#if the next apocalypse could be less yellow I would very much appreciate it

[mintski]

season two countdown prompts ↪ july 12-15, favourite sad scene: run boy run (season 1, episode 2) “there’s nothing you can do. there’s nothing any of you can do.”

#tuaedit #dailytua #uaedit #tua #the umbrella academy #umbrella academy #five hargreeves #luther hargreeves #allison hargreeves #diego hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #dailyhargreeves #fyeahumbrellaacademy #gifs #mine #tua countdown prompts #if the next apocalypse could be less yellow I would very much appreciate it #death cw #blood cw #100 #250

[avalonrose17]

The Soldier and the Fox Chapter one : Contact

  If I am not part of the solution I am part of the problem.

 The first pride was a riot led by a black trans woman.  I thought as I walked with the massive crowd of protesters. Yelling at the top of my lungs: "No justice! No peace!" repeating it over and over again, the mantra resonating throughout the crowd.

  The day had been going very well! And here at the end of this day of peaceful protesting we had ended up at the place that needed to hear our outrage of the unjust and unfair treatment of people of color in America the most: The White House.

  I raise my sign higher trying to make the bold lettering on my rainbow painted cardboard more clear. 

  "BLACK LIVES MATTER!" I yell, wanting the police to hear as well as see what they can't seem to comprehend. The girl next to me picks up my chant and soon the whole crowd is joining in with me. Filling me with a sense of unity and hope.

    BANG.

 The loud sound closely being followed by screaming shattered the hope of finally getting our voices heard. Knowing that these police officers don't give a damn about the people they are supposed to be protecting filling me with rage and fear for everyone around me.  

 I look at the officers in full riot gear charging at us and turn to the girl next to me in fear, knowing that the cops will go after her first because of the beautiful color skin she was born with. Seeing the fear reflected in her face I make a choice that, although might get me hurt, I just know will save her life.

   "Run!" I shout at her. "And don't look back!" 

 Recalling all the hours of self defense classes I thought I would only have to use against homophobes and assholes, I duck under the fist thrown at my face. 

 If you were to ask me later what exactly happened from that point up until when they decided to use teargas on civilians, I couldn't tell you. But I can tell you that I had applied my knowledge of how to throw a physically larger male, to the ground, very productively. 

 I some how ended up in the front of the crowd despite being smaller and less intimidating than my fellow protesters. Especially the unbelievably tall man to the right of me dressed head to toe in black protective gear. Looking as if he was a special operations soldier from an apocalypse move. I notice him pulling on large thick yellow gloves with vigor. 

  What are those for? I think. His hands are huge... His hand could probably cover my whole face while he's -

 I hear a large popping sound. Braking the sudden pause in the cops assault. (As well as my not so Innocent observations of the man next to me.) I turn to the police and see smoke. 

 They're teargassing us! I think. I freeze, unable to believe the audacity of these cops using biological weapons, that have been outlawed in the use of war by the Geneva convention, on American citizens. 

 Movement to my right prompts me to look the tall "spec ops" man. He moves so fluidly as he picks up the canister of teargas and throws it back as the cops. That it sends my thoughts back to my earlier appreciation of his physique.

  Goddamn. That's hot. He could hold me up against a wall effortlessly. Or he-

   Pain exploding on my left arm forcibly pulls me from my inappropriate thought about the man in spec ops gear and back to the riot.

  I scramble to think of what to do next when I remember a video I saw, a while back, of protesters in Hong Kong covering teargas canisters with construction cones. Looking around I see a stack of them by a building to my right. My heart pounding a frantic tempo in my chest as I speed towards the cones. As I grab one and turn I see a canister on the ground, spewing out toxic smoke. I launch myself at it and cover the canister with my impromptu weapon of choice. I then move the cone, pick up the canister, and throw it back towards the police. Fortunately missing the spec ops guy by half a foot. Unfortunately getting his attention and probably his disapproval. He steps away from the fencing and back towards me as more canisters are thrown. Another one lands close to me and I rush to cover it to reduce the smoke. 

   "I got it!" the Man yelled to me. Surprising me slightly with the unexpected demand. I moved the cone for him to grab the canister. He picked it up and threw it at the police, landing further and in a larger group of police than my canister did.

   "You get them, I'll throw them!" He ordered me, patting me in the center of my chest. prompting me to move towards another canister on the ground that is releasing the toxic fumes.

   It felt like hours, but was probably only minutes. And when the street had cleared of most protesters I look around, in search of anyone who needed help.

   "You! Get out of here!" Came another order from my, very hot, impromptu riot buddy. 

  I hesitated. Not wanting to leave him to the cops.

   "Go!" He shouted, grabbing my shoulder and turning me away from the approaching line of police.

   I ran.

   I don't know how I got home. It was all a blur of hitching rides with kind strangers and avoiding police. But I do remember that night.

   I remember bandaging my wounds from an afternoon, evening, and night of standing up for my fellow human beings against those who would shun, hurt, and even kill others simply for the color of their skin. 

  I remember thinking of the man that was by my side though the most intense moments of conflict. Thinking of the man who let me fight against the injustice with him instead of shunning me for almost hitting him with a teargas canister.

  I remember thinking of how tall he was. Thinking how big his hands were and how easily he was able to manhandle me in to running to safety...

   And if that night as I lay in bed, coming down from the intense adrenaline rush, started thinking a little too much about what the man in spec ops gear's hand on me felt like. Well, he'll never know. And besides I probably won't ever see him again...

 -Fox

@wineandionysus  @nekothegodofyaoi

#spec ops guy #specopsguy #gay fic

[kanna-ophelia]

Hard Nut to Crack

31 Days of Ineffables challenge Day 3: Nutcracker

Book version all the way on this one.

Hard Nut to Crack

“I have no idea what  you are afraid of,” Aziraphale said, because it was clear Crowley was afraid. The demon was sitting with conscious elegance, legs crossed at his ankles, not at all in the relaxed slump he usually used in the shop’s backroom. It was irritating, and also endearing, and Aziraphale had long ago stopped trying to untangle the two responses when it came to Crowley.

“I’ll harm you,” Crowley said, in reasonable tones.

“If you think you are capable of doing me serious harm, my dear, I’m afraid you are rather flattering yourself.” He looked Crowley up and down rather pointedly, then down at himself. A skinny being in a fallen state compared to a solidly built angel in a state of grace.

“No need to be insulting about it.” Aziraphale fancied Crowley’s posture relaxed just a little.

“Then what? You’re afraid your saliva is laced with hellfire?”

“I’m more worried yours might be holy water,” Crowley muttered.

“So it’s not really me you’re concerned about after all.”

“Don’t be stupid, and don’t sound so smug.” Crowley ran his hand through the carefully unkempt looking black waves, turning them into actually unkempt black waves sticking in all different directions. There were two locks in the middle sticking up at angles like television antennas.

The scale was definitely leaning towards ‘endearing’

Aziraphale looked at the bowl of nuts on the coffee table, next to the novelty angel nutcracker Crowley had bought him one Christmas. All the easier to crack nuts were gone, and the Brazil nuts, as often happened with nut selections, were left. The centres were tender and delectable, but it was so hard to get to them through the shell without destroying the fragile insides.

“What are you afraid of?” he asked again, patiently.

“I’m venomous, you know.”

“Then don’t bite me.”

Crowley carefully looked everywhere but at him. “Might not be able to help myself.”

“I trust you,” Aziraphale said, patting Crowley’s knee encouragingly. It was bony under the expensive mulberry silk and wool blend trousers, or what would have been expensive trousers if Crowley bothered to actually buy them. The boniness tipped the scales even further towards ‘endearing’, and for some inexplicable reason added a solid weight of ‘arousing’ as well

Whatever Aziraphale had dreamed or feared about Crowley’s response to a whispered “May I kiss you?”–which ran the gamut from gentle murmurs to mocking laughter, from being shoved passionately against a wall to being shoved away and not spoken to for decades–he had not expected to be sitting in the bookshop still discussing it twenty minutes later. Stone cold sober, too. He had clearly underestimated the hard shell the demon had grown around his soft interior.

But Crowley had not said no. He could have said no at any point, but he had very, very noticeably not said no. He was sitting there, closed away in a hard shell, not saying no.

Just not saying yes.

“So how do you think you will harm me?”

“You’re too intelligent for this. You’re an angel, I’m a demon.”

“Yes, yes. We established that back in the Garden of Eden.”

“Consorting with demons. Not exactly encouraged in an angel, is it?”

“We have been consorting together for centuries. If we were going to get cold feet, perhaps before averting the Apocalypse would have been appropriate. I’m at peace with consorting with you. What I want, very much, is to kiss you.”

“Cause I tempted you,” Crowley said under his breath.

Aziraphale blinked. “When?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed? Even once?”

“I’m sorry, dear boy.” He wanted to say that Crowley tempted him just by existing. He wasn’t sure if that would be complimentary or just rub salt into the wound. He decided it was safer to say nothing.

“I am the bloody Serpent of Eden. I tempt. That’s what I do.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt your professional pride.”

Crowley said something that sounded like nrrghgurgle.

“Are you worried you will tempt me into carnal sins of the flesh?”

This time it was more like nrrghdsplt. “How can you just sit there, sipping bloody tea, and say things like that?”

“Well, someone has to say them.” Aziraphale hesitated. “Unless you don’t want to me to kiss you.”

“It isn’t–it’s not… Oh, angel, you are hopeless.” Crowley pushed away Aziraphale’s rather nice coffee table with his snakeskin boots, and flounced out like a slighted soprano.

Aziraphale sighed, picking up the Spiller nuts from the bowl. Perhaps it had been a bad idea after all. It might be months before his demon spoke to him again.

Still. Crowley, with mussed up hair and sharp suit, flouncing, was adorable. And he had, very definitely admitted to wanting to be kissed. The sweet dear boy.

Better to leave him for a while. In the meantime, nutcracker in hand, Aziraphale remembered reading that it was much easier to crack Brazil nut shells without cracking the insides if you let them sit for a while in cold water, chilling.

* * *

A fortnight later, a Bible arrived. It was 1599 Geneva Bible in exquisite condition, and Aziraphale’s hands trembled as he unwrapped it, despite the ominously snake themed wrapping paper.

At least, it had been in exquisite condition, until someone had gone through it with a green fluorescent highlighter, marking all the passages about fornication or the Serpent of Eden.

It was almost impressive how much trouble, expense and mortal danger Crowley had put himself through in order to ruin a priceless book to prove a point. Endearing, Aziraphale told himself. Endearingly mischievous snake. The sweet dear boy. Aziraphale’s pampered hands shook with barely restrained holy fury.

A scrap of paper fell out. “See particularly Galatians 5:19.”

Right. That was it. It took every ounce of practice Aziraphale had not to swear.

He started talking too soon, realised it was the answering machine, and took a deep breath.

“Crowley, humans might be less worried about the original tempter if they knew what a ridiculous prude he was.”

There was a click as the receiver was picked up. “I’m not a prude. I’m trying to make you think it over, angel.”

“You are a prude. And how dare you point me to Galatians? Paul was an even worse prude than you are. If he even wrote that letter, which you know as well as I do that he didn’t.”

“Your lot seem okay with humans claiming he did.”

“My lot are beside the point. You don’t quote 5:21 at me when I share my most precious wine stocks with you.”

“No. I’m too busy staring at your thighs and trying to resist the impulse to dig my fingers into them and see what kind of noises you make.”

Fire exploded somewhere in the depths of Aziraphale’s thighs, as if they were responding to being talked about with such naked honesty. “I wish you wouldn’t resist. What kind of demon are you, resisting lust?”

“What kind of angel are you, tempting to lust?”

“It’s not just lust.”

“That’s part of the bloody problem!” There was a silence and Crowley said, more gently, “I don’t think you’ve taken enough time to think about it.”

“I’ve taken six thousand years. How much longer should I consider?”

Crowley choked back a laugh “Okay, okay. Point taken. And me, too.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes and tenderness swept over him. He could answer honesty with honesty. “I want to kiss you more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”

“Oh, Aziraphale.” No barbs on Crowley’s voice now, just a defeated sounding hiss. “That’s not all I want. But what I want most of all is not to harm you, and not to drive you away. I’m not losing you again.”

“You won’t. Just–just kissing. It doesn’t have to be a fuss. We could exchange a kiss in greeting and farewell. Just like–”

“A couple.” Crowley breathed, and his longing was something thick and painful down the phone.

“How much danger can I be in with a kiss?”

“You’d be surprised, angel.” Crowley hesitated. “Look, there’s this place just opened, old fashioned Italian cooking. Surprisingly decent wine list. You’ll like it. I’ll pick you up, and we could–maybe. First.

Aziraphale understood and appreciated it. They would have somewhere to go. No reason to linger and be further tempted. “That sounds lovely.”

“That’s the worst of it. It does.” Crowley hung up.

Aziraphale probably should have been surprised when Crowley turned up awkwardly clutching a bunch of costly red roses.

The demon stepped inside and threw the flowers on a chair like he wasn’t sure how he came to be holding them, followed by his sunglasses, which Aziraphale found interesting. “Well, then.” His yellow eyes were round and terrified.

“Well, then,” Aziraphale repeated, in his kindest voice, despite his dry throat. He realised he wasn’t quite sure what to do with his hands. He tried placing them on Crowley’s thin shoulders, which seemed to work well, as Crowley stepped closer and, amazingly, put his own hands on Aziraphale’s thick waist.

“Hullo, angel,” he said, and his sharp-toothed grin flashed, and it was suddenly easy, really easy, to close the remaining gap between them and kiss his mouth.

“Just one kiss,” Aziraphale murmured against soft dry lips.

“I suppose we should cancel the dinner reservation,” Aziraphale said.

* * *

Crowley, sprawled over Aziraphale and lazily kissing his shoulder, shrugged with one of his liquid movements. “Never actually bother making them. How’s your back?”

“Sore.”

“Me, too. Unused muscle groups. It will get better with practice. Knees?”

“I should probably do something about the rug burn,” Aziraphale admitted, noting that Crowley was out of practice too, and wondering exactly how long the demon had been, well, not practicing. He certainly seemed to have known what he was doing.

“Poor darling,” Crowley said. He had certainly never used that endearment before. His hand trailed down over Aziraphale’s hip and thigh to find a knee and caress it soothingly. “I should have taken more care. You do have nice knees.”

“So do you.” Aziraphale pulled Crowley’s face up to kiss his lips.

“Just a kiss,” Crowley said bitterly, as their lips parted. “What harm could it do?”

Aziraphale stroked his hair, despite the amount of hair product in it. “Seems to be no harm done except some minor aches and pains.”

“I put you at risk. Again. I’m always putting you at risk.” He put his head down on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t let me.”

“My dearest boy, it’s not a matter of letting. And it was worth it.” He scritched Crowley’s scalp with his fingertips, soothing with deep pressure. “You are worth it. You are always, always worth it.”

“Ssso are you,” Crowley hissed against his shoulder, and Aziraphale marvelled, once again, at the absolute tenderness inside that hard shell.

He was determined to keep his precious demon safe.

#31 days of ineffables #fanfic advent calendar #day 3 #nutcracker #ineffable omens fanfic #ineffable husbands fanfiction #aziraphale x crowley #good omens novel #airconditioning

[joddit-y]

Gabriel and Beelzebub's Divintively Terrible Plan (a Good Omens fanfiction)

if you’d rather read it A03, click here

chapter one is here, two is here, three is here

CHAPTER FOUR

Aziraphale, having known Crowley for around six thousand years, know quite a bit about him. Some of the more important things were the fact that Crowley cried, he could do weird things with his tongue, and most importantly, he was seldom truly fearful. True fear was rare in ethereal or occult beings and even rarer in the Serpent of Eden. The demon tended to smother his emotions, out what Aziraphale assumed was pride. So to see him experience what could only be described as a severe panic attack was unsettling to say the least. But Aziraphale was predominantly worried as he hurried inside to collect a soft rag and a glass of water from where he’d left Crowley sitting in the outside lot. He’d been twisting at his jacket sleeves, knees curling up to his chest the last he’d seen him.

The angel had made a friend in the late nineteenth century (Crowley had been asleep at the time so he’d been available) out of an intrepid customer who had, despite his best efforts, managed to visit his shop weekly. Eventually his annoyance gave way to grudging admiration and they became fast friends. She figured out that he didn’t particularly want to sell his books, so she just curled up in a corner with a stack of tomes and a pair of cotton gloves for hours, never buying. One unfortunate day she decided to bring her fellow book enthusiast with her on her weekly visit, and he was less than patient with the seller’s antics. He pressured the poor girl into simply buying the book she’d been reading for the past few weeks (he hadn’t planned on a long visit), and as a result she’d panicked, not knowing who she wanted to please. Apparently the man she’d been with was her date, and he was alarmed by her nervous breakdown and abandoned her there. Aziraphale had done his best to help her that day, and it was then she’d informed him of several generic ways to help someone having a panic attack.

The first rule, let the patient decide what they need (physical contact being a big one), don’t force anything on them. The second, if they look like they might be about to hurt themselves (whether intentionally or not), give them something mindless to do with their hands. The third was to attempt to understand what happened once they were calm.

He mouthed the rules to himself as he scuttled over the hardwood, gently opening the door to the back porch. Closing it with a soft click, he saw Crowley was now upright. A good start, he cheered silently. The lanky demon looked at him from over his shoulder balefully, and it was then Aziraphale noticed the crate had moved itself outside, and Crolwey was preparing to break it open. He hovered over the last step, confused.

“Crowley, why...well, are you alri--”

Crowley waved him over and cut him off.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine, now are we going to see what’s been hogging your floor space or what?”

The angel’s eye roll was barely reigned in as he begrudgingly acquiesced. Of course Crowley would pretend everything was fine, his ego was roughly the size of Soho afterall. His demonic nature made him too proud to ever ask for help. Demons liked themselves very much, and accepted help from none, lest their “reputation” be tarnished (although a certain demon tarnished his own reputation by making his most common wile gluing coins to the street). He’d resigned himself to this fact centuries ago, he just preferred not to think of it. He preferred to fool himself into thinking that Crowley knew just how much he was loved.

Meanwhile, the demon had begun to pry open the top of the crate, miraculously avoiding the splinters gunning for his slender fingers. Aziraphale sighed. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t just drop the issue. Grasping the cool metal of the second crow bar he joined his friend.

“Dear boy, I must ask what happened not five minutes ago. I’ve never seen you that panicked before, aside from the Apocalypse of course.” he grunted, the thick wood beginning to finally give way.

Crowley paused in throwing his entire weight against the bar long enough to sigh despairingly.

“Angel- that was-well, I suppose I don’t really know exactly what happened,” he fumbled, waving his free hand around, a sure sign he was uncomfortable. Aziraphale raised his eyebrows disbelievingly.

“...I just sorta. I dunno, it’s over now though so it’s fine .”

He grumped, throwing himself back into his work with a renewed vigour.

Huffing, Aziraphale asked Crowley if it was time he step back from the box, as it was almost open and he didn’t want to get hurt. The demon nodded curtly as the lid creaked open, releasing a cloud of dust along with the unpleasant sensation of being watched. Shoving the lid onto the ground, Crowley peered over the lip of the crate, only to be met with the back of a gloved hand to the face. Aziraphale startled to his side as Crowley tripped backwards, matching expressions of shock painting their faces. Crowley made to stand slightly in front of the barbed angel at his side, preparing to protect him from the waves of demonic energy seeping out of the container, which were unexpectedly and alarmingly more intense than he’d sensed. Crowley’s pupils shrunk to anxious pinpricks amidst a golden sea.

“Who in the he- hea- Earth are you, and why have you spent the last few days loitering inside an angel’s book shop?” Crowley announced, feeling quite pleased with how confident he sounded. Aziraphale wondered if he knew how much his voice was wavering.

The satin hand considered flipping them off for a moment before withdrawing back inside the crate. The hand was attached to its owner, (it is actually important to clarify this, this particular hand had been attached to several other demons in the course of its existence) who was feeling quite rash at the moment, as they had just spent a good part of the week stuffed inside a cheap, splintery crate in full formal attire. Of course they had chosen to wear that outfit, but that was beside the point. The demon considered their options as they listened the the pair outside shuffle nervously (Aziraphale had decided that he couldn’t leave Crowley to face the demon alone, and was resetting their placement to a more equally endangered position). They rather felt like with what they’d had to put up with (listening to an angel argue with voicemail for a week was infuriating), they had earned a dramatic entrance, the “dissasembled-body-parts-crawling-up-to-reassemble-themselves-limb-by-limb” being one of their personal favourites. But at the end of the day, they were tired, and wanted to get these morons out of their life as soon as possible.

Crowley had just begun to consider edging closer to the eerily silent box when suddenly there was a tall, suited creature in front of him. Confusion and worry fought for control over his facial features as he recognized the being standing before them. Aziraphale gave the demon a hasty once over warily, blue eyes darting to Crowley and then to the other demon’s tongue, which was currently tracking saliva all over a soft pink eyeball. He supposed that his snake-like friend wasn’t the only one who could do weird things with his tongue.

The maroon, leaf-like crests lining their head (like they put three minutes of work into making acceptable looking hair, which they had no idea how to go about doing in the first place) swayed slightly as the demon spoke.

“You are the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale.” he said, his voice an almost perfect baritone if it weren’t for the clicks and chirps punctuating his speech pattern.

Crowley seemed to sober up at his words, the angel noticed. He himself was finding it a tad difficult to tear his attention from the demon’s tartan pocket square. The snake demon considered lying before remembering that this tart had been hiding out in the bookshop for about a week now, so they were confirming, not asking. Drawing himself up to his full height (he didn’t like being looked down on, figuratively or literally, and they were currently doing both), he grumbled an affirmation. Leaning back, the demon picked their gloves off their hands.

“Good.” they barked.

Aziraphale decided to draw attention to himself.

“Excuse me, ah-”

“Dagon, Lord of the Files.” Dagon interrupted. “Or more like Lord of the Flies with how much time I spend around the Prince.” they snarked, the joke sliding off the pair like water slides off a duck. They were far too concerned at the moment to appreciate the rare sight of a demonic sense of humour.

“Lord Dagon then. To avoid beating the tush,”

A part of Crowley died as that awful misconstruction entered the world. Dagon just looked confused.

“what exactly is it that you want with us?”

The frilled head nodded knowingly, padded fingers drawing a small, black velvet box from their inner suit pocket.

“I’ve always preferred showing to telling, so why don’t you two just have a look in this chest for me?” they purred, holding the box out to them invitingly.

Crowley was fully aware that Dagon, while being an utter stiff, was a powerful, cunning demon who could incapacitate them both in a blink of their eye (metaphorically anyway, geckos and therefore Dagon did not blink). So when Aziraphale looked like he aimed to protest, he gave him a sharp poke in the ribs to shut him up, which worked, but earned him an affronted look.

“Why?” Crowley asked, feeling that this was a safe question. The demon rolled their eyes, and proceeded to make a production out of placing his other hand on the lid of the box. Curious blue and yellow gazes followed it reluctantly.

The lid snapped open, the dust that had been loitering in the velvet for decades was finally ousted.

And then several things happened all at once, so I will relay them to you in the most sensible order I can.

The box, greedy for its next meal, wrenched over 12000 years worth of memories from two violated minds. It had been getting pretty hangry recently with nothing to fill itself with, but all said and done it was extremely satisfied with the outcome of its little outing.

Their minds suddenly found themselves in a fog, trying desperately to latch onto things that it couldn’t remember, feelings that they’d never had. Then everything was gone.

Aziraphale suddenly found himself blank.

Crowley was empty.

Dagon, knowing they had about five minutes of dazed recovery time to leave without making a fuss, teleported the pair into the bedroom of the shop, and then disappeared back to their desk in the Management wing of Hell, hoping that the traitors would just live out the rest of their days (they were immortal of course, but the end of the world was still coming- eventually.) as the old married couple they acted like and not bother anyone.

~~~

As you know,angels and demons don’t technically have gender. Or sex for that matter. Pronouns are generally assigned to them by humans, who assume gender constantly. So really they just go with whatever is convenient at the time. Since these particular occult beings don’t remember their pronouns, we will just assume that they’ll figure it out eventually and refer to them both by he/him for convenient story telling.

He blinked. Blinking felt...odd. It felt as if he wasn’t meant to do it but got into a habit of it anyway. He blinked again, hoping the small action would clear the fog from his head. It didn’t help, but he decided to keep doing it. Blinking seemed to be the only feasible option right now, he wasn’t sure what to do with the rest of himself just yet. He wondered vaguely if he should be slithering right now, and if that was right then why did he have limbs?

Blink. One after the other this time, not that felt any less strange.

He flopped his head over to the right, nuzzling against the cool, soft thing underneath his cheek. What were these called again? ...Blanquette? No, no, that was French. Times had changed, and so had language. Frowning into the… soft thing, they realized that French was as much a mystery to them as the blanquette was. For that matter, so was the sleepy looking blonde lying just a few feet away from him.

Wait.

Lurching up from the blanquette and stumbling over the wood panels to prop himself haphazardly against a dusty old dresser (why are legs??), he watched the other being in the room suspiciously. The other looked to be harmless, but there was something about him that felt mildly dangerous, and he wasn’t going to take any chances in this state. But really, what was his state? He couldn’t remember anything before waking up a few minutes ago. That wasn’t good. This was very bad, not knowing yourself was very bad problem to have, especially if you can’t defend yourself from- defend from who? He couldn’t remember. He just had that feeling that he was in danger in some way. But at least he remembered common things, like… French, apparently. Thank God for that. Wait, he didn’t want to thank God, that was awkward for some reason.

If not God, then who- Satan? No that didn’t seem right either but who else would you thank, someone? Whatever, Someone would have to do for now. He got the feeling that this was a common dilemma of his.

There was something else about the fellow face planted into the bed that he couldn't quite put his finger on, but it made him uncomfortably comfortable. He didn’t feel like he should be trusting someone he’d never met but already knew. The soft waves of energy emanating from the man made him itchy. He wasn’t sure he liked that. But he couldn’t deny that something about him made him feel safe.

As he raised a pale, twiggy hand to scratch the back of his neck (anatomy! He knew that!), he readjusted his stance and limped slowly over to the bed. He knew how to use his legs, but his hips were an entirely different matter. Were they supposed to sway this much as he walked? Catching sight of a full length mirror propped against a wall, he stood up a tad straighter and gave himself a quick once over. Other than finding himself to be quite aesthetically pleasing, there wasn’t anything that required his immediate attention. Focusing back on the stranger (although he could be referring to himself here for all he knew), he leaned in slightly. Did he know this being? He certainly didn’t remember him, but he was pretty sure that he knew them. But all sense of sentimentality was forgotten when blue orbs batted open.

~~~

He felt...bad. This all felt wrong. But how did one know what was the difference between right and wrong, good and bad anyway? Blinking the sleepy haze from his eyes, he zeroed in on the rather angular looking person tensed at the foot of the thing they were lying on. He looked worried about something. Maybe he were suspicious of him? But he’d never done anything to this man as far as he could remember...

His hands move on their own accord to gently pat down his face. Was this who they were? Why didn’t he know that, he should know who he was, of that he was certain. This was definitely wrong-

“Oh dear oh dear oh dear-” he breathed, hand running through his apparently short hair while the other plump digits ran over his clothing. When the person across the room made a move towards them, he was barraged with questions.

“Who are you, where are we?!” “I-” “What is happening??”

The ginger waved his hands frantically, signalling that he was just as confused and that the interrogation wasn’t helping.

The two of them sat in silence for a minute, staring at each other. Eventually the blonde, once he’d calmed himself, decided they had to start somewhere. Clearing his throat, he inquired the other’s name.

“My name?” the other frowned, thinking hard behind the dark glasses.

“Yes, dear boy, everyone has a name.” he said, even though he currently had no idea what his own was. He hoped that hearing the other’s would jog something. While the skinny creature in the dark clothes pondered the question, the other suddenly wondered what he looked like. Glancing around the dusty room, he caught his reflection in a mirror across the room. He didn’t look like much (in stark contrast to the fellow leaning awkwardly against the dresser), but he found it pleasant. Homely, if you will.

“Well I don’t know who I am right now either, so let’s just call me...erm… I dunno, what’s a good name for me do you think?” he muttered, stuffing his hands into pockets that were far too small for anything to actually fit in.

“Wh- You don’t have your memories either?” the tartan clad man exclaimed.

The ginger shook his head hesitantly.

“Well you look very nice, very sophisticated. Maybe something proper, like Sean or maybe Anthony?” he suggested.

“Anthony, eh? Not bad. Don’t like Sean though." he accepted the name brusquely, and gestured impatiently for the other to do the same.

"Oh! Yes, my name. Erm." He blundered, looking to Anthony for ideas. He was somewhat offended by the small eye roll that accompanied the next suggestion.

“Why not...oh I don’t know, Michael? You could pass for a Michael.”

He shuddered. “No, no, definitely not.” Something about that name just made him uncomfortable. Anthony frowned, and did his best to remedy the sudden tension in the room. He opened his mouth as if to say something, and then looked sideways at Not-Michael.

“You know, I’ve been going along with this because there’s something about you that makes me feel safe, but don’t you think this is suspicious? Don’t you think it’s odd that two amnesiacs wake up together in what looks like the centuries old backroom of a long dead pub?”he growled, making his way slowly across the creaking floor panels to the other man in a threatening manner. He was getting increasingly unnerved by how smoothly this was playing out, he didn’t feel right being this vulnerable.

“Unless, you’re...faking?”

Not-Michael bristled.

“How dare you! A being such as myself could never stoop so low. My only wish is to help and love others, here you stand accusing me of senseless deception!” he cried, standing wobbly on top of the bed to gain height on his attacker.

Anthony looked slightly abashed, but wasn’t backing down.

Two brilliantly white wings burst from Not-Michael’s back, sucking up all the color in the space to make way for them. His soft blue eyes hardened into vibrant blue mint orbs, white hair standing more upright than usual. He didn’t like this feeling, it was too intense, too angered . But he couldn’t seem to control it, as much as he desperately wanted to when Anthony flung up his arms to shield himself from the burning light illuminating the room.

Anthony didn’t know what had happened. One moment he had been interrogating his new acquaintance, and then he’d snapped, outraged and painful. The itch that had been plaguing him furiously bloomed into a fire racing through his veins, scorching him from the inside out.

Then suddenly a huge, slightly burnt, black snake had taken Anthony’s place, hissing like mad and coiling itself up defensively, preparing to do just that.

Now, and angel’s fury is, like most would assume, righteous. Powerful. But angels can be made furious over practically nothing (part of their design, unfortunately- it made smiting easier), and if the angel in question has no control over that anger and the power that comes with it (or no memory of even having it), then it can spiral out of control very quickly. And as is common with those quick to ferocity, that innocent anger can be easily misguided and taken out on the wrong person.

There are very few things that can halt this kind of anger in its tracks. One of them happens to be receiving a huge, sudden shock. And watching the only person you’ve ever met turn into a giant reptile is certainly surprising.

The light was gone. The air stopped vibrating and returned to its usual meander. Electric irises were once again soft. His blood wasn’t burning.

The wings however, stayed. But they didn’t possess the light of Heaven anymore, now they were completely normal wings. They’d stayed put because they’d had enough of the pocket dimension they’d been stored in for the last several years and decided to make a break for it.

The angel took a few steps away from the spitting animal across from him that he didn’t want to believe was Anthony. The speckled wings puffed a bit, mimicking their owners bewilderment.

The snake hissed.

“What have you done to Anthony?” he cried, pointing a plump finger at the just as bewildered looking snake. “Because-” he started, searching desperately for an answer to the beast in front of his very eyes. “Because you can’t be Anthony, people don’t just turn into large snakes. I think.”

Anthony, for his part,was more confused than he’d ever been before, which was saying a lot, seeing as he had woken up just ten minutes ago without his memories. He felt better as a snake though. He couldn’t remember quite how he was a snake, but it felt right this way.

“Oh you think I’m sstrange? You have wingss!” he argued with some difficulty. Speaking through a snake was very different.

“Yes, but that’s normal! Isn’t it? Yes, yes it is, wings are normal. Turning into a huge reptile is most definitely not!” Not-Michael spluttered.

“Being a ssnake iss- um. It doesn’t not feel normal? So that meansss it’ss completely normal, and if it feelss that way then it can’t exactly not be normal!” Anthony blustered.

“What?” The other said, trying valiantly to get through the double negatives to what he was actually saying. His hand faltered, swinging back down to his side.

“Besidess, what wass with all that horrible light? You nearly killed me! Over nothing!”

“I-what? I nearly killed you?” he suddenly looked horrified.

Anthony cringed. He’d wanted to scold the man, but he looked so genuinely and terribly distraught that he felt a little guilty about it.

“I mean, I don’t think ssso, but it ssure felt like you were getting there.” he mumbled, coiling himself into a loose pile of scales. He noticed vaguely that there were red stripes adorning his underbelly.

“I… I’m so sorry, Anthony. I truly didn’t mean to hurt you, I just wasn’t sure how to control it, and I was so furious over what seems like nothing, now. I’m so sorry my dear.” he sighed, blue gaze eventually meeting a golden eye.

“Ss’okay angel, I’m ssure you...I mean you had good reasson to… we’ll work on it.” the snake grumbled. Not-Michael perked up, a small smile on his face. Anthony decided then and there that he liked that smile.

“Angel?” he asked, wondering if that might have once been his name.

Anthony said nothing. He wasn’t entirely sure if that had once been some sort of pet name, or if it was poking fun at what seriously looked to be the man’s species. The only part he mentioned aloud were his musings on what exactly the blonde was, because he vaguely certain that wings and terrible light weren’t part of the average human package. The other thought it over, and decided to accept the theory as truth. So now he was an angel. How about that.

“What do you think,” he started contemplatively “of just calling me Angel for now?”

The black scaly head cocked to the side slightly, not unlike a dog.

“I sssupose that could work.” he agreed.

Angel smiled appreciatively. “Say Anthony, do you think you could possibly turn back now?”he queried, straightening and then immediately crouching back down to eye level with Anthony.

“It’s not that I have anything against your being a snake? But it really would be easier to sort through this mess if we’re both in the same form.” he paused, then added “and I’m pretty sure that I am unable to become a snake.”

If snakes could blink owlishly (or blink at all for that matter), then Anthony would have done so. Unfortunately the only thing his body could muster to convey his realization was his jaw hanging open. This gave him the gently surprised look of someone who’d just found out that ethereal and occult beings Make An Effort far more often than they would like to admit.

“You- you do know how to turn back,,, don’t you?”

He did not.

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #crowley #Aziraphale #ineffable husbands #amnesia fic #my writing #my fanfiction

[imagine-darksiders]

If you have the time could you write a short story where the reader has to take care of Death (due to injury, sickness, whatever it would take to bring him down for a bit) while on the ruins of Earth. Little food, little water, and a coming winter can make it even harder.

You dodge the horseman’s hand as it snatches at your flimsy coat. 

“Death,” you scold, “I’ll only be gone an hour or so. I need to find Vulgrim!” 

The wounded reaper makes to stand, clutching at the enormous, festering wound on his thigh as he does. “You’re not stepping one foot outside that door,” he growls commandingly, though it’s far less intimidating than he might have hoped when he winces, sucking in a breath and falling back onto the floor. 

You throw him an exasperated look and huff. “Look, you’re not getting any better. It’s going to get dark soon and the night will be a Hell of a lot more dangerous to go out in.” 

“There is no need to go out at all,” he protests darkly, “I will be fine, I just need to work that Shadowcaster’s poison out of this wound.” As he speaks, the dark magic in the deep gash ripples violently, earning another grunt of pain from the horseman. You grimace at the way it almost seems to writhe beneath his skin, alive. Dark, wispy tendrils of smoke rise from his leg and whatever hideous concoction that demon had thrown at him fizzes away at the skin. The yellowed, fraying flesh surrounding the wound is kept from spreading further, down towards his knees by the nephilim’s own, naturally-occurring healing magic. 

The biology of horsemen fascinates and baffles you. 

Still, you don’t want to risk being caught by a horde of demons with a wounded horseman. You’re not sure you’ll be able to properly protect him, or that he’ll be able to protect himself. 

“You are not fine,” you point out whilst checking the straps of your backpack are secure, “you’re not getting any worse, no. But you aren’t getting any better either. Vulgrim has to have something that’ll counteract that poison.”

Death’s eyes narrow and you suddenly notice his hand has started to glow the tell-tale purple you know so well. 

“Death, I’m going.”

“Oh no you are not!” Just as the horseman flicks his wrist up to unleash Death-Grip, no doubt to keep you in the tiny safe house by force if need be, you manage to slip swiftly through the large metal door and push it closed. From behind the door, you hear Death’s colourful cursing and then he’s shouting after you. “GET BACK HERE! Y/N!” 

You shake your head with a sigh and turn, heading out into the city in search of the demonic merchant who could hold the key to helping your friend. 

—

Death is fuming. 

He glares at the door with livid eyes and clenched fists, counting the seconds that you’ve been gone. He can’t quite believe you’d had the audacity to deliberately disobey a horseman of the apocalypse, although, he probably ought to have expected it. You certainly had a will of iron and a heart as wild as his brother, Strife’s at times. 

The horseman had attempted to leave the safe house after you, of course, only for his leg to buckle beneath him. He’d collapsed forwards onto the ground and just laid there, griping vehemently to himself. 

It’s there, face down on the floor where you find him when you slink quietly back in. Pressing the door shut behind you, you turn and jump to notice that he’s now almost at your feet, head turned to the side and glaring at you heatedly. 

“Hi,” you chirp.

He lets out an unnecessarily long sigh. “…Hi.” 

Without another word, you take his forearm and tug him until he’s sitting up, at least. Then, with slinging one of his arms over your shoulder, you allow him to use you as support back to the corner furthest from the door, where he’d been sat originally. To begin with, he’d tried to shake you off and say he could do it himself, ever the arrogant one. But a quick stab of agony has him reluctantly accepting your help. 

“It’s weird seeing you so vulnerable,” you try to make some kind of conversation. 

“I am not vulnerable. I’m still the most dangerous thing on this planet, regardless of current….setbacks,” Death responds grouchily. He turns and slides down the wall until he’s sitting relatively comfortably. Pulling a small vial of strong-smelling, putrid green liquid from your rucksack, you set it beside Death’s leg and rummage for some bandages. The horseman takes up the bottle and inspects it suspiciously.

“So, what exactly did you have to trade to get this from that slippery demon?” he inquires, “Heaven knows he’s never given anything for free.” 

“Easy peasy,” you reply, succeeding in finding a well-buried roll of bandages, “I mentioned you were inju- um….waylaid….” Death nods, appreciative that you hadn’t revealed his vulnerability to Vulgrim. The demon is nothing if not an avid gossip. 

“I said it was just in case we ran into some Shadowcasters, because we’d been seeing an abundance of them. Then, he was much more lenient in his pricing. He just wanted some gilt, nothing too hard to get,” you finish. You take the vial back from the horseman and pull the old cork from its top, positioning it over Death’s leg. With a gulp, you find his eyes and bite your lip. “He uh, he said this would most likely hurt….It’s not a tried and practiced medicine. Apparently, the Shadowcasters have started using their brains and are stealing old spell-books from high ranking demons that are making their magic more potent.” 

“Well, credit to them, I suppose,” the horseman rumbles, nodding for you to start applying the poultice, “Not every demon has such acuity.” He manages not to flinch when you dab some of the odd potion onto a clean rag and begin to gently press it into the open wound. On the one hand, you’re rather glad that Death doesn’t bleed. But on the other hand, it’s eerie that he can receive such a vicious gouge to his thigh and nothing comes out. Luckily, the acidic substance had managed to burn away a huge patch of the horseman’s trouser leg, completely exposing the wound in its entirety, so you were spared the awkward task of asking him to remove them. 

The cold air blows in through the gap underneath the door, coaxing a violent shudder from you. Death squints at your shivering and hums. “Perhaps it would be more prudent for you to focus on building a fire?” he suggests. 

You glance up at him without pausing your ministrations. “I don’t think so mister. You first, fire later.”

“You’ll freeze.”

“Not in five minutes,” you point out, flapping away one of the odd tendrils that oozes from his leg. Finally, you’ve finished. Placing the cork back in place, you take a strip of jelonet, in lieu of anything better and place it delicately over the worst affected are. Death gives it a wary glance but doesn’t protest. It strikes you that the horseman is actually trusting you enough now to do this. You aren’t sure that he would if you’d tried a few weeks ago. It’s quite encouraging to see that your relationship has progressed so much, mostly without you even noticing. It’s little things like this that tell you you’re getting somewhere with the antisocial, old horseman. 

“There,” you exclaim, wiping your hands on your coat and sitting back, “Vulgrim reckons that’ll be about a week before you’ll be able to move again. 

“A WEEK?!” the horseman screeches. “I cannot be out of commission for a week, Y/n.” 

Frowning, you answer, “Yeah, well without it, you’d probably lose the leg. So there.”

He pauses at that and sends the offending limb an impressed glance. “Is that a fact? Well, I suppose I’d better not be sloppy next time we come across a shadow caster in the future.”

You nod in agreement. Even you’d noticed that when you were fighting the demon, Death had come across as extremely arrogant. He’d severely underestimated it, almost fighting boredly and lazily, so it had been able to take him off guard. ‘Doesn’t look like that’ll happen again any time soon’, you muse.

Once more, a strong gust of wind buffets the old safe house’s door. Making the metal screech which sets your teeth on edge. The horseman places a hand on your arm and gives it an urgent squeeze. “If you fall asleep tonight without a fire going, you will freeze to death. The earth is much colder than it used to be, especially at night,” he explains. Your lips pull back in a grimace, but you stand all the same to start pulling cardboard boxes off shelves and yank at some of the dry, wooden planks that make up the floorboards. It feels awful to tear some of the missing persons posters and messages to loved ones off the walls, but you reason with yourself that they’re of little relevance now. 

Nobody is going to be found. 

 When you’d managed to pile up a decent amount of kindling, you pull your precious zippo from your front pocket and strike up a flame. Blessedly, you hadn’t quite run out of fuel yet. That would soon change, however, so you’d have to be extremely careful not to waste it. 

Soon enough, a small fire is flickering warmly in the dim light of the safe house. You place your rucksack on the floor next to Death and lay next to where the horseman sits. All the while, he watches you intently. 

“I….regret not being able to do much to keep you warm,” he laments softly, “I don’t generate any body heat.” 

You smile up at him, still shaking but far warmer now than you had been. “That’s alright, you’ve done a bang-up job keeping me alive so far. I think it’s time I started to return the favour.”

“You don’t owe me a thing,” the horseman states firmly. Its a rare moment for you both, when Death gets in one of these moods. Usually he’s quite jovial company and has a quick remark for everything you come out with. Every now and again, though, he can become very pensive, almost sober in his behaviour. It always catches you off guard. 

A heavy silence falls over the room whilst you try to think of something to say. Eventually, you settle on, “How’s the leg?” 

In reply, Death stretches it out in front of him and grunts when the skin around his wound stretches painfully. “I’ll live,” he grumbles. He turns his head to look down at you and gestures to the dressings around his thigh. “Thank you, by the way.” 

You laugh lightly and quietly. “What else was I supposed to do? Just let you lose a limb?” 

Death is silent, staring at you thoughtfully. “You are a…puzzlement, Y/n, did you know that?” he murmurs suddenly. You tilt your head up at him, the cold forgotten for a moment. 

“What does that mean?” you ask. 

“Well,” he begins, “You’ve your own life to worry about. I will not die from this wound, nor from the loss of a limb. But you could die from anything. The cold, starvation, dehydration, demon attack, sickness….” He pauses and you can see his usually fiery eyes turn gentle. “Instead, you’ve chosen to put my wellbeing above your own. Puzzling,” he concludes. 

“Humans aren’t a selfish species, Death,” you sigh, “regardless of what you’ve probably been led to believe. Most of us want to help each other. Especially our friends. You’re my friend. Is it really so strange that I’d want to help you?” 

Death doesn’t hesitate before replying. “It’s a strange concept for a Nephilim to receive help from outside our species.” 

Thoughtfully, you place a shivering hand on Death’s knee, mindful of the wound and give it a soft, companionable squeeze. “Well, get used to it. We’ve got a long week ahead of us.” 

He grumbles at the reminder and rests back against the wall behind him, closing his eyes. You regard him for a moment, then close your own eyes and sigh softly. “I’ll take care of you though, Death,” you whisper sleepily. 

The horseman’s eyes snap open and swivel down to look at you. You’re close to drifting off, hand still resting on his knee and the vial of Vulgrim’s potion clenched in your free hand against your chest, protectively. Death’s brows furrow at your odd choice of words. They’re honestly words he’s never heard before. They sound foreign and bizarre in his ears, though they strike a chord in his blackened heart. You’re far more worried about him than yourself. 

Quietly, Death scoffs. He’d have to make sure you didn’t starve before he could find you something to eat because you’d probably spend all of your time in the coming week finding different ways to make him comfortable rather than feed yourself. 

—

At some point during the night, Death arose from a light kip to find you up and draping a dusty old blanket over his torso. He startles you when he suddenly speaks up. 

“Y/n, you should be using that for yourself,” he mumbles. 

Jumping back at his voice, you hold your hands behind your back guiltily and avert your eyes. “I-I just found it in one of the boxes.” A pause, then, “You looked cold….” 

“I do not feel the cold,” Death explains patiently. Not entirely true, he does feel the cold, but it never hinders him like it does humans. He would receive little benefit from the blanket, no matter how caring your gesture is. Grunting, Death lifts it off himself and holds it out for you to take. “Go ahead, you need it more than I do,” he rumbles. 

With a shake of your head, you instead lay back down on your bedroll and stubbornly close your eyes. “Don’t argue. Just take the blanket, Death,” you mumble tiredly. The horseman raises an amused eyebrow down at you. Still, he’s not about to accept such stubbornness so easily. Sighing, Death shuffles sideways until he’s right next to you. There, he pulls half of the blanket off himself and covers you with the remaining half. You twist around, mouth open to give him an earful but stop when you notice his plot. Smirking up at him, you turn to face the horseman fully and shift a little closer to his leg. 

“Glad to see you’re learning to let people help you,” you yawn. 

Death scoffs but doesn’t argue. “And I’m glad to see that all the heartache in your little life hasn’t made you hard and cold, like me,” he whispers. You hum, probably too tired to have heard what he said, but your small hand reaches under the blanket to wrap around two of his long fingers and there, you hold them as you drift off to sleep once more.

#darksiders #darksiders 2 #imagine darksiders #very lazy writing I'm sorry

[rainydayescapism]

Apocalypse Two?

Link to part one here.

*Second excerpt from original WIP

They spent most of the flight in silence. It was only 50 kilometers back to base, roughly thirteen minutes flying, and they used the time to mentally stitch themselves back together. Reese murmured to Sammy throughout the flight, and Theo thought about his report, and occasionally glanced over at Jonathon. He was leaning back against the wall, arms still crossed, and eyes closed, though he seemed more relaxed than before. He was deathly pale and clammy looking, but his breathing was composed. Once, Jonathon caught him looking and sent a faint smile his way. Theo looked away but something uneasy was snaking around in his stomach.

They arrived three minutes early due to Madeleine’s lack of respect for the speedometer. She always insisted that the readouts it gave were slow, but Theo suspected that she just liked to freak them all out with her slightly-too-fast maneuvers. Today, looking at Sammy and Jonathon, he was glad.

Even with their premature arrival, Eli and Holiday were already waiting for them when Madeleine brought them deftly back down to the surface. Theo unstrapped as quickly as he could so he could open the door for them. Undoubtably Madeleine would have already radioed ahead for a stretcher for Sammy. Sure enough, they entered a moment later, and with Eli at the head Holiday and Reese lifted him onto it as gently as possible. Theo saw Sammy shut his eyes, but he gave no other outward signs of discomfort.

It only took a few more seconds for them to lift the stretcher out of the transport and jog away with him. Reese followed them off, and Theo heard Madeleine exiting from the door up-front. Lyra had also freed herself, and Jonathon was shedding his straps carefully. Just as Lyra was beginning to exit, Jonathon stood up off the bench. Theo was watching him, so he caught the momentary sway before he steadied himself. Lyra exited past him and Theo waited for Jonathon to pass him before closing the door behind them.

“You good?” He said in Jonathon’s ear, walking beside him. Jonathon kept looking straight ahead, but even as Theo watched the colour was draining out of him. “Lyra.” He called, keeping his eyes on Jonathon’s face.

“What’s up?” Lyra said as she turned. Her eyes followed his trajectory and a moment later she backtracked towards them. “Jonathon?” She questioned. He hadn’t stopped walking, his gaze fixed on some useable point ahead. He didn’t answer either of them but shook his head slightly. Lyra joined Theo, walking slightly behind. “What is up with him?” She hissed. Theo shrugged. A moment later, something dawned on Lyra’s face. Theo saw it and tried to ask, but she was already bolting ahead to catch Jonathon. With a mild curse, he followed. As he caught up to them, he saw Lyra grab one of Jonathon’s arms, pulling it away from where he had them crossed. He tried to shrug her off, but she had him in a death grip.

“Lyra let go!” Theo heard him say. Lyra’s only response was to grab his opposite wrist and yank at where he still had it clenched to his side. Theo felt the beginnings of an epiphany in his mind. Then Jonathon was on his knees, arms in Lyra’s grip, and Theo was beside them, eyes fixed on the dark stain growing across Jonathon’s abdomen. He let out a much-less-mild curse.

“Jonathon.” He finished. He didn’t know what else to say. Lyra had a much more productive approach.

“Help me.” She said, releasing Jonathon’s wrist and stepping under his other arm. Theo copied her and together they hauled him to his feet.

“I can walk.” He protested, trying to break out of their hold. They ignored him, and instead trotted quickly towards the base doors while he stumbled between them.

As soon as they were inside, Lyra hit the yellow panic button on the wall. There were three to choose from. Green for mild, non-life-threatening emergencies, yellow for moderate, someone-might-die emergencies, and red for the severe, everyone-will-probably-die emergencies. Then she and Theo lowered Jonathon to the ground to wait for support.

“If you try to get up,” Lyra warned. “I’ll sit on you. Put pressure on that.” She added. Theo wasn’t sure if she meant him or Jonathon, but he crouched down next to him anyways and used his hands to push on the approximate area of the wound. It was hard to tell now where that was, because the blood had stained so much of his uniform. Jonathon jerked away slightly under his touch, a hiss of air escaping his lips. Theo reached his other arm around to tug Jonathon gently against him for support, while Lyra crouched down in front of him. “What happened?” She asked simply. Jonathon grit his teeth.

“I was already heading to the med-bay,” he gasped, “there was no need for all – this.” He nodded weakly in the direction of the panic buttons. Lyra gave him her least amused expression in return, and Theo offered his most aghast. Jonathon continued after a moment; “I’m not really sure. Might have been a projectile. I thought I was fine at first – that’s why I didn’t say anything. By the time I realized I was losing blood I didn’t want to freak anyone out. There was nothing you guys could have done. I applied pressure all the way back.”

Of course. Theo thought, mentally kicking himself. Of course, ex-medic Jonathon would choose to deal with this on his own rather than incite a panic among the crew. He should have guessed sooner. Belatedly, he realized that this was probably why their training insisted that the entire crew be examined by both the first and second in command. It left less possibility for things like this to fall through the cracks. Lyra hadn’t looked them over, and Theo hadn’t been smart enough.

“Shit.” Lyra said. Which Theo thought summed things up nicely. A minute later the other medics were upon them, and they carted Jonathon off with Theo and Lyra trailing behind. One of the medics, Beckett, spoke up.

“Did he tell you what happened?”

“I failed to complete my preliminary checks of the crew, and this dummy didn’t say anything about bleeding out. For ten minutes.” She finished venomously. Beckett threw a shocked look at Jonathon where he was lying, but quickly turned his attention back to Lyra.

“Noted.” He said. “Any info about the nature of the injury?” Lyra shook her head in exasperation.

“No. He said it might have been a projectile.” Beckett nodded.

“Okay. We’ll keep you updated.” He pushed Jonathon through the med-bay doors, and they closed with a soft hiss behind him. Lyra planted herself in front of them, looking intent on staying put until Jonathon himself resurfaced. Theo recognized the stubbornness in her face. He tugged lightly on her elbow.

“Beckett said he’d update us. Let’s go check on Sammy and give the run-down to Eli and Holly, and then we can all go give our reports to Emma.” He watched as a small battle took place on Lyra’s face, but a moment later she set off down the hall with him.

She was muttering under her breath, “nothing we could have done…what use is a first aid kit and medical training if he hides his injury? Of course there was something we could have done! Idiot!” Theo thought it best to let her vent.

Eli and Holiday were predictably horrified by the new development, but kept their reactions to a minimum, for which Theo was grateful. Sammy was out cold, having passed out after they gave him the pain medication. They had set his ankle already and were applying a cast. Theo was doubly grateful that he didn’t have to see the grotesque angle of Sammy’s injury again.

“He’ll be fine. Might be a bit uncomfortable, but with crutches he’ll get around. He won’t be back out there for at least six weeks, but Emma will find a use for him around base.” Theo shot a dubious look at Sammy.

“Does he know about the recovery time yet?”

“No.” Eli replied, wringing his hands together. “I’m not exactly looking forward to telling him either.” Holiday chuckled softly.

“Where’s Madeleine?” Theo said, looking around for her.

“Unwinding, I’d imagine.” Holiday said, “I’m sure we’ll see her later.” That wasn’t unusual for Madeleine. Maybe Theo was just feeling paranoid after Jonathon’s stunt.

“We should go give our reports.” Lyra said quietly. Everyone briskly conceded, and they followed her to Emma’s command office without further delay.

Emma was one of very few ‘true’ adults left among their organization. In her mid-fifties, she always wore her greying-blonde hair in a tight ponytail, and she had excellent posture. She had seen more of the beginning of the end of the world than Theo could imagine, but her eyes remained soft and her laugh was always genuine.

It often surprised people when they met her how casually she interacted with her subordinates. Theo guessed that they were expecting someone more uptight in her position, especially considering how smoothly things ran under her guidance. Most leaders only achieved that level of fluidity with an iron grip.

But Emma didn’t need to do that. The situation itself had all the pressure she needed. They had to function efficiently or die. None of them were keen on the second option, so they made it work. Personally, Theo thought Emma was a much better leader for being able to maintain her sense of humour through it all. Plus, it helped her to connect with her troupes. As a group made up of mostly twenty-somethings, they had nothing if not a keen appreciation for gallows humour.

Emma listened patiently as they all gave their reports. She didn’t interrupt, or berate Lyra for her mistake, or Theo for his imperceptiveness. When they were finished, she asked a few, easily answered follow-up questions, and then excused all of them except for Lyra. Theo tried not to feel nervous for her as they filtered out. He knew Emma was fair. One mistake wouldn’t lose Lyra her rank. He resolved to wait for her outside the office anyways.

Only five minutes later, she emerged, looking at him with fleeting surprise and brushing off his questioning expression.

“Everything’s fine, she just asked me if I wanted to talk about it. Apparently, she also thought I was going to beat myself senseless over this.” She shot an accusatory glance his way.

“I never said senseless.” He raised his hands to ward off her look. “You’re the most sensible person I know.” She rolled her eyes. “As long as you’re ok.”

“I’m ok. ‘Mistakes are how we learn.’” She quipped. By her fond, albeit mocking tone, Theo had no trouble guessing who she was quoting.

“Emma’s awesome.” He sighed contentedly. Lyra sent him another scathing look, but the corner of her mouth quirked up all the same.

#original work #writing #excerpt #apocalypse? #i told you #jonathon is not fine #these idiots #i might be the writer but they do what they want

[smartworkingpackage]

How Chris Hardwick Keeps Life Nerdy (and Funny) with Evernote

Chris Hardwick is everywhere.

You may know Chris as the founder of The Nerdist, which has grown from a podcast and blog into a media empire. Or maybe you know him from @midnight, the off-color Comedy Central game show that poked fun at social media for 600 episodes. Or from his festival-headlining stand-up act. Or from Talking Dead, the AMC TV show where Chris and friends chat about a fictional zombie apocalypse.

What you may not know is that Chris is a longtime fan of Evernote—even offering product feedback on Twitter—and he’s also someone who purposefully re-organized his life, changing his habits to become the person he wanted to be.

For the season finale of our podcast, “Taking Note,” we sat down with Chris to get his thoughts on creative productivity, motivation, and organization. We also discussed the evolving state of social media, nerd culture, and what the world of comedy can teach us about building up small ideas into something worth sharing.

Want to know more? Listen below or read on for a partial transcript of our conversation.

Taking Note: Episode 12 — Chris Hardwick

Length: 45 minutes iTunes | SoundCloud | Overcast | MP3 | RSS

  On designing a career

You are involved in so many different projects all at once. Is this your natural mode?

Yeah, it is. I’m sure there’s a little bit of a quality where I can’t sit still. I’ve just reached 14 years of sobriety, and when I got sober I decided to point some of those obsessive qualities toward self-improvement and organization. I was not an organized person in my 20s. My life was a mess. Bills were late. I wasn’t keeping track of anything. I would just have stacks of paper everywhere for notes and my life was an organizational disaster.

So I really started focusing on how to get a handle on everything and sort things and keep track. What I realized was that we’re in an age where—more than any other age—we can design the careers that we want. The Internet allows us to reach our audiences directly. Whatever our goods and services are, we can reach consumers without having some big corporate go-between.

The career that I have was really designed. I mean, it’s all intention. I sought to create this kind of a career because number one, I didn’t want to end up doing the same thing all day every day, because that would drive me crazy. The other thing was that it occurred to me that I wanted to diversify my career kind of like a stock portfolio because in entertainment, things change, you never know what’s going to happen. You never really feel like you have guaranteed employment.

And so, I wanted to have like five or six things going on so that if something fell through or got canceled or went away then I wouldn’t feel like my entire life has just been destroyed and I’ve got to start over. Part of it was to satisfy the way that my brain works and the other part of it was for survival.

How do you choose a project?

Ten years ago, I was unemployed. Nothing was really working out for me. No one was coming to see me do stand-up. I looked at everything that I had experience doing. I’d been hosting shows for 13 years. I knew I was capable of doing that. I knew I had a strong comedy voice. I knew that I loved this certain swath of things that would be stereotypically categorized as nerd culture. Before the 2000s, you couldn’t really do anything too much in “nerd culture” because our culture hadn’t niche-ified yet. To try to pitch nerd-centric things in the 1990s, networks were just laughing and like, “Well, the audience is too small.”

Then with the advent of the Internet and the cinematic revolution of X-Men, Spider-Man, Harry Potter, all these things really kind of blew up Comic-Con culture into pop culture. I guess I just looked at all those things and I said, look, I have an interest in these cultural things. I love science, I love technology. And so, because I have the experience I have, I really only want to be involved in things that revolve around that. Whether it’s comedy that involves these topics, hosting shows, hosting a science show, hosting a tech show, anything like that, these are all the areas that I have expertise and interest and so I’m just going to focus on that.

From the outside, it sort of looked like I was narrowing down zero options to even less than zero options but actually what it did was give me an incredible amount of focus and a path. Almost immediately… it was so surreal the way that it happened. Within a couple weeks after making this decision, I saw that they were trying to cast for a science show that Wired magazine was doing with PBS. And so, I just said, well, this is exactly what I was talking about. This is pop culture but it’s science and it’s hosting. There’s no one else better for this than me. I can check every box there.

And so, I went in, very determined, and I got the job. We did ten episodes of it but I ended up contributing to Wired for like six years. That led to doing tech reviews for G4 and Attack of the Show. Within that time I created Nerdist.

I’m half physical notebook and half digital notebook. But I was never able to find a digital program that worked for me before Evernote.

Making that one decision of asking what do I really want to do and what do I think I’m good at is really where it all changed for me, but I could not have done it without having some sense of organizational skills. It just wasn’t possible. I’m half physical notebook and half digital notebook. But I was never able to find a digital program that worked for me before Evernote.

You mentioned rearranging your life to go after this big goal that was built on your strengths, but how did you go about doing it?

Asking a lot of questions and then breaking that down. If you read a ton of self-help stuff and self-improvement stuff, and lifestyle blogs and organizational blogs, you find that there’s really a handful of basic principles. The core of it is really pretty simple: What do I want, what’s the next actionable item, what steps do I think will get me there? Can I take one step today toward the attainment of that goal? And then every so often checking in: Am I on track, do I still want this goal? When you get into the process, sometimes you learn things that change your mind about what you want to do.

But really, it’s just about breaking things down. When you’re writing goals, just make sure that your action items are actually actionable. Like, you wouldn’t just write “a million dollars!” because that’s not an actionable phrase. It needs an action verb in there somewhere so that you know how to approach it. It’s really about finding the quanta or the most basic thing that you can do next in order to move closer to the thing that you think you want.

“A million dollars” doesn’t work as a goal. “Make a million dollars,” okay, now you’ve got a verb in there, but that’s not the right verb.

Even if you say “make a million dollars,” it’s really important to write out why. And the reason that it’s important to write out why is because you might find, you actually don’t want that thing. If you find out you do want that thing, the why of it all helps you understand the emotional reason. Emotion is what drives motivation. Until you’re emotionally motivated, you’re probably not going to commit to doing something because everything takes work.

You’re not going to do that work when things get hard if there isn’t an emotional fire stoking the action. That’s why really important to understand why you want those things that you say you want.

Organizing calendars and notes

You must have some pretty hardcore time management skills.

I have a pretty good time management skills at this point, for sure. I also have an amazing assistant who is more organized than I am. But even before that, I color-coded my calendar. Green is anything that has to do with work. Blue is anything that has to do with something personal. Purple is our live shows. There’s sort of a pinkish color that is the podcast. Yellow is anything that involves press. Light blue is fitness.

I think color-coding your calendar is really important because if your calendar is just full one color, it’s going to look like an overwhelming mess. Color helps you realize that your events are modular. The color is going to tell you what emotional importance it has, so you can make better decisions about how and where to put things and balancing out your days. Like, “oh I have all green this one day but maybe I need to throw in some blue so that I’m doing some things for me personally.”

Do you do the same sort of structure with your notes?

I have a handful of notebooks. I have a stand-up notebook, I have a goals notebook. I have a house stuff notebook. I have a philosophy notebook—I use the Evernote clipper in Chrome, so I’ll clip things that I feel like are positive outlooks on life, interesting thoughts on sobriety or taking action. Just anything that’s for personal development. And within that I’ll tag things. So it’s like, well, this is about sobriety, this is about motivation, this is about organization. I keep that up.

I keep a log of things I’m thankful for. You can get so caught up in running, running, running that you don’t always stop to appreciate what you’re doing.

I also have a notebook that’s just gratitude. I keep a log of things I’m thankful for. You can get so caught up in running, running, running that you don’t always stop to take a breath and appreciate what you’re doing.

The changing face of social media

You also recently wrapped up @midnight, the Comedy Central show where you and a bunch of other comedians, four nights a week over the course of four years, would make fun of whatever was going on social media on that day. Have you seen it change in that time?

Oh my god, yes. My friend Mike Phirman has this great description of when they first started making films, moving pictures. And the technology alone was enough to justify using it. “Horse Walking Up Stairs” would be a whole movie.

Social media used to be, “hey, I’m awake, look at what I had for breakfast.” Then it very quickly became something where people realized they could get news really fast. So then it became a real, substantive information outlet. And then they started to realize, oh, this can create actual social change.

But now I think social media has really morphed into, unfortunately, a lot of yelling. The loudest voices do tend to rise to the top. I do think there are still very powerful uses for social change on social media, but it’s such a crazy time right now that I don’t see as many superfluous tweets anymore.

As many outrageous things as there are going on in the world, I do think we’re a bit addicted to outrage and social media is sort of the outlet for that. It’s not all negative. I don’t want to paint that picture. But social media used to be just be silly and fun and now it’s heavy. I feel like social media is really heavy right now.

This also ties into that whole notion of nerd culture becoming mainstream. The “flame war” has been a part of the Internet since before anyone called it the Internet.

Yes, absolutely. Anyone who’s been on a forum since there were forums knows that within two or three lines of any thread—and I’m sure there’s some sort of a formula for this—it just becomes a [cursing] match. Then it just becomes like a shouting schoolyard.

When you’re just reading text, a lot of what you’re reading is the through filter of your own baggage. There’s so much nuance and subtlety that’s lost.

Communication is meant to be in person. It really is meant to be in person. That’s how our brains have developed. We read people’s faces, their expressions, we take social cues, visual cues. We can hear intonation, their audio cues.

When you’re just reading text, a lot of what you’re reading is through the filter of your own baggage. You can infer what you think the writer was intending, but there’s so much nuance and subtlety that’s lost. And then on top of that, people are interfacing with machines, which is very impersonal.

And so, when you’re reading text, if you’re misinterpreting it and then saying f— you back, your brain is thinking that you’re doing that to a machine. Because you’re interfacing with a machine and not a human being.

Productivity lessons from the comedy world

[Stand-up comedy] requires a lot of skills from the person who’s on stage. Yes, you have to be funny, but you also have to be able to think fast. You have to see where things are going. You have to have psychological understanding. And then that notion of timing. What do you think those of us who are non-comedians can learn from studying the way comedy works?

I think being a comedian helped prepare me for being whatever type of entrepreneur I am. When you’re a comedian, it’s just you. You’re responsible for all of it. You have to write and craft these ideas and concepts. You go up alone in front of people. You learn on the fly whether or not things work. In a way, comedy is like marketing because you’re selling these ideas to an audience and seeing in real time whether or not they’re going to fly. And if they don’t, you have to figure out how to make them work real quick.

I think you learn improvisation, you learn how to connect with people, you learn how to read people. You learn how to work on the fly. I always recommend to people, whether they want to be a comedian or not, go take an improv class somewhere. Because no matter what you do, learning how to improvise is an incredibly valuable resource to draw on. It gives you an incredible amount of confidence and you feel like no matter what happens, you can figure it out.

Most comedians have to write things down. You really do learn how to get your ideas out and sort through them and craft them and organize them. Even if your organizational system isn’t recognizable to anyone else, everyone has a proprietary organizational system.

Most comedians have to write things down. You learn how to get your ideas out, sort through them, craft them, and organize them.

Joan Rivers had a million note cards which she organized in little drawers. Other people use notebooks, other people use cocktail napkins. I will mostly write big ideas and work my stuff out in Evernote, but then when I’m ready to go perform, I actually write down the set list in a notebook because the act of writing with my hand kind of helps get it into my molecules a little better.

But I have gone on stage when I’m trying new stuff and I just have Evernote open in presentation mode and I have the phone down on the stool. I think because I had a leg in the analog world before the digital world, I use both.

So you’re writing down all this material as you come up with it. Do you have a review cycle every once in a while?

I do. The review cycle is not really a period of time. For instance, I just started touring again. I had five shows in Minneapolis recently and about a week before that, I opened up Evernote and started really plowing through all the ideas I had just been randomly collecting. In my notebook, I start writing down the ones that stick out and I start trying to connect them, saying, “what’s the through-line here?”

You realize, like, oh there’s a through-line here that I didn’t consciously intend, but my subconscious brain was trying to express. All these ideas are actually weirdly connected, as disparate as they might seem.

On starting small and building up

So what else is in your toolkit? We know you’ve got Evernote. We know you’ve got the calendars and the color coding, and you mentioned that use a physical notebook sometimes too. What else is essential?

That’s kind of it. I mean, the other thing that’s essential is sort of knowing what your creative threshold is. I’m pretty good at writing for like a half hour straight and then after that, I start to get distracted. If you know like, well, I’m going to schedule 10, 15, 30 minutes, you can find ten minutes in your schedule to do something creative. And if you schedule it every day, that’s achievable.

So you focus ten minutes a day without really caring how far you get, or about being done, or whatever. You just do ten minutes a day and the next day you do ten minutes and the next day you do ten minutes. And then you find after a month—which goes by very quickly—you have a ton of material because you were just consistent and you just did it little bits at a time, as opposed to thinking, “oh, I have to write for four hours a day and I don’t have time for that.”

You just adopt this idea of a little bit at a time, a little step at a time, a little bit, little bit, little bit. And then it becomes like compounded interest in a bank account or a stock portfolio. Over time, the exponential growth becomes staggering from just little bits, little bits, little bits, little bits.

There’s no trick to getting better at stuff; you just have to do that stuff. In order to do that, you have to organize your time. I’ll often tell people, for a week, track everything you do with a stopwatch. Just so you start getting a sense of how long it takes you to do everything. And then once you get that raw data, you can look at: “how much time did I waste?”

There’s no trick to getting better at stuff, you just have to do that stuff. In order to do that, you have to organize your time.

When you’re on the Internet, if you’re answering emails or whatever, you might think, “well, I worked for three hours,” but if you actually timed everything you were doing in that three hours you might see, oh, I actually only did about 35 minutes of real work and the rest of it was going down YouTube rabbit holes or looking at Reddit. And you realize, oh, I can carve that out, just do the 35 minutes of work I meant to do and devote another two hours and 25 minutes, I can parse that out into really useful, efficient things.

You think you were being productive and realize you weren’t. You were just doing something that satisfied some part of your brain.

Yeah, that’s exactly right. And that’s why the best thing you can do is just write down everything. With comedy, it always happens and I think almost every comedian will tell you, you think of a joke and you go, “I don’t need to write it down, I’ll never forget that.” And then ten minutes later, you’re like, “what the f— was I just…”

It’s important to write everything down. Whether it’s a notebook or Evernote or whatever, keep track of all that stuff because it allows you to manipulate it, like in your color-coded calendar, to make that information into modular bits of useful data that you can move around and use in more effective ways.

In the same way that you would organize a closet, and have everything stacked and put exactly where you know where everything is, it allows you to do that emotionally with your life in all the intangible things that you can’t see, but you experience. And it allows you to create so much better of an emotional flow for work and your personal life. But you can’t do that unless you really start tracking all that stuff.

To hear the rest of this interview, click the player above or download the episode from iTunes, SoundCloud, Overcast, or your podcast platform of choice.

Taking Note will return early next year with Season Two. If you have feedback for us, let us know with a comment or review on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening!

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