babylon 5, still. Although she doesn't see absolutes. Nice that her visions aren't deterministic. Her bow seems like a very deliberate choice. Is a much higher status also in Sinclair's future?

It’s a few days since I watched this, so I can’t recall where in the episode this gif goes, but I’m giggling over the Boys having a conversation over the urinal.

Solidarity forever! For the union makes us strong.

#babylon 5 #jeff sinclair #michael garibaldi #delenn #londo mollari #woodsfae gif #woodsfae b5

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sagely-perception · 1 year

Text

Subliminal Deck Updates - 3

Happy Winter Solstice! Enjoy the longest day of the year and know that the sun will start to stay out later~

For the deck, it's a small start to a countdown for the Kickstarter to begin! From today, it's 10 days until January 1, which is when it'll be officially launched~

If anyone wanted to hop aboard the early following of this project, feel free to follow the link in the comments which I'll put in.

Otherwise enjoy the holidays and stay safe! Thank you folks who have been with me since I had the prior username themagickcat and for those mutuals who I've gotten to know over the years ♥️

#playing cards #oracle deck #kickstarter #witchcraft #witchblr

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empty-masks · 1 year

Text

Book Five, Chapter Three

CW: Strong Language, Sexual References, Graphic Violence, Fantasy Bigotry, Smoking, Alcohol Use, Light Body Horror

After getting himself aboard and slumping over against one of the truck bed’s walls, Azariah opens his mouth to try and quip about the situation, but the words come out three times fastforwarded, like what happens when you skip through a song to find a funny lyric you’d noticed. “Iwould’vebeenhereearlierbutadogchasedmeontheway back— oopsholdononesecond,” he says. He cracks his neck, runs his fingers along his lips, smacks them a couple times, then finally, turns back to the other folks in the truck bed. “Did someone fall out? Me an’ Meat nearly tripped over somebody’s body on the way past.”

Brie points to the happy couple in the corner adjacent. “They had taken care of someone particularly frightening behind us. I believe they shot him.”

“Looked like someone’d thrown him through a couple sheets of glass.”

“He was glass, Azariah,” Judith rolls her eyes.

“That’d explain it,” he says, yawning. “Now, if y’all excuse me, I need to pass out. My legs feel like they’re ‘bout to disconnect from my hips, and my heart feels like an overfilled water balloon.”

He attempts to put his feet up on Meat’s lap, as a little joke, but they have none of it, pushing him away and standing up behind Olive, who is still in the process of blocking bullets from her knees, albeit slowly, as though Sundae’s firing pattern hasn’t gotten any more accurate, it’s certainly gotten more cautious about the random angles she chooses to fire at.

“Do you need help?” they ask, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“That’d be nice, but I ain’t sure what you’d be able to do,” Olive starts, but upon seeing Meat’s hand conjuring a magical fireball like a toilet flushing in reverse, she decides to just say, “Okay, that looks like it’ll do the trick.”

Piper, half-transformed and having to keep her frustration at a simmer, lest she go berserk and crash the car, grows increasingly worried at the prospect of being hit back by their targets, especially since the flaming corpse and the Hare had passed them in the tunnels, hopped on to the back of the truck, and the former decided to set their hands on fire.

Sundae, on the other hand, is still having a time just firing off her revolver. She’s having such a time, in fact, that her hammer-pulling thumb has gotten quite tired, and she’s physically slowing down, even though her heart tells her to keep firing.

Or, it might not be her heart at all— there’s a part of her that knew instinctively that when she met Piper, it was going to be in her best interest to do the things she says, but only to the degree of a lackey. From the way that she addressed the four of them, to the way that she kicked an old man while he was down, instead of finishing the job then and there. She’s cruel, overconfident, and most importantly, cowardly. The last of which meaning she’ll take any opportunity to put herself over others to ensure they can’t hurt her.

So, the plan had been simple. The others can bust their asses for the jobs, but Sundae was going to have her cake and eat it too. She was going to do her job to the minimum, so that she could revel in the presence of someone like Piper getting absolutely livid beside her. And boy, is Sundae feeling the revelry at this point in time. What’s the bet that Piper ends up getting her pay docked for all this? Ends up getting chewed out by one of her superiors? The last guy didn’t think he had any superiors, but at least he had the balls to act the way he thought. Maybe she’ll even get demoted. Getting her fired would be bad, but having her as a lackey? Sundae’s very own evil, cynical, violent, and insecure lackey? A couple hits every now and then would be worth the trouble in the end.

As she reloads her revolver, grinning from the state of her headspace, she takes another punch to the shoulder, causing her to spill a full handful of revolver slugs onto the floor.

Piper slams the dashboard in frustration, causing it to shatter like the windshield did earlier. “Fuck! Fuck, god damnit, shit,” she says, her defilement of the car’s interior taking the wind out of whatever she was going to berate Sundae for.

“Pick it up, quick. Get back to shooting, idiot.”

“Of course, boss,” Sundae responds, leaning over in her chair. She takes her time sorting out shards of the windshield from the bits of brittle dashboard from the shiny brass casings of her rounds, and time is exactly what she needed to take, as a hand-sized fireball hits her car seat headrest, showering the cabin with flaming dust and cushioning.

She has to muffle a snicker as Piper hiss-screams in surprise, rapidly trying to staunch the setting fires with a free hand. Quickly, she gathers up the rest of her bullets (she knew where they were all along, the effect was to keep the pressure up on the snake) and helps her boss put out all the fire, even if it means leaning up against a seat that’s missing its headrest.

“It looks like you made somethin’ explode in there, Meat,” Olive comments, still bracing herself for any stray shots that their chasers could muster. “But I don’t think you hit the person who was shootin’ us.”

“Fine by me,” they say. With a glance, they notice that the Owl’s leg has been bandaged with one of Lucille’s sleeves. “You should take a break. I’ve got it from here.”

She looks up at them, narrowing her eyes. “I’m not movin’ until we’ve lost’em.”

“Couldn’t Brie just shoot them?”

“My last magazine was spent on Judith and Leon’s plan, Meat,” she comments, holding her semi-auto out for them to see. “And it’s quite difficult to hit anything when the platform we’re on is moving at such a speed, much less in the dark, and of course, when you’re afraid for your life.”

“And nobody else can help?”

Everyone else in the truck bed shrugs.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” they sigh. “I’m gonna end this, then.”

They take their position behind Olive, and begin to charge up a fireball with the intent of hitting the driver square in the jaw. If the one that had missed had caused so much pandemonium in the passenger seat, then who can tell what one in the driver seat can do.

But, the plan is interrupted by Roxanne knocking on the sliding glass door between the bed and the cab, opening it quickly, and calling out, “Everyone grab onto the hand-holds, please. Cherry’s about to speed up, and we don’t want anyone falling out. This includes you, Meat,” she says before sticking her head back in the cab, after seeing that the Notus hadn’t done what she had asked.

==============================================================

It’s a hectic moment inside of the truck’s cab, somehow more hectic than the mess outside with bullets still flying by between Sundae’s reloads and the number of people having to get good handholds in the wood and metal bed of the vehicle. Meat, for added measure out there, has to make sure they’re holding metal, and only the thick parts they can find, avoiding anything delicate as though the truck itself might have some parts mysteriously made from tissue paper.

In front, Cherry’s hands are gripping the steering wheel tight enough to make his forearms ache and both Jules and Roxanne are staring straight ahead of them. On the map’s a chasm crossing, one of the largest in the tunnels and one of the most efficient vehicular shortcuts made during the heyday of the Shepherd operation here; in its original construction it ramped up to a higher ledge on the other side and should lead right outside, which while it means the chase would then be on open road, a place where Cherry assures himself he could definitely beat the car behind him, there’s a new problem. Whatever bridge was there prior had collapsed.

There is, however, a solid meter or so of bridge jutting up and out from their side of the chasm, terminating there in ragged, jagged edges as though ruined by great claws— or perhaps just time, but that’s something Cherry doesn’t have to waste on something frivolous like the why or how of an old, old bridge having fallen in the past five years. What he has to worry about is the logistical danger of trying to make that jump.

As Jules searches Cherry’s features, a fear pools in the hollow of his stomach, right on top of the lackluster meal he’d had of the last of Davey’s mushrooms. “You’re actually going to jump it? Kid. Look, we’re beat, sometimes that’s that.”

“We are not beat,” Roxanne snarls back at the Vampire, but when she sees the ramp getting closer she frowns and glances toward the driver also. “Perhaps we could just stop and overpower them with the truck?”

Cherry shakes his head. It’s hard to feel their voices in the thrum and thrill of the metal around him, the way the frame’s rattling and the engine’s roaring, the give and take of the wheel his fingers are curled around. His eyes don’t leave the ramp, but his mouth moves to offer, “We might lose people that way. We can do this.”

“We’re gonna lose all of us this way.” Jules’ frown grows deeper set in his face. “And here I go dying. I should—”

“We can do this,” Cherry cuts him off. “Everyone’s holding on. I was going to save this for any open road chase we might have, but we’ve got this. Besides, it’s like everyone’s forgot I’ve got magic.”

“Magic that allows you to take things apart, Cherry,” Roxanne points out, but pats his shoulder anyway with a resigned sigh. “You aren’t going to take the car apart, are you?”

Cherry’s right hand leaves the steering wheel to pick an object up off the dashboard; in his hand and against the wheel he holds a simple switch wired into the truck, which he rigged himself during the installation of that little gift he’d gotten in Pickman’s Hope. It’s a handle with a button on top, and from the bottom runs a simple wire into the machine, connected to the payload, the can of Pounder Nitrous.

He’s direly hoping that after all the checks and re-checks, after all the mechanical considerations, alterations, and nights spent poring over this engine like a surgeon, that he hasn’t forgotten something. Every single inch of this truck is rendered perfectly inside of his skull, vibrant and beautiful in its dirty, rust-bait junkheap way. The pedal beneath him is pressed near flat to the metal floor and the truck’s screaming to its top speed, setting the vehicle to rattle and screech between its joints, scraping metal on metal with the speed and shrill tones of a vengeful spirit.

Jules and Roxanne hold onto their seats in a literal sense. In the back everyone else does the same, but it’s only once an overly cautious Lucille looks ahead of the truck that she realizes what’s going to happen. “Hold on even tighter,” she says to the rest of them. “I think we’re about to jump the gap.”

Azariah’s still half-wheezing when he holds up a hand and tries to shout, “Kick it, Cherry!” And it does get out, at least a little, though he’s left sputtering and clutching not only the side of the truck bed but also his literal side.

As the truck beneath them accelerates to its top speed, they’re all shaking hard and watching as Piper’s car is losing ground, falling behind.

Sundae scowls and takes a few shots lower, attempting to hit the truck’s tires before she’s smacked with a bronze tail. “What the fuck was that for?” She screams. “I’m trying to win!”

“And have that truck kill us at the same time? Wreck while we’re both gunning it inside a cave?” One of Piper’s hands slams against the dashboard, balled into a fist. “Fucking useless trash— the plating’s slowing us down!”

“Do you expect me to do something about it? Crap, they’re still speeding up, they’re gonna crash in the gorge ahead at this rate.”

Piper scoffs. “Let ‘em. Anything worth keeping’ll survive the crash.”

“But that’s gonna kill them—”

“We can dig their bones out of the wreckage afterward. We can go find Jack and Nancy, those morons.”

Cherry’s thumb rubs the button, a nice, shiny red one, as his fingers curl around both the right side of the steering wheel and the switch handle. His brain feeds him images of straightaways and tight corners, an open road and a cloudy sky, somewhere to go, to drive, to fly. The world is silent around him as even the rattling and roaring of the truck goes quiet and all he can hear is his own heartbeat and the soft click as he pushes his thumb down on the switch.

A click and a soft hiss, something new being fed into the beast’s organs, life itself. Nothing so pure has touched this engine in a long, long time and it’s almost forgotten the taste of this special flame, burning bright and furious in the dark, longing to abandon the road and chase the sky. The old monster gives its all as it powers beyond itself, rumbling like thunder and speeding like lightning toward the ramp and then off of it, sending itself upward, angling like a shark breaching the water, pointing its blocky nose and roaring maw toward the higher peak.

The animal’s done its part, now comes the driver’s. Cherry hasn’t done it for something this big before, and all his practice hasn’t explicitly been about lifting, mostly figuring and reconfiguring and, even more so, deconstruction. His brow furrows and every muscle in his body tenses at once as, in his mind, he focuses on the whole of the truck, grasping with his mind at every dip and curve of the metal, more familiar to him now than even his own fathers’ faces, because it has to be. If it isn’t the most detailed thing in his mind he’ll lose his grip and they’ll fly into the chasm below.

His body wants to rip apart inch by inch, bone by bone and muscle by muscle. Every tendon wants to snap and his brain itself wants to become a ball of lightning. Luckily enough, his bones are made of rock now. They couldn’t come apart now even if he wanted them to. It’s an anchor of sorts as he feels, physically, like the amount of force he’s exerting is going to make him explode.

His mind is undergoing a similar duress as he takes it upon himself to perform a telekinetic deadlift, doing his best to make sure that the truck goes beyond the peak of the typical arc, having to essentially cancel out the factor gravity plays in this vehicle’s movement. In a single instance it’s like he’s trying to drag the car up with his bare hands, at the same time pressing his shoulders against a ceiling he cannot see pushing him down.

Gravity, wind resistance, friction, these are all just hands attempting to push the truck away from the further ledge. They’re arms of enemies, locking with him as he raises it, canceling them out. He’s taking the hits and suffering their forces as the truck does not.

Piper’s car screeches to a fast stop a meter or so away from the bridge-ramp itself and the two women inside stare, wide eyed and infuriated, confused, as they watch a Stallion Q “Mountain Screamer” model truck, half a step from the grave, fly. Every person in the truck bed is holding on for their lives, screaming, some laughing, some crying. The two watch as it flies in a perfect upward arc up to the higher ledge and over it, where it lands and continues on a beeline for the exit.

Roxanne and Jules are laughing wildly inside the cab, everyone is in the back too save for Brie, Meat, and Judith, the first two simply glad they're alive and the third halfway to transforming in Leon’s arms from the stress while he goes straight from laughing into a coughing fit.

The Fox slaps Cherry on the shoulder and grins over at him, shouting, “You’re incredible, Cherry. Even if you did quite nearly kill us all.” Her smile doesn’t last long, though, as they make their way down the tunnels and toward what appears to be natural light.

Cherry, glancing at her, smiles. Both of his eyes are bloodshot, and when he opens his mouth to speak he has to clear his nose, from which discolored blood punches out. “You really think so?”

Jules blinks. “Just to let you know, Rox, I don’t know how to drive. Just saying.”

“I’m fine, I’ve still got it. Why? Something wrong?”

Jules and Roxanne both shake their heads before she says, softly, “Eyes on the road, Cherry. We’ll worry about you when we’re safe.”

Brie looks down behind the truck behind them, then sighs. “Do you think we really escaped?”

“We didn’t escape, we’re lucky. They screwed up.” Meat’s settled beside her, rubbing their neck to crack it. “Not sure if we’ve seen the last of that asshole, though.”

Brie shrugs. “All things considered, I am sure that we at least have some time, or a head start. Besides, I am out of bullets.”

“Miffed you don’t get to put one between Piper’s eyes?”

“No. I do not like her, but I am not inclined to mourn not getting to shoot her. I am nervous about something else entirely.”

“Blondie somehow coming back again?” Meat’s head tilts.

Brie shakes her head. “We left my car in Pickman’s Hope.”

“Oh.”

==============================================================

So many eyes. So many arms, so many claws, all reaching and ripping and clawing. And they go where they please, too— Blondie would rip one of them off, only for them to reappear somewhere on the Cave Shadow’s body a few seconds later, fending off one of the other two idiots who’re chasing him. It was all far too much to focus on. After getting pummeled and clawed and scraped from every angle imaginable, turning his brain into mush as he waited for his turn to fight back, he realized that he just had to muscle through the pain to hit it while it’s hitting him. And so, that’s what he did.

But as he fought, he began to feel a pulling. As though the thing was sinking hooks into his mind and slowly but surely tugging them in different directions. It would get worse with every slice taken out of him, and every time he’d try to conjure up some kind of flame to make some space, the fire in brain would start to get stomped out. And it was tiring. More tiring than anything he had ever imagined a fight could be. He was fighting infinitely regenerating sawblades, a box of mental fishhooks, and a magic-quelling, fire-retardant boot at once, and it wore him down better than his coat ever did, back when he wore it.

And the thing looked at him. Though the Cave Shadow isn’t a Monster known for its relative intelligence, this one, towering in comparison to even Blondie, had a devilish focus to its eyes that made him want to tuck his tail between his legs (the burnt stub it is), and hunker down into an emotional cage. It would look at the three of them simultaneously, sliding its eyes up and down its body instead of moving its pupils, collecting them and scattering them where appropriate. They were nearly impossible to hit, but when Blondie managed to get a hold of one, it simply closed a shadowy lid, and dissipated back into the black cloud that the Monster calls a body.

But, it had a weakness. Everything has a weakness, and Blondie knew that he’d find it eventually. Even though the assault the thing was harboring on him was brutal and aggressive, he saw that it only ever liked to keep a certain distance, pressuring its prey into corners to be chopped apart. And out of him, the tin man, and the crazy person with the shotgun, he was the one it focused on the most. So, in a half-enraged effort to stop himself from being sliced to pieces, he leaped forward into its body.

It was as though he had entered a dimension of death. The floor underneath him was a swirling shadowy purple, and in the center of the room, there was a spine running up the length of the Monster. And though he didn’t have much time to take in the scenery, as he could feel it writhing and screeching and turning its eyes and claws inward to locate the infection, he knew that as he began to tear chalky chunks out of its one internal weakness, that it was too familiar for comfort.

Cave Shadows do not stop growing in their lifetime, and they do not die of old age. The Magic that holds them together is unknowable to most, and entirely foreign to those Monster Folk who understand their own magical attunements. They chop and they slice and they will kill entire groups of unprepared adventurers without remorse, but they have never once been observed as feeding, as their eyes are capable of uncovering even the most well-hidden of investigations.

But, the bodies always go missing. Only shredded rags (that were once clothing or armour), chipped, bent, or cracked weapons, and ruined equipment remain at the sites of attack. And of course, the Cave Shadow is always lurking right around the corner from these sites, as they appear to understand their prey’s natural curiosity.

They get bigger with every kill, the bodies go missing, and there’s no telling what Magic makes them whole.

As Blondie ripped another chunk out of the Cave Shadow’s spine, he crushed it in his paws, noting the presence of a Humanoid Skull. Another chunk, this time he noted a handful of ribs, leg-bones and arm-bones and hints of finger-bones, all calcified together into a grisly, limestone-like substance. He didn’t have time to classify everything he saw, or really even consider it— he saw a structure that he could grasp, that he could work at, and so, he did.

But the Monster fought back from the inside. As it screeched in pain from Blondie’s efforts to survive, it pulled more and more of its limbs into its body to hack at him. It shrieked and shook with every corpse liberated from its structure, and its attempts to stop him grew more frantic, more desperate.

He could feel the hooks in his mind begin to loosen, he could feel the fire begin to scorch the boot that stomped it. Even though he was certain it wasn’t the same, he felt something like a burning adrenaline surge through his body. It was hurting. The same way that the Wyrm, the one who was so confident, so sure of itself up until the moment where he had found a gap in its armour, hurt. It was crying in pain, screaming for the pain to stop as it flailed at him while he ripped its support out from under it, chunk by dusty chunk.

But it didn’t beg. And it didn’t ask for forgiveness. It was more like an animal, by the time he had torn through the bone and reached its sight-warping core. He could feel it wanting to run as he wrapped his claws around the center of the spine, wanting to hide from him as he began to pull at its abyssal power source. And in its dying moments, Blondie heard it release one last shriek of intense pain before he felt its core explode in his hands, and the spine that reached so tall into the darkness began to fall, like a beautiful, twisted house of cards.

And in that moment, he began to laugh. The veil of darkness dissipated around him, the hooks released his mind, and back in the real world, he was left in the blue brightness of the grotto, standing in a pile of stony death and wispy, purple remnants of his prey floating through the air. He laughed at the world’s attempt to put him down again, he laughed at the pain that the Monster felt before having lost its pitiful life. He laughed because he was stronger, because he was tougher than anything else in this world. No Dragon, no abomination, nobody could stop him.

His high was interrupted by buckshot hitting the back of his head. The other two were still alive. And they wanted him dead. And when he began to walk towards them, corpses cracking and turning to dust beneath his feet, he realizes that his arm, the one that had dealt the killing blow to the Cave Shadow, had been turned to a blackened, purplish twig from the shoulder down— and that it was nothing but a stump from the elbow down. In its last stand, it had taken one of Blondie’s tools for itself, understanding its power.

It was like being spit on by someone you were holding at gunpoint. And that made him angry. It made him very, very angry.

It takes them a while of frustrated driving through the silence that hangs in the cave system, but when they find the grotto, it’s not hard to tell that it’s the right spot. There’s only one thing left standing in the bioluminescence, and when Sundae is ordered out of the sedan to investigate, she wonders whether it’s going to be something that kills her. After all, the things that lurk in these caves are known to be vicious.

But, she bumps into something on the floor. And when she takes a closer look, she finds it to be Nancy. Scorched, bleeding, broken, and unconscious, but still breathing. She’s missing her shotgun, her clothes have been torn to shreds, and it looks as though she’s knocking on death’s door.

“What’s the holdup, Sundae?!” Piper calls out from the car.

“Can you see Jack?” she asks, hoisting the mercenary up onto her shoulder and working her way back toward the vehicle.

“What are you talking about? I want you to shoot that thing,” Piper yells, motioning violently toward the shape in the center of the room, “so we can go home already!” “Boss, these two aren’t going to live if we don’t—”

Piper blares the horn of the sedan, causing the thing to rear what appears to be its head toward the two of them. “Get on it, you fucking idiot!”

In a moment of horror, Sundae is forced to set Nancy’s body down on the stone, pull out her revolver, and begin firing at the beast, who though is attempting to make its way toward them, appears to be limping, using one of its arms to keep itself from falling over. The bullets don’t seem to do too much, only causing it to flinch here and there where they manage to hit. And Sundae herself is actually a crack shot with her cannon, it was taking effort back when they were actively chasing the fugitives to miss as much as she did.

But it didn’t stop. And as it got closer, the two of them began to realize what a state it was in.

Starting from the top, its face brings to mind what happens when someone gets their skin peeled off, but what’s left underneath is a bright orange mass of glowing, pulsating magic. Even its maw, missing teeth and slightly broken in one direction, remind the onlookers of looking into a miniature sun, contained within the beast’s mouth.

Its body, if one could call it that, is disfigured beyond use. Deep cuts crisscross its chest, legs, and remaining arm, revealing more of the glowing, oozing orange substance to open air. The twig that’s left of its right arm seems still able to be moved, and the purple shadows that consumed it have begun to work its way up its shoulder, intent with taking over the entire torso.

Except, of course, for the shotgun in its chest. A hole has been carved out where its breastbone should be, by unknown means, and Nancy’s shotgun, barrel angled up toward the thing’s spine, is wedged firmly into the cavity. That wound instead drips slowly with the same bright orange substance found elsewhere, leaving a trail of glowing material as it drags itself toward Piper and Sundae.

It looks dangerous, sure. Monsters always look dangerous, even when they’re hurt. The fact that it looks like it has a sun inside its body contributes heavily to that feeling. It also looks like it can’t feel a thing with the way it’s determined to cross the room, no matter how long it takes to drag itself. But, Piper knows better. It’s been beaten. It just doesn’t know it yet.

And in the cab of the car, Piper considers to herself what to do. Those miners escaped, but she can catch them later (hopefully without the intervention of these absolutely useless mercenaries). And speaking of the mercenaries, one of them died. At which point she decides that she’s going to leave the old fucker’s corpse where it lies, since heading back home with a body in the trunk would not be a fun thing to report. Especially since it’d have to be HER car, too. But, showing up at HQ empty-handed would be horrible for business. No bounty to claim, no bodies to show, no updates but “They escaped again Boss, so sorry Boss, I’ll have them to you by next week, Boss.” Nothing but a dead Sniper and a fucked up trio of mercenaries, assuming Jack’s still alive.

There’s the bounty on this thing, though. That’d keep Janet and her afloat for a long, long time, since Gilroy’s put out quite the sum on its head. So, that’s what she decides to do. She’s going to take its head, and claim what’s hers.

“What a waste of talent,” Piper says, before flooring it into what remains of Blondie.

Chapter Three End.

==============================================================

[ Table of Contents ]

#empty-mask #b&tsm #oc #writing #fantasy #adventure #serialized fiction #b&tsm-cherry #b&tsm-judith #b&tsm-azariah #b&tsm-leon #b&tsm-olive #b&tsm-blondie #b&tsm-piper #b&tsm-brie #b&tsm-roxanne #b&tsm-meat #b&tsm-jules #b&tsm-lucille

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flattypattysquid · 1 year

Text

chaos developer

part 3

read this on ao3-flattypattysquid123-

You’ve been pacing around the room for a while now. the situation you were in hit you like a bus after you woke up from your nap. you had at least ten panic attacks on what to do. What would Kazuha do?,, you dreaded ,,he would certainly come get me right?,,

Hour or two passed with you in this state.your thoughts and worries were interrupted by a knock on the door.

,,WAIT this could be kazuha!,,

You wiped your face off any dirt and went to open the door with a bright grin plastered on your face. your smile turned into a frown when you saw a strange man with a few papers in hand.

“Come pay your taxes”

,,damn, it's the tax collector,,you quickly shut the door. You walked over to your bedroom and started packing your clothes in a small leather bag. you planned to leave to go search for kazuha and the tax collector was the final push you needed. As the man banged on the door you sped up your movement and put a bottle of water in your bag. You hopped out of the window and sneakily ran away from your house. The man stayed in front of your door for a moment, then sighed and went to bother more people. You slowed down your pace when you couldn't see your house. you asked yourself what to do, you didn't prepare this far.

You run around inazuma as far as you can go.but you rarely go out for walks and you get tired in ten minutes. You sat down on a bench to catch your breath.you went over your options, you could talk to the raiden shogun on what's happened, surely she must know something, but you quickly dismissed this idea when you remembered how terrifying she was.

After a bit of thinking you recalled that the giant cockroach dragged your boyfriend to the ground. The only place you can think of to go is the chasm, you heard some stories about how it is a gateway to ‘’hell’’. you are sure that's just some nonsense towns folks made up, but it doesn't hurt to try.

But still, one problem stands in your way. The chasm was all the way to Liyue, how are you going to get there? After a while of pondering, you concluded, Kazuha came back by ship, the ship must still be there as only a day passed since his arrival. You wondered who you could talk to take you aboard the ship as you dashed to the harbour.

The sun is freshly risen as bright warm sunlight linger on the flowers. you always loved the sun, you loved the way its smell flowed through the air. Following the sun's gaze, you saw a few people talking and taking boxes on the ship.

You took a deep breath and cautiously approached the men. You really don't know how to start a conversation. You curse your poor social skills as you get ready to talk.

“...uh hi there strange men” you announced your presence. They look up at you curiously.

“..do you know who the ship captain is?” you added.

“Yes we do, what about it” they answered.

“I wanna talk to them,” you rushed. You were already uncomfortable, you wanted to get this over quickly.

“Do you need something?” one man in particular with red hair and muscular build answered. He seems to be the leader of this group, you noted.

“Yes”

He furrowed his eyebrows at the short answer.

“Well what do you need?”

“Are you the captain?”

“No i am not”

“Then can you take me to them”

“What do you need with her?”

“Are you the captain?”

“I said no didn’t ya hear?”

“Then take me to her”

“THE HELL DO YOU NEED?”

“I want to talk to her.

“WHY?

“ARE YOU THE CAPTAIN?”

“ I SAID NO!”

“THEN TAKE ME TO HER!”

“I AM NOT TAKING YOU ANYWHERE UNTIL YOU TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT!”

“ I SAID I WANT TO SPEAK TO YOU CAPTAIN”

“WHY”

“ Are you the captain?”

“I SAID I AM NOT GODDAMNIT”

“THEN MIND YOUR BUSINESS”

The screaming contest came to a halt as you both breathed heavily and beat each other with your gaze. Nobody uttered a word momentarily as you debated quietly with your eyes. Citizens and other crew members were looking at the show you two put on astonished.

After a while the man spoke.

“.. what your name?”

“y/n.”

“What's yours?”

“Jerry.”

“Nice to meet you jerry”

“Nice meeting ya too, y/n”

“Can you take me to your captain”

“Fine, come with me” the man sighed and motioned you to follow him.

,,that went perfectly,, you proudly smiled to yourself.

#kazuha #kazuha x reader #kazuha imagines #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader

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sergeant-spoons · 2 years

Text

38. Breathing In the Last Days of September

Leslie Sheppard

Taglist: @thoughpoppiesblow @chaosklutz @wexhappyxfew @50svibes @tvserie-s-world @adamantiumdragonfly @ask-you-what-sir @whovian45810 @brokennerdalert @holdingforgeneralhugs @claire-bear-1218 @heirsoflilith @itswormtrain @actualtrashpanda @wtrpxrks

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The English papers weren't all too different from their American counterparts.

At least, not since the war broke out.

Sensationalized stories with boastful victories shadowed the ever-tightening war rations, the holdup in funerals in certain areas for lack of adequate coffins, the infighting and fear among politicians behind closed doors every minute of every day. Obituaries did not appear until twelve pages in. They were posted weekly in the Swindon papers and daily in the London. Most were soldiers, some were nurses and other military attachés. Leslie wondered what happened to the old folks who passed away at home or in the hospitals but never made it on a page because of the war. Uncomfortable, she flipped over to the sports section and tried to entertain herself with cricket reports (though she spent most of the time trying to figure out what cricket even was).

"If it isn't a bright, sunshiney day in merry old England," declared Tink as she waltzed halfway into the room, then stopped and stood with her hands in her pockets, rocking back and forth on her heels.

"It is nice," agreed Kiko, sitting on the wide windowsill and doodling leaves and flowers on the back of an empty envelope.

"How are ya likin' Aldbourne so far, Tink?" Leslie asked, half-heartedly reading a wanted ad for a nursemaid in Chelmsford.

"Well, Aldbourne's been swell, except..."

Leslie tipped the paper down, turning her full attention toward her friend.

"Except?"

Tink hesitated, then dipped her head, glum. "Charlie couldn't make it."

The newspaper fell, abandoned, into Leslie's lap as a frown flashed across her features.

"He canceled on you?"

"No, he..." Tink sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, he canceled. But he had a good reason!"

Kiko frowned and took the telegram from Tink's hand.

"And that reason would be..?"

"His brother broke his leg, apparently," Kiko relayed.

Leslie huffed.

"Yeah, right."

"Oh, no, don't..."

Tink couldn't seem to muster her usual defenses of her fiancé. Leslie and Kiko shared a look of concern and Tink shrugged, thumbing at her suspenders.

"I didn't even know he had a brother," she quietly admitted.

Leslie hopped up, slinging the newspaper onto the now-vacated armchair behind her.

"Let's go out!"

She grabbed Tink's hands and spun them both around.

"Just the three of us. We'll make it a girls' day!"

"We can take the bikes," Kiko suggested, "no one'll be using them today."

Mama E kept five bikes parked behind the garage that were free for the mechanics' use if the higher-ranking officers of the 506th didn't get to them first. Leslie hopped in place and grinned at Tink until she received a smile in return.

"Well? Whaddaya say?"

"I say let's do it!"

The three girls shared a cheer and, after snatching up sweaters (Tink) and jean-jackets (Leslie) and borrowed Class A uniform jackets (Kiko's, originally Penkala's), raced out into the mid-morning sunshine. They found the bikes and climbed aboard, and though Leslie would have preferred a motorcycle, she didn't mind the exercise. She would have found herself a sweet ride if they'd been here more than a week; she was looking forward to taking Don out for a ride when they got the chance. Last Autumn, just after she'd received the news about her nephew's birth, was the last time they'd gone out like that. But hush, she ought to focus on her present company. These last days of September had snuck Don into her introspections often enough; it was Kiko and especially Tink who merited her attention now.

They set off through the base, waving to a friend or two as they passed them by. Danny Huff gave a shout and tried to race them on foot, and Tink took up his challenge only to realize they were about to start up a hill. She won regardless, though as soon as Danny had conceded his defeat, she dropped off her bike and splayed out on the grass, panting. Kiko and Leslie came up to her, the former concerned and the latter laughing, and after she declared her legs may never recover, they helped her to her feet and she was just fine.

Continuing on, they scaled several more hills, upon which Kiko (who was unfamiliar with bicycling) dismounted and walked instead. She would not give in until Leslie or Tink noticed her exertion and stepped down first, exclaiming something about the slope and the opportunity to catch their breaths. On a particularly windy road, Leslie reminded her friends that the ride back down to the base would be a fun one as it was mostly downhill. That cheered them, and their spirits were further boosted when they came to the top of the tallest hill yet and discovered a small copse of silver birch trees shivering in the wind. The place made for a perfect place to catch their breaths, so they leaned the bikes up against the birches and sat down in the grass. Tink exclaimed that her legs were itching from the grass and Leslie took off her jacket and offered for it to be sat on. Her friend happily accepted, and Leslie glanced up at the sun's aura, hoping it would warm the day just a tad more.

"Hey, look-" Kiko pointed down the hill. "-it's Easy."

Tink squinted. "How can you tell?"

Leslie stifled a laugh. "Because that is definitely Sobel."

Indeed, a man sped ahead of the group, his chin rocking up and down and his fists punching the air with every step. It was almost comical how far he brought his knees up as he ran. Even from such a distance, his bellow, though unintelligible, could be caught in the breeze. All these characteristics made him seem like the captain Easy despised, but the one that confirmed it was how he ran without an ounce of gear whereas all the other men did.

"Yeah, that's Sobel, alright." Tink agreed. "Sheesh."

As Easy ran their drills, the mechanics high above looked past them to the town even farther beyond. Aldbourne appeared as a table model, shrunk so far by distance that when Leslie held out one hand, she could visually cup two or three buildings in a single palm. Kiko brought out treats wrapped in yesterday's paper from her pocket and revealed them to be candied orange slices she'd picked up in town yesterday on a date with Penk. The girls snacked away, lounging on the grass, and as Tink stretched out, she raised her hands toward the sky and remarked that the wind was getting cooler now that it was Autumn. Leslie drew a ribbon out of her pocket and asked Kiko to tie her hair back for her, and as Kiko complied, Tink started to talk about her time in Exeter.

"...and so I moved there with him for a while, after he graduated. The war was on, by then, and it was spooky, living with the blackout curtains and the air raid drills. And I don't mean Halloween-spooky, I mean kind-of-scary-spooky."

"Did you ever go to London?" Kiko, who'd decided to braid Leslie's hair, asked.

"No. Charlie went there for work sometimes, but I didn't come along. Never wanted to, either."

Leslie swallowed a sticky bite of orange. "What's he do? For work?"

Tink laughed softly. "Good question. This and that. It's mostly work for the government, I think."

"You think?"

She waved off the question. "Anyway, I came back home once I got a flyer 'bout the Mechorps from my cousin Janie, and you know the rest. But, oh, Exeter was nice. Lots of old buildings. If you think New England's got some old buildings, regular England's got 'em beat by a couple thousand years."

Leslie and Kiko shared a confused look, and Tink wagged her finger, realizing.

"Oh, right, you've never been. Well, New York City, but everything there's been all modernized, ya know?" She nodded sagely. "The mills up in Massachusetts and New Hampshire are really somethin'. Fueled the whole Industrial Revolution way back in the 1870s."

Leslie looked curiously at Tink. "I never knew you were so interested in history."

"I'm not, really," she confessed. "My cousin Janie goes to college for history. I used to help her study, but then I left with Charlie and my brothers took over that job." A small smile graced her lips. "Actually, I think this is Janie's last year before she graduates."

"Oh, nice!"

As Leslie bobbed her head, feeling the braid swish about, Kiko sat back and pondered for a minute.

"I think I'd like to go to college someday."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure for what, but... No, I know. I'd study flowers."

Tink plucked a dandelion from the hill. "Like this?"

"Well, uh..." Kiko stifled a smirk. "That's not quite a flower."

"It's not?" Tink studied the green-stemmed, yellow-petaled plant in her hand. "But it looks like a flower."

"It's, um, it's actually a weed."

Tink pouted. "Phooey."

She tossed the dandelion aside and pointed at the bushes down the hill.

"Those are flowers, right?"

"Yes, those are flowers."

"What kind?"

"I think they're rosebushes," Kiko supposed, "but summer's long gone, and those are the last of the blossoms dying with the cold."

"Aww."

As her friends spoke of flowers and Kiko proved her unexpected knowledge of botany, Leslie lay, content to listen. Easy had disappeared behind a hill a few minutes ago, but she still watched for their reemergence. The sun had come out from behind the clouds, and Leslie turned her face up toward the sky, feeling its warmth on her cheeks and shoulders and closed eyes. She was starting to feel better, as September gave way to October and New York City seemed farther with every passing day. She didn't startle so much at sudden noises, and this morning, when Eli Shackley sleepily brushed past her to get to the bathroom, she didn't shy away. Her flashlight, a savior, now rested beside her pillow rather than in her hand. For the last two weeks, on the S.S. Samaria and English dry land, she'd kept it on all night until she wore the batteries out, shining a faint, blanket-dampened light to stave off the darkness. She'd attempted to sleep with it off last night. Aside from a spook from an owl outside, nothing went bump in the night, and her dreams, though strange, were not nightmares.

"Lady? Yoohoo."

Tink waved, trying not to startle her, and Leslie blinked out of her reverie to see her friends looking at her with creased brows.

"Where'd you go?" Kiko asked, half-teasing, half-worried.

"I was just..." Leslie waved vaguely at the sky. "The sun was warm. Guess I drifted off a bit. Sorry."

"No worries," Tink reassured. "I was just telling Kiko about the time I went to see the Exeter Cathedral. Charlie couldn't come because of work, but I was happy to go by myself. They had a service and everything—boy, was it something to see."

Leslie sat up and crossed her legs, turning her full attention toward her friend. Tink looked pleased, and Kiko's expression of concern eased.

"Well, go on! What was it like?"

"Majestic! Awe-inspiring! Fuckin' huge!"

The girls laughed.

"There were so many glass-stained windows I lost count, and the old gothic pews stretched as far as the eye could see..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#leslie sheppard #audra 'tink' luchette #kelani palekiko #leslie sheppard ficlet #leslie sheppard 38: breathing in the last days of september #destiny carries a wrench #band of brothers #band of brothers oc ficlet #band of brothers oc #band of brothers ficlet #hbo war show #hbo war show oc #hbo war show oc ficlet #hbo war show ficlet #oc ficlet #oc fanfiction

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eightbitdemongirl · 1 year

Text

Psychonauts’ Clairvoyance is one of the best video game powers

Psychonauts, as a series, is about going to folk with mental illnesses and disorders, and empathizing with them, going into their minds to experience how they think and how they perceive the world. Even the less tasteful original game has this as the primary theme. Clairvoyance, in the context of the games, lets you see through other people’s eyes. This is already a good hook for puzzle solving, even if the only game to make extensive use of it for this is the VR interquel. But the games also do a neat trick with them, in that they all show overlays on the game world that reflect the character perspective. For the most part, this just means characters in the main games have a picture over Raz, showing what they think of him - usually metaphorically, like Dogen fixating on Raz’s hat, or Lilli showing her romantic interest in him, but occaisonally literally, like with the G-Men in the level introducing the power, who see Raz as whatever he’s disguised as, or an unknown agent without one. But even that is a really good use of the power; it allows for most characters to have an extra narrative detail, that will only intrude on the story if the player chooses to follow it. In addition, there’s also some characters who use it for additional altered views to show their perspective; the helicopter G-Man has X-ray vision and the cameras and Den Mother have night vision in 1, and in 2, Colin sees bacon up until the endgame, where he gets hearts over Kim that match her seeing them throughout the game, the Psi-King in the physical world has a psychedelic filter over the area when dealing with sensory overload, and Bob has almost all colours muted while still struggling with untreated depression and alcoholism. Rhombus of Ruin is the odd one out, since as a VR title it needs a clear view, but it still gets in on this via the hallucinations the other Psychonauts get; Milla is trapped in a nightmare trying to protect some children from danger, Lilli thinks she’s in a safe garden, and Sasha finds himself among aliens aboard a crashed spaceship. Until you break their hallucinations, hopping into their perspective lets you share in them. The power is not one that’s used often in the main games, and for good reason; it’s hard to make a game mostly not about changing perspective have a lot of puzzles using it. But it’s a power about seeing how others see the world, in a game about seeing how others see the world, and so it becomes the most thematically resonant of all the various psychic powers other than Astral Projection, the power used in the story to explain the main gimmick to begin with. It’s probably one of the best ideas for a game power in general, really.

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adelaidedrubman · 10 months

Text

John gets his first fishing lesson. read here on ao3.

notes: here we go folks, chapter 2 is here! this originally was going to be a longer chapter, but i decided to leave off at a different scene than originally intended for the sake of getting a faster update with a more reasonable wordcount (y’all know me). chapter wordcount: 4.9k warnings: it wouldn’t be hl&s without ample sexual banter and fishing puns. animal death (perhaps cruel in motivation but not in execution, all fish killed humanely). somewhat graphic description of a fish being gutted. ft. palpable sexual tension. john typical emotional volatility and outbursts. some emotional manipulation, bullying, and general toxicity (jestiny is arguably never not negging him). minimal proofing.

By 8:38 AM John was beginning to doubt she was going to show up at all.

Perhaps, he was beginning to think, after thirty-eight minutes of waiting (fifty-three if he counted the fifteen minutes he arrived early), coming to the Marina had been a mistake.

He exhaled as he glanced at his watch, promising himself — just as he had twice before — that at the next quarter past he would leave if she still wasn’t there.

It would make sense that the mysterious redheaded stranger from the bar wouldn’t show up as promised.

She’d hardly struck him as reliable , or trustworthy.

Perhaps it had been foolish of him to ever think she would follow through.

She had probably realized in the cold, sober light of day just how ridiculous the idea had been, and resolved to bail on him and put the entire embarrassing affair behind her.

And he should have done the same.

Yes, he had been stupid for showing up at all.

And he would correct that, and leave.

In just another three minutes.

He tapped his watch, stomach dropping as the second dial began to near another full rotation around its face.

John rounded his current lap of pacing up and down the length of the dock to find the owner of the Marina perched on the side of his boat, legs crossed and coral painted lips curved into a smile.

Ah, well.

He wished that he could, but that had been another oversight of the prior evening. He’d failed to even ask the redhead’s name before agreeing to her plan.

“Oh, come now, Addie.” He gave a charming laugh as he tilted his head to look up at her with soft, friendly eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t kiss and tell.”

“Don’t worry,” she leaned down to whisper in his ear. “I can be very discreet.”

Perhaps if he believed that, he would have abandoned any hopes of his co-conspirator showing and taken the blonde up on her offer.

Still, it occurred to him she could be of use to him in another way.

“Honey, I’m familiar with a lot of folks, if you catch my drift,” she replied with a wink. “Gimme another hint.”

“Perhaps more than just familiar,” he offered. If he could just get a name. “Someone who is also a very loyal customer.”

“Again, honey.” She smacked her lips, unimpressed. “I do very good business.”

He made a mental note of Greed, competing valiantly with Lust.

But for the present moment he merely gasped, bringing a hand to his chest as if wounded. “I’ve showed you two of mine now,” he whined playfully. “Can’t I get just one guess of yours?”

“Hmmmm,” she tapped a finger just beneath her bottom lip. “If you’re meeting her here and not during Sunday Service, I’m guessing that means she isn’t a member of your little…” She flourished her hand, flicking her wrist forward to trail fingers down the V of his shirt. “‘Alternative religious movement,’ is what Xander says I should call it…”

“I do fear for her soul. But I’m certain that can be rectified.” He was not so certain. He found it very likely that the stubborn, wrathful little redhead would burn with the rest of the sinful world. But if she could help him convert a pair of far more worthy souls, she will have at least served some purpose before dying a slow, painful death in the Collapse.

“I’ll ask more about your rectals later,” she said with a wriggle of her brows. “For now, another hint?”

How long could he keep this up?

“About yea high,” he said simply, bringing straightened fingers to rest just beneath the bridge of his nose. “ With her —” hideous, bulky, tacky, “— favorite combat boots on.”

Adelaide rolled her shoulders back, pushing out her chest and towering over him by the several inches she had been graciously evening them out by bending down as they spoke. “So, short?”

John hummed, straightening his spine and raising his chin. “I’d say average.”

“You’d say,” she mused. “What’s she do for work?”

Fuck if he knew. “Nothing she finds as meaningful a calling as she does fishing.”

“Age?”

Older than she acts, he would assume. “I would never reveal that information about a lady.”

“Bra size?”

Something in the range of substantial, but not massive. More perky. Something like a 36C — No, closer to a 34D. “Questions befitting a gentleman, please.”

“Alright, how ’bout —”

“And I believe we’re on your guess, at the moment.”

“Fine, fine.” She held her chin in her hand, studying him. “Is it that blonde spitfire that works the deli at Lorna’s?” she asked, leaning forward with hands on hips. “The chatty one who always wears the low-cut tops? Cute little thing. Reminds me of a younger me, with a less impressive caboose.”

“You think I’ve been picking up women at truck stops?” he teased. “No, not her. And not a blonde, as lovely as I may find them.”

“Brunette?” she pressed. “Lighter or darker than what you’re rocking?”

He shook his head with a coy smile that concealed the worry fluttering in his chest. Was he really going to be cornered into playing the one card he really had?

“You’ve worn me down,” he sighed. Really, it was a shame she wasn’t a believer. She had gifts to contribute. “She has the most gorgeous, breathtaking, luscious —”

“Jessie?”

Jessie? Could that be it?

But when he flicked his gaze up to gauge the blonde’s reaction he saw she looked past him, rather than at him.

He swung his head around to see the woman from the night before leisurely strolling down the docks with on hand in the pocket of her cutoff denim shorts, the other carrying a tacklebox and a set of fishing poles.

She paused as she reached his slip, stopping in her tracks and looking over her shoulder in a way that suggested she might be considering turning back.

No such luck, Jessie. A deal is a deal.

“Jessie!” John called in greeting, jogging down the length of the dock towards her. “My, is it a delight to see you.”

He brought his hands to either side of her face in hopes of covering the look she gave him as if she had no clue what he was on about, pushing her back to dip her into a reunion kiss.

“The fuck you think you’re —” She dropped the fishing poles and tacklebox to grip the crook of his elbows to shove him back, giving him a brief look of incredulity before seeming to reorient herself and lean into the embrace to dip him back instead, deepening the kiss as she did.

Such a difficult one, Jessie was.

Still, it apparently sold well enough — the moment he was let up for air he was greeted by a curious, flushed leer from the Drubman woman.

“Well, batter and deep-fry my tits and sell ’em at the testy festy, this is your mystery gal?”

“Not such a mystery to you, is she?” John laughed as he laced his fingers in Jessie’s and brought her knuckles to his mouth to kiss, banking on the instant recognition meaning he’d been correct about their familiarity. “Jessie dear mentioned you were close.”

“As two pimples on my ex-husband’s ass cheek,” Adelaide agreed, hooking arms beneath Jessie’s to bring her in for a hug, John’s intertwined hand awkwardly tugged along for the ride as the blonde pulled her further.

“Speaking of exes, I’m glad to see you moving on so quick,” Adelaide whispered in Jessie’s ear, just barely audible to John. “Was wondering ’bout you, after I heard about the girl band breaking up.”

“You fuckin’ heard about that already?” Jessie hissed in reply, patting the hand not holding John’s against Adelaide’s back and turning so that she was angled away from him. “How?”

“Well, the classic breakup hack job you came in here rocking told me from about a mile away.” John felt a perverse since of satisfaction at seeing an embarrassed pink flush across the redhead’s cheeks at the jab — perhaps she did have some sense of shame, deep down. “But, I’d also heard it before I laid eyes on the tragedy. Skylar and Sherri mentioned it this morning,” Adelaide murmured, pulling John’s arm along for another rotation of the strange waltz he was trapped in. “When they stopped by to enter their names in the Annual Fishing Derby.”

John thought Jessie might actually crush the bones in his hand, for as tightly as she clenched it.

He saw something dangerous flare in those big doe eyes of hers, any friendliness in their brown warmth vaporized in the angry inferno smoldering to life in them now.

“They. Did. What?”

John tried, unsuccessfully, to extricate his hand from her grip.

“Oh, don’t be mad at them for blabbing, sugar,” Adelaide shushed, stroking a hand along the back of Jessie’s head. “They weren’t being catty, they just mentioned they were worried about how ya were taking —”

“They entered the Fishing Derby?” she ground out, pain splintering through John’s hand. “Together? Today? They couldn’t even wait a —”

“Lotta folks have, first day we’ve been live!” Adelaide exclaimed, finally pulling back from their hug to make the announcement to John too. “They’ve been lining up all morning. Everyone goes crazy for The Admiral, and the cash prize is up this year.”

“The Admiral?” John repeated with a curious smile. “Might I ask who that is?”

Jessie’s eyes grew more dangerously alight yet. “You’re so funny, John!” She forced out laughter, eyes bulging wider than he thought possible with each sharp bark. “See how he managed to charm me so quick? He’s so fuckin’ funny.” She gave him a look that bore no hint of amusement. “Of course he fuckin’ knows who The Admiral is.”

“Of course.” Was he really catching flack from the woman who didn’t even know who the Ryes were — seemingly didn’t even know who his own family was, for that matter — for not being familiar with someone in the County?

What the hell kind of person could that level of recluse even get offended at him for not —

Oh.

Of course.

He did know.

“The Admiral is a fish,” he said, trying not to sound exasperated by the revelation.

“A fish,” Jessie scoffed, slapping him on the back a little too hard. “I told you, he’s funny.”

“Well, not like anyone’s actually gonna catch him, anyways,” Adelaide sighed with a dismissive wave of her hand. “They never do. But everyone who pays the entry fee gets admission to the big ol’ Fish Fry we do after to cook up whatever they did manage to catch and get blackout drunk on party liquor.”

“I can do that at home without an entry fee,” Jessie scoffed.

“And this year, we’re co-hosting! Cook out’s gonna be over at the Ryes’ place, since they got everything set up nice from all the barbecues they hold anyways —”

“How much is the entry fee?” John asked.

Adelaide tilted her head to the side, pausing before she answered. She raked her eyes over him from head to toe and back up again, then allowed them to drift over his shoulder towards the boat parked in the slip behind him.

She crossed her arms over her chest, raising her chin before rattling off with ease, “Ninety bucks a person, one seventy-five for couples, three-fifty for a group of four.”

Oh, good. He was worried she would attempt to charge him something unreasonable.

He flashed her a smile, reached into his back pocket to slide two hundred dollar bills out pressed between his fingers. “Keep the change,” he hummed, holding the bills out in offering. “But do enter us as a couple.”

Jessie briefly eyed the exchange of cash, shrugging towards Adelaide with the slightest hint of a smile.

“Now, if you’ll excuse us, Mrs. Drubman.” He pressed his right arm flat against his abdomen and bent at the waist in a half-bow that put his head near even with Adelaide’s cleavage, bringing his left hand to rest against the small of Jessie’s back. “As much as I’d love to stay and chat, I’m afraid I won’t have any chance of charming my date myself if I’m competing with you.”

He pressed his hand against Jessie’s back to guide her the remaining distance towards the boat — only to have the hand elbowed away, as if she’d once again forgotten they were supposed to be acting like a happy couple.

But before he could shoot her a proper glare in reminder she wrapped her arm around his to tug him along instead, nearly causing him to stumble off the dock from her clumsily effort to cover her slip up.

“I’ll leave you crazy kids to it, then,” Adelaide chimed with a parting wave. “Happy catchin’!”

As John climbed into the boat he caught in his periphery a manicured hand reaching out to grab to the grubby, calloused one dropping a tackle box and set of fishing poles over the side.

“And sugar,” he heard Adelaide whisper to the redhead she held back. “You gotta let me know if it winds up he puts out, alright?”

He could see Jessie’s look of earnest confusion reflected in the windshield.

“Uh, I guess,” she rasped in reply, even more conspicuous yet. “I mean, why wouldn’t he?”

“My dear,” John turned to cut in before the pair could whisper more gossip, holding out the palm of his hand in offering to receive Jessie’s and assist her in climbing into the boat.

She recoiled, looking at the hand as if it might as well have held a dead rat as she stepped to the side of it and hopped onto the boat.

Yes, this was certainly a mistake.

He laughed and threw an arm around her, pulling her to his side. “We’re supposed to be acting like we’re together,” he hissed through teeth exposed in a stiff smile as he waved goodbye to the blonde skipping back towards the shop. “So what was that, exactly?”

“Was gonna ask you the same fuckin’ thing,” she ground out in reply. “Why the fuck were you pulling all that weird shit?”

“The physical affection?” he questioned. “Couples tend to do that,” he said, smile souring with sarcasm. “And what took you so long?” he demanded. “I was beginning to think —”

That she wouldn’t show up. But he was struck anew with how foolish it had been to really expect her to, so he neglected to finish the thought.

“You were almost an hour late to the time you set,” he complained instead.

She rolled her eyes, as if he were being unreasonable. “I was pickin’ out my outfit!” she defended, holding her arms out and doing a half-twirl to show off the cut-off overalls with single suspender unbuttoned to reveal sleeveless t-shirt bearing an image of a suggestively placed set of twin boat engines with the phrase ‘I <3 Motor Boating’ plastered across the chest. “You coulda spent a little more fuckin’ time trying to pick out something nice for yourself.”

He looked down at the freshly ironed salmon shorts cuffed to mid-thigh paired with crisp white V-neck she cast her disdainful look towards.

“What could possibly be objectionable about my outfit?”

“Nothing, so long as you’re wearing it as like…” she waved a hand in the air in quick, choppy circles as she paused to search for words, dropping down to her knees to throw open the lid of her tackle box in the same swift motion. “A funny joke or something.” She grinned up at him. “Y’know. Irony.”

“The only irony I’m finding is in you insulting someone’s outfit while wearing that.”

“This is what people wear to go fishing,” she said, pulling at the suspenders of her overalls.

“This isn’t?”

“Wrong kinda salmon, John,” she said with a point towards his shorts, sitting back to begin threading a line through a hook. “But it’s fine, we can sell it like you are funny,” she sighed, breaking off the line between her teeth. “And at least your legs look nice in shown off in ’em,” she tacked on, glancing back at him. “You actually have really nice thighs. Go fucking figure.”

He felt a strange heat crawl up the back of his neck, bloom across his chest.

He thought it was the first nice thing she’d said about him.

Something about receiving a compliment from someone so very unpleasant was, well…

“Shame about the stern, though,” she said with a click of her tongue against her teeth, glancing behind him.

Never mind.

“I’ll spare you the view,” he replied, stepping over the woman to seat himself at the helm. He tugged the legs of the shorts up slightly as he sat.

“Can’t do anything about what god gave you, but we can work on getting you to pass as a real angler, even with the shorts.” She came up behind him to pat his shoulder as he cranked the motor to life. “Head out West, ’bout midway to the little fucking islet out there.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

“And don’t even worry about the learning curve — ’cause with me teaching you, you’ll be fishing like a pro before sunset.”

“Oh, come the fuck on, this is pathetic!” The overbearing heat of the sun seemed to beat down on John a degree hotter for every damnable word Jessie spoke to him. “Your fucking bobber is practically twenty-thousand leagues under at this point! That means start reeling that shit in!”

“Well, it’s difficult to focus when my fishing partner is screaming at me!” he snapped back, doing his best to crank the handle of the reel, only for it to jam.

“Other way!” she ordered. “And lean back! Keep the end of your rod up! You’re supposed to fight the fish while you reel!”

“Then perhaps you should worry about fighting your own catch, instead of me!” he huffed, tensing his arms and jerking the rod back.

“I got the expert form to multitask,” she said smugly, doing a swift turn of her reel as the fish on the end of her line leapt through the air. “You haven’t caught anything all day.”

“Brag while you can,” he scoffed, giving another harsh tug to his rod — the line pulled taut, refusing to budge no matter how much of his strength he exerted, muscles of his arms aching in complaint from the effort. This was it. Finally. “It feels like I’ve got a big one on the line.”

“You haven’t had shit on the line for a good fuckin’ minute, John,” she said flatly. “You fucking snagged the bottom,” she explained with an irritated grunt. She held her rod propped against her thigh with one hand, while the other reached into her back pocket to pull out a skinny, curved knife. “Cut the line and try again.”

His nostril flared with the sharp, heavy exhale he pushed out as he snatched the knife from her, sliding its plastic safety sheath off and tossing it aside to press the blade to the fishing line.

“You’re gonna fuckin’ fish me outta hook and home at this fucking rate,” she grumbled, quickly undercut by a laugh as she lifted her own line out of the water with ease to hoist a speckled and pink-lined fish well over a foot long over the side of his boat, propping it to rest wriggling atop the gunwale.

John grimaced at the mess of slime and lake water it smeared there, dribbling down to leak between the cracks of his natural teak flooring. His scowl deepened as the fish’s tail flailed upward to sling filthy water onto the clean white fabric of his shirt.

“Hm, I think that puts me at about nine full-sized catches now to your whopping zero,” she bragged in teasing sing-song with a sharp golden flash of sunset warm eyes. “I reckon some of us are just better with our rod than others, huh?”

Whatever fishing line thin thread of patience he had left finally snapped.

His grip was white knuckle tight around the handle of the knife as he suddenly swung it through the air to impale through the brain of the accursed creature, impact of the blade stabbing straight through and into the hard plastic shell of the gunwale ratcheting itself up the length of his arm.

“Fuck!” he shouted, contained rage swiftly bubbling up to rush through the length of his arm and settle for good in that tight clenched fist, driving it to twist the knife and send it tearing down the length of the fish’s belly with a squelch of innards spilling.

He gasped out, looking around with wide, searching eyes, suddenly as furiously hungry for air as if he’d been held underwater.

“Huh,” Jessie barked out, high but gruff. “Well.” He couldn’t quite say if it was with relief or irritation he noted that the press of her palm against the fish’s back fin hadn’t moved an inch — she hadn’t so much as flinched as he swung the knife. “Guess you know how to gut ’em, at least,” she shrugged. His chest continued to heave as he tried to even his breaths, regain some composure. “Maybe you are good for something.”

John let out a long exhale, wiping the sweat from his brow and willing himself to keep his current level of calm, trying as it was.

And oh, it was trying.

Because Jessie wasn’t wrong.

They had been at this for hours, his cheeks pinkened from the long stretch of baking beneath the sun. And the only thing he’d caught was criticism from the woman who was supposed to be teaching him.

“You know what,” she hummed, pointing towards the fish guts dribbling down into the water. “That could work, actually. You can finish the job here? You can gut the fucker?”

He pinched his brow, looking down at the fish.

“I imagine,” he answered, using the handle of the knife jammed inside the fish to turn it, study the long incision running along its underside.

He slid his index and middle along the length of the incision, pausing at the fins just beneath the head and using the fingers to pry open the flaps of its sides and study the mess of organs.

“It doesn’t seem so difficult.” He held his fingers in place as he brought a thumb to rest at the root of the bright red cord running down the length of the fish’s insides. He flexed his knuckles to firmly wedge the knife beneath it, pushing the blade up towards his thumb and pressing down tight until the mess of gristle severed with a short, wet snap.

He heard a sharp hitch in Jessie’s breath in matching staccato, realizing as he pulled the mess of innards tied up neatly by the red ribbon he gripped that she’d been watching intently, her gaze as pervasive and oppressive as a heavy amber tinted smog settling over his world as he slung the entrails into the river with a sigh and a meaty plop that announced their landing.

Jessie inhaled slowly this time as she stepped towards him, looking him up and down.

“That’ll do, John.” She reached fingertips towards his middle, trailing them along the splatter of blood and pink flecks of tissue he hadn’t noticing slinging across the bright white of his shirt, and the ghosting sensation sent zaps of quick firing nerves through him as effectively as if someone pressed a blade against his spinal cord. “That’ll do.”

She smiled down at the stain, before wiping her hand along his chest to further dirty the shirt with slime and stray scales. “You at least look a little bit more like a real fisherman now.”

“I apologize for not having the foresight to show up pre-covered in viscera.”

“No use crying over unspilled blood now.” She waved a hand in the air dismissively. “Or uncaught fish. Because I got a plan I think is gonna work.” She glanced over her shoulder towards the sun. “It’s gonna have to. We’ve run outta time.”

“A plan to do what, exactly? And what makes it so time sensitive as to require immediate execution?”

“We’re going to see Sherri and Skylar,” she answered, plopping herself down into the driver’s seat. “They always fish over across from Can of Worms ’round this time. And we’re gonna zip up there join them.”

John raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t worry. You’re not gonna actually gonna be fishing, obviously.” She waved a hand, propping an arm on the side of the boat as she turned towards him. “We’re gonna pretend we caught all them fuckers in the cooler together. Lucky for you, I can reel in enough for the both of us. And I’ll keep catching, while you’re busy gutting them.” Her knuckles grew stark white as she gripped the steering wheel. “I was always fuckin’ nice and gutted those bitches’ fish for them.” Her nostrils flared as she let out a sharp exhale — then her scowl abruptly broke into a grin. “But now I have someone to gut ’em for me.”

“I’m sure in your world, that’s a very important victory. But couldn’t we take a bit more time to practice? Why must the victory march take place today?”

“Because they had to fuckin’ rush to sign up for the Fishing Derby today!” she screech, her cheeks growing bright red yet again. “They couldn’t wait one goddamn day! So time to show them I can move on just as fucking fast!” Her shoulders tensed, rising and falling as she flexed her wrists to turn her clenched fists around the steering wheel. “We’re going to Can of Worms!”

He gave an exasperated sigh. Really, some people were so sensitive and dramatic about a little break up.

But best not to harp too much on just how childish her antics were, while he still needed her for his own designs.

So, he gave her an appeasing smile. “Very well.” He lifted the key to the boat from its place around his neck, quickly jerking it out of the redhead’s reach as she tried to grab for it. “You’re not driving my boat, though. I drive.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

She made no effort to rise from his seat, instead leaning back and patting her thighs. “Hop on, then.”

“You want me to drive the boat sitting in your lap?”

“You’re the one who said we needed to be more touchy-feely and shit to look like a couple,” she barked, pointing a finger at him. “And c’mon, don’t forget this is a quid pro fuckin’ quo arrangement. You help me keep up appearances by riding up drivin’ —”

“You’re not driving —”

“— lookin’ like I’m driving a fancy boat with my new pretty young thing in my lap, more likely I am to do whatever dumb bullshit it is you end up wanting me to do to impress your exes.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, considering.

“Pretty young thing,” he scoffed, lowering himself to take a seat in her lap. “You think I’ll fall so easily for insincere flattery from a woman who’s been relentlessly insulting me all morning?”

“Forgot we fuckin’ prized honesty in this fake relationship,” she snorted. “Pretty quickly-creeping-towards-middle-age thing, then.”

She still said pretty, he resisted pettily pointing out. “You’re a charmer.”

“Charm the scales off a fish,” she replied with a click of her tongue against teeth. “But enough talk,” she said gruffly, guiding his hand to shove the key into the ignition with no amount of gentleness. “Take us to Can of Worms!”

She squeezed his bare thigh in punctuation of the order. He cleared his throat and gave her an expectant look in reply, a quickly cooling breeze sweeping over him to cause skin to prickle along the leg her hand rested atop as he raised his brows to signal he was waiting.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you don’t even know where —” she groaned, removing her hand to point a finger over the windshield. “Head southwest!”

He turned the key and turned the wheel in obedience of the order as she rested her chin atop his shoulder to look over it.

She was much better at physical affection when she was taunting him, it seemed.

He cranked the gas.

Quid pro fuckin’ quo, he reminded himself.

#also trying to spare dean from me spamming his mentions every time i use them BUT credit to @derelictheretic for the text divider!#fic: hook‚ line‚ and sinker #writies and wordies #otp: stop bothering these nice folks #oc: deputy jestiny ellen #ch: john seed #ch: adelaide drubman #but yeah this was going to be longer and include the sherriskylar bothering.#but wanted to get something out + good to not have johnjess amp up to an immediate 10 since they will do so soon enough #my writing

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