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a-small-batch-of-dragons · 4 months

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lies are only as good as the person telling them (and you’ve never claimed to be) part 4

Read on Ao3 Masterlist

Pairings: bishops/nolan booth

Warnings: gunshot wound

Word Count: 3089

Nolan gets shot, the Bishops have to deal with their feelings.

"Drive," Sarah orders, pressing her hands hard to Booth's side. John pulls the car around and the tires squeal as more gunshots ricochet off the back bumper. She grits her teeth and presses harder, willing the blood to stay inside Booth's body. "Stay awake, do you understand?"

"I understand that you're currently fighting with my ribs, yeah." Booth yowls like a cat as she pushes down harder. "Hey, hey! Take it easy, I bruise like a peach."

"You're not sweet enough to be a peach," she mutters, too caught up in the fact that Booth is bleeding out from a bullet he took from her to worry about the words coming out of her mouth, not when he's rapidly losing color in his cheeks. "Just stay awake."

Even with his paling face, he still manages to make an offended pout. "I'm plenty sweet enough! I even have the rock-hard pit in my—okay, okay, ow, ow!"

"Do you ever stop talking?"

"Not when I'm awake."

"Keep him talking," John barks from the front seat, "as long as there's bullshit coming out of his mouth, we know he's not about to die."

"Aw, you do love me."

She hears the hitch in John's breath better than Booth does, she's sure, and she doesn't imagine the way John leans into the curves of the road a little more, trying to get them through the next mile before Booth ends up bleeding to death all over the back seat. She grits her teeth again and pushes even harder. Booth winces, his expression contorting in pain, but he doesn't say anything else.

"What were you thinking?" Sarah hisses, shifting her grip as the car swerves around a turn.

"I was thinking that I'd rather not see you get shot right in front of me," Booth grits out, "that's what I was thinking."

"That was reckless of you."

Booth huffs a wet laugh. "What, making sure you don't get shot? You're welcome, by the way, and yeah, maybe not my finest moment, but you tell me how polished and suave you'd be if you saw someone pointing a gun at your partner."

Sarah's hands stutter and her gaze snaps up to Booth's. Booth isn't looking away, isn't biting his lip, doesn't look like he regrets what he said at all. No, it's far worse than that; despite Sarah's best efforts, his eyes are dropping lower and lower. His breathing is slowing under her hands and in a panic that she will deny later because Sarah Black does not panic, she presses down hard enough that she can feel something under her give.

But it works. Booth's eyes snap open again and he stares at her.

"Stay awake," she orders and it comes out more like a plea, "just stay awake until we can get you someplace safe."

The corner of his mouth tugs up the smallest bit and she hates how much she hates the fact that it looks like such a pale imitation of his normal smirk. "The Bishop has a heart after all, how touching."

"You're one to talk," she scoffs if only to cover up her relief that he's talking again, "you just took a bullet for me."

"Which I still can't tell if you're happy I did or not." He coughs once, twice, as the car swerves around yet another turn. "I'd ask if it'd kill you to say thank you, but I think I know the answer already, so—"

"Thank you."

Booth stops. His mouth drops open. "Okay, I definitely must be dying because I could've sworn you just said 'thank you,' and I—"

"You are not dying," she says firmly, as blood covers her hands, "and I did say thank you."

He goes to say something else—I'm sure it was excellent, Nolan, don't worry—but then he's coughing again and the wound under her hands gushes. She pushes harder and gets him to lie down in the backseat, climbing on top of him and using her full weight to press down on the bullet wound.

"Whoa," he mumbles, half-dazed, half-confused, "if this was all it took to get you on top of me, then…"

He trails off before he can finish his sentence and despite everything, she smiles. "If it's what you wanted, you could've just asked."

"Nah…you'd keep it from me," comes his reply, voice beginning to slur, "you're…you're so clever…you'd make—make me work for it…"

"Booth? Booth!"

"'S okay," he mumbles, eyes starting to droop again, "jus' a…jus' a minor s'tback, see? 'S not…'s none of my b'sness anyway…"

"Stay awake," she pleads again, pushing down as hard as she can as John curses and swerves again, "stay awake Nolan, you need to keep your eyes open. Just look at me, alright? Can you do that?"

Nolan's eyes blink open slowly and a slow smile manages to make its way onto his face. The soft sort of smile you see when the person isn't thinking about it, the one you can't really feel until someone points it out. Nolan is giving her that sort of smile now, as she presses down on the wound that should have been hers, as John drives them through the streets of Paris. Nolan just looks up at her, and he smiles, and how could she ever have believed him capable of the same sort of cruelty she was?

"There," she hears herself say as his breathing grows raspier and raspier, "it's okay, Nolan, you're going to be alright. We're going to get you someplace safe and fix you up, right? Then you'll be quipping and annoying us just like you always do, alright?"

"Tha's me," he slurs, "pain in the ass."

John's hysterical chuckle mixes with hers as Nolan grins with dopey pride. Something terribly sad occurs to her then as she has to adjust to keep her balance.

Is this all he expects from them? Just the occasional bone thrown to the world's most annoying dog? Does he think that's all he is to them?

Too late does she realize that in her moment of distraction, Nolan's eyes have fully closed.

"Booth? Booth!" She pushes down harder. "Nolan!"

***

"In here," John says, rushing to the bedroom and laying the too-limp form of Nolan Booth on top of the sheets, "grab the kit from the bathroom."

Sarah is off the next moment, her shoes clicking across the floor as John rips open Nolan's shirt and throws his own jacket to the side. He curses—the bullet's already gone through and through, which is why Sarah was having such a hard time keeping all the blood inside him in the car, and why he's still losing color.

"Here," comes Sarah's voice and he rips the kit open immediately, "I'll get everything else."

He barely has time to shoot a thanks or even an acknowledgment over his shoulder as he gets to work. Nolan will not die on their watch, they won't let him. He's a goddamn stubborn son of a bitch but they're more stubborn than he is put together, and they're sure as hell not gonna let him slip away.

"You think you can just tap out now and make us do the rest of the work?" he finds himself muttering as he works over the limp body. "Not a chance in hell. This whole thing was your idea to begin with, so you're damn well gonna stick around until it's done, you hear me?"

Nolan doesn't say a word, and John curses the part of him that ever wanted to shut Nolan up for good. He doesn't want that, he bargains with the universe, he wants the Nolan that pokes and prods at them all the time like it's his goddamn job. He wants the quips and the jokes and the innuendoes that perfectly walk the line between funny and too crass. He wants the asshole that's unfairly good at singing on key while he works on the blueprints or the lockpicking kits. He wants the dipshit who went right up to the people who betrayed them, double-crossed them right back, and then invited them to work with him on the biggest score they could ever remember.

He wants Nolan Booth, damnit, and if this bullet takes him from them before they've even gotten a chance, he's gonna march right down to whatever pit in hell they decide to stick his soul and drag him back to the land of the living.

"Come back here, you prick," he mutters as he gently cleans away the worst of the blood so he can see what he's doing, "you're not getting away from us that easily."

Sarah's hands join his and together, they patch the worst of the bleeding before Nolan can bleed out. He lifts him carefully in his arms as Sarah ruthlessly strips the sheets from the bed, tossing the mattress protector too for good measure. She remakes the bed with astonishing speed and strides to the bathroom to start getting the blood out. It's what she needs to do, he knows, pour her frustration at the situation into something so it doesn't blow up in their faces, but that doesn't make him move from his self-appointed vigil over the too-still Nolan.

Just watching his chest go up and down, up and down.

When night's fallen and Sarah's scrubbed the sheets within an inch of their lives, she comes to sit next to him. They don't say anything, just sitting silently as the moonlight spills across the bed. Nolan's hands are still bloody. He gets up and goes to the bathroom, getting a washcloth and running it under the warm water. He goes back to the bedroom and picks up one of Nolan's hands in his, tenderly cleaning the blood from his knuckles. When he's finished with the hand, he offers the washcloth to Sarah. She takes it and cleans his other hand as John keeps a hold of the one in his.

"I think he'd be a great dancer," Sarah murmurs after an eon, her eyes still on Nolan's knuckles.

"I think so too."

There's another moment of quiet.

"I think," Sarah says again, her voice even quieter, "if you asked him to dance, he would say yes."

John swallows around the lump in his throat. "Yeah?"

"You might have to ask a few times," and now Sarah's holding Nolan's hand too, the washcloth draped over the foot of the bed, "and he's probably going to say no at first."

"But you think if I show him I really want to dance," John finishes, "you think he'd say yes?"

"I do."

They look at each other across the too-quiet room.

"Are you—" he stops to clear his throat— "are you gonna ask him to dance too?"

She looks down at him, her fingers idly toying with the cuff of his sleeve. "I don't know if he wants to dance with me."

He huffs. "Didn't sound like that in the back seat."

"But that's who he is," she says back, "he makes the jokes and he takes the hits because it's expected of him."

"But he doesn't do things he doesn't believe in."

"You're biased," she says with the ghost of a smile.

"Of course I am," he says and she laughs, "but so is he. You two had a thing going way before he even knew about me."

"That was different."

"Is it?"

She looks at him, and she looks at Nolan, and she slowly lets out a long breath.

"He needs to wake up first," is her eventual concession, "and then…then it's going to take him a while before he's up to dancing."

"That's okay with me. Is it okay with you?"

She smiles and she looks like the Sarah Black he knows and loves again. "No one ever got anything worth having without having the right amount of patience."

See, he says silently to the sleeping Nolan Booth, we're waiting for you, you asshole, come wake up already.

***

When Nolan wakes up, he's very, very confused.

Because in the world he fell asleep in, he was very much the reluctantly dragged third wheel of the Bishops, who only teamed up with him because he blackmailed them into it. He was spat on and kicked around because he was an easy target and hey, he could give insults as good as he got. They kept him around because he was good, goddamnit, and he knows how to set up a good score. They needed him, and he needed them, and that was it. He took the hits because they couldn't hurt him in ways they hadn't already, and he took the good moments because he's a greedy bastard who doesn't know when to stop himself.

Including taking a bullet for the fucking Bishop.

Things got really hazy in the back seat, and not in the good, sexy way, but in the incredibly un-sexy blood loss way where he's not quite sure what happened, but he has vague memories of Sarah on top of him, telling him to stay awake, and saying thank you. He's not really sure what to make of those, nor what embarrassing things he ended up saying, but he's pretty sure that that world at least by and large makes sense.

The world he wakes up in, on the other hand…

Well, for starters, he blinks awake on a bed. Not a hospital bed, not a hotel bed, but an actual fucking bed. Hartley and the Bishop's bed, to be more specific, in that shitty little apartment on the outskirts of Paris. His mind would love to conjure up all the fun reasons why this could be happening, but then there's a blooming ache in his side and his head is pounding and the bed is cold, cold, cold.

Except it isn't, because there's a body like a fucking space heater right next to him, and he just manages to crane his neck to one side to realize it's Hartley. Actual, built-like-a-brick-shithouse Hartley, who blinks awake and smiles at him like he's something worth smiling at.

"Hey," he says, voice all soft and rough from sleep, "you feeling okay?"

Uh, no, he's pretty sure he's either died and gone to heaven or woken up in some parallel universe.

"Here," Hartley says, sitting up and reaching over him for the glass of water on the nightstand, "you're gonna be dehydrated, drink up."

Nolan goes to lift his hand when his body informs him that no, moving is not allowed right now, and a pained hiss escapes through his teeth before he can stop himself. Concern flickers openly across Hartley's face and he's sitting up more, turning and sliding a hand under Nolan's head to let him drink.

Water never tasted so good.

"That's enough for now," Hartley says when he's managed half the glass, "don't want you sick on top of the bullet."

Right. The bullet. The bullet he took for the Bishop. The Bishop—

"Hey, hey, hey," Hartley soothes as he starts to panic, one large hand pressing him down into the mattress, "shh, calm down. She's okay, she's just in the kitchen."

"Is he awake?"

"Yeah, he's up, he wants to see you."

"Don't—" he coughs through his dry throat— "don't put words in my mouth."

But then the Bishop actually comes around the corner and he can't stop the way he sags in relief at seeing her unharmed. She comes over to the bed, sitting down near his hand, and—and picking it up and putting it in her lap.

Uh, no, I definitely died and went somewhere else. What the fuck is happening?

Oh.

It's just part of their ploy, isn't it? To get him to—to—well, he doesn't know what the fuck else they want from him at this point. Shit, he just took a bullet for the Bishop and now he's completely and utterly at their mercy, what the fuck else could they want? It's not like he's in any position to stop them if they wanted to do something right now, they could just go and do the score and leave him here on this bed, in the apartment, all by himself, while they go and he's left alone, all alone—

"Hey, hey…"

"Shh…don't cry, Nolan."

"Look at me. Hey, Booth—Nolan, look at me."

There's a hand on the side of his face. The side of his face is wet. Why is the side of his face wet? Oh. One of them said don't cry. Is he crying?

"Do you need more painkillers?" There's still a hand on his face. "Sarah, can you—"

The hands on his start to pull away and he's clutching at them desperately before he can snap at himself to stop it. But it's too late, the Bishop is sitting back down and they're having a murmured conversation and then there's a cool hand on his face too.

"Don't worry," comes her voice, smooth and soft as fresh water, "we're not leaving, Nolan."

"You're stuck with us," Hartley agrees.

But—but—but that doesn't make sense. Nothing in this world makes sense and he wants to go back to the other one where at least things made sense, where things hurt but at least he knew when to expect it, not here where he has no idea what's going on and he just wants everything to go back to normal and then he won't be guessing, second-guessing, triple-guessing everything until they leave him again.

"Silly boy," the Bishop says fondly as tears drip like razorblades down his cheeks—there goes his resolve never to let them see how badly they hurt him— "did you think I would let you take a bullet for me and then let you leave without giving me a chance to pay it back?"

"I—I didn't—I didn't mean—"

"Shh," Hartley soothes, his big hand moving to card through Nolan's hair, "calm down, Nolan, it's okay. We can talk about this again when you wake up properly, just rest for now. You've worn yourself out."

"I'll wear you out," he mumbles back, more out of instinct than anything, and Hartley chuckles warmly.

"It's a promise, big guy."

Nothing makes sense right now, Nolan decides as that big hand lulls him right back to sleep, but if the Bishop is promising they're not going to leave him alone, and Hartley is laughing at his stupid jokes, he thinks that maybe he could figure out a way to make this world work.

Just for a little while.

#dragonbabbles #fic #red notice #nolan booth #the bishop #john hartley #sarah black

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dustedmagazine · 4 months

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Lupo Cittá — S-T (12XU)

“White Bracelet” shocks itself to life with a screech of feedback, a jolt of electricity that kicks off a barrage of electric strumming, a rumble of chaotic drums, a careening, coursing flood of vocal melody that is both world-weary and extremely energized. It’s the second song on Lupo Cittá’s first album, an emphatic rocker after the narcotic echo and sway of “Onde.” This is the one that sounds most like Chris Brokaw, which is always a good thing. Though to be fair, there are other songs that don’t especially, that perhaps bear the mark of the two other members, Sarah Black and Jen Gori, and they are awfully good, too.

Chris Brokaw, as you might know, has been in roughly a million bands, genre defining ones like Come and Codeine and lesser known outfits like Martha’s Vineyard Ferries and Charnel House, but all of them rough-edged and heart-felt and excellent. Lupo Cittá is the latest Brokaw-affiliated musical ensemble, formed in pandemic’s ebb tide around 2021,with two other indie music lifers. Sarah Black was a fixture in a vibrant Minneapolis scene, playing in Kickball, Period, Plain Jane, the Bleeding Hickeys, the Lie-Ons, the Pointing Geenas and Brandy Thunders and doing performance and visual art. Jenn Gori intersected with Black in several of those bands, playing drums in the Bleeding Hickeys, the Lie-ons, Pointing Geenas and Brandy Thunders.

Once the three members met, they discovered that they had just missed connecting in various episodes of their lives. They were in New York and Seattle during the same periods, and they all moved back to Boston in rough synchronicity though they didn’t really become aware of each other until meeting at a summer 2021 house show. Soon after the two women asked Brokaw to play guitar on a song for them, which grew into more songs and finally Lupo Cittá, an echo-drenched, psychedelic garage trio enamored of 1970s horror and spaghetti western soundtracks.

“Gallup to El Paso,” for instance, has a slouchy western swagger, a molten shudder of bass running through its cavernous, surf-inflected sound. A nocturnal penumbra hangs over this and other songs, clouds of reverb shadowing its slanting cowboy vibe. There’s something lurid about the way the melody breaks through the gloom, a flash of neon in a rainy midnight. “Only in Love” does the same trick with a 1960s girl group melody, wrapping it in so much darkness and uncertainty that it becomes something else altogether. These songs loom up like highways signs as you fly by, flaring out of the impenetrable black then disappearing. Jenn Gori sings in a haunting, dream-shrouded way, slipping in and out of a mess of undertones, even on the all-out rockers, so that the songs have both murderous energy and mystery. “Shawano Pickup,” for instance, blusters and rollicks, an unstoppable rockabilly rave in its bones, but its head, somehow, in the clouds.

This is not exactly a slow-burner —if you like this sort of thing, you’ll like it from the very start. But it does pick up depth and resonance from repeat listens, as this straight on rock record reveals the enigma at its unruly core.

Jennifer Kelly

#Lupo Cittá #12xu #jennifer kelly #albumreview #dusted magazine #sarah black #jenn gori #psychedelia #garage #rock #boston

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iamaboredpotatonugget · 10 months

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Nolan Booth/John Heartly/Sarah Black Red Notice Fics because I love this movie so much

Booth was scrunched up in the backseat with far from enough room for his legs, doing his best not to feel like a third wheel while also trying to keep the two very keen eyed criminals from noticing the blood that was steadily staining his shirt.

"Again?"

It's not really a request.

"You're insatiable!" he squeaks, throwing his hands up dramatically.

It's her turn to shrug now, like she's been caught and can't be bothered to defend herself. She resets the board, black side facing him this time.

Nolan Booth picks up shoplifting while he and the Bishops wait for their new score, gets caught, and gets fucked. Things get messy.

Nolan thinks he's been flirting with his soulmate-slash-professional rival for the last few years until he realizes he actually has two soulmates. And they've already found each other.

It takes a solid two weeks for Nolan Booth to realise that he’s essentially just following The Bishop and Hartley around like a lapdog.

It takes him a lot less time to realise that they fuck a lot.

Sarah and Hartley attempt to negotiate polyamory with Nolan, but Nolan is too clueless to figure out what is happening.

Not everyone has a soulmate. Only about 10% of the population is born with a mark on their skin signifying that somewhere out there their perfect match walks the earth. And even then there is no guarantee that the two will ever meet.

John Hartley has a soul mate somewhere. Sarah Black does not.

“That you could never truly give me what I wanted,” Nolan said bitterly with a laugh. “I was such a fool to think that I had finally found a family, people who actually cared for me…”

“What was it that you wanted?” John dared to ask.

Nolan stared them down with a fixed look. “Isn’t it obvious?” When they shook their heads, his lips twitched into a small smile. “God, you’re both thick, aren’t you?” He sighed, eyes flickering towards the wall. “I wanted the two of you.”

It had been hours, days, since those bastards had taken Nolan, and Sarah didn’t like to think of what could have happened in that amount of time. She couldn’t think about any of it or she would have to fight the urge back even more to claw at the eyes of anybody who got just a little bit too close.

And then they're alone.

This feels staged. It feels like such a fucking setup. "Found anything interesting?" he tries.

"Only on this side of the door," says Hartley, not without humor.

Booth makes an effort to brush past that with a positive outlook. "No news is good news, right?"

Hartley raises an eyebrow. "So you kissing my girl is not new?"

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octopunkmedia · 1 year

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I haven't really shared public stills of Livescreamers yet, so it's about time!

This one features Neoma Sanchez as "Lucy." The film is nearing completion, and I'll update with a new still every month until it releases!

Livescreamers is an upcoming horror feature film from Octopunk Media, creators of Detroit Evolution, Detroit Reawakening, and Seven Deadly Synths. Michael Smallwood, Chris Trindade, Sarah Callahan Black, and Neoma Sanchez lead an ensamble cast of gamers who must band together to survive a haunted video game.

#Livescreamers #horror #horror film #octopunk media #Michael smallwood #chris trindade #Neoma sanchez #sarah callahan black #sarah black #2023 movies #upcoming films #indie horror #indie horror film #unreal engine

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palmofafreezinghand · 1 year

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oh bill, i love you so...

Billy Black and Sarah Wilde get engaged. on ao3 here.

1984.

La Push, Washington.

The trip had been shit, the entire last three months of fishing had been shit. Not a single catch was worth the amount he spent on diesel. This time Billy would be lucky to get two hundred bucks for a week worth of work. He was halfway to Mexico — off the recommendation of Harry Clearwater who had caught enough bluefin to pay his rent for the rest of the year — when the engine started to click…again. Last time that had cost him almost a grand in parts and almost a month in a dry dock.

At this point he would be better off sinking the thing, taking the insurance payout, and working at the gas station for the rest of his life. He had missed last month’s insurance payment. It was between that and the slip fee. There went another one of his plans.

The boat pulled into its slip, the clicking louder and louder, like a time bomb, until he cut the engine. Then it was hauntingly silent.

Anxious to get to shore before the entire thing exploded, Sarah wouldn’t get his life insurance anymore, he tied the knots quickly, looser than he should have. Maybe he’d get lucky and it would drift out to sea, he’d have no other option than to work at the quick fill or maybe he’d get a job at the bait shop telling hobbyists what lure to use when he couldn’t manage to catch anything himself.

He threw the nearly empty cooler onto the dock, a week of exhaustion meant the cooler flew right over the dock and into the harbor, his spoils spilling into the sea. The gulls which had followed him in from a mile out, anxious to get spoiled bait descended on the gourmet feast. He cursed under his breath, watching two pelicans fight over a halibut larger than both of them combined. He threw his laundry bag onto the dock, which landed perfectly dry, because of course it did.

After he locked the boat up, although there was nothing to steal he didn’t need to find a sea lion in his bed, he jumped onto the dock himself. He landed wrong, not in the water, but his ankle rolled under him. Another expletive as he analyzed the sprained ankle.

He needed a drink. He needed a stiff drink. Hell, he’d take the bottle.

Sarah hated alcohol, so he rarely drank, but she wasn’t here. She was almost four hours away, ignoring his proposal.

When she got the almost full ride to the University of Washington there was no question she had to take it. She had offered to stay, to go to Pensiula instead, they would be able to see each other more often. He wouldn’t hear it. At that point, they had been dating for almost five years. They had started as two dumb middle schoolers who didn’t know a thing about love and then in the blink of an eye his grandmother was giving him the family ring and Mr. Wilde was asking when he was going to get serious.

He let her go without asking, he figured it would be easier that way, and it was until it wasn’t.

She had less than a year left, it might as well have been a death sentence for him. They hadn’t seen each other in months.

He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he decided to send her the ring, instead of waiting until they saw each other next. All he knew was two weeks ago he had driven down to the post office in Forks, wrapped the ring box in three dollars worth of bubble wrap, stuffed the package in a far too expensive cardboard box, tucked a simple note inside, and paid for overnight shipping for the first and only time in his life.

He waited by the harbormaster’s phone for three days, waiting for an answer to a question he had asked in a hundred unspoken ways. His boat bore her name, a deteriorating friendship bracelet that had never left his wrist since she had made it many summers ago, he spent every Saturday evening eating dinner with her family. It was a question he had waited to ask until he couldn’t anymore.

It was a question she had yet to answer. They had spoken on the phone twice since he sent the ring. On the first call, she hadn’t gotten the box yet, on the second call she had just picked up her mail but had yet to open the box but she promised she would as soon as she could.

They hadn’t spoken since. She had left a voicemail that she had gotten full credit on all her finals and she was excited to finally have a weekend off, she was doing something he didn’t quite catch with her friends. No mention of the ring.

He slung his laundry bag over his shoulder and fished his cooler out of the empty slip next door. A gull lunged at his hand, a half-eaten mackerel still hanging out of its mouth. He averted the attack and started to wheel his cooler down the gangway.

Someone in the parking lot was blaring their radio, some kids who should have been in school. He was barely twenty. Two years removed from being one of those rowdy teenagers ditching last period to linger around the harbor and he was already a cynic. They had warned him the sea would turn him cold, would take everything he ever loved until it swallowed him too, but he hadn’t listened.

A car horn honked. He didn’t look up. The kid probably bumped it, clamoring into the backseat doing something they shouldn’t. Billy had found himself in that situation before. Never in broad daylight, he’d been smarter than that. Well, Sarah had been smarter than that.

The horn blared again, longer much more intentionally this time.

“William Black Junior!” His head shot up. No one used his full name…except one person.

Sarah Wilde was leaning against the hood of her car, doors open, radio blaring. Much too far away for his liking.

“What are yo-”

“Listen to the song,” she shouted across the harbor.

He stopped, dropping the cooler by his feet. It was an old song, he’d heard it before, years ago, probably on one of his mother’s cleaning records. He didn’t know the song well enough to understand why Sarah had shown up unannounced simply to play him the song.

“ I was on your side Bill when you were losin'

When you were losin’”

He was certainly losin’ at the moment. He opened his mouth to speak again, and Sarah simply held out her hand to quiet him.

‘I'd never scheme or lie Bill there's been no fooling

There's been no fooling

But kisses and love won't carry me.’

Sarah was now holding a small box in her hand. Was it the same box he had spent a small fortune shipping to her? No. It couldn’t —

“'Til you marry me, Bill

I love you so I always will.”

Waves were crashing against the jetty behind him, threatening to drown out the song.

She opened the lid of his grandmother’s ring box, picked out the small heirloom ring, and slipped it on her left ring finger. The whole time singing along to the woman on the radio lamenting about her own Bill.

“Yes?” Billy stammered.

“You thought I’d say no?” She yelled over the gulls and radio.

“It took you two weeks to respond!” He shouted back.

“You sent me a ring in the mail. Who does that?”

“How else was I supposed to get it to you?”

“Just kiss her already!” An old man shouted from the dock across the way.

Sarah laughed, leaning into her car to turn down the radio as the song ended. Billy smiled to himself, picking up his empty cooler and full laundry bag and starting down the creaky gangway.

The short walk felt like a marathon.

He unlocked the harbor gate and was promptly greeted by arms latching around his neck. He dropped his cooler again but caught something, someone, much better.

The two broke the kiss when they were interrupted by cheering. From the docks, the nosy fishermen who had pestered him about settling down clapped, he could hear a few jokes about the big mistake Sarah had just made. He was too happy to care. From the small fish and chip stand by the shore came a roar of applause, from some of their best friends: Harry Clearwater, the head cook of said fish and chip shop, Sue Uley, and Billy’s best friend since third grade, Charlie Swan, who had been the first person Sarah called and the only person’s blessing she asked or cared for.

“You reek,” Sarah smiled, hands clutched on the lapels of Billy’s jacket.

“That’s me?” Billy asked, feigning innocence. He smelled like a bait box.

She laughed, a laugh he had missed more than land.

“You’re not quitting school,” he said, thumb brushing over her hand, settling atop the diamond.

“Can you stop worrying for one minute?” She grinned, leaning closer for another kiss. He happily obliged.

“Hey,” Harry shouted. “I have world-famous fish fry in here, come on!”

Billy looked up.

“It’s on the house,” Harry laughed.

“Alright then,” Billy smiled, slinging his arm around Sarah’s shoulders as they made their way across the parking lot.

They ate dinner happy as could be, and for the first time in his life, without a worry in the world.

----

2000.

Somewhere in the Olympic Peninsula, Washington.

The Clearwaters had the children for the night. Sue had insisted he needed a night to himself. The last thing he wanted was to be alone. But, the one thing he wanted more than anything a month after he had received the call which stopped his heart was to break down. He refused to do this in front of anyone, let alone his children and so he found himself driving down the 101 at three in the morning.

That’s how he found himself driving down the 101 at three in the morning, sobbing. He had refused to get in a car for a week after the accident. But La Push was too small. Every single inch a reminder of her. Every street one she had been on. Every person, someone she had known, who looked at him with pity.

He needed out. He drove all the way to Astoria, without truly realizing it. He needed to make it back before school drop-off. He was in Quinualt, less than an hour from hom– the house, when the song came on the radio.

The truck swerved off the road and into the ditch as The 5th Dimension sang, ‘ I look at you and see the passion eyes of May .’

At some point, he managed to get out of the truck, hike down to the roadside phone, and call Charlie Swan. It was blurry.

An hour later a police cruiser, lights on, came to a screeching halt on the side of the highway.

It took Harry and Charlie till sunrise to pull the truck out of the ditch. Billy sat on the side of the road as they worked, working through a six-pack of Ballantines Charlie had brought. His first drink in fourteen years.

Charlie drove him home, without a question, Harry following in the now dented truck. They made it home in time for Billy to walk his kids to school when nothing else Billy Black was a man of his word.

#billy black #sarah black #charlie swan #harry clearwater #sue clearwater #twilight fanfiction #my stories #do you ever just think about billy black?

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gisellelx · 1 year

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Twilight Advent, Day 12

Masterpost/prompts

Dec. 12 - Tell us some headcanons about a Twilight character you don't usually post about.

I had to ask for this one. There are so many and I generally have some semblance of something for most characters that any of the characters I write more often interact with. @bellalaine and and anon had some great suggestions though and they are characters I think about infrequently, Victoria and Sarah Black.

Victoria is one of the reasons I don't care for the Illustrated Guide. Above all else, I am interested in motivation. And while her very thorough backstory there suggests a more interesting story, it didn't actually impact the story in any meaningful way suggesting it was made up out of whole cloth after the fact, rather than taking bits of the character and fleshing them out.

But her backstory there and what is presented in canon is at least consistent with how I've thought about her in the times I've needed to, which is that going after the Cullens/Edward wasn't about avenging her mate; it was about proving to herself that she was powerful. This stems from the fact that there was absolutely no reason for her to have rolled up on the Cullens with an entire newborn army (and TIG has to jump through several hoops to explain this!) when she easily could've lured Edward and killed him during the timeline of New Moon, seeing as he was alone, if it really was about "a mate for a mate." Prior to meeting James, she was self-sufficient. She wasn't looking for a mate; she was content. She was interested in keeping undercover, the trait she learned as a human. In some ways, James's need for flashy hunts and kills grated on her, especially coupled with his lack of devotion to her. And then he tries to kill this girl, and the girl's vampire entourage takes out James.

She didn't go mad. Building up an army isn't what madness looks like. Learning enough about Alice's gift to evade it isn't what madness looks like. She went after the Cullens because she needed to prove to herself that she could. The backstory she's given in the guide would suggest that this could very easily be "little sister" syndrome and that would track.

Sarah Black was perfectly content to only have girls. Billy wanted a boy, but only sort of—he was worried about what would happen if vampires ever came back to Quileute lands. So they were actually not particularly trying for Jacob, but they weren't trying to avoid him, either.

Sarah doted on Jacob when he was a baby; it felt easy after having had twins. She sung him the oldies music she heard from her own mother growing up. When the twins were asleep and Jacob was awake, she would put him in a cradleboard and tell him the story of when he was born.

She, more than Billy, worried for her kids getting off the reservation. This was an internal struggle for her: she desperately wanted her children to revere and love their background as members of the Quileute peoples, but she also was not willing to look away from the poverty and difficulties of life on the Rez, especially after Billy developed diabetes. She wouldn't have fully approved of how Rachel and Rebecca did it, but she had always instilled in them that they should keep their heritage and it would protect them, but then that they should go into the world. She told them, even though Billy disagreed, that it would be okay if they married white men, as long as the white men were good.

Sarah was the pusher of the children's educations. She read them things they didn't get in school: though the tribal school augmented the typical grade school curriculum with Salish texts, she read them things like Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and Bud, Not Buddy and later so much Sherman Alexie. She wanted them to be able to contextualize the world off the Rez. They couldn't afford to send the girls to a private boarding school, but she was already trying to consider what things they would need to know to go to college. After she died, Billy found two neat, identical piles of books tucked away in the closet where Sarah kept her paints: two copies per title of Romeo and Juliet, Brave New World, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, Jane Eyre, The Bluest Eye, The Great Gatsby, Julius Caesar, Hamlet—all the books that every high schooler not in a tribal school would be reading. But after they were tainted by their mothers' death, the girls never did read them.

Finally, her frybread was well and truly the bomb. These days, Sue sometimes makes a dark joke that the only reason Billy likes hers is because Sarah got out of the way. And they laugh, a little, and then tell the old stories.

#my headcanons #twilightadvent22 #victoria #sarah black #the enrollment at the tribal school has doubled since 2016 I learned while doing a quick google #I am pleased

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buysomecheese · 2 years

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Semi-regular reminder that I Fucking Love Red Notice ok I love my funky little bisexuals and their little throuple I love them all So Much I Always have So Many ideas about them and I think they're so sweet and cute and awesome

#dsjfjdfhnjdhf #I'm In Love With Them #red notice #nolan booth #john hartley #sarah black #the bishop #agent john hartley #DSJFHDFKGJH GODS I LOVE THEM #HOLY SHIT #the movie is pulled up on another window and thEY JUST KISSED #that's why there was an Increase in energy- anyways #sadkkjldjkfjkdfhjk hot I love them so much

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deepinthelight · 1 year

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Gal Gadot as Sarah Black in Red Notice

#Gal Gadot #sarah black #red notice

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a-small-batch-of-dragons · 7 months

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lies are only as good as the person who tells them (and you've never claimed to be)

Read on Ao3

Warnings: none

Pairings: sarah black | the bishop/john hartley | also the bishop, pining from our dear nolan here

Word Count: 3086

The first rule about running a con is that if you ever find yourself believing your own lies, it’s time to get out.

Did he believe that he really cared about Agent Built-Like-A-Brick-Shit-House Hartley? At first, no, because he was just an angry wall of meat that was always conveniently placed between him and anything he wanted—namely, the eggs—and it was not hard to hate angry walls of meat. Then it became yes, he did actually care about this massive lug hauling himself alongside because hey, more people equals more variables equals more things he has to prepare for when everything goes tits up.

Then…yeah, okay, maybe then.

Maybe.

Like, gun to his testicles he probably wouldn’t say anything but if Hartley was throwing a party, he’d turn up. Maybe. Just to snatch the most expensive bottle of booze, crack a joke, and leave.

No, you know what? This is a dumb place to start. Try again.

He wishes he would’ve just left with the fucking egg.

He wishes he would’ve jumped off the car and onto the other car and rode away on it.

He wishes he would’ve let the Bishop shoot Hartley in his fucking chest.

He wishes he wouldn’t have included him in that prison escape plan. He wishes he’d never told him the long story about his dad. He wishes he’d’ve let that fucking train rip him in half.

He—

Nope. This sucks too. Starting over.

The oldest rule to a con is that it’s got three parts. Hook, line, sinker.

Hook, get your target to admit you’ve got a point. Get them interested. A foot in the door, no matter how gnarled, gross, disfigured, or warty it is. Even if it’s just a single toe. Get it in the door.

Line, feed them something they’ll want to eat. Hint at what you want them to be paying attention to. Get them talking, get them on your side.

Sinker. Ride the gullible sap all the way to the bottom of the ocean. Like dead weight. Reel them in. Make them eat your bait until their little fish mouths are so full they’re gasping before they’re even out of the water.

…yeah, that metaphor fucking sucks. Start over.

Any minute now. He’ll think of something. Don’t you worry.

…it’s really fucking hot out here.

Didn’t even give him any sunblock or sunscreen or sun tan lotion or whatever the hell else people call it. You know how hard it is to be inconspicuous with tan lines? Maybe he should be grateful that he’s getting his vitamin D now since wherever Das is gonna stick him now likely won’t have panoramic views.

Also the cuffs. Hurting like hell, thanks.

He wasn’t lying, not really, when he says he’s got no hard feelings for them. They’re good. Holy shit, they’re good. They fooled him, that’s saying something. And the whole thing with the dramatic build-up and the kiss? Poetic cinema at its finest. Sure, he also wasn’t lying when he said he had notes for Hartley’s performance. A little less of the posturing, yeah, maybe a little less heavy-handed with the I became a cop to get back at my old man who despised the law and everything it stood for bullshit, and maybe a little less of the I’m-going-to-pretend-to-be-asleep-after-you’ve-just-confessed-your-tragic-backstory-since-that-time-with-your-third-therapist, that was a dick move.

But everything else…yeah. Really great. Top notch.

Great performance.

Nolan sniffs and tries to adjust his arms so he’s resting a little more comfortably against the tree. Which is hard, considering he’s standing in the middle of a fucking jungle with his hands cuffed around a branch and his chest is currently doing its very best to fucking explode.

You have to get really good at listening to your body when you do what he does for a living. You have to know when you’re in pain and understand where your limits are. Extends to other things too, knowing when you’re hungry, when you’re tired, any of that stuff. Sure, once you know your limits you can start to push them, can start telling your body to fuck off and all that good stuff, but you’ve got to learn them first.

Nolan Booth is not a fucking rookie. He’s been around the block. Over it, under it, through it, he’s practically circumcised it. He knows what he’s doing.

Which means that it’s probably a good thing he’s handcuffed to the tree right now so he has an excuse for not knowing what the fuck he’s doing.

Is he mad that they got the drop on him? You bet your sweet ass he is, he’s supposed to be the one victorious at the end of all of this, he’s supposed to have his walk-off into the sunset moment. Sure, it’s tempered a little bit by the fact that yeah, okay, game can recognize game and that was good.

Is he mad that he doesn’t get to keep any of the eggs? Again, you bet your fucking ass he is. He did so much of the work to get those eggs, he fucking unearthed deep-seated childhood trauma for this shit, and no payoff? Rude.

Is he mad that the stupidest, easiest lie in the fucking world is the one he fell for?

Does he even need to say it this time?

Nolan clenches his jaw and tries to ignore the press of his forehead against the bark of the tree. It rasps against too-sensitive skin and doesn’t do anything to alleviate the sting of the cool metal cuffs.

He tries to tell himself that this is fine, that the lie isn’t as stupid and entry-level as he thinks it is. Hartley may not have actually worked for the FBI as a profiler, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have the skills. Hell, he’s worked as a circus performer and he didn’t even have to pad out his CV that much. Hartley knew him, better than he’s let most therapists know him, and adjusted the lie accordingly. It was tailored specifically for him, that’s why it worked so well.

Never mind that it’s impossible to get that much stuff without actually talking to someone, never mind that it’s almost insulting how easy it was for him, if that was the case, it means they looked him up and did the job they knew he would fall for.

Of course they did, a traitorous part of his brain whispers, they’re con artists. That’s what you do.

Nolan grits his teeth and tugs at the cuffs again. It’s useless, he knows, he’s actually going to have to work to be free of these blasted things, but his hands aren’t working properly right now and he’s still too distracted by the pain blossoming in his chest.

He wonders if Hartley knowing how badly he wanted to believe the lie was a part of how they came up with it.

Who is he kidding, of course it was.

Hartley’s words still ring in his head. Worthy of your father’s love. That had been the first time he’d conceded to the big hunk and he…he’d honestly thought it might be the last. But it hadn’t.

Not when he’d gotten caught right next to him and found that not only is the man strong, he’s smart.

Not when he’d actually been hurt when he’d heard the fake snore coming from underneath him.

Not when he’d watched him about to handcuff the Bishop only to stop, an actual fond smile coming to his face before sharing what might be the most tender kiss he’s ever seen with the woman who was supposed to be their greatest rival.

His greatest rival.

Nolan resists the urge to slam his head against the branch. Barely.

We. When did this become a ‘we’ thing? When did he start thinking of this operation not as Booth and some agent he’s dragging along, but Booth and Hartley? When did he start to care that someone else was here, to the point where he left the fucking egg?

As with all good cons, the target can’t point out a singular moment where the switch flipped. It’s a slow burn, the kind where you put a frog in water and it doesn’t jump out even when its skin starts to peel off.

How hot was the water when he heard Hartley laugh for the first time? Like, genuinely, I’m-not-shitting-you, you-genuinely-caught-me-off-guard laugh. His whole face had broken out into this smile and Nolan hadn’t been able to look away for a second.

How hot was the water when he’d heard Hartley gasping for breath behind him and his chest had seized, trying to make him spit out the information just so he could get Sotto Voce to stop?

How hot was the water when they’d both been scrabbling around in the dirt like children, their sides pressed together, shoulder to shoulder, until the heat was almost unbearable?

He’d been boiled alive at the bottom of the waterfall.

It doesn’t matter what you do, only what they think you’ve done.

It doesn’t matter that the gasps he heard from Hartley made his throat cry out in agony, only that he lied to Bishop about where the last egg was. It doesn’t matter that his hand shook as he fitted the watch into place on that Nazi bunker, only that it worked to get inside.

It doesn’t matter that his heart feels like it’s tearing itself in two, only that he got them what they wanted.

The cuffs jangle as he yanks on them.

Hartley…with his gruff voice and short sentences and jokes that slid just underneath Nolan’s skin. Even when they’d been fighting, he’d never hurt Nolan, not really, not badly, and the way they just seemed to match each other. Even with their insults and when they’d been squaring up in front of guns and technology and behind enemy lines, they’d been—he could look at Hartley and feel some sort of security.

And Bishop…god, where does he even begin? The attention she’d paid him, the way she said his name, the way she’s crafted the narrative of them together as art thieves, even the way they teased Hartley for being so Johnny Law…

He tries to observe his own flaws with the way he does others, if only to make sure he can account for them when he goes to work. He knows he has a need for validation, for attention, but god had he underestimated how much he’d turned into a fucking lapdog.

The pit in his chest opens a little bit more and two hands twist the knife.

Whoever said that true friends stab you in the front because it’s quick and painless is a filthy liar.

Of course they knew. Of course they knew. They’re too fucking smart not to know. He knew as well, that this was just a game. This was a game of them trying to one-up each other, seeing who could get the other to give up a weakness first. He knows he lost. He knows he’s lost badly and he’s a gracious loser. But that doesn’t mean it’s painless.

He wonders who figured out he was starved for affection first. His money is on Hartley, just because the man is the one who figured out how to walk the line between giving Nolan enough to make him follow the crumbs like a stupid pigeon while still believing it was all his idea. But Bishop…oh, Bishop did so well with toying with him that he has to believe she knew it too. Little boy, perfectly molded into what they needed him to be by a daddy who didn’t talk to him for over a year and there he was, a pawn they moved effortlessly across the board, hand in unlovable hand.

Another lie he told himself, another lie he knows he won’t ever be able to believe.

Thank god he’s tied up in a jungle. The breeze ripples through the trees and insects whine like it’s their job to suck his brain out of his ears and he’s panting as he pulls at the jangling cuffs. It’s not quiet, it won’t ever be, not here, and he’s just a little bit grateful to them for that.

“Do you ever shut up,” Hartley had grumbled on the flight to Argentina, “or am I cursed to just put up with your noise?”

“Aw, don’t complain, sweetheart, I’m sure I’ll make plenty of noise for you if you just ask nicely.” Never mind the fact that he would, he knows he would, if only that shamed and shunned part of him weren’t so buried.

Hartley had glared at him. “I’m sick of you.”

And unbidden, Nolan had laughed. Genuinely laughed. “You think you’re sick of me? I have to listen to me all the time, even when I’m not talking.”

Hartley had given him another look, one that he now knows means he’s filing that information away to be turned into a weapon later, wielded by him or the Bishop, it doesn’t matter. Back then, he’d thought that maybe, just maybe, it’d been something like…regret? Compassion? Something?

Nolan isn’t sure that Hartley knew what he was saying.

I have to listen to me all the time, even when I’m not talking.

The worst thing about prison is the silence. Of seeing so many people and knowing they’re there and no one saying anything. Of being ignored because of course he’s there to be ignored. No one cares, no one will, and he will drown in silence until he can’t hear himself scream.

Maybe he should.

His throat closes up and aches to be let free and he wants to, he wants to, but the lingering fear that someone might hear him keeps a lock on it.

Because he’s under no illusions that he’s saved face, but he has some pride left.

He settles for the most pathetic whine he can think of as he buries his face into the bark of the tree. There’s no one but himself here to lie to, not in the safety of his own head, and he knows better than to try right now.

He thought his legs were going to give out when he realized what had happened. He’d stared at them looking so smug, so perfect, so annoyingly perfect when they revealed what the jig was. And then to see them comforting each other, reassuring each other, apologizing to each other because they cared about each other. Seeing the fake warmth fade to genuine affection and fondness as they proceeded to treat him like a wall. He wasn’t there. He didn’t matter. He never did, he was just the Bishops’ pawn, and he would never be anything more than that.

Nolan’s eyes squeeze tighter. He’s not going to cry alone in this jungle, handcuffed to a tree. He’s not.

He’s not going to think about how stupidly condescending that last speech was. He’s not going to think about the part of him that still yearned to reach for Hartley during that moment when he said they had nothing but respect for him. He’s not going to think about how much he felt like a kid again, begging for scraps of anything from a father that wouldn’t give it to him.

He’s not going to think about how easily they moved around each other. He’s not going to think about how, even when they were still supposedly enemies, they moved around each other as easily and comfortably as only intimate lovers could. He’s not going to think about how well he could see that in how they took turns tearing him apart.

He’s not going to think about where they’re going now. He’s not going to think about the Bishop in some extravagant evening gown with Hartley taking her arm, the power couple they are. He’s not going to think about how much they care for each other, how much they depend on each other, and how little of anything they ever gave him was or could have been real.

Because it wasn’t. It wasn’t real. It won’t be real. They don’t think of him. He is nothing to them, not in the way they could be to him.

So he’s not going to think about it.

He’s not.

Nolan Booth ducks his face between his elbows as tears squeeze themselves from his eyes.

He can’t stay here. Das is going to come looking for him. He’s going to be escorted back to prison and he’s going to have to deal with this. He has to plan.

So he lets himself have this. He slumps against the cuffs and lets them dig into the sensitive skin on the inside of his wrists and he lets the ache in his chest send him almost to his knees. Because the second Das finds him, the game is on and he’s going to need all of his strength for what comes next.

He has to rest now. No matter how much it hurts, no matter how much he wants to scream, he has to rest now.

He’s as silent as he can be in the middle of an abandoned jungle.

He lets Das and her men throw him roughly into the back of a truck. He lets his restraints be fastened so tight his circulation is about to be cut off. He lets himself be shoved into the back of a silent truck that means he can’t hear anything other than his own breathing and the blood rushing in his ears.

He lets the boat spray hit him too hard in the face as he rides it out to the yacht in the middle of the ocean. He lets his shoulders ache and protest as he squeezes himself into a too-small space. He lets the sounds of passionate, real love and affection nestle into some soft part of his brain and stay there.

He lets Hartley look at him like he’s a pest. He lets his words that say I don’t give a single fuck about you and you wish I cared enough to be angrier strike him where Hartley knows it hurts. He lets Bishop persuade her partner—her partner—to take the score because Booth can be a valuable asset and Hartley trusts her, one hundred percent.

And he never again lets himself believe that, even for a second, any affection they show him could possibly be real.

#red notice #nolan booth #john hartley #sarah black #the bishop #fic #dragonbabbles

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