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saintsofwarding · 10 months

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WE SHALL BE MONSTERS

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Chapter 26: A Lost Cause

Heisenberg's boots slammed into stone. The impact rang through him, echoing into the snowy darkness. He heard Mia's too-fast breathing, felt her warmth against him, her arms hooked around his neck, her face pressed to his scruffy cheek.

After a beat, her arms slid free, and she stood on her own, by his side in the darkness.

Around them spread the pit. They stood on a chunk of broken fortress, red brick seared black from the force of the bomb. Past its edge rang empty air, the depths of the crater. Where they stood, moonlight illuminated well enough to see, but in those depths there was nothing, no trace of light. Just the echoes of lycan snarls, the occasional clatter of falling stones, a deep, subsonic rumble that might have been rock shifting, might have been something else.

Water rushed close by, a gout pouring from a gap between two fallen pillars. It spackled Heisenberg's face with cold mist as he strode to the edge of the platform to shine his hip flashlight down into the dark.

It yawned below, endless and absolute. Mist and fog and a kind of grimy haze unfurled around him; each inhale stung with cold, and mold, and the smell of a place long-since removed from the sun. Usually, a big pit full of garbage was Heisenberg's idea of a perfect vacation. Less so right now. Chalk that one up to circumstance.

"I guess that's where we're headed," Mia muttered.

"Guess so."

She sniffed. "In sickness and in health, right?" she said, with a hiccuping little laugh. Then, in a kind of rush- "God, I miss him."

"Yeah?"

"Everything," she pressed. "Everything about him. You know- when I first met Ethan we were just a couple dumb college kids and I..."

Her laugh softened. "I thought he was unbelievably boring."

"Heh. No kidding."

"It was at this house party I didn't even want to be at, and he was in the corner with a red solo cup, and he was dancing to the music in the straightest way possible, I mean-" She demonstrated, holding herself stiffly while she bobbed her head and tapped her thigh in time. "But I didn't know anyone, and I ended up in the corner of shame with him."

"Let me guess. Love at first sight?"

"No!" she snorted. "It took like...three more accidental meetings before he awkwardly asked me to go get coffee, and he turned the brightest shade of red I've ever seen. And it was easy from there. Being with him. It was good. It was so, so good."

Her expression was lethal, like the sun was shining on her face. Hard not to notice her beauty, now, even through the hard days of grime and bruises and exhaustion.

"It crept up on me," she said. "Love. Little by little. That's how he was. You don't think about it, and then you realize what he's done. What he's been doing, all along. What he'd do for the people he cared about."

Her brief look of joy, lost in memories, faded.

"It was the big stuff I missed most, at first," she went on. "But now...it's the little stuff, really, you know? Redfield shuttled me from safe house to safe house after you took Rose, and I thought at first it would be a relief. Nothing to remind me of them, changing scenery, all that. But it's funny how losing someone works. You don't run away from it. The world remakes itself into the shape of that person."

She lifted her face, her profile limned with the red moonlight.

"He'd play piano, sometimes," she said. "Late at night. He always said he wasn't any good. But I'd stay up and listen without him knowing. I'd listen until he was done. Every time."

"He probably knew," Heisenberg said.

A faint smile touched Mia's face as her eyes turned, slowly, to rest on him. Heisenberg felt the weight of her gaze, its soft intensity, like she'd reached up to take his face in her hands.

"How long until dawn?" she asked.

"Hour, maybe."

"Then we're burning time." She cocked her rifle, checked its sights, gave a short nod. "Into the dark."

"And let's hope it doesn't fuck us."

The first few lycans jumped them as they skidded down the scree of broken masonry on the far side of the platform. Classic lycans, hairy wolf-men with makeshift weapons. Mia's rifle spat; Heisenberg crushed a couple skulls with his hammer. His Cadou wriggled inside him, sluggish as it struggled to metabolize the suppressant drug he'd been shot with. He kept his awareness engaged, but metal didn't sing; no hum or crackle of electricity. For the time being, he'd have to do this thing without the use of his power.

Fucking touche. Miranda had given him his powers, had twisted his body into a vessel for them. Typical that now he'd have to fight her without their help. He imagined her face, coldly beautiful. Her smile of calculated triumph.

Show me what you can do now, Little Karl.

Go on. I'm waiting.

One of the lycans lunged for him; he smashed it aside with particular force, splatting it against a block of cracked stone that still bore the paintings of dolorous, long-faced saints, rendered in faded blues and reds. Lots more red, now.

He twisted as gunfire cracked over his shoulder: Mia. The next lycan crumbled apart, its head and chest blown into chunks.

"I had it covered," Heisenberg drawled, shouldering his hammer as he flicked a fragment of crystal off his lapel.

"Uh-huh." Mia scanned the darkness, rifle trained outside their circle of light; howls echoed through the fog, but nothing leaped out at them immediately. "Anything here look familiar to you?"

"Nothing looks familiar to me, sweetheart, this place got put through a meat-grinder."

"That's not what I mean." She huffed a sigh. "I saw the explosion from the chopper. It...it went off in midair, not on the ground. The megamycete had lifted itself free of the cave system. If it blew aboveground, not below, the, uh- the-"

"Chunks?"

"...Sure. The chunks would have rained down on this place. Crushed it."

And Ethan below, Heisenberg thought. Mia must have come to the same conclusion, judging by the haunted look in her eyes.

"Your point?" Heisenberg prompted.

She gave her head a little, annoyed shake. "My point is that maybe there's something intact. Down below."

She pointed further into the pit. "Part of the old fortress, part of the old ceremony site...a cave system...I don't know."

"Could be."

Mia cocked her gun. The snap rang through the fog. "Let's find out."

The haunted look was gone as soon as it had come; now, Heisenberg saw the fever light of determination fill her gaze. That determination must have been what had allowed her to survive all these years, even with Miranda's ghost rattling around in her skull.

Had she known what it was at first? Or had she chalked it up to trauma, PTSD, what the fuck ever?

Of course, she was no stranger to voices in her head. She'd survived Dulvey, too. Three years under Eveline's control, three years of fighting the horrors inflicted on her by the child she'd helped mold into a monster. You had to emerge from that unfathomably strong, or completely insane. As Heisenberg followed her down the crumbling, makeshift pathway, spiraling deeper and deeper into the darkness, he wondered if she hadn't emerged as both.

More lycans. From all directions. They hit fast, hit strong. The smell of rot thickened in the air as Heisenberg and Mia descended, and between the bursts of claws and fangs and gunfire pound, Heisenberg caught sight of the various makeshift dwellings the lycans had fashioned from bits of the village, stacked stones, animal skins, antlers and gnawed bones. Even crude ornaments, dangling from entryways, crow feathers and pebbles, vertebrae and chunks of crystal.

What god did the lycans worship? Their memory of Miranda, and the Black God? Or some eldritch thing birthed from the dregs of their hive-mind, the kind of god only a feral predator could dream up?

Eyes glimmered from caves formed from collapsed pillars; one lycan, massive and musclebound, wore scraps of what looked like scavenged Soldat Panzer exoskeleton, a walking biomechanical wonder.

What an enterprising lad. Shame he had to die.

That was a group effort- Heisenberg swept forward and with a colossal swing of his hammer, smashed the front plate of its helmet off, exposing a scarred-up face twisted with rage. Mia sprang under his arm and delivered the coup de grace in the form of a bullet to the gob. As it slumped to the side, raining in shards into the darkness below, Mia paused, breathing hard, scanning their surroundings. Heisenberg did the same, but there was nothing. More lycan dens, more broken masonry, more blocks of cracked stone wreathed in mist.

A chorus of growls and snarls, the screech of claws in stone, scrabbled somewhere behind them. Mia pushed off; Heisenberg followed her. She was in charge, now, a woman on a mission. Her head down, she ducked under a gateway formed of blocks of fallen stone and into a narrow channel beyond, a ravine formed of rubble. Lycans advanced. She sprayed an arc of bullets, her lips drawn back from her teeth. When one collapsed at her feet, wounded, still crawling toward her, she drove her boot onto its head, crushing it to the dirt.

"Come on!" she yelled at Heisenberg, a few meters behind her, and headed into the fog again. "There has to be something- we just need to keep looking!"

"Mia," Heisenberg muttered.

"Don't you dare say my name like that," Mia snapped, glancing back at him. "He would do this for me. He...he already did this for me. I have to keep looking." "I know-"

"Then keep up!"

She rounded a corner and almost ran head-first into a knot of lycans. She stumbled back; her rifle came up, muzzle flash illuminating the fog in one, two, three bursts. Crystal shattered, bone reduced to hissing pulp under the anti-mutant rounds. Mia's scream filled the air as the lycans fell, as she demolished the next wave, and the next.

They were coming, and in force; Heisenberg glanced up at the ring of glimmering green eyes, the bared fangs, the rusty metal and pieces of broken antler clutched in clawed hands. With a little shake of his shoulders, he waded in. His hammer swung through the flashes of gunfire, through Mia's howl of rage as she fought them back, on and on until the air was as thick with gore as it was with fog, a bloody mist that clung in a pinkish sheen to Heisenberg's coat and dripped down from his hat brim.

The last of the lycans crumbled apart, ribs gaping to the sky. Mia stared at it, panting, eyes white-ringed and bright. She slumped against a block of ancient brick, closing her eyes.

"Mia," Heisenberg said, approaching her. He reached out for her arm. A gash had sliced through her sweater- a lycan's claw swipe- and bled freely down the thick material.

She rounded on him with a gasp, lifting her rifle. Its barrel knocked him in the middle of the chest; he didn't flinch.

"Do you understand?" Mia said. "I have to keep looking."

"I know."

"He...he's dead because...because I didn't tell him, because I...lured him there..." Her rifle barrel dipped. She shook her head back and forth, glazed and manic. "If...if I hadn't, he would still be alive. He would still be-"

"Eveline did that. Right? Not you."

A sob choked her. "You don't get it. It doesn't matter." She shoved back from him, stumbling through the rubble. "It doesn't matter. I-"

She drew a short breath. "I..."

She blinked.

"You what?" Heisenberg said.

"I recognize that," Mia said, staring over his shoulder.

Heisenberg turned. It reared through the devastation: part of a gateway, attached to a short, broken flight of steps. Heavy, blocky, chiseled from red-brown rock. The same bedrock the village had been built atop; the same stone he'd stared at for countless hours while Miranda indoctrinated him, or sliced into him, or rummaged around in his insides, trying to perfect him. He remembered the flicker of flame-shadows off its surface, the play of flashlight beams on its distant walls.

"Shit," Mia breathed.

She moved past Heisenberg and toward the gateway. It listed to one side, half-sunk into the earth, but it was still connected to something. Mia vaulted onto the steps and climbed up, pulling herself onto the lip of the gateway and balancing atop it to peer inside. Heisenberg followed, setting the head of his hammer against the frame, staring in after her.

Beyond-

A narrow cleft of darkness breathed frigid air across them.

"This was the entrance to the lab," Mia murmured. "I remember from when she brought me here. I remember thinking...it looked beautiful. Like an ancient temple. Something from a dream..."

"Yeah, well, bet she broke you of that opinion real fuckin' fast."

Mia sniffed, scrubbing her bloodied palm over her face. Heisenberg could hear her heartbeat, fast as a hare in a trap's. He knew what she was thinking, as much as if they shared a hive mind themselves. Miranda's lab had been built right below the ceremony site. The caves, too. The hallowed cathedral in the earth, the inner sanctum of the Black God.

Ethan had died right above the caves, and if they were still, in some way, intact, and the whole place had fallen in...

Well.

Mia was silent. No big surprise. Few words sufficed when staring down at the tomb of a loved one.

Heisenberg glanced at her.

"You gonna stand there all night?" he said.

She gave a small shudder, as if bracing herself, then shook her head. "No." And without another pause, she stepped over the edge and dropped into the darkness below.

Heisenberg was right behind her, clambering down the three-meter incline and into the passageway beyond. The cavern stretched beyond, a hallway chiseled of that same bedrock stone, torch brackets set into the walls, the floor scattered with chips of stone and a decade's worth of dust. Great cracks seamed the walls, but the place was intact, relatively speaking, the entire hallway tilted downward at a sharp angle.

In the explosion the entire cavern system must have just fallen into the earth, the tons of rock above it burying, yet also preserving, it. Like a mausoleum. As Heisenberg took a deep breath of the still, damp air, he smelled a familiar trace of incense, rich spices and musk winding its way deep into his skull, illuminating the century of memories locked within.

How many times had he walked this hallway? How many times had he strode between enshrined saints, hammer dripping with their devotees' blood? A traitor in their midst, an impostor saint, a false prophet's mongrel. They stared down at him now, statues of long-dead holy men anointed with dust, with the crystallized remains of their dead god.

He thought of Ouroboros' files on him, the rote, dry facts of his unnatural life that Mia had offered to him, and that he had refused. If the devout were right, these saints had seen those years, too, had whispered the litany of his life to the Black God itself, so it might dream of him forever. Did they remember him now, all the things he'd done, who he truly was, even if he didn't?

Didn't matter. Fuck them. Their god had demanded death, and if Heisenberg knew one thing, it was that everyone got what was coming round to them.

Mia's breathing quickened as the caves sloped down, and down, as they climbed over a stream gushing from a crack in the cave wall, as her boots crunched on broken glass, and crystal, and the remnants of a shattered gilt icon.

And when Heisenberg's flashlight beam struck the bolt-studded wood of a door, her gasp was painful, a blade-edge rasp on the edge of a sob.

It was warped in the broken frame, but as Heisenberg and Mia alike set their weight against it, it juddered open, spilling a cloud of dust and light into the broken space beyond.

Miranda's lab, Heisenberg thought.

The remains of her lab, anyway, the vaulted chambers where she'd conducted her personal experiments well-away from the eyes of the villagers. Couldn't have them believing she was capable of anything less than sorcery, after all. A column of ruddy moonlight filtered down from a rift in the cavern roof somewhere high above, filling the ruins with a bloody pall. A shelf of shattered specimen jars, each filled with a lump of crystal that had once been a Cadou, leaned drunkenly against a collapsed heap of brick wall. Shreds of decomposed papers and files were scattered like leaves; Heisenberg scuffed aside a damp-spotted photograph of Moreau without his overcoat. Crushed tables, and broken glass, and cell bars bent and warped from the bomb's heat. Everywhere, calcified roots burst from walls and floor, crushing the lab into a nearly-unrecognizable mess.

Above all loomed the broken remains of a statue. One of the Four Kings that had once ringed the ceremony site. His melancholy face was blackened on one side, a point of his crown snapped off at the root.

This was the ceremony site, Heisenberg realized, collapsed inward, crushed into this cavern space. He sent his awareness, all his enhanced senses, into the darkness. Searching for a trace, a flicker of hibernating essence, of a mutant in stasis.

Silence.

"Ethan?" Mia called. She pushed forward, stumbling over the calcified roots. "Ethan? Are you there?"

She bent and began to dig through the rubble with her bare hands. Stone clattered; dust billowed, thick and choking. "He's...he's got to be here...could he have regenerated? Like the others? Ethan!"

Her voice rang over the distant rush of water, the sound of crumbling stone, echoing from deeper inside the ruins. Heisenberg picked his way after her as she dug her way on, as she clawed at the broken masonry, her eyes wild, her entire body shaking.

"I know he's here," she said. "Heisenberg, you've got to...you've..." She took a sharp breath, jagged and choked. "He'll be so glad to see you. You saved Rose, after all- you're gonna..."

She cut off as she bent to drag aside a slab of flagstone floor. "We're all going to be a family again. Just like I planned. You'll see. You'll see..."

She trailed off. The echoes of her voice rang away and away, fading into dusty silence. Heisenberg caught up to her, watching the back of her head, the rise and fall of her shoulders.

Before her, the column of moonlight glimmered off milky crystal.

Ethan's body lay at her feet.

He was broken. One arm missing, shattered off at the shoulder. His face had cracked down the middle, his single remaining eye closed. He knelt there, head lowered, his body half-buried, his hand clasped to his heart.

The crystal there had warped in strange, intricate patterns. In this light, they almost looked like roses.

Mia made a small sound. She edged forward, one step, another.

"Is he..." she whispered. "Is...is there..."

"No, Mia," Heisenberg said. Weary, weary. "There's...nothing. Nothing left. He's gone."

She reached out with a trembling hand. "It's okay, baby." She smoothed it over his cheek, thumb tracing his lips. "It's okay. I found you, didn't I?"

All at once, she fell to her knees, holding his face, holding him. Her shoulders curled in; she shook under the weight of her tears. Terrible, wracking, like they'd been torn from deep inside her. She buried her face in the broken crook of Ethan's neck and sobbed, her hands in white-knuckled fists, clinging onto his body as if that would prove enough to bring him back.

***

Mia's sobs wound down into silence, and the hush crept in. Still she held him. Heisenberg leaned on his hammer, eyes lowered, watching the dust dance in the moonlight.

Saints and gods, sacred words whispered in the dark. There was nothing holy here anymore. Nothing sacred. All of it had died with Ethan, with his last kiss pressed to little Rose's head. All of it was gone with him.

At last, Mia let Ethan's body go. She crawled away, into a corner of the rubble, where she sat, slumped over her knees, staring into nothingness.

"I think part of me always knew," she said after a while. "All this time. All these wasted years." She gave her head a little shake. "I was so stupid to think I could save him. To think I could make this all better, make all this go away. I already got my chance for that."

Heisenberg made himself speak. "Yeah, you did."

She closed her eyes, bowing her head.

"Doesn't mean he loved you any less." Heisenberg approached her. "Doesn't mean you get to give up now."

She laughed, emotionless. "Too late."

"No. No." He swooped to one knee at her side, grabbing her face in his hand. He turned her head, away from Ethan's body, toward him. "No, Mia. You don't get to. Because if you do then so do I. You understand?"

He gave her a shake. He felt her tremble under his glove, her face so close to his he could see the tears clinging to her lashes, the blood spackling her mouth.

"You don't give up, Mia," he said. He ran his thumb over her lips, taking the bloodstains with it. "I'm not gonna let you."

Slowly, he released her face. His fingertips left red welts against her skin. "We might have failed Ethan," he said. "But Rose is still out there. And we. Won't. Fail. Her."

She blinked. A flutter of lashes. Then something seemed to leave her. Mia's head slumped forward, against his chest, one hand curling into his shirt, pulling herself closer, against him. The other brushed the scar crossing his throat, the scruff at his jaw, a lock of dirty gray hair.

Heisenberg hesitated. She was so warm against him. He felt the pressure of her breathing on his skin. The gentle pulse of her heartbeat.

Another long moment of silence, of dust and ruin around them. Just two horrible people, kneeling together in the dark.

Then he lifted his hand and ran it, slowly, over her hair. It was just as filthy as his. Something kind of sweet about that.

"I think I already failed her enough," Mia murmured, as he stroked her head. "Ethan...Ethan would want me to live. To keep fighting."

"Yeah, probably."

"Are you gonna be any more comforting than that?"

"Sweetheart. We've spent the past few days in each other's fine company. Surely you know better by now."

"Right, right, fine."

"Besides. We still have enemies, even once the other Lords deal with Ouroboros," Heisenberg went on. A snarl entered his voice. "Don't you want the chance to destroy that bitch Miranda for good after what she did to you?"

"You're such a bad influence," Mia told him. "Ruining all my aspirations toward achieving a moral high ground."

"Cool your jets, Winters. You managed that all by yourself." He pressed his forehead to hers for a moment, then pulled her to her feet. "Any bright ideas on how we can deal with that big, bad artillery unit topside?"

A dark light entered Mia's eyes. "I'm sure I can think of something."

She pulled from his hands and went to Ethan's remains, kneeling once again at his side. The moonlight filled its facets, made it seem to glow softly from within. Mia brushed her hand over his crystallized hair, as if to straighten it. She clasped his hand, stroking her thumb over the ridge of his knuckles.

"Goodbye, my love," she whispered to him, and leaned forward, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "I promise I'll come back for you."

***

Another burst of flames lit the sky as Heisenberg and Mia emerged from the crater depths. Even down here, the air smelled like ashes, cutting over even the overwhelming reek of lycan and rotting flesh.

"What's your power situation?" Mia asked.

Heisenberg splayed a hand, then shrugged, the movement accentuated by the hammer propped on his shoulder. "Still suffering from projectile dysfunction."

"Of course you are. Ugh..." She was checking over her weapons, taking stock. "Shit. I'm almost out of ammo."

"Then make what you've got count."

She glanced up at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed, dark circles so pronounced her face had a faintly cadaverous appearance, a new sharpness. Something inside her had set, and hardened. He heard it in her voice, too. "If I can get to that lab with the lycans, there's gonna be an antidote. It should get your Cadou metabolizing fast enough to work through the suppressant."

"Uh-huh." He'd barely heard her after she said the words lab with the lycans. "Now there's an idea."

"I'm almost afraid to ask."

"Are you, though?" He grinned at her. "I'll explain on the climb up."

Another artillery shot blasted the skies as they reached the lip of the crater, Mia sporting a couple new scratches courtesy of the lycans. If she was in pain, she didn't show it. She scrambled to a rock shelf behind a copse of trees and crouched down, rifle at the ready like some kind of black ops guy from one of the shitty action movies Heisenberg had binged with Rose.

He ambled behind her, squinting over his glasses at the camp. With Regan and company gone, the amount of soldiers was cut down significantly. Still, he could see the black-armored figures ringing the artillery, moving in and out of the prefabs, keeping the lycans back from the fence as, above, the Rose monster dived and strafed through the clouds, the pressure of its wingbeats driving spikes of pain through his head.

Well, fuck me, he thought, a little impressed despite himself. Somehow, the artillery fire was keeping her back.

And maybe something else was, too.

Keep fighting, kid. I'm coming for you. I told you I would, didn't I?

Still, Ouroboros knew what they were doing when it came to holding off giant flying bioweapons. And he had little doubt Regan had left orders to shoot them both in the head if they showed their faces in camp without Ethan in tow. And he wasn't about to suggest Mia bring his corpse back up to use as protective coloration.

Well. He might have. Her face if he did would be something to behold. But right now, it would only waste time.

"There," Mia whispered, pointing. One of the lycans had wriggled partway through a gnawed gap in the fence; a bullet drove it back, and it hightailed, but the loose scrap of fence lingered. "Through there, and to the lab."

"After you."

Mia gave herself a little nod- then darted. She streaked through the shadows, little more than a flicker of movement, a scatter of snow, ducking and rolling through the fence before the artillery unit's searchlight swept the area. Heisenberg shook his head in approval and followed, somewhat less gracefully, shoving his shoulders through the fence and into the camp in a clatter of metal. Fuck this, he thought, grinding his teeth. The second he got his powers back, he was taking this whole goddamn camp and crushing it like a car compacter.

Pressing into the shadows cast by an old house, he and Mia watched the flurry of movement in camp. Soldiers trooped by; a temporary munitions stand had been set up alongside the Maiden of War, gunmetal and carbon-fiber at odds with the crystal growths and painted wood surrounding them. The heat from the artillery unit shimmered in the air, melting the snow into a glassy sheen over the ground below.

Heisenberg eyed the artillery, assessing it with a flick of his eyes. Simple enough. A lot like the ones he'd spent decades playing with back at his factory, mounting them on anything stout enough to hold them purely for the fun of seeing how the vehicle in question held up under fire. Pop a couple wires here and there, and the whole weapon would be dead in the water.

First things first. He jerked his head toward the lab with brows raised.

"Hang on," Mia whispered. She stared toward the group of Moreau-aficionados still huddled on one side of the square. They had all joined hands and were singing in old-tongue, some ancient prayer to the Black God for protection. "We need to get them out."

"Seriously?"

"Yes!" she hissed. "Moral high ground, remember? Shut up and follow me."

They ducked through the ruined house itself and came up behind the prisoners. A punch from Heisenberg launched their guard straight into unconsciousness; he yanked him backward into the house, leaving him in a heap on the kitchen floor.

The girl with the shaved head gasped as Mia shook her shoulder, then blinked, her pale eyes widening so far they looked as if a good slap might knock them right out of her head.

She flung herself to her hands and knees as best she could in her shackles. "Lord Heisen-"

"Shut it," Heisenberg growled. "And listen."

"We're gonna get you out of here. This place is about to turn into a shitshow," Mia said. "You need to get as far away as you can before-"

"-Before I release all the lycans in that lab over there on the poor, unsuspecting fools you see before you," Heisenberg cut in.

The girl's mouth opened in a perfect O. "The lycans?" she echoed.

"That's what I said. Now how do these cuffs-"

The girl babbled over him. "Lord...Lord Moreau prophesied this. He in his infinite wisdom...he saw that this day would pass, that there would come a time when I, and his other loyal followers, would need to walk through the ranks of the monster wolves themselves, and emerge unscathed from the other side!"

She launched into rummaging through the mess of amulets and charms she wore slung about her neck, her skinny fingers trembling. At last she came up with a phial attached to a long piece of cord. It was made of old, yellowed glass, sealed with a gob of wax. Inside swirled a thick black substance.

"This holy relic will protect us against the lycans," the girl said.

"What is that?" Mia squinted at the stuff.

But Heisenberg grinned, with as many teeth as a lycan itself.

"It's spores," he said. "From the Black God. Take too long to get into the science, but this shit's what the megamycete seeded its hosts with to maintain control, stop them from slaughtering one another. Anything with this stuff on them will read as one of the lycans. They'll smell it on us and ignore us."

He chuckled. "Well, well. Moreau, you clever bastard. There's hope for you yet."

"It won't last long, so you must hurry," the girl said. She had already popped the wax and was busy smearing the other cultists with the black spores.

"Nag, nag, nag, buttercup," Heisenberg said. The girl pressed the vial into his hand, holding on for a moment. He tugged his hand away before she might start kissing it or whatever. "Get ready to run along to the reservoir. Your- uh, Lord Moreau's down there."

Elation lit the girl's eyes. "Black God bless you, Lord Heisenberg."

He didn't bother pointing out the Black God would probably rather eat him than bless him. He rubbed a streak of spores on his wrist, then did the same for Mia.

The monster strafed by; it swept through the clouds, the backdraft from its wings blasting through the camp. The timbre of its roars had changed- they now were an enraged, thunderous bellow, each strafe growing lower, lower, shaking the ground like the aftershocks of an earthquake.

Was Miranda winning?

Hang on, Rose.

Shouts filled the air as Heisenberg and Mia burst from the ruined house, Mia peppering the snow with suppressing fire, keeping back the few soldiers who weren't focused on the black-feathered monstrosity circling ever-closer. One of its tentacles lashed down, tearing a gash from the roof of a dilapidated house, then furling back into the clouds. Heisenberg's hammer cracked skulls, shattered firing hands, sent the door guard sprawling aside as they ducked into the lab.

The sterile air hit him like a punch to the teeth, light burning his eyes. The researchers within all sprang to their feet, scrabbling for the peashooters at their belts. Mia stuck her rifle under the first guy's chin.

"Get out of here," she growled.

The gun would have been enough, Heisenberg figured. But Mia's whole look- ragged and bruised and splattered with lycan gore- sure as hell didn't hurt. The scientists scattered. Mia pushed a rolling chair aside and tapped at a computer, its pale light illuminating the lines on her face. Behind them, the rows of lycans clawed at their cages, desperate to get out.

"You got the accelerant?" Heisenberg said.

Her eyes flickered back and forth. "I...I don't see it-"

Shouts echoed outside the lab. Heisenberg leaned alongside Mia. "Come on, it's gotta be there somewhere-"

"I-"

Gunfire pounded the air. Heisenberg ducked over Mia, bringing them both down against the console as the air filled with sparks and the rattle of bullets against metal; the lab door hung crooked, half-torn-away by gunfire. They were coming in.

Heisenberg saw it, now. There was no time. They'd run out of options.

All except one.

Fuck it, he decided. "Mia."

"What?"

"Release the lycans. Then get to the big gun."

"Huh?"

"I'm going after Rose. Fend her off with the artillery so I can draw her away."

"Without your power?"

"I don't need my power for this. I know Rose. And Miranda." He pressed his finger to his temple. "I can fuck with her head just like she fucked with mine. Now you get your ass out the door and into that gun or we're all screwed."

She rounded on him, the small of her back pressed to the console. For a moment he thought she would protest. For a moment he thought she'd try to stop him, spare him, like she'd fought so hard to spare Ethan. Her face was hard, the look in her eyes bright enough to burn him alive.

He heard the hiss of her breathing through her parted lips, made out the tremble of her lashes as her eyes held his.

Slowly, Mia slipped his glasses off his nose. She lifted her face, her knuckles to his chest as she gripped his shirt in both hands, as she pulled him down, as her mouth canted, desperate, devastating, to his.

A hesitation-

A brush of her mouth, a lilt of her lips over his-

And then she was kissing him, and her fingers were tangled in his hair; his hands found Mia's face, her waist, the soft press of her hips into his. Her lips were chapped, were bitter with blood. For a moment he was lost, adrift, nothing in the world but the feeling of her mouth on his, of her grip on him, her knuckles pressed hard to his chest, just over his living, beating heart.

Her face fell from his, her mouth from his, her face brushing his cheek with a rasp of scruff to skin. The cold twined between them again. Heisenberg's heart pounded, his Cadou pulsing in time; pressed to him the way she was, Mia probably felt that as much as she felt everything else. He didn't care. He traced her cheek with his thumb, not wanting to pull away, not wanting to let her go.

"We can still cut and run," he murmured. He cocked an eyebrow. "Last chance."

Mia snorted. She nudged her forehead to his, kissed the delicate skin just under his jaw. All too soon, she pulled back.

"Go," she told him. She returned his shades to his face. "Find Rose. Get her back."

She stood from him, gripping the cage control on the console- a big, red handle surrounded by warning signs. "For Ethan."

Heisenberg gave her a single nod, his hat brim dipping. "See you around," he said. "Winters."

Her small returning smile would stick with him a long, long time. "You, too," she told him. "Karl."

He swung his hammer back onto his shoulder with a clang.

Mia turned the handle.

With the screech of hinges, every cage in the lab swung open at once. The lycans lunged out, a seething tide of matted gray hair and savage, starving eyes, claws and twisted muscle and teeth asnarl. Moreau's spores did the trick- none of them paid any attention to Heisenberg or Mia. As the creatures leaped for the exits, tearing great holes in the prefab walls with tooth and nail, as they hit the Ouroboros soldiers outside hard and fast as a lightning strike, Heisenberg strode out after them, rummaging in his coat for a cigar.

Just like old times, he thought. Practically nostalgic.

By the time he ducked back into the camp, it was in chaos. Gunfire lit the skies, muffled under screams, snarls, feral howls as the lycans clambered atop buildings and vehicles, as they took down commandos three to one. A couple of the beasts tore through the fence, collapsing it under their weight. More lycans surged in from outside, tangling and tumbling over one another in their greed to get in at the fresh meat.

The screams began to die, began to be replaced with the sound of tearing flesh, of bones snapping and crackling from their joints.

Heisenberg lit the cigar with what appeared to be the last of his matches as he left the camp, as he ascended the rise beyond. If he was gonna die today, might as well do so feeling like himself. The cigar tasted a little stale, a little moldy, but it was better than nothing.

Besides. A good Cuban was a good Cuban, and- even better- it looked like it was gonna be a nice morning.

At the edge of the horizon, past the mountains, a faint trace of gold lit the blizzard. Dawn. It illuminated the monster, illuminated the impossible span of its eight wings, the rain of mold sheeting down from them as the artillery fire ceased- gunner dead or tossed out on their ass, courtesy of Mia. As the monster wheeled round, coming back in his direction.

Heisenberg took a deep drag off his cigar, let the smoke twine through his lungs- one last time, heh- then flicked it to the snow and crushed it under his boot.

He lifted his arms to the monster.

"Miranda!" he yelled. "Remember me?"

And in a rush of darkness, the beast that was Miranda, that was Rose, fell from the skies, wings spread, talons open and aimed straight for him.

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tabbyrhsims4simblr · 11 months

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In Moonlight Falls I created the Spellman family. I only created Zelda, Hilda, Sabrina, and their cat Salem. I found a Spellman Mortuary created by TombRaidor that was perfect for them! I have made a few changes and I'm not planning for this lot to actually be a Mortuary so I didn't download the CC for that.

Mornings in the Spellman household. (A little peek inside the kitchen)

This is a premade family, Doreen Caliente, Rick Durwood, Serena Durwood, Zoe Durwood, Zack Durwood that I have made over. Obviously they are supposed to resemble the characters from Bewitched. I grew the daughter up so Sabrina would have at least one witchy friend. Their story is similar to the storyline in Bewitched...

On the outside, the Durwoods would make others jealous with their nice house, two adorable children, and a father with a great job. However, all is not what it seems between a mother in-law who disapproves of her daughter's husband and two kids who always get what they want. Can the Durwoods learn to live together or will the family spiral out of control?

When these two witches get together for afternoon tea look out! It's curses and hexes for anyone they deem fit to suffer. Zelda disapproves with Sabrina getting too close with a certain teen heartthrob who isn't a witch and Doreen as always disapproved of her daughter marrying Rick. What kind of scheming and plotting do these two wicked witches have in store for those poor unfortunate souls?

Lastly we have the Crumplebottom sisters. They are also a premade family I made over. They remind me of the Halliwell sisters from Charmed so I put them in a remake of the Halliwell house. I made headshots of them bc taking pics in the world looks unflattering for some reason.

This concludes what I done to the witches in this world. I considered making the weird sisters but I really need to make more male witches.

#tabbyrhsims4simblr #sims 3

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ineffable-opinions · 4 months

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Sahara Sensei to Toki-kun (2023) ep. 4

Ongoing Review: It keeps getting better. Ongoing Rating: 8/10

Summary: Yanki remakes himself after falling for his class teacher. Yanki’s senpai and senpai’s adoptive brother have strained relationship thanks to love.

Pairing: Class teacher X Yanki Side-pairing: Senpai X Kouhai adoptive-brothers

What I liked:

# Two classic BL tropes at once: sensei X student & adoptive brothers

I didn’t expect these tropes to come-up in these times - when BL is getting so much attention from non-fu(腐) people [not that all fu people enjoy these tropes equally] with their different sensitivities and sensibilities. It helps that the source is shonen ai.

There is no escaping the shonen ai wave, I guess.

I love the entanglement between the pairings. I love how sport and pain are entwining the characters. Todo senpai and Icchan sensei share this bond that feels so warm. Todo stops Sahara from completely brushing off Toki’s advances by always bringing it up. He even apologized to Sahara for being rude to Toki. Sahara too is maintaining his closeness with Todo while advising him. I also enjoyed how yandere-ish Toku-chan (Todo kouhai) is. Loved how he enlisted Toki to talk to Todo senpai by bribing him with a photo. What I liked the best was how Toki employed his yanki repute to save Todo senpai from guilt about wanting to back-off from the match.

I am happy that it was Todo senpai’s romantic interest and words that made Toku-chan run away from home. Such a perfect storm in the making. I am awaiting the thundershower and the rainbow.

# Sahara sensei

The actor is excellent. He got those fleeting expressions which are priceless. It is a haven of hope in the deluge of not-so-great acting and idol acting in a lot of Japanese BL.

Two most eye-catchy moments:

His little eye twitch when Toki-kun brings up the swimming past.

Sahara’s expression right before Toki-kun headbutts Todo.

# Delinquent moments

I thought since Toki-kun is reforming himself, we won’t get anymore yanki moments. I am so happy the narrative didn’t set that aside. That headbutt scene was sooo good. I also liked Toki confronting Todo senpai. While I really want a sarashi bearing yanki spirits like Honda in a BL, I’ll take what I get and be grateful.

# Forgotten past

Another classic BL trope. I am somehow glad this popped up. Sensei semes (I assume) are complicated by power-imbalance which if not balanced by warmth and vulnerability would not suit the breezy style of this BL.

# White moonlight* who brought Sahara to his knees and Toki-kun who would scoop him up, probably

Now that I have seen previews of Sahara on his knees (while white moonlight walks on), I am very excited for his past. I was super queasy about Sahara’s white moonlight, but now that I have Toki-kun’s punch to look forward to I am all in. I am also eagerly looking forward to the mirroring of that scene with Sahara kneeling in rainwater in the past and Sahara kneeling in lake water in the present with Toki right behind him. Toki probably have to grovel hard after punching his sensei.

The bloody sweet kiss being Sahara's first helped too.

# Wardrobe choice and colors

The basketball match day costumes are particularly good, imo. Sahara is softened without his physical education teacher outfit meanwhile Toki-kun dresses up in blue. Blue hue is used to tone the frames that day. While the coloring leaves much to be desired, it is not overtly moody. Just enough to step away from the brightness that permeated the frames so far.

# Location exploitation

So many locations in and around the school. It feels open and enjoyable. The delinquent sure knows all the nook and corner and his sensei (who is also his senpai) knows how to get their faster. A lot of BL have very tight feel in terms of ambience thanks to under exploitation of available space. This one is a blessing.

What I didn’t like:

# This shot

I know I am nitpicking, but what were they thinking. They gave us so many exquisite shots in this episode. They clearly know how to do a good job.

___

White moonlight – in Chinese, Tamil and Malayali cultures (among other probably), white moonlight refers to love-interest. It is frequently in reference to someone you don’t end up with but has had profound impact on you.

#Sahara-sensei to Toki-kun #佐原先生と土岐くん #sahara sensei to toki kun #japanese bl #jdrama #japanese series #boys love #shonen ai #japanese dorama #bl jdrama #鳥谷コウ #Sahara Sensei to Toki-kun (2023)

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bismuthupmy · 1 year

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Nothing Hurts | Leon x Luis RE4

Chapter One | 3.0k

The story of tragic righteousness where nobody is hurt and everything is perfect. Except nothing is perfect in hell.

A re-imagining of the events of the Resident Evil 4 remake where Luis and Leon get the ending they deserved.

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Hello! I fell terribly in love it’s both this game and with our two resident boys and I couldn’t help but write for them. I absolutely refuse certain events :))) so here i am with a fix-it. This will be multi-chaptered so I’ll link all the chapters in my masterlist as well as the previous and next chapter at the bottom

I also posted this on my AO3!

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The car rattled down the old road, the early morning moonlight casting long shadows of the trees onto the pebbles in front. Some Spanish song was quietly playing on the radio, getting on his nerves. He preferred silence when going into missions. Keeps the edge off.

Leon watched the trees go by, head leaned against his hand. It had been hours since they left the station nearly heading into dawn by now. He looked down absently at the picture in his hand, the young girl's face burned into his mind by now.

“So tell me, Yanqui,” the police officer in the passenger seat swivelled around, bringing Leon out of his thoughts. “Why did you come to this horrible place, as close to nowhere as I’ve ever seen?”

Leon tipped his head back in exasperation. They couldn’t have asked him that ages ago?

“Let’s just say- looking for someone.”

“That someone must be very important, eh?” The officer turned backpack around, gesturing broadly with his next words. “The chief gave the orders himself. ‘Help him,’ he said.”

“Well, I'm sure you boys didn’t come all the way out here to roast marshmallows,” Leon remarked. Both officers chuckled. “Or maybe you did.”

Leon turned back to the window watching as tree after tree was left behind them. The officer in the passenger side regarded Leon again.

“You have a strange sense of humour. I'll let you in on a little secret. Just between us. A lot of people have gone missing here. And it's been that way for a while now.”

“Well, then… should be just another day in the office, right?

The officer hummed, “I mean, last week there was a search for some missing hikers.”

If he was trying to scare Leon with a ghost story or interest him in doing their job for them, Leon didn’t know. He wasn’t buying it though.

“I'm sure you’ll do your best to help me,” was all he replied.

The car sped down a side road, supposedly leading to the village. The car rumbled to a stop in front of an old wooden fence, rotting and eaten by fungus.

“I think this is it,” the officer driving pointed out. This was it, alright. However, they were supposed to drop him off closer to the village.

The passenger officer turned around to justify them stopping prematurely.

“Nature calls, eh? I'll be right back.”

He steps out of the vehicle wobbling into the darkness for some privacy.

“¡Que frío!”

“¿Te has bebido el bar entero?” The driver teased, pulling out a cigarette. The other officer scoffed and continued walking. “You smoke?”

He offered a cigarette to Leon who waved him off in favour of watching the woods where the officer had wandered through, spying a wooden icon nailed to a post amongst the trees. Wasn’t exactly comforting. The radio crackled, not able to pick up a stable frequency this far into the forest. They waited ten minutes for the officer to return without a sign.

“He sure is taking his time,” the driver mused. “Did he fall in?”

Leon ignored him. He continued talking anyway.

“Maybe you better go and take a look?”

Huffing out of frustration, Leon begrudgingly pulled himself out of the police car, cool morning breeze rushing into the warm car.

“I'll watch the car,” the driver smirked with no intention of leaving where he sat. “Wouldn’t want to get a parking ticket.”

Leon wandered deeper into the woods, “So much for helping me.”

─•~❉᯽❉~•──•~❉᯽❉~•──•~❉᯽❉~•──•~❉᯽❉~•─

Walking deeper into the woods beyond the fence, the more random abandoned objects there were. Wheelbarrows were upturned and barbed wire fences had collapsed. Leon even came across a mangled deer corpse past the old remains for an iron gate which brought mainly more concerns with the whereabouts of that officer. Up ahead, through the brush, orange light could be seen. Leon crouched under more barbed wire, coming up quietly on the lodge.

Cautiously Leon nudged open the door and was met with silence throughout the house. Walking down the hall he edged inside the next room which was also empty. On the bed was an icon of sorts, marred with blood with hasty writing scrolled down the length of it. Judgement is nigh. Something was terribly wrong with this village.

A small crack in the wall of the bedroom caught Leon’s eye. Looking through it revealed what looked to be a kitchen on the other side. Leon left the bedroom and quietly walked through the halls coming up to a door. Locked. He’d come back to it later.

There was another door to the right of where he stood which was the kitchen he saw. Leon carefully opened this next door, unable to indulge in the warmth of the fireplace as a man stood directly behind him. Leon jumped, seeming to not be on the man’s radar as he listlessly wandered back to his pot, muttering in Spanish. Mildly peeved, Leon asked him about the officer.

“Sorry to barge in like this,” Leon tried to communicate. The man ignored him, seeming to not notice that he was there so Leon tried again. “Busco a un policía, ¿vino aquí?”

Leon approached the man slowly, stepping on something which crunched slightly under his boot. He knelt down picking up the bloodied badge of the officer. The sound of a thump caught Leon’s attention as the man on the other side of the room lunged at him, hatchet in hand. Leon parried the attack, pushing back against the force of the man, making him stumble back. Without hesitation, Leon’s leg collided with the man's head, crushing his neck against the wall with a roundhouse kick. Leon breathed heavily, taking a few steps back. What the absolute fuck.

A man’s scream resonated from the depth of the house, startling Leon back into attack mode, gun pulled out of his holster. Looking down at the man on the ground he spotted a key that had fallen loose and snatched it up. Jogging back to the locked door, the key slid in easily. Leon swung the door open silently, handgun by his ear as he stared down the eerie staircase to the basement of the lodge.

“Fuck me.”

The floorboards creaked, making him cringe as he descended into the thick smell of rotting corpses. Pulling out his flashlight, he shone the beam around the room at the bottom. Lo and behold, there were corpses. A large deer layed dismembered on a table, skulls and bones and the meat of some cattle were held up on hooks, rotting. The stench was enough to take you out.

The wet squelch of coagulated blood bounced off the wooden walls as Leon inched closer to a curtain separating the basement. The old cloth was dead still, dispersing dust as he nudged past it. The crackle of a radio came from somewhere in the corner of the room. Twisting, back against the adjacent wall, Leon scanned the tucked away room, torch light resting on a very bloody mound.

“Hey!”

The police officer was frozen in a state of terror, blood dripping from his nose and where his throat and forehead had been split open. His radio crackled and garbled Spanish came through. Leon crouched beside the dead officer and fished the radio out of its holder. Screams and then silence and static.

“Shit.”

Thump. The door of the basement was thrown open. Leon stood, gun out in front of him. Creeping back past the cloth curtain he made his way back to the main slaughter room. Heavy footsteps clunked down the stairs as Leon backed up against the stone wall by the bottom of the landing. Sucking in a breath to steady himself he looked to the edge of the stairs.

A crooked neck and oozing flesh met Leon's eyes for an instant before there were hands around his neck. His knife was drawn and seated deep into his attacker's throat causing him to stagger backwards, unphased. Didn’t he already smash this guy into a wall?

“What the fuck!”

Two well placed bullets between the eyes and the man fell to the ground, hopefully dead. Getting a closer look at the man Leon saw the very obvious break in his neck where his head was hanging on for dear life when he had been standing. Gross. Leon rubbed the tender spot on his neck where he was grabbed, straightening up.

“That’s cool. Didn’t really want to explain to the owner why there was a dead man in his kitchen anyway,” Leon huffed and climbed the stairs with much more mindfulness this time. At the top of the stairs the door hung open, beyond it another man slinking down the hall a hatchet in hand.

“What is wrong with these people?” Leon muttered to himself. Now these guys were definitely not here to roast marshmallows, Leon knew for sure.

Stepping past the man and slipping into an adjacent room was easy enough. Leon followed a staircase which creaked painfully like the last one, however he made it to an empty room without incident, locking the door behind him.

Exhaling, he looked around the room. On the far wall were maps and images hastily taped together illuminated by the butt end of a candle. One picture in particular caught his eye so he held his hand out to it so he could see it better. The picture was of a young girl tied up unceremoniously. Beneath her picture was the map, a large red cross indicating a location on a lake.

“Ashley…”

Leon put a hand up to this earpiece, sifting through more papers littered on the desk.

“Roost, this is Condor One.”

“Hunnigan here. What’s your sitrep?” A woman came through on the other side.

“The president’s daughter— Baby Eagle. It’s likely she’s in this village.”

“Our intel was correct, then,” Hunnigan began furiously typing into her computer. “Well done.”

Leon fished out a few other photos, each one pointing more and more towards Ashley’s location near a lake at some point. It was a good place to start.

“Need a location on a nearby lake. She may have been taken there.”

“Copy that. I’ll see what I can find.”

“Hurry up. Something’s happened to the people here. My escorts are-”

Several thundering footsteps travel up the stairs, eerily muffled through the door. More alarmingly, a hatchet was struck through said door.

“Gotta go. Talk later.”

The hatchet was brought backwards and smashed through the door again, breaking it open with its force allowing several people belonging to those several footsteps to pile into the room. They closed in, weapons braced in their hands, sickly looking faces scrunched in anger. Leon backed up thinking of the best course of action in this situation, eyes landing on a window.

“I’ll let myself out.”

He dove out of the window, arms shielding his face, landing and rolling through the dirt to diffuse the fall. Looking up, the men in the lodge leaned out the window, eyed him, but let him go. Standing up, leon carefully dusted off any shards of glass with his forearms. Deciding to put the entire lodge incident behind him, Leon turned to the only path ahead. A rickety, bloody bridge.

“Perfect.”

─•~❉᯽❉~•──•~❉᯽❉~•──•~❉᯽❉~•──•~❉᯽❉~•─

Leon trudged along, eyes and ears open out for anything suspicious. He stepped through an abandoned hut just as the morning sun was beginning to illuminate the forest. The path was overgrown, weeds whipping at his legs as he walked through them. Up ahead he could hear murmuring in Spanish. He hoped to god, which he didn’t do often, that these people were normal but he didn’t have high hopes. Not completely to his surprise, the villagers tried to impale him. He made quick work of them. He had better things to do than be held back by a few homicidal lunatics.

Just as he was beginning to move on however, one of the farmers started jerking, limbs shaking and body convulsing. Leon was definitely sure that dead bodies didn’t do that so another swift bullet to the head didn’t hurt.

The rest of his walk to the village was uneventful. Only when he came up on the gates of the village did shit go down. Yelling and jeering from the villages in the square carried on the wind. Crouching to stay unseen by the crowd, Leon watched. The second policeman escorting him was tied to a similar icon post that Leon had seen earlier in the night. The villagers crowded him, stacking piles of sticks beneath him. They were going to burn him.

Before Leon could act, a torch was thrown onto the sticks, immediately catching fire and extending to cover the officer screaming for mercy. What a way to go.

“Holy shit…”

It definitely wasn’t a good idea to get in the villagers' way so Leon ducked down a side alley. A lone woman was digging at some hay at the end of the alley and Leon thought to himself, what the hell. Sneaking up behind the woman he pulled out his knife. He lunged up, grabbing the woman by her mouth and digging the knife upwards into her skull. Some part of him wondered if he had just killed an innocent but by the state of this village that wasn’t likely. Better to be safe than sorry.

The closer he got to the village centre, the more villagers had gathered around the bonfire. Sticking to the outskirts behind buildings, Leon inched his way around the open area, turning down a second alley and into a store room. Crates splashed with yellow paint were stacked against each other which Leon found odd. When he opened the crates to find ammo and a grenade he was less sceptical. He was hoping to get away from the crowd without being seen but if worse came to worst the grenade would be handy.

Spying through the cracks in the storeroom door, Leon made sure there were no villagers coming his way before stepping back outside. The road adjacent ran from uphill down to the city centre, giving Leon a clear way out of this segment. He tilted his head around the corner of the store room, unfortunately immediately coming face to face with a villager.

“¡Ahí está!”

Leon sighed. So much for sneaking around. His handgun was pulled from its holster and a few bullets nailed into the villager’s head. This only caused the villager to stumble slightly which very much irritated Leon.

“What the fuck are these people eating? Pure steel?”

He swung his foot into the villager’s face, knocking him to the ground. He whirled around to face the gang of villagers stalking towards him from the bonfire. Leon dashed for a house, hoping for a bar lock like the lodge. He slipped into a large house and flung himself at the door to keep the villagers out, indeed finding a lock which he slid into place. The sound of mechanical whirring behind the door alarmed him.

Taking a quick peek out through a window revealed a rather gnarly looking villager with a sack on top of his head, bloodied hands holding an old rusty chainsaw.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Leon muttered to himself moving further into the house. The house had stairs. That was good leverage over the villagers. Running up the stairs Leon spotted an old shotgun mounted on the wall.

“Now we're talking.”

Leon grabbed the shotgun and checked the chamber. Full. It’ll have to do. The villagers had barged down the front door at this point, scrambling over each other to get to him like children at some sick circus and he was the petting zoo.

Leon waited for them to get close to one another as they tripped over each other at the base of the stairs, pulling out his grenade and tossing it into the hoard. Limbs went flying. Leon was flung back into the wall, coughing harshly, dust and smoke coating his lungs. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to do that inside. More villagers followed the first lot, the chainsaw villager following behind.

Ears ringing and chest heaving, Leon tried to compose himself. The villagers were fast though and didn’t give him time. One of them lunged at him, grabbing him from behind and holding him open for attacks. The Chainsaw Man menacingly took his time coming up the stairs as Leon struggled against his captor. The chainsaw was raised high above his head just as Leon managed to manoeuvre one of his arms around the villager holding him, twisting and hurling him over his shoulder into the chainsaw. This gave Leon the time to dive through his second window of the day and out onto a roof.

Glass clung to his hair and jacket but he paid no mind. There were other pressing matters. Scrambling on top of the roof Leon pulled out his new shotgun. As villagers climbed out of the window after him he blew them to bits. The shotgun worked magic. Well, until Chainsaw Man came out.

Two shotgun shots to the head staggered him and Leon followed up with a kick resulting in a meaty crack. Chainsaw Man remained just fine, picking his chainsaw back up effortlessly. Cursing, Leon pointed the shotgun at him again but all that came out of it was clicks.

Tucking the shotgun under his arm, Leon dropped to the ground below. Chainsaw Man, and whoever else, followed. Quickly, the remaining villagers took up the rear as Leon focused on the chainsaw, effectively blocking him in. Another villager grabbed him from behind, dragging him backwards. A woman with a pitchfork charged, heading straight for his chest, but then stopped.

The town bell sang. The villagers stopped, turning the attention away from Leon as if entranced. Arms removed themselves from around his shoulders. Leon stood there perplexed as they began to march dutifully toward the bell, dropping their weapons in the mud. One after the other, they disappeared into the town hall, the doors closed shut tightly behind them. Leon was left alone in the city centre, remnants of the bell echoing in his ears.

“Where’s everyone going? Bingo?”

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Hope you guys enjoy this one! I’m really exited to see where i can take this story :)

| Next ->

#leon kennedy #luis serra navarro #ashley graham #leon x luis #reimagined #canon divergence #hurt/comfort #angst #romance #slow burn #gayyyy #fanfic #fanfiction #resident evil 4 #re4 remake #resident evil #serrenedy

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carewyncromwell · 10 months

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“Somewhere, beyond the sea, He’s there watching for me... If I could fly like birds on high, Then straight to his arms I'd go sailing...”

~“Beyond the Sea (cover)” by Victoria Lucie

x~x~x~x

original background photo // overlay/underwater effects done with Lunapic

x~x~x~x

Yeah, I know, I know, Mermay is long done by now...but on a whim, I was revisiting this old sketch I did last Mermay of my boy Jacob Cromwell and his boy best friend Duncan Ashe as merpeople (specifically the concepts I developed for them in the unwritten Mermaid Revolution AU and the finished POTC AU, respectively), and I thought I’d do something paralleling that by drawing the manta-ray-inspired Merman!Orion I designed for Mermay alongside Mermaid!Carewyn from that aforementioned Mermaid Revolution AU! (Fortunately manta rays have no poison in their tails, so there’s no potential danger at all in him curling his tail around Carewyn’s like that.)

In all universes, Orion loves it whenever Carewyn sings, not just because he often finds calm music very soothing, but because she always sounds so happy and free when she does it. You’d best believe in both of these mermaid-inspired universes in particular, though, Orion loves it all the more, whether because he’s a merman who falls in love with a compassionate human starlet who wants to break him out of captivity or because he’s a human Hessian soldier who falls in love with a compassionate human-disguised mermaid who saved him from the battlefield. X3

My other accompaniment while working on this included “Dúlamán” by Celtic Woman, “Moonlight Bay” by Doris Day, and this wonderful cover of “Wild Uncharted Waters” from Disney’s recent live-action Little Mermaid remake, sung by Sam Tsui and Casey Breves!

Much love, all! Have a lovely night! 💚

#my art #hphm #hogwarts mystery #mermaid au #orion amari #carewyn cromwell #art

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crowkeeperthesimmer · 2 years

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Autumn has come to Moonlight Valley.

#Sims 3 #moonlight valley #moonlight falls remake

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nornities · 2 years

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The grave life of a shopkeeper. Fulfilling customer’s wishes, no matter how odd.

Figuring out new strategies of nurturing positive relationships with your customers.

Shopkeeping...

Before heading home late in the evening.

And having a nutritious meal in a comfortable and cozy, but quiet home.

#Sims 3 #Moonlight Valley #Moonlight Falls Remake #Crowkeeperthesimmer #Sims 3 scenery

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pandasmagorica · 11 months

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Intro/tracking post

Last updated April 25, 2024.

Older queer white cis dude in California, pronoun he.

Love music.

Enjoy QL, mostly Thai, mostly series. Here to read and comment on posts.

If a series puts me off in the first episode, I will often abandon it, sometimes within the first few minutes. I'm less likely to abandon midway. If I'm considering abandoning a series I've otherwise liked up to that point, I'll often read the reviews on MDL or look up posts on the series, at risk of getting spoilers, to decide whether to go on with it (and it's gone both ways).

Not a fan of spoilers, but recognize it as a risk of engaging so I don't (usually) spoiler-shame. Please don't put them in comments to me, if you would be so kind.

Okay with sad endings if they're earned or otherwise inevitable.

Incomplete watchlist (which I will update from time to time):

Top Ten (in order as best I can, ask me on another day and stuff might move):

Not Me (best QL series ever for plot, acting, cinematography, and music, content warning for violence) (1 re-watch)

Bad Buddy (lots of fun, new discoveries on every re-watch) (3 re-watches)

He's Coming to Me (heartwarming, delightful coming-of-age work. I didn't care for the library raid part and skipped it once on rewatch and there seemed to me to be some inconsistencies with the ghost rules.) (3 re-watches)

Cherry Magic (Japanese version, delightful, looking forward to the Thai remake if they ever settle the rights issues)

To Sir With Love (could get me to try lakorns)

Semantic Error (enemies to lovers comedy that hits all the right notes)

A Tale of a Thousand Stars (fine series, not sure why I haven't rewatched it, need to rewatch after Our Skyy 2)

55:15 Never Too Late (not QL but has a QL subplot, notable for having an older semi-out gay character) (1 re-watch)

Gaya Sa Pelicula (Like in the Movies) (odd couple thrown together, fall in love, hit limits)

Eternal Yesterday (re-watch episode notes) (not usually into high school QL but the plot got me and it blew me away, achingly sad throughout) (1 re-watch)

Much as I love them, I don't automatically recommend every one of them to everyone. The right rec for the right person!

In progress

23.5

Cherry Magic (Thai) (on apparently long-term hold pending rights issues)

I Promised You the Moon (but not actively watching)

Considering

Okay, this is a really long list and I'm probably not going to watch all of them, but a fan's gotta dream, right?

Although I Love You, and You?

The Eighth Sense

Ex-Morning

The Heart Killers

Leap Day

Mama Gogo

Midnight Motel

My Strawberry Film

Old Fashioned Cupcake

Oh! Boarding House

1000 Years Old

The Player

Revamp

Shadow (although probably not)

Stay Still

The Spirealm (this ones an unlikely stretch - censored and 38 x 45 minutes equals over 28 hours)

ThamePo

Unknown (to binge)

First episode watched but not committed to

Our Dining Table

Also Completed:

A Cut Above (in alphabetical order):

Near misses for my top 10 - there can only be 10 - but bubbling under that line. Highly recommended.

Anti-Reset (episode notes) (speculative fiction on the future of AI, in a robot and a human who fall in love, quite emotional)

Formula 17 (campy and fun) (2 or 3 rewatches)

History 3: Trapped (very funny and enjoyable

I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama (feel-good comedy)

The Great Doctor (episode notes) (not QL) (medical/historical/time travel mashup, content warning for violence and gory medical stuff)

Kiseki: Dear to Me (watch notes) (top notch crime drama with a lot of humor - content warning for violence - includes an older gay couple) (1 rewatch)

Lovely Writer (very meta about the QL industry and quite funny)

Moonlight Chicken (touching and fun)

Once Again (touching time travel, sad throughout) (1 rewatch)

180 Degrees Longitude Passes Through Us (intelligent and a good watch, melancholy, feels very much like a stage play)

The Sign (deeply flawed but wild and enthralling deep dive into northeastern Thai mythology disguised as a cop series - content warning for violence - yeah, it's a mess but it's a glorious mess)

10 Years Ticket (episode notes) (crime drama about two warring families, bittersweet ending - not QL, but there's a QL subplot)

3 Will Be Free (review link) (wild ride with great twists, content warning for violence, yeah I'd call it QL)

Until We Meet Again (fine contrast between the ghosts of the past and the world of today, deep story, but has a few problematic scenes that I cringe at, theme music got repetitive; content warning for suicide) (1 or 2 re-watches)

The Warp Effect (not QL, but some queer characters)

and a fanfic:

What's in Your Head (Bad Buddy zombie fic) (content warning for violence, requires AO3 login)

Others I enjoyed (in alpha order):

I enjoyed these enough to be happy I watched them, but not enough to consider them classics and in no danger of breaching my top 10.

Be My Favorite (fun time-travel fantasy with a strong political viewpoint and good twists, one of the mains is a bit hard to take)

Bed Friend (not sure enjoyed is the right word, has some triggers, but worth seeing, loved the cat role-play)

The Boy Foretold By the Stars (fun, sweet comedy)

Choco Milkshake (fun, touching pet fantasy)

Cupid's Last Wish (fun body-swap plot, insane amount of food and landscape porn, rural settings, content warning for gross cow veterinary scene)

Dark Blue Kiss (pretty good, creepy interloper)

Dear Tenant (enjoyed isn't the right word, and had to pause and walk away from it partway for a major cry, but an excellent film)

DNA Says I Love You (review link) (sweet, sad, interesting gender minority rep)

The End of the World With You (mix of SF and fantasy, good story and relationships)

Eternal Summer (Taiwanese film about youth discovering their identity - bisexual love triangle - well done if a bit melancholy)

Ghost Host, Ghost House (nice supernatural treatment)

Gift Shop for People You Hate (not QL but has two minor gay characters making guest appearances, one evil and one harmless) (horror, with a very dark sense of humor) (this one doesn't show an English title on YouTube, but if you search YouTube under that name you'll find it) (1 rewatch)

Jack O'Frost (melancholy and sweet)

The Man Who Defies the World of BL (very funny after watching several series and becoming aware of the tropes)

The Man Who Defies the World of BL season 2 (okay, maybe a joke can go on long enough)

Me, My Husband and My Husband's Boyfriend (bittersweet poly-ish story)

Midnight Museum (not QL but has a major bromance that could go full QL if there's ever a sequel) (a mess, but a glorious mess)

Mr. Unlucky Has No Choice But to Kiss (quite enjoyable)

My Ride (enjoyable comedy with dramatic moments - includes an older gay couple)

Naked Dining (good fun, lots of misunderstandings and food porn)

Neverland (web series from India, well done and too brief)

Our Dating Sim (fun series about the courage to correct your mistakes from the past, set in the video game workplace - a few cringe moments, but generally a very kind series)

Rainbow Prince (campy and fun, not enough songs for something that's supposed to be a musical, you have to be okay with cheesy)

Rak Diao (funny, very silly, although the harassment jokes got old fast and didn't stop)

Sleep With Me (review link) (sweet lesbian romance, kinda slow for such short episodes, great disability rep)

Something in My Room (the abridged-episode version) (good, not great, ghost story)

Stay By My Side (review link) (fun ghost story version of Mr. Unlucky Has No Choice But to Kiss)

Tale of the Lost Boys (movie) (friendship story between a visiting straight Filipino and a gay Taiwanese aboriginal in Taiwan, heartwarming story)

Tinted with You (a way too short, fun time travel fantasy involving a painting and a mystical art lover that bring an art student together with an ancient deposed prince)

Twilight Kiss aka Suk Suk (fine, bittersweet Hong Kong film about an affair between two heterosexually married men who are actually closeted gay men)

Twins (Thai pulp, fun, not too deep)

Your Name Engraved Herein (not sure enjoyed is the right word but it's fine work)

Zero Photography (from Magic of Zero) (most entertaining product promotion vehicle I've seen in QL, even better than Pran & Pat's product placements in Bad Buddy)

Torn about:

These all had some kind of major issue that prevents me from recommending them.

Fish Upon the Sky (appalled at the racism/punch-down humor in episode 4, otherwise loved its play with form)

Last Twilight (entrancing series, but the characters didn't grow, the ending was poorly set up - needed a few more episodes - and it ultimately fumbled on disability rep)

Mr. Cinderella (nearly abandoned this one because of a supporting toxic character, but kept with it after reading a post about the traditional Vietnamese story it was tracking)

Secret Crush on You (cringed for the first half, considered dropping it, read the defense by trans reviewers, watched the rest, and suddenly it got really good)

Together With Me (mix of great content and really problematic content)

Lukewarm:

I'm more glad than not that I watched these but in retrospect would have been okay if I had missed them:

Bagan Beginning (Not-bad early Myanmar QL, lots of food and antiquity porn, content warning for violence in the last episode)

Color Rush (interesting concept, okay)

Enchanté (not as bad as people say it is, but also just okay)

Gay OK Bangkok and Gay OK Bangkok 2 (definitely gay and, er, okay)

Nitiman (okay enough)

Only Friends (episode notes) (a sex farce with too much toxic behavior for my taste and a last episode choice that left a bad taste in my mouth)

Our Skyy 2 Bad Buddy x Thousand Stars (counting the four episodes as one series even though they have different names, didn't love this but didn't hate it either, very pale compared to the original two separate series)

Our Skyy 2 Vice Versa (was just okay with a really bad idea at the base of its plot)

Star & Sky: Star in My Mind (not great, not bad)

The Tasty Florida (cute enough, just so-so)

Vice Versa (brief notes) (good concept, product placements became way too intrusive for my full enjoyment)

Ones I wish I could watch:

I only watch legit sources, both so the creators get money for it and to reduce the hacking risks that watching gray presents.

Triage (I don't have a Thai phone number to log in to AISPlay, and even if I did not sure if it would have English subtitles)

Manner of Death (I need a WeTV subscription and will check that out) (thank you to @lurkingteapot for this info)

I Feel You Linger in the Air

Peach of Time (supernatural plot) (supposedly I can watch this on WeTV using VPN but I'm not yet ready to make the leap to VPN)

Series I abandoned:

Accomplishment of Fundoshi Bartender (episode 2 when he screamed offstage about not dating married men - I know this series isn't intended to be realistic but I still need the other characters to react to his behavior - this series has gotten entirely too silly for me)

Candy Colored Paradox (bored by episode 2 or 3)

Cooking Crush (a few minutes into episode 1 [2/4] as it is getting way too silly for me, plus we're going to have to put up with hazing/bullying as comedy - at least they had some new sound effects)

Cutie Pie (hated the infantilizing, left by episode 3 or 4)

I Told Sunset About You (left in episode 1, not loving the high school content)

Love by Chance (had someone fall on top of someone else in the first 30 seconds, left immediately)

Love Stage (apparently without most of the music - I'm guessing there's rights issues - but I abandoned it after 2 episodes because one of the lead's acting felt flat and I didn't enjoy the humor)

Lucky My Love (first segment didn't engage me)

Meow Ears Up (lost interest in the first episode with the fangirls in the store incident)

My Secret Love (first segment didn't engage me)

One Room Angel (dropped after episode 3 because it's so depressing; open to returning if it cheers up)

Playboyy (a new record - I got scared away by the content warning before the episode even started - however, based on various posts I might reconsider in for a binge watch once it's over)

SOTUS (not a fan of hazing)

Star & Sky: Sky in Your Heart (abandoned around the time of the outhouse incident)

Theory of Love (abandoned when nearly at the beginning Gun's character was crying in the shower)

VIP Only (failed to engage me in the first episode)

Un-favorite tropes:

Falling on someone

Heavy seme/uke dynamic

Northern rural Thai loan sharks

Evil ex

Boss/Employee

Stuff that I've written as opposed to reblogged I've tagged #pandasmagorica so I can find them easier.

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hope-to-hell · 6 months

Text

Fulgurite Dreams

And maybe we'll get lucky and we'll both grow old

Well I don't know, I don't know

I don't know, I hope so

Modest Mouse, Ocean Breathes Salty

Home is more than just four walls and a floor. It’s a gap in the clouds, the smell of warm bread, breath tickling the back of your neck. It’s a soft shirt worn through at the elbows and armpits. It’s steel and grease and above all it’s

One foot in front of the other. Come on. We’re almost there.

Adrian Toomes x Reader. A light sprinkling of smut, a pinch of gore, but nothing too serious. This is an experiment in style; it was simultaneously frustrating and exhilarating to write.

———

One: prism.

What do you think is out there among the stars? Ice and dust and the remains of satellites that strayed too far from home?

Maybe, but remember: there are also many worlds. Some sparkle with a rain of diamonds, some are lush and green. And some are mirrors to our own.

The moon and the earth remember each other. They dance to music that can only be heard in the quiet at the very edge of the atmosphere. They remind us that to be broken is natural, inevitable; they remind us that there is beauty in the remaking.

Tension floats oil-slick through his veins and you bleed it from him, working knotted muscles until he hums and reaches out a hand. ‘S good. His flannel’s hanging loose from your shoulders and the open cuff tickles his neck; his hand around your wrist is warm, callused, iron-strong. Get down here, he says, and chuffs when you land on his chest.

What’re you gonna do now?

Whatever I want. Maybe even sleep at night, for a change.

This is the morning after fate nudged Adrian Toomes a little harder than it might’ve otherwise done, leaving its bone-deep prints all down his back. The sun rises just the same, but he sees it from the other side for once; he watches light filtering through the curtains and blinks away his dreams.

At some point he’ll probably be out underneath his station wagon tinkering with something or other; that kid— what’s his name? Thomas or Paul or some other apostle— anyway, the kid’s been hanging around with Liz and Adrian’s been pulling the protective papa routine, making it known in no uncertain terms what’ll happen if his baby girl gets hurt.

(Come on, kid. You’ll be driving soon enough, and if you’re gonna be taking my girl anywhere you’d better know how to change a tire at least.)

When the days are long, Adrian soaks up the sun like a cat, sweat beading on his brow and rolling down the knobs of his spine. He says he’d like to fly over the Grand Canyon someday and let the wind carry him along— it’s cold up there when you’re moving fast; seasons don’t matter so much, long as it isn’t storming— but it isn’t gonna happen, not with how sharply he draws the line between his work and the rest of him.

You can still dream about it, though.

You dream of being in the air with him, tucked beneath his jacket, moving as he moves, puppeted by the shift and roll of his body in flight. The sun sets in the East and he’s saying let’s go break something. I want to see some blood that’s not my own. His arms are yours and you are many-limbed, crackling with potential, sharp with the smell of metal. You fall and he lets you go but it isn’t an ending— it isn’t betrayal or fear or how could you— but rather it’s like learning to swim, like being thrown from the diving board with a come on, you can do it. Let’s see you rise.

When you wake the bed is empty; there’s that momentary stab of alone alone alone where did he go, but the smell of breakfast drifts in; there’s the clink of forks on dishes and Adrian is there with a towel thrown over one shoulder and a plate in his hand; the kids are chattering about some minor drama in robotics club. Wondered when you’d join us, he says but there’s a softness to his words, a gentle mischief underscored by the briefest stroke of his little finger against your palm.

He’s falling, Icarus by moonlight, gears and bolts and bits of molten steel trailing in his wake. When he hits the ground, sand flies up and rains back down as shards of glass. He’s all blood and wire and the grind of bone on bone, but his eyes are clear and he is laughing. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Either way, you have to play the game.

The kid— Peter— hides himself well but he’s still filled with the hubris of the young; he knows about mortality in an abstract way and sometimes dreams of suffocation, of dust on his tongue, but it’s all so far away with morning light streaming in through the bay windows. He talks through mouthfuls of toast and jam, drawing schematics in the air; he knocks his juice glass off the table and catches it just a bit too quickly. Adrian sees because he sees everything; tension runs across his shoulders and down his arm before he shakes it loose with a flick of his dishtowel. Careful, he says.

(Yessir. I’ll be careful.

Come on out to the workshop. I’ve got something for you.

No— no way, Mr T. No fuckin way.

Language, son.)

Adrian takes it slow; he savors the taste of you, stroking his thumbs down the inside of your thighs. Watch out. A man could get used to this.

It’s yours when you want it. Just— fuck, do that again— just

It’s over and done, he mouths against you; he pulls back with his face shining wetly clear up to his eyes. I intend to enjoy my retirement, and right now that means— whatever he might’ve said is swallowed up by tongue and teeth and the way he’s got you seeing stars, but you hear it all the same. Right now it means you and me and all your thoughts lost to the wind. Lie back, honey, ‘cause I’m gonna take my time.

Adrian rolls his sleeves to the elbow; summer’s here in all its muggy humid misery and so he’s out in the workshop earlier and earlier each day. Got some new power cells in. Pete and I are gonna see if we can get that old junker running. He rises from the edge of the bed and runs a hand over your belly. Crew’s coming by tonight.

Don’t tell me you’re gonna—

Now, don’t you worry your pretty head, honey. I’m just consulting. There’s no job sweet enough to bring me out of retirement.

Do they know that?

A pause. Yeah.

Okay. But if you end up on the news it’d better be for winning the science fair or rescuing kittens or something.

(Well, would you look at that.

Oh shit, I can’t believe it’s working, does this mean I can drive—

What’d I say about watching your language, kid? When you get your license we can talk about it.)

You don’t have to ask him how’d it go because it’s there in the tight line of his shoulders, in the way his hand closes white-knuckled on his glass and oh, no. Tell me you didn’t.

No, but it was a near thing. You’d best stay close to home for a few days; some people don’t take kindly to being told ‘no.’

Hey. He’s warm under his shirt, warmer still when you get his belt open. Don’t worry about me. Plenty to do around here. It’ll blow over, right? And if he doesn’t answer, it must be because he’s too busy brushing his lips openmouthed over yours, breathing in that shuddery way that says let me forget myself in you.

(Hey, Mr T.

You ever gonna stop calling me that?

Probably not. I mean, yeah, but like. It’s already kinda stuck in my brain, y’know?

What do you want?

Dunno. I mean. What do you do when you have a big secret? It feels like it’s gonna bust out of your skin, or maybe— but you can’t, I mean—

You’re worried about hurting someone.

I— yeah.)

He comes home with blood on his collar, and when you meet him at the door his hands are so gentle on you, so careful, but his knuckles leave the smell of copper on your cheek. It’ll blow over, alright, yeah, like a hurricane.

#michael keaton #adrian toomes #toomes #the vulture #spiderman mcu #spiderman homecoming #Toomes x Reader #Toomes x you

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