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ghostaholics · 1 year

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ᴄᴀᴛᴀʟʏsᴛ ( ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴏɴᴇ )

SUMMARY: (au only mildly inspire by the original tv/game timeline since I started writing this before ep. 2 came out; honestly not very canon-compliant) After reaching Colorado – the Fireflies' former backdrop for failed vaccine trials – you and Joel get ambushed in the science lab by people who have since then, made their new home at the abandoned university; during the scuffle, one of the attackers stabs you with a syringe containing unknown contents. PAIRING: Joel Miller x fem!Reader WARNING(S) FOR LATER: pining (mutual) sex pollen; dub-con; p-in-v unprotected sex; use of a mouth gag and a rope during sex but it's for safety assurances not because Joel's a dark guy; still angst even though I left in 50% of it; religious references and lots of metaphors that don't make sense; unbeta'd - expect mistakes; characterization is based on second half of the game and I may have accidentally made him too soft oops idc, ooc for sure WORD COUNT: 2 k A/N: PT. 1; this is already over 10k words in my drafts and I still don't even have like half of it done yet but I'll put out this small part for now I guess

IT'S A GODDAMN SICKNESS – THIS FEELING, festering, like skin stripped raw and every nerve lit on fire. There’s nothing left of you – only flesh and bone knitted together by gnawing hunger.

He should put you out of your misery.

You would welcome death over this: it would be faster, easier, not each excruciating second prolonging your suffering as time bleeds, drawn-out, stretching at an unbearably sluggish pace. This won't pass over. It's only been getting worse the longer you try to ignore it, to let it snuff out on its own. The craving is bad. It surges through your veins, leaves your blood boiling as if it’s burning you alive from the inside-out. Insatiable need devours your body like an all-consuming disease; your mind is scrambled, thoughts as good as ash at this point aside from the surviving idea that you know that this will swallow you whole.

Here's how it happened.

HE'S A KILLER; The leftover carnage is a gut-wrenching testament to that – a breadcrumb trail of carcasses deserted along the westbound, beaten track to Colorado that’s rivaled only by the number of skeletons in his closet.

Not that he's had much choice. It's this very concept that every single media outlet had kept pushing, what had plagued the top headlines, breaking news, and morning segments leading up to Outbreak Day in a concerted effort to capitalize on a little something called sensationalism. The public had wolfed it down, too – had gorged themselves on the idea of it even after all the grocery stores had been raided bare and there'd been zero food left on the shelves; TVs as their place settings with radios emerging as their proxies not long after the power had gone out – because the drama of it all had been more satisfying than the shitty scraps they'd been getting by on: survival of the fittest, who'd get wiped out by the infection first? And Joel Miller is a living legacy that continues to push the limits of natural selection with every poor bastard that he manages to sink a shiny fucking bullet into.

Adaptation. The end of the world has chewed him up, teeth gnashing – razor-sharp incisors; no leftover bones, no remains like the majority of the people who’ve met a collective demise, but a man spit out in one intact piece (physically, anyways – mentally, that’s probably another story). Now, he’s a stone-cold terror. Cutthroat – all jagged edges and mistrust leaching into his pores. Someone who’s had to acclimatize, because the way he sees it, there’s a million different choices to make that only ever lead to two outcomes. And Joel always picks whichever option affords him the best opportunity to stay alive, but it’s the reason he’s got a ledger drowning in red.

Before, that had meant late mortgage payments and loan sharks hunting him down, risky wagers with shady figures to get Sarah new clothes in time for the upcoming school because she’d been outgrowing them every damn year, and also don’t forget the shady business ventures he’d invested in until he’d learnt his lesson the hard way and had decided to throw himself headfirst into work – day in and day out to save up for his own construction company, something stable and honest; maybe then he wouldn’t have to lie about forgetting to pick up the milk or the pancake mix because the reality had been that he was struggling to put food on the table, and maybe he’d get to spend more time with his daughter and pay the soccer club fees that he couldn’t afford so she could make more friends outside of him and the Adlers, and maybe his blood pressure would level out so his pockets wouldn’t dry up with the cost of his medicine because his insurance had been shit, and maybe he wouldn’t have to go to bed every night crunching numbers behind his eyelids to figure out if he had enough to get through the next month’s round of bills, and fuck, maybe things would finally start to look up for once in his life.

Then it had all stopped mattering in an instant.

So now, it means shooting someone dead without a second thought – a past full of necessary evils: ruthlessness, cynicism, and a death toll second to none. Anybody coming up against him? Shit out of luck. He’s never had a problem with having to pull the trigger, and being caught on the wrong end of his gun always promises a grim fate.

Except Columbus, Ohio.

It would’ve been another blight, another wicked deed buried underneath the growing mountain of awfulness that he's responsible for. There are a lot of things that keep Joel up at night, but as bad as it is to say, this definitely wouldn’t have been one of them.

And then, the impossible – first person to break the cycle: a scavenger combing through the tipped over stands of North Market, kneeling under the dusty Penny's Meats cleaver sign at a basket filled with plastic bags of twenty-year-old beef jerky. And Joel would kill (quite literally) for that if it meant securing his next meal; hell, the next week's worth of them. The only thing standing in between him and food security could be taken care of with an easy shot to the back of your skull at point blank range.

A target.

An inconvenience.

— but that's another story.

Since then, it’s been a road paved with affliction. Ohio. Indiana. Illinois. Iowa. (Nebraska's a sensitive topic.) Wyoming.

Joel grasps your hand firmly in his: dried blood over split knuckles and calluses that have stayed around forever because now he wields a gun 24/7 instead of a carpentry tool from his blue-collar days; he helps you navigate the terrain so you don't misstep – a sprained ankle can slow us down in more ways than one, he always says. Cautious, trigger-sensitive, because he needs to be. The action is meant to be practical, shepherding you over the terrain. So you opt to neglect how his fingers slotted between yours shoos the bitter cold from making a home out of your body and thaws the ice from the crevices chiseled in your bones.

The feeling is nice.

The thought is dangerous.

Because, Nebraska: a hellish nightmare in the flesh.

(Let's not talk about it).

(But circling around the topic doesn’t help. You don't bring it up, and yet it still takes center stage, occupying your mind. Always. How could it not?)

Hordes of cordyceps-ridden pieces-of-shit on your heels until you'd been driven into a corner, back against the wall – odds in the negative as infected after infected had zeroed in on your position and converged like a putrid swarm, a writhing mass of rotten bodies, all of them clambering over each other for their own share of pulpy, human meat to tear into; it'd reminded you of the same way people had been after the outbreak had reached critical mass.

Ravenous.

(This is what had been a difficult pill for you to swallow in the beginning – before you'd started sleeping with a machete along the edge of your bedroll, before the sound of a person choking on their own blood had gone from something that had cursed your hands with a 'round-the-clock tremor to nothing but fucking white noise, and before you'd learned everything there is to know about how to survive amongst societal collapse where 'every man for himself' has never been a more true statement than it is now: the hunger doesn't stop when you turn into one of them.)

As the two of you weave through dense foliage overrunning anything in its path and past man-sized slabs of concrete that form a serrated pattern of the very ground you're currently forced to scale, Joel rumbles a low, "Easy, now,"; you can see how in the dead of winter a plume of air leaves his mouth whenever he talks. He's nice to look at, better than your surroundings by a long shot. Boulder is just another wasteland that offers nothing new in your trek across the country because underneath the whalebone-white quilt of snow smothering everything, it's the same old shit that you saw when you'd cut through the never-ending stretch of land that used to be the Bible Belt to get out of the Atlanta Q.Z. It'd been ghost towns dotting the map between miles and miles of infestation: the walking dead had been piloted by the impulse to tear you apart alongside their living counterparts – the survivors with rootless hearts that stalked in the shadows like vultures waiting to pick your corpse clean of supplies.

But, for as on guard as you have to be, you'd rather focus your attention on Joel, because the snowflakes burying themselves in his beard are far more interesting than the decaying buildings and jigsaw-puzzled pavement that paint Colorado with an apocalyptic finish. He's a welcome distraction. Maybe, too good. The toe of your boot catches on the uneven landscape while you're lost in thought so you brace yourself to strike the ground as it gives out from under you, hands flying out in reflex. Instead, sturdy arms secure themselves around your waist before you can fall. You’re hauled flat against the solid wall of Joel's chest, something akin to an embrace that shouldn’t feel as nice as he is to look at. Even through layers of clothes, even through the frigid temperatures during this time of the year, his heat manages to bleed into you.

"Told you to watch your step there'," he murmurs in that long Texan drawl. Whiskey on his breath. Caramel. Ethanol. Burning alcohol-sweet, it greets you alongside the usual smoky and metallic smell of gunpowder and blood; the kind he'd pilfered from a liquor store back in Omaha – makin' sure it's good enough to the Molotov cocktails with, he'll comment before taking a swig. Brings it up like clockwork, as if it gets funnier the longer he keeps trying to wear the joke out even worse than the soles of his boots. It doesn’t. Just short of being a jack of all trades. Certainly no comedian.

Not a drunk, either – isn't stupid enough to put himself in jeopardy around these parts. You'd seen it before, once: cheeks flushed red and eyes glazed over; couldn't walk a straight line for five feet, much less aim a gun (September 26th, you remember). This isn't that. The whiskey's stronger now, though. You can tell when he stands nearby, face inches away.

(He's been drinking more lately. Not a lot, but the right amount to drown out the memory of... well, ever since—)

He's the closest thing to home that you know.

(—he almost lost you.)

You find yourself latched onto the sleeves of his jacket for stability, and even though you should push Joel away – a voice in your head that warns you to put distance between you and him – your fingers curl tighter into the coarse fabric to keep yourself upright as you regain your footing. “You see that thing? Swear it came outta nowhere."

He huffs out a small laugh, not one of those full-bodied ones that you’ve only heard probably twice since you met him (both of them at your expense and God, do you miss his smile), but it’s still a rich, little sound that comes off as something pleasant to your ears all the same – breaks up the monotony of the snow crunching under your heels and teeth chattering during the occasional bouts when you shiver. "Sure," he says, because he knows you can't lie for shit.

You untangle yourself from him with some reluctance. Homesick – a feeling that you attempt to shake off with more mindless conversation to make the time slip by faster. "Out of every place we've been to, Colorado definitely makes bottom three."

There's faint amusement coloring Joel's face. It makes him look years younger. "We haven't even gotten to UEC yet." He tilts his chin in the general direction that the two of you had already been heading towards. "Over there. Just across the way."

Skepticism stains your voice. "You know, something tells me that I won't have a change of heart."

ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴛᴡᴏ - ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴡʀɪᴛᴛᴇɴ

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #unfortunately i have the smut just not the action~#this will very likely not be done until i finish the term #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #tlou #the last of us

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poisonheadcrabsalesman · 7 months

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Can you love a machine? That's what Lasky wants to ask the Master Chief as he sits in front of Sarah's new promethean form. The Chief, immune to the Composer, but not immune to the suffering he feels about dragging her on this mission. In return, she is immune to his guilt because - well, does she even cycle emotions.

He hated seeing both of them like this. Halsey had come up with a "radical approach" for integration. To see him readily sacrifice himself once again, laying on an operating table face down with his spine exposed.

All to give him back Sarah. "Electrophysiology synced, Doctor." Roland's somber voice says from his pedestal, serving as an intermediary between the Chief and Sarah.

"John?" Halsey asks, as she monitors his gamma and beta waves to see if it dips.

He doesn't say anything, face down, probably being in the worst pain that he's ever been in with the multitude of probes across exposed nerves.

After a tense thirty-seconds, before Halsey could ask again, this time a thin underlay of panic in her voice, the Chief took a deep inhale as he, Roland, and Sarah started to make the same twitching movements.

Lasky almost leapt to stop Halsey before the monitors lit up with various things: a Forerunner, the matrices, the inner workings of Roland's complex decision trees and matrix transformations, flashes of Sarah -

"Memories, Captain Lasky." Halsey muttered, as if it was obvious, "They are in synchronization. They are attempting to rebuilt Commander Palmer's humanity from a mixture of organic electroimpluses through the filter of Roland's ... matrices."

"Halsey-" Glassman interrupts as a myriad of alarms start go off, and Roland starts screaming, "Master Chief's bios - they're all over the place and they're fluctuating wildly - he's going to go into arrest. You need to stop."

"We are almost there." She said through gritted teeth.

Memories of flashing lights, Roland screaming that it burns as the Chief started to seize on the table.

"End it, Halsey!" Lasky said, "We can't lose three people on one day."

"Almost there." She replied, her hand making a stopping motion between him and four other Spartan IVs.

"Halsey!"

"Sir, we're losing anti-grav on decks four, seven and eight. Local hydroponics have sprung leaks and S-Deck is reporting power outages."

"His Gamma waves are reaching critical values, even for an integrated Spartan, Halsey!"

"You're going to fry them all!"

"Almost there."

Cortana's face flashed on the screen, and Roland asking the question: "promise us you'll figure out which one of us is the machine"

The helplessness that Lasky felt was something that he hadn't felt since Cadmon's death, or fuck, even Chryler's death. What did he do? Just stand there and let it happen?

"Catherine Halsey, I'm ordering you to -"

A watcher deployed from the Promethean's back and in a screech, it and Roland said: "Beginning neurological reconfiguration. Recomposing harmonies. Our song has changed. We sing Alone."

Memories started to flood screens, children fighting each other, a small hand reaching for a bell. A woman in a playground asking to flip a coin.

"For heaven's sake, am I medical now?" Halsey proclaimed, grabbing a syringe and flicking her finger to turn over the table.

Then, Roland asked, whether it was Sarah, Chief or Roland himself:

"Am I a machine?"

Mehs, I am going to get you. You attack me in my own inbox, trying to hurt several of my guys at once. This is beautiful. We are getting operating tables involved? Okay Mehs okay. Hi friend

#when the workday is over you will answer for what you have done #i love this #mehs friend tag #promethean knight palmer au #Sarah Palmer #roland the ai #john 117 #Thomas Lasky #Catherine Halsey #fic tag #asks

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alicepao13 · 2 months

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So. The 7th episode of Hudson and Rex after a long and fully undeserved hiatus. First of all, good episode. Even if the plot is ridiculous and overdone in other crime shows, and the concept “Russian spy in St. John’s” is kinda laughable. But hey, I’ve heard more improbable stories in the news lately, so who am I to judge what’s realistic anymore?

How many English speaking people would be able to differentiate a French accent from an Eastern European accent in three words? Just wondering.

I don’t usually laugh in this show (not where I’m supposed to, anyway) but Jesse’s deadpan delivery of "Is it interesting?" was spot on.

Absolutely thought the boyfriend would have somehow ended up being tied to the murder. That didn’t happen. Then I thought the professor would have something to do with it. Didn’t happen either. Either I’m broken or they finally wrote a good script.

Charlie speaking out loud his findings as he searched the victim's library. It's probably for Rex who can't read lol

"I'm not a caveperson". Nope, it's still caveman, you can have this one, boys.

A Canadian getting banned from entering the US for violence? That’s truly a bad guy.

I did not understand anything about oil rigging in the Arctic. Nor do I want to. You guys can keep your Canadian secrets.

It happens in every show. If it's a cop show, we hate the feds. If it's a show about feds, the cops are morons.

How come I've watched so many shows referencing Russian spies and I don't remember Novichok nerve agents being mentioned by that name?

The moment Sarah gave Charlie the antidote that was pretty much where my hopes for a ride to the hospital were dashed. Like, come on, man, let me live a little.

Joe was rightfully pissed about getting stonewalled, although I don't think this case would have been necessarily solved faster if CSIS shared their intel.

Ah, Trina. That must have been her on the phone. It's nice to see they kept in contact.

Charlie’s house??? On my screen???

Charlie and Sarah in Charlie’s house??? On my screen???

Charlie knows the story of Sarah’s family. That’s cute.

Some mentions of Sarah’s family this season. I’m getting my hopes up.

*Charlie and Sarah about to kiss* Rex: Oh shit they’re gonna fuck again. *runs away* Charlie truly meant it when he said that Rex knows to make himself scarce.

“CSIS Safehouse” in large, Arial font letters. Oh boy, I’d like to see the audience screening that warranted that. (People are dumb. I know.)

So the first three letters of CSIS are for Canadian Security Idiot :P

Rex with the syringe in his mouth: Anyone with thumbs around?

Of course Charlie would inject himself with the antidote as he was dying like we’re in some Die Hard movie (I’ve never actually seen them). This was like 5% of the whump I was hoping for.

And then he gets up and stumbles a little and that’s it? How is it that difficult to write some whump? Arrest him and then pass out!

I liked that they finally managed to set up something comedic in the first arc and finished it in the last scene, with Jesse’s interpretation of what every other character’s reactions meant. I agree with them, by the way, Austin Powers is a bad choice, Jesse.

Also, Rex would make a fine ballerina apparently. Charlie secretly agrees.

It was a good episode, I don’t feel let down. As I’ve said before, it’s hard to have that promo hanging out there for 3.5 months and have the episode live up to the expectations. But it had the team working as a team again, Charlie’s house came back from the war, there were cute Charah moments again, there was team banter and funny scenes and Rex saved Charlie's life a bunch lol. I’m not sure what they were trying to do with the first couple of episodes. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The next episode is promising me whump again. I refuse to get my hopes up again but at least it will be only a week until then. Sadly, it seems like Rex is inside the prison. Like, what the fuck. That alone would be a major red flag for any inmate, they wouldn’t even need to know he’s a cop. Although if Charlie ends up getting beaten to protect him, I’ll forgive them for that and for that atrocious undercover hairstyle. However, it truly was an opportunity to see them working separately.

I love that they mention that Charlie has arrested so many guys in there. Maybe it would work if Charlie slicked his hair back… and Rex turned into a cat.

#hudson and rex #this is the trimmed down version lol

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cicimunson · 2 years

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Dollhouse Part 8

Series Summary and Characters can be found in Part One.

Chapter Summary: Y/N and Eddie get closer, and Eddie realizes just how much she's sacrificed caring for Max and Sarah, especially after Sarah gets sick and Y/N takes care of her.

Warnings: Little pg13 action, Sarah is sick and moody.

You wake up feeling warm, stretching and opening your eyes. You and Eddie must have fallen asleep watching the movie. He's wrapped around you, arms and legs thrown over you, his head resting on your shoulder.

Your heart beats a little faster looking down at him. It was crazy how in just a month or so he'd gone from a classmate you didn't associate with to one of the most important people in your life.

You push his wild curls off his forehead and he sighs contentedly in his sleep, burrowing closer into your side.

You run a finger down his jawline. He twitches slightly, his brows furrowing.

He's so cute like this.

Fighting the urge to giggle, you trace his jaw again and then touch his bottom lip with your thumb.

He has the prettiest lips. So pink. So pouty.

You're so engrossed by his beautiful mouth that you don't even realize he's awake now.

His lips part and you jerk your gaze up to his eyes.

Oh shit. He's probably creeped out. Not me touching him when he's sleeping like some kind of perv.

"Eddie, I-" You start to apologize, pulling your hand away.

He cups your chin with his fingers and shifts upward, capturing your mouth with his.

You gasp, your hand tangling in his hair to pull him closer.

Eddie nips your bottom lip, sucking on it gently, then thrusts his tongue into your mouth. You turn on your side, chest-to-chest with him, slinging a leg over his waist.

Eddie squeezes your thigh, drawing lazy circles with his thumb that move up higher and higher. He breaks the kiss and presses his forehead to yours, breathing heavily.

"Is this okay?" He asks, his voice barely above a whisper. "I don't know if you want this."

"Of course I do, why wouldn't I?"

He shifts, looking uncomfortable. "Well, you're you, and I'm me."

"I know who you are. That's why I want you."

"You're sure?"

"Are you not?"

He hesitates. "I don't know if-"

He's cut off by Max busting into the living room. "Y/N, Sarah is sick."

You shove at Eddie and he rolls off the couch into the floor. You sprint down the hall into Wayne's room. Sarah is laying on the bed, her cheeks flushed, whimpering softly.

"Oh sissy, it's okay. I'm here, I've got you." You scoop her up.

"Mama." She whimpers, burying her face in the crook of your neck.

You carry her into the kitchen, Max and Eddie on your heels.

"Ed, do you have a thermometer?"

"Yeah, I'll get it."

You hold Sarah close, murmuring soothing words and kissing her little forehead.

"Mama." She whines again, tugging on your hair.

You and Max exchange a glance. Sarah had called you Mama a few times before and you'd always corrected her, but to do so now while she was sick, it felt wrong. She needed a mama.

Eddie returns with the thermometer and you hold it under her arm.

"Does she need to go to the hospital? I'll drive you there." He offers. "Or I can go get medicine? What do I need to do?"

The worry on his face touches your heart.

"I have children's Tylenol here." You reassure him. You check the thermometer. "103.4."

"Fuck." Eddie reaches out and traces a finger over her cheek. "Poor baby girl."

Despite being sick, Sarah beams up at him, catching his finger in her hand.

"Fuck." She says proudly.

You glare at him.

Eddie grins sheepishly. "Well, shit."

"Shit!" She exclaims, reaching out for him.

You clench your teeth. "Eddie, could you not teach my sister every cuss word you know?"

He takes her out of your arms and snuggles her. "No promises. She's my little protégé."

"I need to give her some Tylenol and a lukewarm bath. It'll bring her temp down."

Max brings you the Tylenol and you draw it up in a syringe. "Fair warning, she hates the grape taste. She's gonna get mad."

"This little angel, mad? I refuse to believe it."

You coo at her. "Alright sissy, let's get this done."

You manage to shoot the medicine into her mouth. Sarah gags and promptly spits it all over Eddie's t-shirt. She lets out a shriek, reaching up, and yanking his hair roughly, making him wince.

"Hey now, nugget, I'm not the one that gave you that yucky stuff." Eddie scolds her gently, untangling her hand from his hair. "Poor baby."

"Shit Eddie, I'm sorry." You wet a dish towel and dab at his shirt.

"Language." He teases. "Honestly, it's fine. You warned me. Go get her bathed, I'm good."

"Yeah, I guess we can try again after she's had a bath, it always calms her down." You carry her down the hall.

"I'll get her some clean clothes." Max offers, ducking into the bedroom.

You start the water and coax Sarah into the tub. "Come on sweetie, a bath will help."

Normally she would jump into the tub eagerly and splash around, soaking you and the floor. But tonight she's grumpy and sick and wants no part of it. She shrieks when you sit her in the water, clinging to your shirt as you let go of her.

"Come on, sweetie, please, I'm trying to help." You plead, but she screams louder, kicking and sending water everywhere.

Max comes in. "What's wrong? She always loves a bath."

"She's just sick and moody is all."

You manage to scoop some water in a cup and douse her back. Sarah wails now, clinging to you tighter.

"Up, up!" She pleads.

"I'm sorry sweetie, we have to get your temp down. Just a few more minutes."

Seeing her so upset is almost too much for you. Tears spill out on her plump cheeks and you fight the urge to shed a few yourself.

Eddie is standing in the hall outside the door. He can hear the pain and worry in your voice, the frustration and sadness in Sarah's wails, and he feels like his heart is gonna snap in two.

You manage to keep Sarah in the tub a little longer. She flails and scratches your face with her tiny nails when you pick her up, clutching you desperately. You wince and wrap a towel around her.

"Here, let me get her dressed." Max offers.

"You should go back to bed, you need your sleep. I got her."

"I can help." She insists. "You shouldn't have to do it all on your own."

"Hey now, what am I, chopped liver?" Eddie calls from outside the bathroom door. "Your sister is right, Red, we can handle this. Go get some rest."

Max hesitates, her gaze lingering on Sarah's red and puffy face. "Are you sure?"

"Max. Bed." You say firmly, but there's a soft smile on your face. "I'm the big sister here, it's my job to handle this stuff.",

Eddie sighs at your words. It wasn't your job to handle this. Your parents should be here. Honestly, if he ever met them, he'd curse them out and demand to know how they could just leave you and your sisters alone with a monster like Billy. At least when his mom abandoned him she left him with Wayne so he would be safe and taken care of.

Max comes out of the bathroom and Eddie ruffles her hair, chuckling when she rolls her eyes and pushes his hand away. "Night, Red."

You emerge a few moments later, holding a whimpering Sarah. He sees the scratches on your cheek and winces. "She got you good, huh?"

"She always does when she's mad." You shrug. "She's a violent little thing."

Eddie scoops her from your arms, cuddling her against his chest. Sarah relaxes into him, her head resting on his shoulder.

"She really likes you."

"She loves me. Can't blame her, I'm irresistible." Eddie carries her into the living room, sitting on the couch and gently rocking her back and forth.

"You're so good with her."

He shrugs. "I have a soft spot for kids. Don't tell anyone. I have my reputation to think of."

You giggle. "Your secret is safe with me."

"Do you want to try her medicine again?"

"She'll probably spit it out, but yeah, let's try."

You fetch it from the kitchen.

Eddie groans dramatically. "Oh no, Sarah, I'm sick!"

Her eyes widen. "Oh no!" She repeats, petting his cheek.

"I think I need some medicine."

"Med-cine?"

"Mhm, to help me feel better." He winks at you.

"I have your medicine, Eddie." You play along, holding out the syringe so Eddie can pretend.

"Mmm, yummy! I feel better."

"Yummy." She copies him, smiling up at you.

"Does Sarah want some yummy medicine?"

She opens her mouth and you shoot the Tylenol from the syringe. To your shock, Eddie's plan works and she swallows it.

Eddie grins triumphantly. "Good job Sarah!"

She beams. "Sarah good girl!"

"Very good girl. So good she's gonna get a popsicle." Eddie tickles her under her chin.

"Sicle!" She squeals and you get her one from the kitchen. She eats it happily, making a mess all over herself and Eddie as it melts.

"You're gonna need a shower after all this. Eddie." You chuckle, wiping her face clean.

"I don't mind."

Sarah crawls into your lap, yawning.

You feel her forehead. "Her temp is down, thank God."

Eddie sees your shoulders sag with relief. He glances at the clock, it's almost two a.m.

Sarah falls asleep in your arms a few minutes later.

"I can lay her down with Max if you want." He offers.

"No, I'm gonna keep her with me tonight."

"Take my bed. I'll sleep out here on the couch."

"No, I can't keep taking over your room. We'll be fine out here."

"You're not taking over anything. Sarah will be more comfortable in the bed."

He's got a point.

He tugs Sarah from your arms and carries her down the hall. You follow behind him and lay in the bed, reaching up to take Sarah back from him.

You tuck her into your side, kissing her forehead. "Thank you so much for helping with her tonight, Eddie, and with Max. You have been unbelievably amazing to us. I literally can't thank you enough."

"I'm happy to help, Y/N. I love y- love having you all here."

You reach for his hand and tug him into the bed. "Just sleep in here tonight."

He nods, sliding an arm over you and Sarah, resting his hand on your lower back.

"Goodnight." You murmur.

"Night." He replies, leaning over Sarah and kissing your cheek.

You sleep for a few hours, waking up on and off to check on Sarah. She's restless, tossing and turning ever so often but her temperature stays normal and she stays asleep.

Eddie is a light sleeper, waking up every time you do. He watches silently each time you jerk yourself awake, sees the worry on your face as you check on Sarah repeatedly throughout the night. He wants so badly to hold you, to reassure you that everything is fine. You're so strong, so resilient. You do everything to take care of your sisters, and as a result, you yourself are neglected.

He's seen you forget to eat because you were too busy trying to get Sarah to take a few extra bites. He's seen you neglect your own homework because Max needs help with hers.

And you had started taking care of him and Wayne too, cleaning the house, cooking, doing laundry. And Eddie's grateful, he really is, but he also feels so guilty that everything is piled on your plate.

He vows to himself right then that he is going to help you anyway he can. He'll do anything for you, and for the girls. Somewhere along the way these past few weeks you'd become his family. And he wasn't about to lose his family again.

He shifts closer and rubs your back, startling you.

"I didn't know you were awake." You whisper.

"You need to get some sleep, Y/N. Her temp broke. She's gonna be fine."

"If it spikes again-"

"I am right here. I got her. I promise I'll wake you if anything happens."

You nod, too tired to protest. You close your eyes and relax for what feels like the first time in days. You trust Eddie. You know he's got her. You know he's got you.

@harrystylesandthegoobs @neewtmas @eddie86baby

#stranger things eddie #stranger things #eddie munson #eddie x reader #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fanfiction #stranger things fanfiction

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pampergirl1 · 11 months

Text

Kelsi the diaper pt 2

Ms Anna stood there with two syringes. “Class pay attention, this is todays assignment, watch and learn”!

“ms Anna you can’t do”!! “Man come on ms Anna no”!

Ms Anna pokes both Kelsi and Leo in the leg…

“There there now class I see everyone’s eyes are on the front”! “Now let’s see, let’s see step back and watch our little experiement. This will take only but a moment. The class stood around in a huddle watch the two students laying down on the floor… (smoke and fumes all filled the room). “POOOFFFF”!!!! (Smoke clears). “alright now class what do we have here”!

the class examined and all that laid there was a enormous jumbo white diaper. Sitting next to it was a jumbo white diaper genie/Pail….

“mahaaa ha ha”. “Now now, class you see what happened to your classmates who messed with their classmates “?!!! “They will now have messes inside them”!!!! Ms Anna reached down and grabbed the jumbo pamper and flipped it over. “Ms Anna what have you done, what is going on I’m fluffy and it’s tickles, I can’t feel my legs please where am I”? Kelsi said . “Oh no Kelsi, it’s now what are you “? kelsis eyes were huge and all you could see was her face and lips. “Now now let’s get you tapped on a baby”! Oh but first let’s show you something. Ms Anna brought Kelsi over to a mirror and showed her , her current state. “A diaper! What have you done to me, I’m sorry ms Anna what are you going to do with me please ms Anna change me”!!!! “Oh no sweet heart, I’m not going to use you, Sarah is, she will use you and those number 2s are no joke sister peeeeeeeyewwwwee”! “And I will change you, I’ll change the diaper you are and then I’ll roll you up, just like Sarah and Monica other poopy peeped diapers”!!! “You’re next” ms anna replied…. “Nooo ms anna what can I do for you to change me back”! “I just told you Kelsi, once Sarah is done using you, you’ll be changed”! As anna ruffled and shuffled Anna’s white cloth body, getting her ready for use! “Please ms anna we’re Leo”? “Don’t you worry about Leo, you’ll see him right after I change Sarah’s Kelsi, oh I mean Sarah’s diaper”! “She’s having lasagna too, and lasagna makes babies poop their diapers so fast, nice and runny , nice and solid”! You’ll be so disgusting I’ll just untape you and throw you in her genie. You’ll be so filthy and filled with packed up diarrhea you’ll stink so bad you’ll rot away in a diaper genie. Let’s get some powder and destin and get the babies ready for their diapers!

too be continued …

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fae-fucker · 9 months

Text

Nexus: Chapter 1-3

It's time for the thrilling conclusion to Sasha Alsberg's and Lindsay Cummings literary diarrhea. Described by the illustrious Sarah J Maas (whose taste we can surely trust) as a "whirlwind, out-of-this-galaxy adventure," the queen of fae jizz has once again put egg on our collective faces and told blatant lies to uphold false narratives.

It's apparently been two years since I last left Andi to die as the new General of Arcardius. Nor was the evil queen, and Valen was the perpetual victim turned evil guy at the last moment. Dex was there, and so was Andi's crew. Dex rescued Andi and the general, but the general died after giving Andi his title for reasons as uninteresting as they are pointless.

I won't be recapping the whole thing, just read the last parts of the previous snark to get caught up. Or the whole thing, if you want xoxo

Chapter 1: Dex

Dextro Arez had never truly believed that the Godstars were tangible beings. They were soul-felt, a comforting presence inside your heart, an idea that filled your mind as if soldered on with iron and fire. Always nearby, yet as far away as the stars in the night sky.

Hoo boy. Shinsay are so very good at one-sentence K.O.s They bypass my armor and do direct psychic damage.

Dex is sitting by Andi's busted-ass body. She's been out for a week, and he's all angsty about how she has to wake up because she's the general now and is the only one who can save them all. He's then overtaken by a telegraphed wave of memories, flashing conveniently back to the climax of the first book, so we're all caught up on what's happened.

BUT THEN! Andi wakes up! And she's all angry about how Dex saved her but left HER GIRLS behind, and she gets up and tries to go and save them immediately despite having an open and gaping chest wound that starts bleeding the moment she gets up. She's so so angry you guys. And also really badass for how she wants to save her crew, whom she loves so much that she'd die for them. It's very cool and tragic and sad and uuh. Anyway.

She stabs him with a syringe full of a pain medication called "soduum" which, I mean, yeah. Soduum indeed.

The first chapter of Nexus ends like this,

“I’m sorry, Dex,” Andi said, her voice like a funeral dirge as his head hit the floor. “There is no me without them.” When she left the med bay, she was no longer Androma Racella. The Bloody Baroness stepped into the halls of the Marauder, a captain who would tear apart the skies to rescue her crew.

I do love the childlike sincerity of Shinsay being so enamored with the bad-mouth-feel name of their main character, and her shitty little title, that they keep repeating both. I also hate the way the title is deeply unoriginal while also being completely meaningless, indicating that Shinsay just chose words that sounded cool to them without thought or effort. There's a certain unearned smugness in repeating the full name and title every time Andi does anything they think is cool, because guys? You didn't do anything, but you're expecting goosebumps every time? Cmon now.

I read my own snark recently in preparation for reading Nexus (cuz there's no way I'm gonna read Zenith again lol) and I'm surprised that I never deconstructed the title of "Bloody Baroness," because it's so bad. So I'll do that now, because there's nothing else cool happening.

First of all, what does baroness mean in this world? The title existing implies the existence of peerage. Adhira has a queen, so that sort of fits, but Andi is from Arcardius, which is noted to be the most militaristic planet, ruled by a general instead of a king. So who gave her the title? Why is it baroness specifically? Does Andi hold land? Where did the title of baroness come from? Who started it and why? What did she do to earn it? We never really find out what Andi did during her criminal years, so her having a wacky title would have given us a clue as to what kind of pirate she is. Instead, we get baroness because it sounds fancy to Shinsay and is alliterative with "bloody," I guess?

As for "bloody", well, it speaks for itself, doesn't it? It's a fine enough descriptor for a space pirate, but the fact that it's followed up by "baroness" makes it sound too small for the title it's describing. The alliteration was also a mistake, IMO. It just sounds childish. Combine all this with the fact that "bloody" is something a mildly annoyed British person might say before a real curse word, it's just a bit silly.

Compare to two examples that kind of work, on the opposite ends of the spectrum that Andi occupies. We have Star Lord, from Guardians of the Galaxy. I haven't read the comics, but the title works for the guy because it's both ambiguous (in the first movie, nobody knows who he is or what he's done, because it's not a lot) and grandiose (because he's full of himself). It is a cool name, but it's clearly something an unimaginative egotist might come up with, name himself the lord of stars because they're in space, so ruling stars means he's a big deal. Nobody's calling him lord unless he convinces them first. It works because it builds his character.

Then we have The Blood Countess, one of the epithets given to Elizabeth Bathory, a real-life historical figure who was said to have killed women and girls in order to bathe in their blood and remain young forever. Notice the similarities to the Bloody Baroness. Except Bathory was given this moniker because she 1) was an actual countess and 2) killed people and had a fascination with their blood. Obviously this is a real-life person, but the title works because hey, she did do that shit, at least according to the people who gave her that name. She's a countess that likes blood? Blood Countess!

What did Andi do? Everyone calls her the Bloody Baroness, but we don't know why, and she clearly didn't give herself the name, though she embraces it because ...? She likes it, I guess. She likes to be called bloody because she loves violence, and to be associated with nobility, despite supposedly hating the upper class after they stabbed her in the back.

Y'all see what I mean?

We don't know where the title came from, so we don't get an insight into her past, and we don't know how she feels about it, aside from stuff we can assume that turns out to be contradictory anyway.

But hey, it sounds cool, right? Right? RIGHT?!

Chapter 2: Andi

Anyway, because she's got a huge hole in her chest that's gushing blood, Andi can barely get herself into the captain's seat, but she's so so so so determined to save HER GIRLS, you guys. Can you feel the female solidarity simply seeping off the page? Totally not undermined by the fact that the three girls are basically lamps who only exist to be Andi's motivation and have no character of their own in this book, essentially objectifying them in this supposedly feminist narrative.

The navigation holoscreen began to flicker before her eyes, highlighted by the swirling, shimmering clouds outside the varillium walls of the ship. The dense fog of color obscured Andi’s view of the stars, and the sight of it sent a shiver of dread down her spine. “Memory?” she asked breathlessly. The soothing female voice of the Marauder ’s control system came to life around her. “How may I assist you, Captain?” “Where exactly are we?” There was a long pause before Memory responded. “The navigation system is currently off-line. I am unable to determine our precise location at this time.” Andi stared at the dancing whorls of pink and gold mist, a sudden suspicion dawning. “Memory, what was the destination of the last hyperspace jump?” “The last coordinates entered were for a location just outside the Xintra Nebula.” Andi’s hands began to shake with rage. Her ship was inside a damned nebula. A massive pocket of space filled with gases and debris that rendered the Marauder’s tracking and navigation systems utterly useless. A place only the most skilled pilots could hope to fly through without losing their way.

A-heem heem. So, as a child, my obsession wasn't with dinosaurs, or Egypt, or animals. Mine was space. And though I couldn't tell you anything that you probably don't already know, I will say that uuh, nebulas? Do not work like that. Nebulas aren't, like, clouds or mist here on earth, they're MASSIVE. And yes, while they are filled with gases, it's not like water turning to mist, so the amount of gas molecules stretched across hundreds of light-years would make existing inside a nebula perfectly fine. The gases wouldn't even be visible to the naked eye. Like, you wouldn't be obscured by clouds or mist, and certainly not enough to scramble any science-fiction navigational tools in a world that's mastered space travel.

Also, while we're on the topic of Shinsay not knowing shit from fuck, can I say something else? Here's the map of the galaxy:

First of all, what are rogue systems? I don't know if they've ever been mentioned and I don't remember if they ever will be, so why even put them on the map? Second of all: you mean to tell me that none of these people name the stars in their star system? That they're all just "the sun" like we do here on Earth? Huh? What? Why? Third: so several of the aliens come from the same star systems? Most of these planets have been mentioned as habitable. Andi and Breck come from the same star system. How is that plausible in any sense of the word?

Third of all, what the fuck is this?

HOW IS THAT A FUCKING ASTEROID BELT? Like I don't expect authors to understand how gravity works in space, (even though it's pretty basic that these rocks would definitely be in orbit around the sun, much like the planets are) but didn't the word belt clue you in on how they look? Do you have no curiosity at all, or are you so overconfident that you can't even bother to look things up?

Also, I get that this is stylized, but this map feels really small. Combined with how Shinsay don't seem to understand how big space actually is, or how unlikely it is that so many planets and satellites in a system are not only habitable but inhabited, it leads to the whole thing feeling underwhelming, not like the great swashbuckling space opera they were clearly going for. Everything's just squished together, and the whole plot revolves around a handful of planets.

Anywhomst, Lon comes in (Lira's brother who's somehow a "universal donor") and reasons with Andi. They head back to wake up Dex, which is surprisingly easy, given that almost no time has passed and they don't even give him anything to cancel out the drug.

Dex and Lon catch Andi up on what went down once she got her ass beat by a skinny guy with a knife. Valen is Nor's half brother and their mom had fucked up space magic that mind-controlled General Cyprian back in the day. Now they're mind-controlling people into worshiping Nor, including Andi's crew. It's very dramatic but also stuff we already knew, so.

Andi squeezed Dex’s hand and nodded decisively. “So we find a way to free their minds and come up with a plan to get them out.” “And then?” Lon asked. Andi allowed an icy smile to spread across her face. “And then the Bloody Baroness will go hunting.”

Cool. This is the second time in a row that we're ending a chapter with the promise of Andi aka the Bloody Baroness doing something cool, and yet she never does. And guess what! She never will.

Spoilers.

Chapter 3: Valen

The chapter title loudly proclaims that this is three weeks later, so I'm assuming that's on top of the week Andi's been out. So like it's a month after the attack. Keep this in mind.

Valen sits in a garden in his old home and angsts about how this planet used to be his prison because his family hated him, except his half-sister Kalee, who was an angel who could do no wrong. But now thankfully he has another sister who is totally cool and awesome and gave him a new identity, as a Solis with compulsion powers.

With every moment that passed, with every new soldier that set out across Mirabel to spread the Zenith virus, more minds were added to Valen’s nexus of connections. At first, he’d felt the exact moment when each silver bullet hit its target. The bullets contained a serum that Nor’s two-headed scientist, Aclisia, had perfected back on Xen Ptera. She’d somehow replicated strands of Valen’s DNA and used them to create a virus that forever linked the minds of its victims to his own, leaving them vulnerable to his compulsions.

His DNA? They're blasting people with Valen's DNA in order to make them part of his semi-hivemind? This is like if I spit in someone's mouth and they started being able to see my OCs in their mind's eye. It doesn't make any sense, and would've worked better if it was just random space-magic, but sure, whatever, it's DNA now. I just don't understand how it works in-person, then? Because it clearly does, since that's how Klaren used it, and she didn't put her DNA into the people she controlled. It was rather the opposite, really. Bazinga etc.

Like, ok, making a virus out of his DNA is fine, but then why would that infection allow him to take control over them? Look at how it "works" in his mind:

Over time, he discovered a way to quiet the minds, to lock them away in their very own realm, so that when a new mind was added, it was simply background noise. He’d strengthened the mental boundaries around that realm, building walls around those other minds, until they were contained in an impenetrable fortress that rivaled the obsidinite prison he’d once been trapped in on Lunamere. And then, finally, there was silence. Now he need only hear the minds when he pleased. And with the help of the Zenith virus, Valen could reach them from anywhere in the galaxy. He compelled them to serve Nor, their true queen—no matter the cost.

So it's a fucking BBC Sherlock mind palace. Very clearly not science-based, so why the bullshit with making a virus? Guess it sounds more scienc-y.

On Xen Ptera, they’d shared a life together—two years spent honing Valen’s powers. And all the while, his heartless father never came looking for him. Valen had once cared about pleasing the general, but now he knew that hope had been futile. Foolish, and utterly pointless. His father had never been capable of loving him, of feeling pride in his son.

Well, you were his rape-baby. Like I hate to remind you but you were very much unwanted and unplanned and made from a forced union. I get that that's not Valen's fault, and the general shouldn't have taken it out on him, but with how much this book and the first demonizes the general and idolizes (or at least affords complexity to) Klaren, this comes off as kind of uncomfortable. You'll see how Shinsay just conviniently always forget that Klaren was an actual rapist. I guess it doesn't count if it's a woman raping men. Yes, multiple.

Valen talks to Nor through their mind link or whatever, which makes him feel better. He's avoiding Darai (Nor's evil advisor/uncle figure), because the old geezer gives him bad vibes.

As he's sitting there, his gaze drifts to a massive floating thing in the distance:

Nexus. The monstrous satellite had become Nor’s new obsession in the wake of their takeover during the Ucatoria Ball. Engineers, scientists and workers had been laboring around the clock these past few weeks, perfecting every angle and plane of the device that would amplify Valen’s compulsion ability, sending his message to every corner of the galaxy.

Ayoo, title drop! But also, what? How does that work? How are you gonna blast Valen's DNA virus through space and expect it to not only survive the process, but also reach across the galaxy? *Tim Allen AUEGH grunt*

Anyway, Nor is apparently preparing for a public announcement or some shit, and Valen thinks about the Unaffected attacks.

Yes. Time for another Nondescript Proper Noun. Get a load of this:

It was something Valen had feared from the beginning, after he’d learned that some wouldn’t be affected by his compulsion. Their numbers were slim, if Aclisia’s extensive testing of the Zenith virus was anything to judge by. For every hundred that fell to Valen’s compulsion, bowing to Nor despite their original feelings toward her, only one resisted. So despite his unease, he’d never truly thought they’d be able to fight back. But barely a week into Nor’s reign, a group of Unaffecteds had banded together and destroyed the military barracks on Tenebris that housed many of the newest recruits to the cause. Valen had felt the moment those minds beneath his compulsion had died. As if they were matches snuffed out. There one moment, gone the next. It happened again, mere days later, on Adhira. A small but organized group of Unaffecteds had emerged from the jungle sector of the terraformed planet and struck down the communication towers. Nor’s video feed, which was on a constant loop across the galaxy, had been cut off for half a day’s time.

First of all, is this some English speaker thing that I'm not getting? Some nuance I'm missing? Why the hell are they called "Unaffecteds" instead of just "Unaffected"? "A group of Unaffected" works just as fine and doesn't sound as awkward, no? Especially since Valen called them Unaffected previously. Am I wrong? Feel free to correct me but I think that this is just unecessary and weird. And yeah, it's not very original. It's giving Divergent but many years too late.

Second of all, one in a hundred in a galaxy is still a lot of people. However, probably not enough to form a resistance movement that fast and that organized in a manner of weeks. Especially considering that there's a visual difference between those that are affected and those that aren't (as we'll see later), and that most people aren't combatants, most Unaffected/s would be found out pretty quickly. I'm calling bullshit on this one.

Third, why is Nor wasting time on making videos for a galaxy that's already entirely brainwashed by her? This implies that the attack was a calculated effort to weaken her power, but aside from sending her a message, it doesn't really affect anything, does it? Are we meant to believe she's just very self-absorbed? That hasn't really been her characterization up until this point.

The Unaffecteds would fall eventually, when they ran out of steam. When they realized that the galaxy was beyond saving.

Nitpick, but for a guy who's spent an entire chapter wanking about how great and amazing his sister is, it's a very weird word choice to say that his enemies would be "saving" the galaxy from her. Is he devoted to her and her cause, or is he a mustache-twirling villain aware of his own actions? Cuz it really seems like you're going for the former.

But hey, what's one sentence in a book, right? It's not like stories are made up of words and that you should be aware of the choices you're making while writing them or anything.

Sometimes, Valen could scarcely believe what they had already accomplished; how quickly the galaxy had fallen beneath their joined hands. Having a scientist of Aclisia’s caliber on their side had been vital to their success in that regard. It had been her idea to send out the orbs full of tainted rain as soon as they’d seized control of Arcardius. A war does not always require soldiers, she’d said, showing Nor and Valen how the weapon would work. Thousands of silver droplets falling from the skies across the galaxy, unleashing the Zenith virus upon all nearby.

Hi, sorry, hi. WHAT. So you're telling me Aclisia has already figured out a way to poison the rain of the entire planet? So ... why the fuck are we bothering with the Nexus satellite? Why don't you just poison the rain on every planet? Given that Adhirans have "universal donors" and all of these different aliens are able to live in each other's atmospheres and eat each other's food, you could just poison each planet's water supply and wait until the virus infected everyone. Yes, that would leave starships and space stations, but given that we barely have mentions of those, and assuming that they still need to stop at planets to refuel and gather supplies, you'll still reach them eventually.

It's funny how Shinsay feel the need to lampshade and excuse how quickly their spaghetti plot happened by using a bunch of other extremely suspect science fiction that would've been a huge deal in any other writer's hand, but through doing that, they undermine their main plot instead. I love it. It's like the reading equivalent of one of an Escher painting. You have to untangle the layers and once you do, you still don't fucking understand anything.

Anyway, Valen falls asleep thinking about how they're totally gonna win, and doesn't notice how his nose bleeds ominously. Because the toll it takes on him to control an entire galaxy of sentient minds is, uuh, literally killing him btw. Spoilers, I guess. For the obvious.

I honestly think that Shinsay have no concept of how huge space is. I know it's hard to comprehend for most people, but y'all are writers, supposedly. Just no imagination in there at all, huh?

It would've been cool to explore how being connected to a literal galaxy full of sentient minds would probably kill you immediately due to the sheer volume of them, like a semi-eldritch hivemind tearing your brain to shreds, but instead Valen just kinda fizzles out physically like a fart in the wind, while his compulsion remains boring and organized and his mind entirely clear and his own the entire time.

Anyway, sorry for the small amount of chapters covered in this first part, I just had to go off on a billion tangents <3

#eff reads: nexus #rape mention

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askthelordofdespair · 5 months

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Arachnophobia part two

Bad English my bad x2!

He woke up in some basement, tied to a chair. He struggled, but it was no use. His arms and legs were bound not by ropes, but by bindings, like on an electric chair. He looked around: the setting was like a horror movie. A scratched, old table with some chemical equipment on it, shelves with a lot of tubes and vials, a floor piled with books and papers. And on top of the cabinet was a bird's nest. In it sat a black bird, staring at the unwilling guest with an evil look. Jeff didn't know much about birds, but he assumed it was a raven. Suddenly the bird cawed and circled a little, sat down on the arm of the chair, twirled its head, reached for the collar of his shirt and tore off a piece of cloth. The satisfied crow immediately flew away, taking its prey to its nest.

"What?!" - shouted an exasperated Jeff.

Whether it was the residue of alcohol or not, or whether he didn't realize the danger of the situation he was in, he wasn't afraid. Suddenly there were hurried footsteps. Someone was coming downstairs to the lab.

Ah, awake already. Well, happy awakening," the black figure said snidely.

Jeff could see the stranger closer now, his tattered black robe hanging just below his knees, his hands clad in dark blue fingerless gloves, his tall, pointed hat adding to the menace. But the creepiest thing of all were the eyes. Large and red, they burned from beneath a white canvas mask. Oh, shit. It was the Scarecrow.

Many things had been heard about the Scarecrow, but no one could say anything with certainty. Except for a few things. Supervillain. Possessed by fear and extremely dangerous. Name, Jonathan Crane. Past history, unknown. If you recognize him on the street, don't panic or let him see you. If he's interested in you and kidnaps you, pray to God, but rely on Batman. God won't help you. Why has Jeff never had any luck? Why Scarecrow? Why not any of Gotham's other supervillains? He would have settled for the Ventriloquist. Shape Shifter. Maybe even the White Shark. All but the Joker and the Scarecrow. But it was a monotonous voice that brought him out of his musings on the unfairness of life:

"What's your name?"

"Jeff Carter." Easy, Jeff, easy. Don't show fear. But don't be cocky. Answer all his questions. Hold out until Batman gets here. He's probably already looking for you. Sarah was supposed to file a missing persons report.

"Great. What are you afraid of?"

"I don't know."

"That's a shame. Okay, well, then I'll take a wild guess. Insectophobia?"

"W-what?"

"Ah, yes. Insectophobia is a fear of insects. Are you afraid of insects, Jeff?"

"How do you know?"

"Did I guess?"

"Let's say you did."

That's good. What's good, asshole? What's good about it? Oh, God, I wish I had help in time.

The madman went to the racks, ran his fingers over the vials, looking at them lovingly, and finally pulled one out. He hummed a tune. He began to draw the liquid into the syringe. Halfway through, he stopped and approached Jeff.

"Stay away from me, you freak! Stay away!"

The syringe jammed into his arm. The poison started to enter the bloodstream. Jeff started to twitch as hard as he could, but the chair held him tightly in its grasp. Suddenly he saw an insect on his lap. Slowly it crawled over him. A second one appeared. A third. A fourth. Soon there was already a horde of insects crawling upward, toward Jeff's face. They covered him in a moving carpet. He covered his mouth, hoping they wouldn't get inside. But in vain. They penetrated through his ears. Their rustling echoed. You could feel them crawling up the ear canal to the brain. They got to the insides. They started gnawing on them. Devouring his lungs, his heart, his spleen, they laid eggs in the ruins of his body. Soon his stomach was bloated and moving with insects. They were breeding and hatching every second. Enjoyed his torment. Made him their sanctuary. Jeff screamed like he'd never screamed in his life. The dark figure unbuckled him, dragged him across the floor, and tossed his body into the metal cage. They would have plenty of time together.

Jeff lost track of time. How long had he been here? A day? Two? A month? A year? If he could still think straight, he'd realize it hadn't been that long. After all, he hadn't died of hunger and thirst. But all that was left of his body was a shell, unable to think. Unable to fear. Soon the Scarecrow dragged him outside for the umpteenth time. But he did not tie the body to the chair as before, but left it lying on the floor. He said slowly and measuredly:

"It seems our paths are parting. I am grateful to you, Jeff Carter, for your invaluable contribution to science. However, your body's resources are exhausted."

He walked to a corner of the basement, reached down and picked up the scythe that had been standing in the darkness before. Raised it high above the head of the man who had once been Jeff Carter. Carter stared blankly into the void. He seemed even glad of this turn of events.

"It's time for us to say goodbye."

Swing. Whistle. Crunch. Darkness.

#askthelordofdespair #jonathan crane #ask blog #ic post #scarecrow

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vbecker10 · 2 years

Text

Shadows of the Past

Part 47 (Part 46)

Warnings :: Torture (not graphic), imprisonment, mild blood

______________________________________

(Y/N POV)

You try to get free again but you can’t. Marc takes your chin in his hands and makes you look at him. “What do you want with me?” you demand.

“What do you think Y/N?” he asks and you try not to let the fear show on your face. “You are going to help us test a brand new project we are working on.”

You look down at yourself for a moment and realize you are wearing what almost looks like beige scrubs. You try not to let yourself be overwhelmed by the realization that you are now a test subject for Hydra.

"Another failed attempt at a super soldier serum?" you say sarcastically, hoping he can't hear the fear in your voice.

He laughs, "Not exactly." You look at him confused, what else could it be? He smiles, "Don't worry, you'll find out soon enough."

He walks back to the door to leave, signaling the guard by the door to open it. Just as he is about the step out in the hallway be turns back to you. “Well come on, I’ll show you around,” he tells you. As he says that one of the guards holding you reaches for his belt and unclips a pair of handcuffs. He puts them on you quickly, keeping your hands behind your back. The two guards force you out of the room after Marc.

You struggle as they walk you down the hallway but they don’t loosen their grip. You look around, the hallway is long with metal doors on either side. There are guards posted at both ends of the hallway. You can hear screams and faint cries as you move past the rooms. They walk you to the end of the hall and then you turn left, there are more metal doors and an elevator at the far end. Marc pushes the call button and you wait in silence, you are sure they can hear your heart beating. You try to focus on your breathing, not wanting to give Marc the satisfaction of knowing you were terrified.

The doors open and they shove you inside. You look ahead of you and make eye contact with Marc briefly as he gets in. “So... where is Sarah?” you ask, hoping bringing her up might get you a bit more information about what is going on.

“Oh that right,” he says, “You wouldn’t know.”

“Know what?” you ask.

“Well it seems that prince of yours killed her,” he tells you.

“What?” you ask stunned. Loki killed her? What had happened after you were taken? you think to yourself.

“Don’t worry too much about her,” he tells you when the elevator stops. “We had run out of uses for her anyway.”

He steps out of the elevator and the guards force you to walk down another hallway. Towards the end of this hall is a pair of metal double doors with a small glass window in one of them. When you get closer, they swing open and you are met by a man and a woman in lab coats and another guard. You look beyond them, into the lab. You had seen photos of where Bucky had been kept and this room looked eerily similar. The guards pushed and dragged you to the chair in the middle of the room, strapping you down.

You look up at Marc, who leans down over you, “The more you struggle, the more this will hurt.”

He takes a step back and you watch as the man sits down at one of the computers. You try to see what he is doing but your attention is drawn to the woman in lab coat. You notice an IV stand and monitors next to the chair as she applies leads to your chest and begins to take note of your vitals.

You look over at the doors as another man in a lab coat enters, carrying a small metal container. He places it on the desk next to the scientist at the computer. When he opens it, a small cloud of cold air escapes and he removes a glass vial with red liquid in it. He hands the vial to the woman and she draws some of it into a syringe, then puts the vial back in the container.

You squirm and pull at the straps but it is useless. One of the guards turns your head to the side, exposing your neck. The woman stands over you then turns to Marc, he nods and she injects the red liquid into the side of your neck. It burns in your veins almost instantly and your heart races, your breathing gets faster. You squeeze your eyes shut as tightly as you can, trying not to scream but the burning is spreading throughout your body. You clench your hands closed hard and you can barely hear the monitor beeping frantically. The burning is now in your muscles and it is getting harder for you to focus your mind on anything other than the increasing pain.

The scientist injects you again, this time with a clear liquid. You can feel it taking the burn away but with it comes a heaviness. You feel drained and you fight to stay awake but it quickly becomes difficult. You force your eyes open and look around, everything is out of focus and you close them again, tears streaming down your cheeks. You wish desperately for Loki to find you, you want to go home. You open your eyes one more time and look towards the door, willing Loki to be there but he isn’t. You finally stop fighting, letting yourself slip into unconsciousness.

______________________________________

When you open your eyes you are alone in your cell again, laying on the bed. There is a slow steady beeping just to the right of you, you are hooked up to a monitor that is displaying your vitals. You sit up slowly with a light headache, your vision a bit fuzzy but it focuses quickly. You lift your hand to rub the injection site on your neck and realize there is a restraint around you wrist. Looking down, you see your other arm is free but the one with the restraint is attached to a long chain on the wall next to the bed. You tug at it gently and move to the edge of the bed. As soon as you start to move, you notice how tired you are even though you just woken up.

Before you can stand up, you hear the keypad outside your door beep and it swings open. Marc walks in followed by two guards and the woman from the lab. She has a tablet with her and seems to be taking notes on it. She walks over to you and without looking up, she asks how you are feeling.

You laugh at how ridiculous the question is and she looks up, lowering her glasses, she asks you again. “Freaking amazing,” you tell her as your roll your eyes and cross your arms, tugging at the chain a bit.

She writes something in the tablet then records the readings from the monitor. She nods at Marc. “Hold her,” he says to the guards.

One of them walks over to you and grabs your arm, holding it out in front of the woman. You try to pull it back but you are unable to. She takes a scalpel out of her lab coat pocket and drags it across your skin, making a shallow cut about three inches long.

You hiss in pain and curse at her but the guard doesn’t let your arm go. She takes out a piece of gauze and wraps up the wound. “What the hell was that for?” you ask when she tells the guard to let you go.

“I will be back to check on that in an hour,” she says, not answering your question. Marc says nothing, leaving first, followed by the scientist and the guards.

They slam the door shut and you sit up in the middle of the bed, holding your arm. Alone in the silence of you room you suddenly realize how hungry you are. The last time you know you ate was three hours before the mission, was that a day or two ago? Your mind starts to flood with questions as you look blankly around the room, you hold your cut arm over your stomach as it growls. What did they do to you? Why would she cut you like that? Where are you and why didn’t anyone find you yet? You couldn’t even tell if it was still the same day you had been brought to the lab or not. Your mind came up with more and more questions you couldn't answer and then you heard the keypad again. Apparently it had been an hour already.

When the door opens the guards come in first and stand on either side of your bed. Marc stays by the door as the women from earlier walks over to you. She takes your arm and you don’t fight her, you are tired and weak from hunger. She unwraps the gauze and examines your arm, then she motions for Marc to come closer. You look down at your arm and you can’t believe what you are looking at. The three inch long cut was nothing more than a thin, barely visible scar.

“Well, it seems we can move onto the next phase of the experiment then,” Marc says happily.

You look at him horrified, “Next phase? What are you doing to me?”

He smiles and you feel a small pinch in your neck. You look up at the woman and see she had injected you with something again.

“No... no...” you start to say but everything feels heavy. You hear Marc laugh from far away as your vision goes dark and you collapse onto the bed.

______________________________________

"Y/N," you hear a voice say.

For a second your mind tricks you into thinking it is Loki, telling you he is here to bring you home but you know it isn't. You open your eyes slowly, blinking into the bright lights above you.

"There you are," Marc says with a smile.

You look up at him and you can barely move, you're strapped down on a table in the lab. You think it is the same one as before but you can’t be sure.

"Its ready," you hear one of the scientists say. You don't recognize either of these scientist, how many of them worked here?

"Good," Marc replies.

"What are you doing to me?" you demand but your voice is weak.

"We're going to fix you... or kill you," he shrugs, seemingly not attached to either outcome.

"Fix me?" you ask worriedly, trying to sit up but you are unable to.

He nods and points to two screens to the left and you turn your head to look at them. Both are displaying several x-rays and you recognize the ones on the right screen immediately. It's your left leg, you can see all the metal and screws from your surgeries. When you look at the other screen you’re filled with fear. It's your leg, but all the hardware has been removed, the breaks and displacements that never healed properly are visible.

"No...." you whisper as you look down at your leg. Your left pants leg has blood on it and pain sears up your leg when you try to move your foot.

“I wouldn’t move around too much,” he says. “The surgeon did a decent job removing all the metal.”

“Why?” you ask, trying to understand what’s going on.

“Oh don’t get me wrong Y/N, I don’t care if you ever walk again. We just needed to see if this serum would works on something bigger than a few cuts,” he says as one of the scientists comes over to you with the red liquid in a syringe.

You try to struggle against the restraints but its no use. The scientist injects you with the red serum and your veins feel like they are on fire again. The pain and burning spreads faster than last time. You close your eyes tight and fight against wanting to scream.

When you open your eyes, you look towards the doors, once again praying Loki would come. You eyes start to feel heavy as the pain increases, traveling from your veins to your muscles. Your heart starts to pound faster and your breathing becomes fast and shallow.

You feel a sharp pain in your arm and realize you were injected again. Just as before, the burning starts to fade but you are slowly losing starting to feel your energy level drop. All you want to do is close your eyes but you fight it as long as you can.

The doors open and you feel hope flood your body but it leaves just as quickly when you see who enters the room. You blink slowly, it is getting harder to focus but just before everything goes dark again you see Marc walk over to the doors to greet the man who entered. He reaches out and shakes Pierce’s hand, they both look over at you as you close your eyes.

@michelleleewise @evansabove1981 @ace-of-gay @butt-ugly-popsicle-stick @poetic-fiasco @lokisprettygirl22 @soubi001 @kats72 @misswimberly @meibruges @juulle987 @asgardianprincess1050 @el-zef @xorpsbane @sweatyroadcowboyjudge @apine7 @lulubelle814 @annoyingmarvelreader @yoongissidebitchh @ihategreeneggs @daggers-and-mischief @nonsensicalobsessions @chaotics17 @redbluekjw @lokiprompts @lovingchoices14 @roseeatta @hopefuldreamers-world

Let me know if you want to be added! 💚

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littlequeenies · 2 years

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International Overdose Awareness Day is a global event held on 31 August each year. Its purpose is to raise awareness of overdoses, reduce the stigma of drug-related deaths and acknowledge the grief felt by families and friends. It was initiated in 2001 in Australia by SJ Finn who was managing a needle and syringe program at The Salvation Army Crisis Centre in St Kilda, Victoria. It has been run by the Penington Institute since 2012.

***

Here we want to share some of the muses we feature in our page. Some of them fell in the drugs hell. Some of them recovered from it but sadly some of them didn't.

All of them were happy at some point of their lives and were really sensitive, smart and creative souls, but at some point they did mistakes and took bad choices.

This post is for them, but also for all the people who has fallen to this hell, to raise awareness against these illegal substances and the damage they can do to our lives. In the end, overdose is the frequent end of an addiction, and an addiction is a consequence or a part of a poor mental health.

Pam Courson (22nd December 1946 – 25th April 1974):

Pamela Susan Courson Morrison was an American boutique owner, fashion designer and model, and editor. According to her friends, she was wild and had a sense for adventure, a very exciting and fun person, but also very smart and mysterious, and sweet.

She was the daughter of Columbus “Corky” Brimer Courson, a WWI veteran, and interiors designer Pearl “Penny” Courson. She had an elder sister, Judy.

As a teenager she was ahead of her time, dressing as a beatnik in her natal Orange County when no one did. That made her an outcast. She took art classes at Los Angeles City College and she loved travelling. From 1966, when she was 20, she had a toxic relationship with The Door's frontman Jim Morrison, but also both maintained ongoing relationships with others, while also being strongly committed to each other in their own way. At the same time, he bought a fashion boutique for her, Themis, and she encouraged him to write poetry. They lived for a while at Laurel Canyon, LA, where other artists and musicians lived, so there was a feeling of community and creativity that flowed through the area. Pam's boutique was filled with fanciful clothes, jewelry, and decor picked out especially by Pamela on her travels. Despite it's exclusivity, it was more of a hangout for the beautiful people.

Pam was a heroin addict, and Jim hated heroin and would become angry at her for using. In 1971 she found Jim Morrison dead in the bathtub of their apartment in Paris, France. He was 27 and she was only 25. Under Jim's will, which stated that he was "an unmarried person", she was named his heir, and therefore in line to inherit his entire fortune. Lawsuits against the estate would tie up her quest for inheritance for the next two years.

Pam was very distressed at his death and resorted to heroin and also started developing mental problems, for which she sought help. She moved back to Los Angeles. She died on 25th April 1974 of a heroin overdose on the living room couch at the Los Angeles apartment she shared with two male friends. It was just found one single needle mark on her arm, and she had been clean for at least two years. She was only 27.

Alice Ormsby Gore (22nd April 1952 – 5th April 1995):

The Honourable Alice Magdalen Sarah Ormsby-Gore was a runway and fashion model and a film and stage musical actress, a socialite and muse. She was involved in charity projects to raise money for children through music festivals.

She was the daughter of William David Ormsby Gore, 5th Baron Harlech who later would be the British Ambassador in the USA during Kennedy's government.

Alice lost her mother in a car accident when she was just 15, and at 16 she met musician Eric Clapton. He was an alcoholic and was using heorin, and dragged the teenage Alice down with him. They broke up in 1974, when he was clean thanks to her father.

In 1994 she was treated in the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital for a time with liver and pancreas illness caused by alcohol. She also had heart problems. She was persuaded to register at the Priory Hospital in South West London for treatment for heroin and alcohol addiction but she found hard to deal with the group therapy on offer because she felt she couldn’t speak openly about her time with Eric. Her last months were spent in Bournemouth, Dorset, living on benefits with some support from Narcotics Anonymous.

Sadly, she died of a heroin overdose in Bournemouth, the 5th April 1995. Her body was discovered three days later. She was 42.

Demri Parrott (22nd February 1969 – 29th October 1996):

Demri Lara Parrott Murphy was an artist, a model and an aspiring actress. She was passionate about many things and excelled in art and theater. She was interested in philosophy and read poetry, loved to collect vintage clothes, make decoupage, write poetry and play in front of the camera. She was well known and had numerous friends that she touched with her charismatic and enchanting personality. Most of her friends described her as a very sweet and beautiful person, kind, peaceful and artistic. She has been descrived as a funny person but also as an old soul, and a mysterious person.

She was the biological daughter of Kathleen Austin and Dennis Dougherty, but at the time of her birth, her 18-year-old mother had been married to Stephen Parrott, aged 21, for 21 days. He adopted her. She had three younger half-brothers from her mother’s side, Devin Remme, and Derek and David Murphy; and a younger half sister from her father’s side, Christa Dougherty. She didn’t met her biological father and half sister until she was an adult.

In 1983, when she attended the Arlingon High School, Demri won a state prize for a project about alcohol and drugs that she had put together for the Western Washington Cultural Fair, a cultural fair at the middle school. For source material, she approached her mother, who had been a practicing counselor working in the addiction field since 1976.

It is not known when or how Demri fell into heroin addiction, but at the time she met musician Layne Staley (1988), drugs were part of his entourage. She was, at least, 13 times in the hospital due to her heroin addiction, its side effects, and recovery. Although she went to rehab several times, it didn’t work to her, and sometimes had to turn to theft and prostitution to get some money for the drugs. When she struggled with addiction she ended up homeless, often couch surfing from place to place and staying with different friends and family before moving on, and carrying most of her valuable things in her suitcase.

Demri suffered endocarditis (an inflammation of the inner layer of the heart, risk factors include intravenous drug use). She had open heart surgery and had a pig valve and pacemaker inserted in her heart in 1994. The previous year she had suffered a pancreatic attak. It made a toll in her tiny body and doctors knew she wouldn’t make it. Demri was in and out of the hospital for the last couple of years of her life.

At the time of her death, she was clean. The last 12 hours of her life she was in a coma in an intensive care unit at Evergreen Hospital, with only her mother and her aunt by her side, because of some pills she’d ingested. The doctors turned off the life-support machines on the morning of October 29, 1996. Her cause of death was an accute intoxication and the combined effects of opiate, meprobamate and butalbital. She was only 27.

In a 1995 interview, Layne had said: "I don't think any drug that can cause brain damage, failing kidneys, hardening arteries, pain, and suffering should be made available. Drugs are not the way to the light. They won't lead to a fairy-tale life, they lead to suffering."

Paula Boyd (14th March 1951 – 8th November 2008):

Paula Fiona Boyd was a child actress and a model. She was very creative, lively and outgoing.

She was born in Kenya the daughter of Diane and Jock Boyd, and was the youngest of four siblings: Pattie, Helen Mary "Jenny", and Colin Boyd. By the time her mother Diane was 31 years old, she met her second husband, Bobbie Gaymer-Jones. Diane was very poor and Paula was the only one of her children her mother had with her: when she left Jock, she had deposited Colin, Jenny and Pattie in a boarding nursery school.

Paula had been sent to a children’s drama school and acted in stage plays and children’s television series. Potentially she had a good career ahead of her. And then it came trouble as her fights with her mom started. Eventually Paula was sent to a boarding school but that was a disaster and only made the things worse. As soon as she left school, she went to live with an actor boyfriend.

When Paula was 17, around 1968, she met Eric Clapton, who had both drug and alcochol issues. He was in love with her older sister, model Pattie Boyd, Beatles' George Harrison's wife, so he started a relationship with teenage Paula in order to reach her older sister. When, in 1970, Paula heard the song "Layla", she knew it was meant for her sister and she left him. As Pattie said, "he destroyed her pride, her self-esteem and her confidence, which were already fragile."

From that on, Pattie says "[She] bounced from one relationship to the next, one marriage to the next." Paula had two children from two different husbands, and Pattie took her with her to help her.

At that time Paula had a relationship with a heroin addict and she fell to that addiction too, she became a real worry for the family. Once, Pattie took her younger sister to a holiday without her partner. Pattie wanted Paula to get clean, and when she made it, soon her partner arrived and wanted some heroin, and so did Paula.

When with her older sister, it seemed Paula was doing well, but when her daughter was born, Paula suffered a post-natal depression and she began to drink again.

Paula split up with the second husband and came back to England with three children and had nowhere to live, so the council put her into bed and breakfast accommodation until they found her a house, but she start to drink again. By 2002 Paula’s family took her into treatment. Her older sister Jenny was working for a well respected addiction clinic in Arizona and managed to get Paula a place, but sadly, Paula passed away November 8th 2008 in Worcester, aged 58.

*****

There were those who survived, too.

Marianne Faithfull:

Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (born 29 December 1946) is an English singer and actress.

Her father, Major Robert Glynn Faithfull, was a British intelligence officer and professor of Italian Literature at Bedford College of London University. Her mother, Eva von Sacher-Masoch, Baroness Erisso, was the daughter of an Austro-Hungarian nobleman, Artur Wolfgang, Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (1875–1953). Eva had been a ballerina for the Max Reinhardt Company during her early years. Marianne's maternal grandfather had aristocratic roots in the Habsburg Dynasty. Her half-brother is artist Simon Faithfull.

Marianne spent some of her early life at the commune at Braziers Park, Oxfordshire, where her father was instrumental in its foundation. Her parents divorced when she was six years old, after which she moved with her mother to Reading. Living in reduced circumstances, her girlhood was marred by bouts of tuberculosis. She was a charitably subsidised (bursaried) pupil at St Joseph's Roman Catholic Convent School, where she was, for a time, a weekly boarder. There, she was a member of the Progress Theatre's student group.

Marianne began her singing career in 1964. She soon began taking part in London's exploding social scene. At 18, still in the convent school, she married John Dunbar on 6 May 1965, and on 10 November 1965, she gave birth to their son, Nicholas. She left her husband shortly after to live with Mick Jagger from The Rolling Stones.

In 1966 she took Nicholas to stay with Brian Jones and Anita Pallenberg in London. During that time period, she started smoking marijuana. Marianne and Mick became notorious and largely part of the hip Swinging London scene. Her emotional fragility was compounded by the sudden rise to fame and infamy, and a series of personal setbacks. In 1967, in the middle of her first ever acid trip, was found naked and wearing only a fur rug by police executing a drug search at Keith Richards's house in Sussex. Years later, she discussed her wilder days and admitted that that incident had ravaged her personal life: "When you lose your reputation at 19, you lose everything ... It destroyed me. To be a male drug addict and to act like that is always enhancing and glamorising. A woman in that situation becomes a slut and a bad mother." In 1968, by now addicted to cocaine, she miscarried a daughter (whom she had named Corrina) while retreating to Jagger's country house in Ireland.

She co-wrote "Sister Morphine" in 1969. In her autobiography, she said Jagger and Richards released it in their own names so that her agent did not collect all the royalties and proceeds from the song, especially as she was homeless and battling with heroin addiction at the time. On July 9, 1969, aged 22, she overdosed on sleeping pills in the Sydney hotel room she was sharing with Mick. It was the day Brian Jones was being buried. She was in coma forsix days. Several weeks later, on July 28, she was still at Mount St Margaret hospital, Ryde, very frail but in good spirits.

Gradually, she edged out of the spotlight and into a sort of drug-induced twilight. Her son went to live with her mother, while she succumbed completely to her addictions, moving from squat to squat, and eventually washing up at 'the wall' a bomb site in Soho populated by addicts, and relying on handouts of methadone from the NHS. Years later, she remembers this phase as a deliberate and conscious attempt to disappear from public life. For her, drug-induced oblivion offered blessed anonymity.

When she was addicted to heroin, in the early 1970s, she says that “At that point I entered one of the outer levels of hell.” "Everybody wants you. And you don't really want anybody. You just want your mum. That's what I wanted. Just to be home. I was too young … I think I was quite canny about it, by doing drugs, like that. I didn't look beautiful anymore. I killed it. Then when you realise consciously, that 'oh this is working. Nobody is coming round to bother me. I've put weight on and I'm left alone'."

It took more than a decade to finally get clean. Slowly, she started to drag herself up out of the gloom; found a place to live, and in 1979 got married again to a penniless guitarist called Ben Brierley. The life they lived together was a far cry from the weekend trips to Marrakesh and five-star lifestyle that she enjoyed with Jagger, but she was singing again, and recording and writing songs. She released her best album by many, "Broken English", and the couple moved to New York, where she began to enjoy a professional renaissance, but she was still battling with her addictions. The 1980s were another turbulent decade. While still married to Brierley, she started dating an American she met in rehab, Howard Tose. He was mentally ill and drug-addicted and eventually committed suicide, after which she dedicated her 1987 album, "Strange Weather" to him. In 1988, she wed American writer Giorgio Della Terza, but it wasn't to last. "I met him at an AA meeting," she once said. "I never talk about him."

Moving to Ireland in the 1990s launched a period of relative stability in her life. She started acting again, and returned to the stage. But the daily struggles persisted. Though off drugs, she remained a heavy drinker despite having been diagnosed with Hepatitis C – a condition from her junkie days. But she's sober now, and counts survival of breast cancer and covid-19 among the many times she's cheated death. She's been through a lot of therapy, and learned how to live with her demons at least, even if she hasn't quite managed to slay them.

"My happiness is very fragile," she said. "If I let myself sink into depression, I won't be able to get out. And then I'll be awfully unhappy. I just have to turn my face to the light and walk on. And trust that things will be all right. Which I am. It's a bit of a struggle some times, but at the moment it's grand."

Cleo Odzer:

Sheila Lynne Odzer (April 6, 1950 – March 26, 2001) was an American model, columnist, writer and PhD doctor who authored books on prostitution in Thailand; the hippie culture of Goa, India; and cybersex.

Cleo grew up in Manhattan, NYC, into a wealthy Jewish family, the adoptive daughter of Rena Abelson Odzer and Harry Odzer. Her father was the president of a textile company. He died in 1966, whe she was 16.

At 17 she started to work as a music columnist for a small Greenwich Village newspaper. The column was called “Pop Sounds”. Through this she met lots of musicians and so she met Keith Emerson. She was underage while she wrote it but nobody knew it. She recalled: "I liked the idea of free love, and free drugs, and partying. So when I was fifteen I started to go out wild every night. There was this discotheque called The Cheetah, and it was right next to my house. So my friend and I used to go. And because we were cute little girls… I had fake ID, everybody had fake ID, and the legal drinking age was eighteen, so it said I was eighteen (I was fifteen), and I went every night. I would sneak out of my house. I would pretend I was going to bed and then when everybody was asleep I snuck out the kitchen door, and it was only a few blocks to this discotheque called The Cheetah and I started to hang out, and party, and do marijuana. Nobody knew what the smell was like, we could smoke it anywhere, and they didn’t know what the smell was like. It was amazing."

"I left the US because I had to work and I didn’t want to work. I grew up in a very rich family and my father died of Parkinson’s disease when I was sixteen and till then nobody told me anything about money or work; and I just left. I said “I amb leaving forever”. There was a hippie movement I knew travelling across Europe and I heard about freaks in India. But you know it is something you hear, a word here and there. And then one day I saw a sign that a bus was leaving from Athens to Goa, India. I had never heard of Goa. We went from Greece through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan (wich is now gone), Pakistan and into India… Goa!"

She spent the late 1970s in the hippie culture of Anjuna, Goa in India. Her experiences there, including heavy use of cocaine and heroin, the international drug smuggling used to finance the stay, and her subsequent two-week incarceration, would later form the basis of her second book, Goa Freaks: My Hippie Years in India.

When she was staying in Goa, Cleo suffered an overdose from Mandrax, the pills she used to block the uncomfortable feelings of withdrawal. She was found in really bad condition and was sent to a private Catholic hospital in Mapusa where the doctors didn't know what to do with her. At that time Cleo wasn't eating well, she was really thin and she didn't have the period. They gave her a glucose intravenous drip to make her feel better. The doctors told her to stay a week and to eat three times a day, but she left soon after she arrived because all she wanted to do was taking drugs.

After her return to the US 1979, Cleo underwent drug treatment at Daytop in New York. She entered college, then graduate school, and in 1990 obtained a Ph.D. in anthopology from the New School for Social Research in New York City with a thesis on prostitution in Thailand. Her experiences in there were described in her first book, Patpong Sisters: An American Woman's View of the Bangkok Sex World. Following publication of the book, she worked at Daytop in New York, the drug rehabilitation organization she herself had attended earlier.

In 1999, disappointed with life in New York, Cleo returned to Goa, where some of the remaining old-time hippies disliked her because of the publicity her book had brought to the scene. She died there in 2001.

Julia Densmore Negron:

Julia was a dancer at the Whisky-A-Go-Go in Los Angeles in the late 1960s, and she also worked as an employee in the A&R department at Liberty Records in Los Angeles.

Julia was born Patricia Julia Brose the daughter of Laura and Bill Ballinger, a writer of mystery stories. She had a younger sister, Connie. At age 12, Julia was placed in a foster home because of her mother’s barbiturate addiction.

Julia began snorting cocaine at 18 while she was dancing at the Whisky a Go Go. Her mother died of an overdose in 1972 aged 47. After five years of marriage to The Doors' John Densmore, who forced her to have an abortion before their marriage, Julia left him for Berry Oakley, the bassist for the Allman Brothers band. When she was six months pregnant, he died in a motorcycle accident on November 1972. On March 30, 1973, their son Berry Duane Oakley was born. As a single mother in ther 20s, she turned to heroin to cope with the loss of both her mother and Berry.

In 1976 she married Chuck Negron, the singer for Three Dog Night. They both developed major heroin addictions. Both snorted heroin in the delivery room before their baby son Charle's birth. He was born being a drug addict. She overdosed twice in her life, waking up in a hospital bed feeling like she’d been run over by a fleet of trucks. She lived. Julia lost her sister Connie to an overdose in 1984, which prompted her to sober up and leave her husband in 1985, and she checked herself at Cedars hospital.

Then she went to school and worked as a drug counselor for decades. By the mid-2000s, she had become a prominent advocate of “harm reduction,” which emphasizes making illicit drug use safer so users may seek treatment. In 2013 she was a co-founder of “Moms United to end the War on Drugs” and a Board Member of “A New PATH (Parents for Addiction Treatment and Healing”). She is an advocate for making illegal drug use safe in hopes that users will seek treatment. In 2014 she was running the “Suncoast Harm Reduction Project,” a small group of volunteers who pass out Naloxone to addicts to counterattack opioid overdoses.

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killed-by-choice · 1 year

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Sarah Brown, 5 (USA 1998)

Sarah’s case is not like most of the cases memorialized on this blog. She was never pregnant, but was still killed by legal abortion. Before she was born, this extraordinary little girl survived (or at least survived initially) an attempt on her life by the infamous George Tiller.

Sarah’s biological mother was a 15-year-old girl who was brought to Tiller’s facility for a lethal injection abortion. The girl’s guardians took her on a 900-mile trip to undergo the traumatic procedure at 36 weeks pregnant— so late that Sarah was in position to be born. Tiller tried to inject a syringe of toxins into Sarah’s heart, but she fought for her life. Sarah tried to move away from the needle. Eventually Tiller did manage to inject her with the poison, but he missed his target. Sarah’s head took the damage instead of her heart.

Instead of being artificially stillborn as scheduled, Sarah was born alive and breathing. At first she was left without medical care, but the Brown family adopted her (and only then was a birth certificate filled out). She was adopted by a loving family, but she would carry the damage from Tiller’s attack for the rest of her life.

The poison injected into Sarah’s head left her brain-damaged and disabled. She was blind, didn’t grow as much as she should have and suffered a stroke only six months after she was born. Her kidneys were also damaged and she was never able to walk. Scars on the side of her head showed the brutality of the attack she’d survived.

Despite everything, Sarah was amazingly resilient and was described by family and friends as a very happy kid. She loved being around people and loved to laugh.

Unfortunately, the effects of the abortion were still severe. Sarah eventually died of complications of the kidney damage when she was 5.

Tiller really did kill Sarah. It just took him 5 years to do it.

#tw abortion #tw murder #tw ab*rtion #pro life #abortion debate #abortion #pro choice #unsafe yet legal

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moonstrider9904 · 2 years

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Chapter 5 - Cave of Pools and Diamonds, Part 2

Chapter Summary: Sarah and Crosshair tread through the cave system with more confidence, and Sarah even picks up valuable items on the way. But another close brush with death will make feelings be manifested, perhaps by more people than just the couple.

Word count: 7.4k (it's long but so worth it i promise)

Warnings/tags: descriptions of mild injury (no gore) and poisoning, language, bit of angst, pining, hints of soft!Crosshair cuz I love him, medical procedures (injection w/ syringe), giant insect.

A/N: While writing this, I listened to City of Tears from the Hollow Knight soundtrack on repeat. It fit the mood :3 Hope you enjoy, and thank you for reading!! Also, enjoy the smiles in this chapter, because after this chapter we'll be hopping into TBB season 1's plot ;)

Series Masterlist | Previous chapter | Next chapter | AO3 link | Wattpad link

Another a/n: I'm so sorry if someone asked to be tagged, it's been a long week and I forgot who it was so please reply or dm me if you want to be tagged for this series :3

The events of the night before they continued their voyage through the caves seemed to solidify their bond. There was silence, but it no longer felt tense. Words could have been spoken to express how they both felt, but it wasn’t strictly necessary for them to be heart. Both of them more confident in what they were doing, Sarah And Crosshair managed to find a few more clusters of iron ore they could mine out of the cave, each time getting closer to reaching the amount that they needed to fix the ship.

Carefully, they walked down the ravine. They could tell how much deeper they were getting gradually; the air was cooler, more humid, and it felt enclosed. It was darker too, and getting more difficult to see the way ahead even with the aid of the lanterns. With their vision compromised, it wasn’t long before Sarah mildly tripped over a rock, and upon regaining her balance she felt compelled to point her lantern down at it.

She let out an audible gasp. The white light of the lantern seemed to reflect yellow on the rock. Crosshair feared the worst when he’d heard her gasp, but when he checked on her, all he saw was her crouching on the ground to pick something up as well as the way her gaze lingered on it, her lips forming the word “wow” as she held it delicately.

“What is it?” Crosshair walked up to her and got a look of the little pebble she held, a tiny nugget of a yellow reflective mineral.

“It’s actually gold,” Sarah said as if she still couldn’t believe what it was. Entering the system of caves brought with it many concerns, so many that she didn’t bother to think much about the rare minerals that could be found in those depths. Using a part of the fabric of her blouse, Sarah wiped lingering dirt off the golden nugget and pocketed it inside one of the pouches of her belt where it would be safe, and she thought of Tech as she did. She had a feeling he’d like it.

They moved on. Quickly, they realized being so far underground would bring them the fair reward of encountering many more clusters of iron, perhaps more than would be necessary. They didn’t have to walk as much between clusters, and with Tech’s tools, mining wasn’t time consuming. The hover cart began filling up, lifting Sarah’s mood, and she could swear she sensed Crosshair feeling lighter as well.

He had his face covered by his helmet, but it made Sarah’s heart warm to think of his gaze softening; she’d had a taste of that rare sight of softness in him when he slept on the Marauder, and just the thought of him looking like that while awake and conscious, genuinely happy about something, made her quiver.

“Focus,” Crosshair broke the silence.

Despite her usual confidence, Sarah averted her gaze from his as she felt her cheeks heat up. “What do you mean focused? I’m perfectly focused.”

“No you’re not, Ace,” he chuckled beneath his helmet. “You’ve been all jumpy since we left the lagoons. You’re smiling more, I can tell.”

“I have not,” she denied, and she would have continued doing so were the words not echoing within her mind as Crosshair turned his back on her and began walking forward, lighting his trail.

Sarah watched him firmly, her heart racing as she thought of the possibilities. “Crosshair? How could you tell?”

Lightly, Crosshair scoffed. He turned around and walked back towards Sarah whilst removing his helmet, allowing her to see his eyes once more, illuminated by the dim white light of their trail. Crosshair moved closer to her than he usually did, his body inches from hers, leaning his face down until his lips were so near hers it was a sin not to let them touch. Sarah felt her marks burn, her eyes staring into his, not daring to move but an inch.

Then, Crosshair smirked. “I could tell because your face is obvious as fuck and you can’t hide shit.”

Sarah felt her heart drop, blushing out of sheer embarrassment. “Right.”

Crosshair had that smug look on his face, but his expression softened into something more sincere. “And I… I felt it.”

He’d spoken it so quietly it was as if he was afraid anyone would hear him admit it. Sarah jerked her gaze to him again.

“You felt it?”

“Forget it,” Crosshair turned his back on her again and walked in silence until he seemed to force himself to a stop. He reached his hand out to the wall and grabbed something out too only to scoff slightly at it before tossing it over at Sarah. “Here.”

Sarah caught it, another tiny stone, a rich, deep blue color with a few specs of earth. It was a lapis lazuli, gleaming even though it hadn’t yet been polished in a color not unlike the distinctive hue of the 501st.

“You’re most likely not going to want to leave until you have a little souvenir for everybody,” Crosshair said monotonously, “you may as well take that one for Echo.”

Sarah smiled as Crosshair put his helmet back on, concealing his expression yet again. “He’ll be touched to know you care enough about him.”

“You’re never going to tell him I picked that out,” Crosshair pointed at her firmly. “Now move.”

Before she kept moving forward, she smiled once more at the lapis lazuli and secured it in her pouch along with Tech’s gold pebble.

Their trail continued; there wasn’t much more room in the cart for remaining ore and its data dashboards displayed that the minimum mass of ore that they needed had already been reached, but they decided to look for more iron to spare in case it was necessary. Sarah made sure to thoroughly light the trail as they advanced, which became all the more necessary when the path they were on grew narrow, too narrow for them to fit the cart.

The time wore on and more iron was found, but Sarah felt she wasn’t ready to go back up yet. She got a hunch that had her looking into one of the narrower caves that led even further down, and before she went down through it, Crosshair grabbed her wrist.

“Where are you going?” He asked, partly worried, partly rough.

“Down that cave,” Sarah said normally.

“Why?”

“I…” she realized she didn’t have the best alibi. “I just have the feeling we could find some more things down here.”

“I was kidding about the souvenirs,” Crosshair slurred. “Get back here.”

“Excuse you, prince,” Sarah raised her brow at him and shook her hand off his grip. “This is my intuition, alright? I know better than to ignore it, so wait here for me.”

“Sarah–”

“I won’t be long.”

Crosshair groaned, clearly rolling his eyes at her under the helmet. “I’m coming with you.”

“You don’t have to,” she said.

“Between letting you go down there by yourself and staying near you, I’d rather not let you go alone,” he admitted.

Sarah clasped her hands together and faked a dreamy sigh. “My hero.”

Crosshair chuckled. “You pretend to fake it, doll. Now make this quick, I want to get back topside.”

She playfully rolled her eyes at him and enjoyed the witty banter. On the way, they stumbled upon specs of redstone, handy for conduction and weaponry, a quality Sarah felt Wrecker would appreciate.

Lights continued to be set down along their trail, and Sarah led the way according to what her intuition told her. Crosshair followed her several meters back, wordless, and just when she was beginning to miss his snarky remarks, Sarah felt the dusty ground beneath her begin to crumble–it was gravel. The slightest disturbance on it was enough to tumble it off its balance, and Sarah was sent falling alongside it.

Sarah hit the ground hard, but was lucky to not have any gravel falling on top of her. Her body ached, but she wasn’t hurt, and she stood up and dusted herself off as Crosshair ran up to the edge of the hole and aimed his lantern at her.

“Sarah!”

It was odd–so odd of her to think this that she thought she’d hit her head–how lovely Sarah thought Crosshair’s voice sounded when he yelled. He was always quiet, monotonous, his voice was that of a coiled snake contemplating when to strike, but she found his yelling of her name endearing.

Yeah, I hit my head.

“Sarah!” He yelled at her again as he began to prepare the hook attachment onto his rifle.

“I’m fine!” She called back at him.

“I’m coming to get you,” he said.

“No,” she held her hands out. “No, it’s okay. All the gravel that had to fall already did, the rest of the walls are solid. I can just climb my way out…”

She trailed off when she felt her hunch getting stronger, but above her, Crosshair wasn’t anymore patient.

“Then get back up here already,” he commanded.

“Hang on…” Sarah looked down one of the caves before her. “Let me look around more.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Sarah–”

“Crosshair,” she spoke his name firmly, the sound reaching him like an arrow through his body, straight through his heart.

He’d seldom heard someone talk to him like that; it was clear authority but dammit, he respected her for it.

“Trust me,” she said unwaveringly.

Crosshair sighed. “You have to stop playing that card.”

Sarah giggled and the sound filled the whole cave. “As soon as I’m back, you’re in charge, I promise.”

She began to turn around, resolved to enter that cave.

“Sarah.”

His voice was now at its usual tone, but it was nonetheless endearing. Sarah stopped and looked back up at Crosshair, who’d removed his helmet, and gazed at her with worry despite his decision to trust her.

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

Sarah winked at him and nodded, hoping it was enough to give him the little boost of confidence he needed. Finally, she walked into the cave making sure to light the way well, and as she walked, Sarah heard the sound of bubbling magma that got only slightly louder the more she walked, and not far away, Sarah could hear a stream of water as well. Another round of intuition came to her and she felt like picking down the right side of the tunnel, opening herself a pathway to a whole other maze of caves.

She signaled its entrance and went past it, knowing she couldn’t have found it by coincidence. She didn’t have to walk long to notice a faint light at the end of one of the new tunnels that had to be a magma channel–probably best not to go down that direction–but she went down anyway. The mysterious red glow of the magma reflected on some specs on the roof of the cave, and her eye got caught on one that was peculiar, since she could almost swear it had a green hue. Sarah walked carefully closer to it until the little spec was directly above her.

There, resting safely on the roof of the cave, was a single emerald, one that was very small, and timelessly rare.

She extracted it despite how long it took her to do so, long enough to make Crosshair worry. Still, she felt it was worth it when she held the little emerald in her hand and secured it in the same pouch where she had the other stones.

Sarah only had one more thing to do before leaving, to look down the stream and see what she could find. It didn’t seem menacing, so she got inside and let the water carry her, but it appeared she’d underestimated its strength, and in a matter of meters, the stream had become too strong for her to swim against it. The water shoved her to the end of the cave, leaving her cornered with only the lantern to give her some view.

When she tried to move up the stream and couldn’t, she began to panic. In her stress, Sarah looked around at several directions, but she forced herself to a stop when another sight caught her eye. Not far from her, two more specs gleamed, reflecting the light of her lantern. Sarah then realized she was probably the only person in the galaxy who was stupid enough to try and go toward the specs rather than trying to find a way out, but she didn’t care, because she had just stumbled upon diamonds.

“Sarah!”

His voice added a touch of magic to the sight of both diamonds reflecting the light of her lantern; Sarah had to use all her strength and aid herself through the Force to keep herself still and hold onto the cave walls. They were cold and humid, slippery on her fingertips, but her eyes remained trailed on the prize. Why she was so keen on going through that risk baffled her, but it became clearer as Crosshair’s voice traveled down the cave.

“Sarah!” Crosshair called again.

“I’m down here!” She yelled in response.

She looked over her shoulder and made out his tall silhouette in the dim cave lighting, smirking to herself when she realized he was knocking his palm to his forehead. It was warming to think he did care about her after all, beyond all banter and heat. Sarah paid little attention to him and continued down the stream until she finally reached the glimmering specs. Using the ray Tech gave her, she extracted them: two diamonds, one bigger than the other, but both equally beautiful, equally rare.

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?!” Crosshair called.

“To you I am!” Sarah replied, smiling brightly as she secured both diamonds in the pouch where the other stones were, hoping to the gods they’d be safe from the stream. “Help me out of here?”

“Sith hells, you’re a pain,” Crosshair muttered and detached the barrel of his rifle to replace it with the hook and cable. He launched the hook in her direction and it landed square inside the stone wall, giving Sarah the chance to pull herself through it. But as soon as she held onto it, the force of the stream threatened to overpower her and Crosshair.

Sarah knew that the only way he wouldn’t be dragged down with her was if something countered the strength of the stream. She held out her hand and concentrated on the Force around him, pushing against Crosshair and pinning him to the wall behind him. Now that the stream wasn’t overpowering him, it would make it more difficult for Sarah to pull herself up and maintain that grip, but she resolved to manage. She had something to give him, after all.

She struggled towards him, fighting both the water of the stream and her own push of Force, hanging onto the wire with one hand, though eventually making it to the other end of the stream. She noticed Crosshair fighting her push and holding out one of his arms, offering his hand to her. Without a second thought, Sarah took his hand and let go of everything, and out of the stream, the two were sent tumbling to the ground with her body above his.

The two quickly shuffled into sitting, though still entwined. Sarah panted to catch her breath after such an effort, and Crosshair quickly scanned her for any injuries as well as a reason for why she could have done something so clearly stupid.

“Are you fucking insane?” His voice remained with his usual sneer, but he hid in it a note of concern.

Alarmed, Sarah frantically felt within her pouch and counted the items. Six small objects were safe and sound inside her pouch, and she gave a deep sigh of relief only to begin laughing afterwards. The soft sound of her laughter echoed within the cave walls, filling Crosshair with bewilderment.

“What?” He asked her.

Sarah then felt inside her pouch and took out the two diamonds, holding out the bigger one to him as she continued to grin. Her nebulae irises beamed at Crosshair, her smile equally as big, and the marksman then realized he was being presented with a gift.

Not only had he never been given a gift–the enhancements to his rifle and weaponry that Tech made were more a favor than a gift, and that was all he’d ever received–but it baffled him why he’d be worthy of a present from Sarah. His piercing gaze softened as he looked at the little diamond, less than half the size of a fingernail. He took it from her gentle touch and met eyes with her, rendered, for once, speechless.

He stuttered, and rather than questioning, Crosshair affirmed, “You’re insane.”

Sarah couldn’t help but laugh once more, and this time, the laughter passed onto Crosshair.

“You’re batshit insane, you know that?” Crosshair said through a smooth laughter, a sound Sarah cherished deeply, feeling its warmth in her marks.

She continued to giggle and rested her head softly on his shoulder as Crosshair put his diamond inside a small compartment within the handle of his rifle, after which he helped her stand up. Sarah’s laughter faded and she looked at him with a kind smile, one that made Crosshair feel more than he ever had.

“As promised, you’re in charge now,” she broke the silence.

Crosshair sighed, a smile taking over his features against his will, all but astonishing Sarah. He was truly beautiful when he smiled.

“Don’t you dare run off on me like that again, you hear me?” He told her.

Her smile widened. “I promise I won’t. But only if you don’t run off either.”

“You’re stuck with me,” his tone was a threat, but his smile held a gentle promise. Crosshair removed the hook and cable from the rifle and switched them for the usual barrel, and once again, he donned his helmet. “Come on.”

The way back was long and time consuming, and getting the hover cart up was quite the challenge, but they both prevailed. Eventually, they reached the bulb where Crosshair first got wounded, and after that, it wasn’t long before they exited the rift and returned to the initial maze of caves they’d been in. They were high enough below ground for the hover cart to regain its location signal; Crosshair stopped and digited commands onto the hover cart’s controls, and when he finished, the cart began to move on its own through the caves, leaving them behind quickly.

“I didn’t know it could do that,” Sarah said.

“Tech showed me how to not long before we found you and Echo,” Crosshair replied. “I couldn’t do that further down for obvious reasons. Any more obvious things to point out?”

“Um, I don’t know,” she played along. “Maybe the fact that you’re a bit of a pain.”

Before Crosshair could shoot back an even wittier response, they were both stopped by a rumble, one different from all the noises they’d heard up until then. It went on for longer than the others and it was much deeper, and after it, they could hear multiple taps on the walls like claws moving quickly.

“Any feelings about that?” Crosshair asked her.

“It can’t be anything good,” Sarah’s voice shook as her body went cold. She put her hand on the wall and tried to sense whatever it was, and the first thing she noticed was the fast movement, then the size, and finally, she gasped when she noticed the amount of legs that thing had. “We have to move!”

Without questioning, Crosshair prepared his rifle. Sarah got her blaster ready too, and the two ran in the same direction that the hover cart went in. Sarah could feel that thing getting closer, but without a warning, the walls behind them exploded open followed by a big centipede emerging from them. It was huge, almost as big as the tunnels themselves, with about eight eyes and its two frontal legs thick enough to make new tunnels, their tips being fine and sharp, most definitely stingers.

“Run!” Sarah yelled.

Crosshair shot out two of the centipede’s eyes before running after Sarah, but that didn’t seem to do much to the creature except for angering it more and making it run after them at top speed. Risking making an avalanche, Sarah forced the roof down on the centipede to create a wall between them. It stopped the centipede for a while, giving them a chance to run, but it had gone to a tunnel beneath them, making the ground crumble underneath their feet. Crosshair could run past the hole, but Sarah wasn’t as fortunate, and she ended up falling in.

She was left facing the centipede, who approached her slowly, hissing at her with its stingers clearly visible. Though Sarah fired her blaster on it endlessly, she was terrified, and her blasts didn’t seem to do anything to its seemingly rock-hard cortex. She was too scared to use the Force. She felt she’d reached her end.

Above her, Crosshair shot the centipede in the eyes, but the centipede was faster. It charged toward Sarah and she barely dodged it, but she was still cornered. She tried to angle its face towards Crosshair so that he could have a clear shot, but she wasn’t as successful as planned. The centipede charged at Sarah one more time, and this time, Sarah couldn’t dodge. A sharp pain invaded her lower waist, causing her to grunt.

When her vision started going blank, she heard Crosshair shouting out her name as the pain began to expand every corner of her body.

Crosshair

He watched as her body fell limply on the ground, though he could still hear her grunting, even above the hissing of the centipede. She was still alive, but she was in pain, and he knew he had to hurry. His blasts drew the centipede's attention from her and now it was coming for him, which was exactly what he wanted. He wanted it to face him directly. Sith hells, he’d dare that thing to look him in the eyes if it meant he’d get to kill it after the way it hurt Sarah.

Crosshair was confident in the distance between him and the centipede. It was anxious to kill him, so it didn't deviate from his path. Crosshair took advantage of its lust and shot directly in its eye. Instead of shooting its other eyes out, like he’d been doing up until then, he kept shooting the same eye repeatedly. The blasts had to go deep enough into its brain eventually. As he predicted–and he was never wrong–the fire of his rifle penetrated the exoskeleton and finally made it to the creature’s brain. At last, the centipede hissed loudly and then it too fell limply on the ground.

Crosshair went down the hole that thing created and ran up to Sarah. He threw his helmet and rifle aside; he only cared about getting to her. He reached Sarah and flipped her over, and he was chilled to his bones when he saw how pale she looked. He held her body in his arms and felt her shivering, for once making him terrified. "Cross?" She said weakly.

“Sarah–” he choked. Gently, his gloved hand ran over her cheek, and her skin felt like ice. “Sarah, stay with me. Please.” The sight was awful, her irises were filled with fear and sadness.

He knew he had to hurry. He picked her up and placed her over his shoulder, and with strength that he pulled from gods knew were, Crosshair managed to climb out of the hole.

"Hunter, Tech!" He yelled into the comm, his fearful voice sounding alien even to himself. He knew his brothers would be concerned as soon as they heard his tone. "Come in, dammit!"

"Crosshair!" Hunter replied with the worry Crosshair had anticipated. "What is it?"

"Sarah’'s down," Crosshair growled into his comm device. "I'll meet you at the ship, come fast."

"We're on it," Hunter said.

"What happened to her?" Tech's voice came in.

"She was stung by a large centipede," Crosshair replied. He didn't go into much detail as his priority was still getting her out of there.

"Oh, no," Tech replied.

"What the fuck do you mean 'oh no'?" Crosshair’s voice sounded angry, as was his usual defense mechanism.

"She was poisoned," Tech explained as Crosshair kept running. "The Mortis Centipede's venom is strong, and it causes the victim to go past several stages. The good news is that its substance keeps the victim alive, meaning Sarah won't die of it, not soon, at least–”

“Tech, I swear to the fucking gods–” Crosshair growled again.

“Calm down and listen to me, Crosshair,” Tech said. “I’m telling you she’ll live. The Wookies must have an antidote, and if they don’t, I’ll blend something for her."

Crosshair's thoughts ran too quickly in his mind as they usually did, but all of them focused on Sarah and the burning need he had to return her to safety. She was still just his teammate, that much he was convincing himself of, but he couldn't help the shudder that overtook him when Tech mentioned Sarah dying. The thought would bring him to his knees shattered if he let it dwell in his mind any longer.

"Just head to the ship," Crosshair snarled into the comm.

"Do you happen to know what stage she's in?” Tech continued. “How is she behaving?"

"She's unconscious right now."

"Okay, well, just to give you a heads up, she's going to start laughing and speaking nonsense very soon," Tech explained. "The venom eventually makes its victim feel blissfully at ease while maintaining it alive. The centipedes prefer to eat their prey this way."

"I don't care! I'll be ready, just meet me at the godforsaken ship," Crosshair said and cut the comm. He kept running up the tunnels as fast as he could. As Tech had predicted, Sarah soon began mumbling stuff Crosshair couldn't quite make out.

"Crosshair?!" She groaned out.

He stopped and carefully set Sarah on the ground. When he did, Sarah began to laugh, but the sound wasn't like it had been before when she'd given him the diamond, it wasn’t sweet or full of life like it should have been. No, this sounded almost hysterical. He picked her up again, this time cradling the girl in his arms, and he hurried even more, eventually reaching the surface and running back to where the Marauder had landed before.

He’d never admit it out loud, but Crosshair had never been more grateful to see his brothers waiting there for him. The other four were rushing over to him as he held Sarah in his arms, who still occasionally babbled nonsense, and Tech was in front of all of them with his holopad ready to inspect her.

"What's her state?" Tech asked.

"I think she entered the blissfully at ease state," Crosshair replied to him. "But she doesn’t sound well. She's mostly unconscious but wakes up now and then."

Crosshair was about to hand Sarah over to Tech when the girl began giggling again and she clinged harder onto Crosshair, her arms wrapping around Crosshair’s shoulders, her fingertips caressing the back of his neck, catching the sharp-shooter way off guard. She kept laughing and, as she quieted down, she looked him straight in the eyes, which glistened for a moment, making Crosshair believe she wasn't poisoned for just a second. Her exotic orbs lit up as they observed Crosshair, and Sarah's lips curved up into the most adoring smile Crosshair had ever seen.

"I love you, Crosshair."

Crosshair's eyes widened. He looked at the rest of his team, who were all as shocked as he was. What had shocked him the most was how normal she’d sounded, how healthy and sweet and natural her declaration had been. Sarah’s voice had been loving, like she'd meant it.

"She's delusional," Crosshair dismissed the thought as he handed a giggly Sarah to Tech, who cradled her in his arms similarly, making Crosshair feel a twitch of anger.

"Clearly," Tech said. "Alright, you guys load the ore into the ship. Echo and I will take Sarah into the village, I'll give her an antidote there."

“I’m not leaving her,” Crosshair snarled, catching his brothers off guard.

“Crosshair,” Tech snapped his brother out of it. “She is going to be fine with me and Echo. I have never failed you before. Now load the ore onto the ship. She’ll be fine.”

Crosshair hesitated, but Tech and Echo rushed Sarah away before he could react. As they got farther, Crosshair caught a glimpse of Sarah poking Tech's goggles while laughing.

"They're round!" She yelled, followed by more loud laughter.

Her drunk-like state gave Crosshair the slightest hope that what she had said about loving him hadn't been true. He’d been messing with her in the cave, for sure. There was teasing. And he didn’t deny feeling things, things he couldn’t explain. But how in the fucking hells of the galaxy could that be love?

Could it even be love?

Crosshair’s head began to ache. He turned around to begin loading the ore into the ship but was blocked by Wrecker, who was grinning indiscreetly.

"What?" Crosshair said.

"She meant it!" He laughed loudly, in pure Wrecker fashion. "SHE LOVES YOU!"

Crosshair scoffed and shoved Wrecker away with his hand. He put his helmet back on and completely neglected what had just happened with Sarah.

"Let's just load the ship," Crosshair said.

And as he made his way to the ore, he caught a glimpse of Hunter looking at him in a way he couldn't quite understand. No, he understood it alright. He knew his brother Hunter all too well, but Crosshair wouldn't do anything about it. There was no way he could, and that he repeated to himself as he loaded the raw iron onto the Marauder.

Soon enough, Hunter appeared behind him. “You doing alright?”

“Sarah’s the one we need to worry about,” Crosshair barked back.

“I know,” Hunter hid a certain tone in his voice.

Crosshair finally faced his oldest brother and removed his helmet to glare down at Hunter. “What do you want?”

Hunter hesitated until he sighed the tension away. “Crosshair… I’d never heard you that scared before.”

Crosshair felt his chest heat, and against his will, his features softened when the realization came. “I’d never been that scared before.”

He never had. The thought of losing Sarah, the thought of her being taken away from him, regardless of what he felt for her, he wouldn’t allow it. He wouldn’t handle it–couldn’t handle it.

He still didn’t dare to admit to himself that he loved her.

Instead, Crosshair’s attention was brought back to Hunter. Crosshair knew how to read all of his brothers very well; he knew them better than anyone else in the galaxy. Regardless, Crosshair had never seen Hunter like that. Crosshair was intelligent, and he knew Hunter had sparked some emotion for Sarah as well. He made it obvious too, and much like Sarah, Hunter wasn’t good at hiding what he felt.

Crosshair smirked. “Load the ore to the ship–”

“Since when do you think you can order me around?”

“I have to go see Sarah.”

Crosshair walked past Hunter, not bothering to look back at him even over his shoulder. He’d been the one down in that cave with Sarah. He was the one clouded with conflicted emotions over her, not Hunter. In a way, Crosshair was guilty. He was also relieved she’d be fine. He wanted to be there when she woke up, but he wanted to hide from her.

He knew how much he’d been rendered an embarrassing mess, and it was all because of those few words she’d managed to say before she was carried away from him.

As he walked, Crosshair felt Hunter’s gaze on him, but he didn’t intend to let that change anything.

Sarah

The bright lights blinded her for a moment and made her head sting. When she could finally open her eyes, Sarah looked around to register the room she was in. Her soft bed on the ground was surrounded by medicinal herbs and medical equipment, most likely Tech’s, but what caught her attention the most as she looked around was the sight of Crosshair cleaning his rifle as he sat on a chair at the edge of her bed.

“Why are you here?” Sarah asked him, her voice creaking and weak.

“Someone has to make sure you don’t die,” he responded as bluntly as ever.

“You wouldn’t happen to be worried about me, would you, now?” She teased.

“No.”

When Crosshair rested the rifle on his lap, Sarah got a look of the chain dangling from his neck, which wasn’t there before. At the bottom of the chain was a small, shiny stone, and it made Sarah grin like an idiot when she realized it was the diamond.

Crosshair noticed her reaction and looked at her questioningly. “What?”

“You have the diamond,” she squealed.

“Yes.”

Her eyes sparkled, and she let out a soft laughter, one that sounded much more like hers. “Is it possible that the big, mean, grumpy marksman actually does have a heart after all?”

“Shut up,” Crosshair said with a smile that betrayed him.

She sat up on the bed when the door opened and the rest of her team showed up. Hunter was the first one to walk up to her bed and crouch beside it, laying on Sarah a soft gaze.

“How do you feel?” He asked her.

“Tired. Woozy… but better,” Sarah replied. “And you guys? What’s happened?”

“We got matters taken care of,” Hunter said. “No Separatists will be coming back here anytime soon. Some things did get damaged in battles,” Hunter looked over at Wrecker, who grinned proudly, “but that’s almost fixed too.”

“Sounds like it was all worth it then,” she told him and then looked over at Tech. “We did get enough iron, right?”

“Oh, yes, more than enough,” Tech told her. “It’s being processed now.”

Sarah sighed in relief. “Good.”

“Um…” Wrecker began shyly. “I brought you something to make you feel better.” He approached the bed and held out his very own Lula, which Sarah took with a huge smile.

“Lula!” She hugged the plush toy and looked at Wrecker. “Thank you. You know, that reminds me, I brought presents for you guys too.”

Sarah looked around and found her belt and pouches beside her bed; she reached for it and carefully took out the stones, one by one, starting with the golden nugget.

“This is for you,” Sarah said as she handed it to Tech. “I thought you’d like it.” Then she took out the rest of the stones and gave them to each batcher. “Redstone for Wrecker, because it’s handy for weapons, it’s lively and hot, and it reminds me of him. And Lapis Lazuli for Echo, who no matter what, will always look damn good in blue armor.”

“Ah, old times,” Echo smiled serenely.

She then looked at Hunter and handed him the emerald. “And this one’s for you.”

Hunter smiled softly at her. “Thanks, Sarah.”

Sarah smiled back at him and felt her cheeks a bit hot.

“How did you find that?” Tech adjusted his goggles. “Finding emeralds is far more rare even than finding diamonds.”

“I know,” Sarah replied and looked at Crosshair. “We just stumbled upon it, like we did with everything in that cave.”

In the silence that loomed, Sarah could have sworn Crosshair had wanted to smile at her.

“Well…” Tech then spoke up, awkwardly showing a syringe to Sarah. “I, uh… I hate to break this up, but I do need to give you your second dose of antidote.”

She began to feel nervous at the sight of such a big needle. “That is a big dose. A-and what do you mean with second dose? How long have I been out?”

“Two and a half days,” Tech said.

“Two and a half?!” Sarah’s eyes widened. “Woah.”

“Do not worry,” Tech continued as he bumped the syringe to rid it of air bubbles. “That was mostly because of the sedatives I gave you. It was either that or having you wake up every hour and acting like a hopeless drunk. You should have heard the things you said.”

“Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” said Sarah.

Without exception, every trooper in the room looked over at Crosshair, who glared defensively in return.

“Oh, no…” Sarah laughed. “What did I say?”

“Nothing,” Crosshair scoffed.

“I’m just hoping it was nothing too bad,” Sarah teased. “Whatever it was, I get the feeling I meant it.”

Once again, they all stared at Crosshair, but this time around, he smirked and shook his head without saying anything else, leaving Sarah puzzled.

Tech cleared his throat. “Anyways. Sarah, your antidote.”

She sighed, dreading the needle. “Fine.” She held out her arm and covered her eyes with her spare hand. “Do it.”

Nothing happened for a while; Sarah couldn’t even hear movement, causing her to suspect. She peeked at Tech and uncovered her eyes. “What’s the matter?”

Tech sighed. “Sarah, if I inject this into your arm, it will hurt multiple times more than it should and your body will poorly process the dose.”

“Well if not my arm, where are you going to put the needle?” Then, Sarah’s eyes widened and she went pale. “Oh, no. Absolutely not.”

Tech nodded. “I’m sorry. Though I have done it once already.”

Sarah winced out of dread and embarrassment and let out a tiny sob, but ultimately she began to turn around. “Fine, get it over with.”

Hunter, Echo, and Wrecker made their way to the door and left the room. Before Crosshair did the same, he went over to stand next to Sarah, looking down with a smug grin.

“What?” Sarah sneered at him.

“Would you like me to hold your hand?” Crosshair teased.

She scoffed. “I suppose you chose this angle strategically to get a good look at my butt.”

“I’m a sniper, Ace,” he winked at her. “I always get the best angles.”

Sarah frowned at him. “Get out now.”

Crosshair laughed smugly, but Sarah could still detect that lingering softness whenever he talked to her, causing her to grin lovingly at him even if he was being a bit of a cocky bastard.

“No, but seriously, get out,” Sarah said. “I only want Tech here.”

“Actually, you need me here,” Tech corrected.

Sarah glared playfully at Tech as Crosshair finally left the room, closing the door behind him.

“Well, Tech,” Sarah sighed. “I think it’s safe to say you and I hold no more secrets from one another.”

Tech raised an eyebrow as he wiped her skin with disinfectant. “That is debatable.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Tech laughed softly. “Do you really not remember anything?”

“I remember poking at your goggles, but only because I’ve always wanted to do that,” Sarah said.

“And that’s it?”

“Yes. Why?”

Tech remained mute and raised both brows, nearly proceeding to injecting her.

“Tech,” Sarah stopped him. “What did I say?”

“That’s not for me to tell.”

“I’m asking you about something I said,” Sarah tried to persuade. “Now tell me, what was it, and what does it have to do with Crosshair?”

Tech looked at her, and for a moment it looked like he was about to tell her. Instead, Tech decisively poked the needle with the antidote into Sarah’s left glute as the words “Son of a bitch!” shamelessly left her mouth in agonizing pain.

From there on out, it took Sarah a couple more days to recover completely. In that time, the rest of Clone Force 99 helped the Wookies rebuild their huts until they were as good as new. Sarah couldn’t do much to help, with her being mostly landed on a wheelchair watching from afar as everyone carried things to and fro.

The iron had also been refined. As a sign of gratitude, the Wookies helped the clones with that process as well, meaning that, with Tech and Echo’s brain power combined, the ship’s engines would soon be up and running. With all of that done, the troop resolved to leave the village as soon as Sarah could stand.

Most of the Wookies went to see them off at their ship before they left, and the chief bowed down and spoke, leaving for Tech to translate.

"He gives us his most sincere thanks on behalf of the village, and says we are welcome here whenever we may need it. He and the villagers wish us a good voyage," Tech said.

"It's us who should be thanking you," Hunter replied. "You helped bring one of our own back to health."

Hunter’s gaze landed softly on Sarah, who smiled back in return, and she bowed down at the Wookies in gratitude.

The Wookies slightly bowed down again and the whole squad did the same in return. Then, most of them turned around to head back to the village, but Tech quickly grabbed the holopad and stopped one of the villagers, asking her for a favor.

"What are you doing?" Sarah asked him.

"We don't have a picture of us yet," Tech sayid. "We haven't taken one with you and Echo."

"Aww!" Sarah yelled, trying hard not to hug Tech for showing his soft side. "I agree, we need a picture of all of us."

Tech handed the datapad to the Wookie girl and the squad huddled up. Wrecker, being the biggest one, towered at the very back. Slightly in front stood Crosshair, the second tallest, leaving Echo and Hunter to position themselves at Sarah’s sides in the next row, making her stand in the very center right in front of Wrecker. And finally, Tech crouched down in front of all of them, and the Wookie took their picture. Tech thanked her afterwards and she returned to the village.

They all took some time to look at the picture, laughing and commenting a bit on it, and after that it was time to get back on the Marauder and head to the next mission. Crosshair and Sarah were the last ones to get on, and before stepping up the Marauder’s platform, Sarah reached out to grab Crosshair’s wrist.

"Hey," Sarah said as he turned around. "I… I just wanted to say thanks."

"What for?"

"You saved my life."

Crosshair scoffed. "Tech did that with the help of the Wookies, not me."

"You carried me out of that cave," she told him. "And you killed that thing. So... really, thanks."

His lip very slightly curved upward. "You saved me too. We're even."

Sarah stopped him one more time before he got onto the ship, and Crosshair looked at her, once again, rendered puzzled by this girl’s behavior.

She was almost too nervous to speak, but she managed to get the words out. "When I was still poisoned, what did I say to you?"

Crosshair chuckled, shaking his head slightly. "Nothing."

"Tell me."

Crosshair took a step closer to her. Sarah had to look up at him, and she began to feel nervous at how close he was, so close she could feel the very heat radiating from his body. At that proximity, it seemed easy to lean in, get it over with. She’d have to stand on her toes, but she could finally close the gap between them. Sarah’s eyes fell on his lips, partly hoping she wasn’t being too obvious, but mostly not caring. They looked soft, skilled. They looked delicious.

But before she could kiss him, Crosshair smirked and popped a toothpick into his mouth. With his finger, Crosshair lightly tapped on Sarah’s chin, looking smugly at her. “Come on, doll.”

He then walked into the ship. Sarah was left staring at him, longing for what could have been, if only for a few seconds, and then she followed him inside, unable to hide the grin he’d just gotten out of her.

#the moonwalker series #oc sarah adhara #moonstrider writes #tbb crosshair #tbb fanfic #tbb fanfiction #the bad batch fanfic #the bad batch #crosshair

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ziracona · 2 years

Text

Days Gone is always in my heart and I got Deacon’s vest for my Birthday, so I finally edited more of the little “We Deserved a Days Gone 2″ writing I have going. [Part 1]

“Easy!”

“-He’s heavier than you’d think.”

“I know—always are.”

Addy opened the door to the infirmary quickly, and Deacon and Boozer dragged a body in between them.

“Still breathing?” asked Sarah quickly, coming up beside her with a lantern set on low.

“—Yeah,” managed Deacon through the exertion, “Wouldn’t have hauled him inside if he wasn’t.”

“Over here,” said Addy, trying to help them towards the table she’d prepped. Boozer and Deacon made it together, half carrying, half dragging what looked like a lifeless corpse, and lifted it awkwardly onto the table.

“Shit, you weren’t kidding,” said Sarah.

Addy didn’t say anything. All she could do was stare at it. –Him. He. I…holy shit. Is that thing really not a-? H-He looked.

“Addy—hey, hey, Addy?” Deacon’s voice. She felt a hand on her arm. “Look, I know how it looks, but I promise you, he’s not gonna wake up and try to rip your head off. You got gloves?”

“Yeah,” said Addy, still not entirely tuned back in, holding up her arms. She already had some on.

“Try not to—you know. The blood,” said Deacon awkwardly.

“You’re sure?” said Addy, finding his face and looking him in the eyes. It made the pit of her stomach feel like it had bottomed out, being this close to a living freaker without fighting or running. Even if Deacon had said…

“—I promise,” said Deacon intently, “If he was up, you wouldn’t be worried at all. Sounds just like before. Just sick.”

Addy nodded, trying to feel it. “Okay. Okay—yeah.” She glanced at Sarah, and something about the way she could see her trying to plan five moves ahead snapped her out of it. “Yeah—we gotta go. –Here.”

Quick as she could be, she got the IV she’d prepped and picked up an arm. It wasn’t too hard, even with the thick skin. Good, she tried to tell herself nervously, looking at his almost transparently pale skin, and then she made the mistake of looking up at his face again.

God help them all. It felt so strange, almost unbelievable. He was pale like a bleacher, but the only emotion she was used to seeing on them was rage. Screaming. This one had his face scrunched up in pain, twitching a little, etching out worry lines in his forehead. A very human expression, one she was used to, in here all day. And still. He was so gaunt, like the other ones. So…

No. Come on, she mentally smacked herself, Not now, girl. Focus. “Okay,” she said, standing up and picking up the bottle of ketamine she’d set aside for this, and extracting a dosage to insert into his arm.

“What’s that?” asked Deacon quickly.

She gave him a look that said, ‘I know you’re not accusing me of trying to kill this guy’, and he did the facial and body language version of backing off and apologizing. “It’s anesthesia,” she replied anyway.

Deacon got a look on his face that said, ‘But he’s unconscious?’

“Would you want to wake up in the middle of having your stomach cut open?” asked Addy as she emptied the syringe.

“Right,” said Deacon, looking kind of relieved, “C-Can I uh, help?”

“Well, you could get a little out of the way, since you don’t know what you’re doing,” said Addy, relaxing herself, because this felt familiar now. And then, considering, “Actually, you could grab that lant—”

The door swung open, and Addy felt her heart lurch as Rikki stepped in. No! I thought you went to bed!

“Addy?” Rikki saw her, of course, immediately—at the only source of light in the room, and seeing a body over there on a table, her face paled a little and she practically broke into a sprint. “—What happened?!—did—!”

And then she was close enough to see what was on the bed and stopped, gaped at it in shock, and automatically tore her gun from its holster.

“Whoa-whoa-whoa,” said Deacon quickly, sliding between her and the body, hands up, “H-Hang on, Rikki—Hey—Rikki—look at me.”

She did, guarded confusion and disbelief in every line of her face.

Silently, Boozer slid in beside Deacon for moral support, but Rikki barely took that in.

“I know that looks like a freak, and kind of technically it is,” said Deacon.

“—You brought a FREAK, into Addy’s surgery?” hissed Rikki in disbelief, “Are you crazy!”

“—No—Not—look—not a normal freak,” tried Deacon.

Rikki was straight up hostile now.

Oh great, thought Addy, knowing the body language by heart.

“Look—it’s not. Like that—I—I told you, NERO, smart freaks,” hurried Deacon, “That’s one of those—basically a sick person on steroids.”

“—That’s what all of them are,” said Rikki.

The body on the bed moved, much to Addy’s terror for the situation in almost every possible way. Groaned and shifted a little, turning its head fitful, like someone with a fever.

Ohhh shit.

Deacon heard it and she saw him pale. Rikki saw it.

“No—No, just hang on,” tried Boozer much more calmingly.

“Are you asking her to treat a freak?” asked Rikki, almost hurt this time, which shouldn’t have pleased Addy, but did, even though it was causing problems, “Risk getting infected?”

The body opened its eyes.

That, Addy had not expected. Because she’d just put it under anesthesia. Waking up? Was the opposite of what that was supposed to do. Instead, the terrible thing dragged its eyes open tiredly and looked blearily at the ceiling above it.

“Deacon,” said Sarah nervously.

Holding up one hand in a ‘Please don’t shoot,’ gesture, and staying between her and the table, Deacon half-turned to look behind him, then at Addy.

“I-I don’t get it,” she answered the unasked question in distress, “I put him under.”

Hearing her, the body on the table turned its head slowly and looked up at her, took a second to actually see her, and then squinted in confusion and blinked, breathing shallow and unsteady. Made a sound that wasn’t a word but had the intonation of a question in its throat.

“Hey, hey—O’Brian?” said Deacon as calmly as the poor man could manage, shooting Rikki another pleading look between words, and edging closer to the table, “You hearing me?”

The body turned its head away from Addy, looking for the speaker, and unsteadily found Deacon. “…What?”

It had only been a single word, voice all weak and cracked, but it froze Addy to her core.

Not with fear, or excitement, or any kind of emotion with real feeling tied to it, just…pure, unaligned shock. Maybe the most concentrated she’d ever felt it. She knew what Deacon had said about him. She’d known what she should expect. But. Hearing a freaker…talk? Seeing its face and then…Hearing…

Holy shit.

He. Oh my God, he was right—he was right all the way, thought Addy, emotions starting to kick in then, It’s really true.

She looked over, and across from her, Rikki’s expression had changed too—a kind of almost worried wonder, and they met eyes for just an instant, before looking at the person on the bed again.

“You hear me?” tried Deacon again.

“…Yeah,” answered O’Brian slowly, face scrunching up in confusion, and squinting at Deacon like he was both weird and hard to see, “…I…Hear you. W…” He looked away from Deacon and took in what he could see, although Addy didn’t feel like he was really seeing too much of it. Boozer and Rikki were too far past Deacon to be in his field of very limited vision, but he gave Sarah a puzzled look when he saw her, then focused back on Deacon. “…St John?”

Past Deacon, Rikki lowered her gun.

Okay, one threat down, one impossible problem and a surgery to go, thought Addy desperately.

Okay, okay. Enough fatalism—she was a doctor, dammit. Think. I am thinking! Addy shot back at herself inside her head, But it’s not what should be going on! I know I gave him a dose that should put somebody his size under, but all it looks like it did was…disorient him maybe, and numb the pain.

Wait. Was that possible? Only getting high from a dose that concentrated? W-What kind of fucked up physiology…could…

Addy stared at nothing, trying to do frantic math equations she didn’t have enough information to do, inside her head.

“Yeah,” agreed Deacon, “That’s me. How’re we doing?”

“Uh…” said O’Brian, eyes unfocused and a little glazed over, blinking and trying to concentrate. He made a move to push himself up a little, and immediately stopped, wincing and shutting his eyes as pain kicked in. “N-Not…great,” he answered, voice strained, “I…I think I got injured.”

“…Yeah,” said Deacon again, giving Addy a look seeking direction, but she didn’t know what to tell him, “You got shot. You don’t remember?”

“Shot?” he asked in a voice that made it very clear he did not.

“Yeah, look, uh,” said Deacon, glancing at Addy and then O’Brian again, and then, with a look on his face like he’d had a sudden flash of genius, “—You know how much anesthesia it would take to put you under?”

O’Brian opened his eyes and looked slowly up at him again, in half-conscious, betrayed confusion. “You’re…trying to drug me?”

“No! Not—You’re shot,” said Deacon defensively, “You gotta be under for surgery.”

O’Brian stared past him at nothing for a few seconds, then zoned back in. “Oh… Okay,” he said, still sounding weakly confused, but like that seemed to make sense.

“Addy gave you a dose already, but it isn’t working,” explained Deacon, “Do you know how much more than normal it’d take?”

“Uhm…” said O’Brian weakly, blinking and working hard to get some slipping focus back, “…What are you using?”

Deacon looked at Addy, and O’Brian blearily followed his gaze to her.

“It’s ketamine. I tried about 900 milligrams,” offered Addy nervously.

O’Brian gave a very feeble nod. “Okay,” he said tiredly, “Uh. You…you need at least. Uhm. …ketamine… uh..9 to… uhm. then…five…thousand or so more.”

“-Five thousand more milligrams?” asked Addy in disbelief, “That’ll kill you!”

O’Brian tried to shake his head, and winced. “It…won’t,” he managed through gritted teeth, “It’s six-thousand…minimum dosage, on a—a homo sapiens mutants…a-albino. That’s the closest…that we have. Data on. I-I think. …for us. So, I’d…I’d try that.”

She probably should have said something back, but her head was still echoing FIVE-THOUSAND MILIGRAMS around the inside of her skull like pingpong ball.

“—Wait—wait,” he added suddenly, opening his eyes again and looking for her with those eerily unmatching, glazed-over pupils, and an almost pitiful desperation in his voice, “Don’t go as—as high as ten-thousand, though! That—that’d probably kill me.”

“…I won’t,” said Addy, still just horrified at the thought of pumping fivethousand milligrams of ketamine into anybody.

He shut his eyes, breathing shakily.

“Hey, are you sure? That’s the right dosage?” asked Addy, nerves winning out.

“No,” said O’Brian tiredly, eyes still shut, “But I know it’s close. A lot of the uh…” He blinked and tiredly opened his eyes a little, staring straight forward at nothing, “Medical…readings. Are…new, and different. But I know it’s closest in a lot of ways, for uhm. Us….to uh…” His eyes had started to droop and for a second she thought he was going to pass out, but he stayed with her. “…the closest is…hom…homo sapiens mu…the—‘Bleachers’. You call them. That’s the…dose we use for them. To…if there’s a…a field…study. So… probably close.”

Exhausted, he shut his eyes again.

“Okay,” said Addy slowly and with great anxiety, looking up at the sea of faces waiting to hear what she’d say. Yeah, no pressure. Easy ass job. Not hard at all. Doctors just do it perfect every time—that’s how this works. “I’m gonna up the dosage slow,” she decided, “Sarah, can you keep a steady read on his vitals?”

Sarah gave a nod and moved up to do it.

God damn shame she didn’t have something better to use, like opium. There wasn’t something to pump into him to block the ketamine if she did overdose him. I hate this, thought Addy with intense distress, taking two thousand milligrams from the bottle and hesitating with them by the guy’s arm. Oh Jesus please don’t let him die, she silently prayed, fighting the urge to shut her eyes as she emptied the syringe.

He made a pained sound, then his breathing seemed to steady a little. Addy waited and looked at Sarah.

“Holding just fine,” said Sarah, glancing from her watch to Addy.

Okay. Addy waited, to be sure that would stay, then added another thousand. That was about four now. Just under his projection. Same result. Holding steady. Hoping this would be enough, she tried calling out to him, but to her dismay he seemed to hear, and hazily dragged his eyes open at the sound of his name, and she wasn’t about to cut open the intestines of somebody awake for it—vivisection was not what she had signed on for, so she kept going, twice more, and again, it wasn’t enough. Just under six-thousand, and he still wasn’t out—or—he was close—he didn’t open his eyes this time, but he responded to a touch test like he was still conscious enough to feel pain, so she went again, another, and finally, feeling sick and determined not to go farther, all the way up to eight. That was enough. Thank God, that was enough. Vitals still holding, and dead to the world. Praying thanks and feeling sweat dripping down her back, Addy gave a nod to the rest of the room.

There was a feeling of the energy of the room like everyone had let out a collective sigh of relief.

“You weren’t kidding, huh,” said Rikki quietly, glancing at Deacon.

“You think I’d have brought him here if I was?” asked Deacon.

“Still,” said Rikki, crossing her arms and giving Addy a worried glance, “It’s dangerous. You know you’re asking her to risk getting infected, like this.”

“If you two aren’t gonna help, get out,” said Addy calmly, not looking up as she pulled her tray of supplies closer, “I’m not going into surgery in the middle of you two squabbling over this.”

“Addy—” started Rikki with genuine worry that made her happy at the same time it annoyed her.

“Baby, I’ll be fine,” she promised, glancing up and holding up her hands to demonstrate, “I got gloves. I know how to take safety precautions. I’ve handled rabid animals before all this, and catching that’ll make you just as dead. I know infectious disease protocols. I don’t have a fit every time you go out into the shit and risk getting shot or infected, and you’re nowhere near as careful. Let me do my job, and either stay and help, or go make me something to drink after.” More alcoholic the better, she added in her head.

“What can I do,” said Deacon, looking a little shamed.

“The light,” said Addy, gesturing to a hook for the lantern, and where she wanted it hung.

“I’m gonna set up outside—make sure nobody comes in and causes problems,” said Boozer, giving her a nod, “Call if you need anything.”

“Thanks, William,” said Addy with a smile as Deacon adjusted the light for her.

“…What else do you need?” asked Rikki, giving up on the fight for now. Thank God.

“You can hand me what I need when I ask for it so I can focus,” said Addy. Because God knows I’m gonna need to focus.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ow… Sh….it. I….

Everything…hurt.

It was…was all so hazy. His head felt muddy. Slow. He just wanted to go back to sleep, but his stomach hurt, and it wouldn’t let him.

What the…hell? What did I…even do…to…

Wearily, James O’Brian dragged his eyes open and looked at a blurry brown nothing opposite him.

That’s strange, thought the most awake part of his mind, That’s the wrong color.

The wrong color? Right. It should be…white. If he was waking up. Because he’d be waking up back in…

No.

Something was wrong. Off. Something…else. More off than the color.

What though? The…smell.

And.

His vision sharpened as his system did the human version of rebooting, and he was suddenly registering the brown above him as wood—as logs—a log roof—and he was there enough to know that was wrong. That that was not at all what he should have been looking at—that it was very bad. There was not a version of ‘waking up where I didn’t expect’ that could be good for him.

Fuck—shit—where am I! He tried to shoot up, and it sent pain rippling along his stomach and there was a voice on his left—shit, shit, someone’s here -!

“Easy.”

He was halfway through his next panicked movement before it registered that that hadn’t been a threat. It had been said calmingly. Trying to stifle the automatic panic that had flipped on enough for him to at least think straight, James turned on his elbow towards the voice and saw someone he’d never seen before—a woman. Oh, shit, shit—a civilian. That’s a civilian—I’m somewhere with civilians—this is really, really bad.

Why? What was going on? W-Why was he still alive? Shit-shit-!

Okay okay okay okay, think! Look around!

There—there was an IV. In his arm. There were—things, around the room. Beds—not exactly hospital beds, not real ones. But, makeshift. And there were some real tools. Makeshift infirmary? he thought in his feverish panic, trying to file data and understand without enough to go on.

“It’s okay,” said the woman with an understanding smile.

Why. Why are you being friendly? What possible angle…?

Fuck. He didn’t know! I’m going to run out of time to think.

The stranger was sitting by the bed, but she made no attempt to come closer, which, well, was better than any alternative. At least. He forfeited his original attempt to get up, and stayed where he was, not wanting to provoke a change there.

“How’re you feeling?” asked the woman.

Uh. …Shit. How am I? He didn’t know—I-In pain? Not great? Extremely fucking confused? What was going on? Who even was she? None of this made sense.

Okay. Okay. Uh—not a big room, solid walls. Curtains drawn, no way to tell if there were bars over the windows. No one else in sight. The woman had a holster for a side arm strapped to her leg, like the one he wore—should have been wearing, but, hers was empty. So where’s the gun? E-Empty was good, right?

He had to double check that she wasn’t holding it. No, not holding it. Not visible on the table by her either.

Her expression changed a little as he just stared tensely back at her, got more worried. That might not be good for him. “You don’t remember what happened?”

No, he thought with a bottoming out feeling. Yeah, not good at all. …Shit.

Slowly, careful, he shook his head.

Shit, shit, shit. What was the last thing he remembered? Shit! It was jumbled. I…went out, right? To…check. The schedules I was locked out of. I went…

“Right. You don’t need to worry too much. Being disoriented or a little temporary memory loss isn’t unusual after physical trauma, and you’re coming down off a really high dose of ketamine. It’ll probably come back pretty quick,” said the woman in the same reassuring tone. I’m WHAT. “Just try to rest right now. You’re safe now, but you were shot, in the stomach. You pulled through alright though; you’re gonna be just fine so long as you rest and don’t reinjure it.”

I’m WHAT?

He went looking for that, and there was no memory there, but he believed it anyway, because he sure felt like he’d been shot in the stomach. James followed the instinctive ‘where’ impulse and tried to lean up a little and look, but of course if what she was saying was remotely true, there would be nothing to see but bandages, and that was all he could see when he tried. God, the pain was there sure enough though, even past whatever else – apparently ketamine – was dulling everything for him.

O-okay. Shot in the stomach. Great. I-I’m probably hurt pretty bad then. And where had the rest of his group gone? He tried not to swallow. Shit. Shot? Survivor—civilian camp, of some kind? How in the… She said ‘safe’? Didn’t she? Why the…

I should really be dead right now, right? he thought in confusion, glancing back at the stranger by the bed.

I mean, it was great he wasn’t. That—I mean—it was the goal. Huge relief not to be. But. H-He could tell he didn’t have his hazmat suit on. He could feel a pillow behind his head, which meant there was nothing hiding his face, and, without it, with what had to be some group of civilians clearly able to see what he was, how in the hell had he not been shot? Information? But, if that was the case, then he should have woken up in a cell or something. And this civilian didn’t seem openly hostile.

This is so weird, he thought with great distress, I-I don’t think there’s been a civilian who hasn’t been hostile to me—to any of us—since this whole mess began.

Okay. Okay—get a grip. I can figure it out. I just. …

“… Where am I?” asked James nervously, trying to seem less nervous than he was, and hoping that was a safe question to ask this person.

“Right—You’re at Lost Lake camp,” said the woman as if she was disappointed in herself for not thinking to say it on her own, “And I’m Addy, Walker. I’m a doctor.”

Lost Lake? Okay. Okay—actionable intel. That was…Uh. West—south-west, a ways too. Shit, a long way from where he was supposed to be. Wait. Wasn’t that the camp—

“He brought you in,” said Doctor Walker, moving to the side a little, and suddenly James could see past her and that there was another chair back against the wall, and asleep in it was.

…Deacon St John.

It came back. Not entirely in the right order, but moments reorganized themselves into a fairly cohesive, linear event, one by one. Like assembling a timeline from a day’s worth of snapshots that had fallen on the floor.

St John, the station, the unexpected NERO sweep, the bike, the injury, the…

I. I punched a guy so hard he dented a desk. I think I won a fist fight. Whoa.

Wait. He shot me!

James looked back at St John. The guy had his arms crossed and was scowling in his sleep, some bandages on now, but still with little cuts on his face. Right the—he…

“Oh,” managed James, finally looking back at Doctor Walker, “I…remember.”

She smiled. “Good—that’s good, quick recovery! How’re you feeling so far? You need another dose, for the pain?”

I…guess it’s okay to feel relief? he checked with himself, priority over answering her question, He wouldn’t let them kill me, right? Not after taking the trouble to bring me here and keep me alive.

Yeah that. Seemed unlikely. So. Probably it was…okay. To let himself be relieved now. Okay, yeah, more or less. Not in immediate danger of dying. Oh thank God.

“Uh. I’m not really sure,” he answered honestly then, trying to begin to calm down some, and refocusing on Doctor Walker, “I’ve never been shot before. It hurts, but, not like I remember it hurting.”

“That’s good. Just let me know if the pain gets much worse,” said Doctor Walker.

She seemed…nice. Incredibly level-headed. He let himself untense a little more. Okay. Right—St John. Said ‘Addy’, and she said ‘Addy Walker’ just now. So, this made sense. Good—that was. Was good.

“Thank you,” said James.

She smiled again and gave a little nod.

“Really,” he said, meaning it as the reality of the situation started to settle, “I didn’t think I was going to make it, after he shot me.”

“Wait,” said Doctor Walker like she was suddenly struggling not to laugh in disbelief, “Deacon shot you?”

“He didn’t mention that?” said James, suddenly finding it hard not to smile himself, as the relief finally became tangible. Of course you didn’t, asshole.

“No,” said Doctor Walker, giving Deacon a look. She pivoted on her chair and kicked him gently, and he stirred. “Hey. Deak.”

“What?” mumbled St John, opening his eyes unhappily, and then registering James, quickly shooting to his feet.

James gave a weak wave with the hand with the IV in it.

“So he’s okay?” St John asked Doctor Walker.

“Like I said,” she sighed good-naturedly, “He’ll be fine if he takes it easy.” She glanced at James. “You’ve got a hell of a natural recovery.”

I don’t know how to respond to that, he thought nervously.

“Told you you’d be alright,” said St John.

“I’m pretty sure I remember you telling me I was going to die,” said James, cracking a weak smile.

St John shot him a look. “Well aren’t you grateful.”

“You shot me,” retorted James.

“Yeah, which I see you left out somehow,” added Doctor Walker, eyeing St John.

The man sighed. “It was a little more complicated than that.”

“Either way,” cut in James, deciding he’d had enough fun for the moment and still mostly feeling extremely relieved he did not appear to be seconds away from getting killed, “Thank you.”

St John glanced down at him, a little surprised. Waiting to see what went with that. James didn’t have anything else to say, though, and after a second, St John seemed to decide that was enough on its own. “…Sure.”

That was probably the most positive interaction he’d had with St John in months.

Doctor Walker glanced from one, to the other, and then stretched and took a few steps towards a door at the far end of the room. “I’m gonna go check in with Rikki. I’ll be back. –You call for me if something changes though, alright?”

“Sure—thanks, Addy,” said St John.

She gave a nod and was gone.

“So.” said James when they were alone. “… I can’t believe she helped.”

“You mean because you’re a freak?” asked St John, as tactful as ever. He gave a shrug. “Addy isn’t like that. She’s a good person.”

I gathered, thought James, going over his brief interaction with her in his head. “Not enough people like that left,” he offered thoughtfully. It was lucky. …Is it? An uncomfortable thought. So many people down here were…monstrous now. Raiders, Marauders—whatever they wanted to call themselves. Worse than the infected, because they chose what they were doing. The sick ones couldn’t help it. But. …It wasn’t exactly like NERO was doing much better. Just…a different kind of…bad, he thought, sinking with the words. The people, the…as close to normal as was left—the civilians, the drifters, the campers. Survivors. Whatever they were now. He’d barely interacted with any of them at all, outside of St John—no one from NERO had, intentionally anyway, basically since this started. Maybe out here was where the only good people left ended up.

“No, there’s not,” agreed St John, which made him feel slightly less depressed about this, “She’s pretty one of a kind.”

“And how about you?” asked James, “Still in one piece?” He looked a little better. Not that his memories of last time were that clear, but, he was pretty sure he’d been doing not so hot himself.

“I’m fine,” said St John, almost annoyed, “Like I said. Barely got hit.”

“Good,” said James, relaxing back as much as he could in the hopes it would ease a little of the pain he was feeling more and more of in his stomach with each passing second. “… Thank you, for getting me out of there.”

St John glanced at him with an expression that for just a second said ‘Well, I did shoot you,’ with the tiniest hint of guilt, but then quickly changed to say as little as possible. “Well, couldn’t pass on the chance at more of your tech, for Sarah.”

James smiled. Some things never seemed to change.

“…You gonna be able to go back?”

James glanced over, and there was a little flicker of concern in St John’s face.

“To NERO you mean?” asked James. Right. Fair question. He considered. “I guess I don’t know. I’ll contact my people, see how it’s looking. Try and figure something out. Hopefully, so long as I can get out pretty fast, and not give anyone a reason to give me a physical, I can lie my way out of this. I have enough clearance and people helping me that I can come up with a faithfully logged detail to have been on, so long as no one’s looking too close. It’ll just come down to how close they’re looking…”

“You almost died. Unless you people heal even faster than it looks like, nobody noticing you limping around the base seems pretty optimistic,” observed St John.

“Yeah, well,” sighed James, “I have friends that—some of the others, who are helping—are doctors. Medical doctors. We have two right now, with us, so I might be able to work something out.”

He’d expected a response, and didn’t get one, so he glanced over after a second and saw St John watching him, unconvinced.

“And if it doesn’t work out?”

Shit, if it doesn’t? The answer was ‘I don’t know,’ but he didn’t want to say that or think about it. And maybe…with a little more time, he’d have a real answer. They’d probably have to truly defect sooner or later, right? He could hide out somewhere. There were…options, certainly. He just…had to think…

“Well,” said St John, leaning back in his chair, “You could always stick around here.”

Huh?

“What?” he said out loud before he could think to not.

St John shrugged. “You know enough it’d probably help Sarah a lot, with her work, so, if you run out of other options, it probably wouldn’t be a problem for you to stick around.”

Slowly, James felt his anxiety ease just a little, and he let out a slow breath and looked back at the far end of the room. “Good to know.” He’d felt the urge to smile, but it faded then, as he considered the option. “…Wouldn’t I get shot by someone, though, the moment I stepped outside?”

“Yeah, well, without an introduction, sure,” said St John casually, “Without an introduction, I’d shoot you.”

Yeah, I’m painfully aware of that…

“But they’re a pretty reasonable group of people,” continued St John, “If they got a run-down of the situation first, I think you’d be fine.”

He wasn’t totally sure he bought that, but it was reassuring to hear just the same.

They were quiet for a moment, but it felt companionable.

So strange, thought O’Brian, glancing at Deacon, then the log wall in front of him, and losing himself to his thoughts, That I ended up here. Or that I ended up sort of okay with this drifter who’s threatened to kill me more times than anyone else I’ve ever met.

Stranger still that he was glad they’d met each other. Shit, he hadn’t thought about it from this perspective before, but…if he hadn’t met him? If this feral acting biker man hadn’t showed up in the middle of a field op and shoved a gun in his face, shouting about his dead wife? …He’d have learned so much less about NERO. Probably, he’d never have made it to having people he trusted helping him investigate, trying to fight back a little, either. He…owed him. More than he’d really taken time to put into concrete thoughts before, but, he knew it. If they hadn’t met again when they did? He'd probably have still been slipping trackers when he could, listening to fragments of recordings, salvaging bits of data, alone. Like he had been for the two years before he’d met Deacon—gotten the push, or, or maybe the opportunity. It hardly mattered, did it? Because the end result was that a few months ago, when he’d realized something was wrong, with him, with all of them. Taken off his hazmat mask alone in a secure room and seen ruptured blood vessels in his eyes and his skin too pale and his body somehow more muscular than it should be and far too under-weight, reached his hand up to his lifeless, thin hair, and come back with a whole clump of it in his palm without even having pulled?

That…despair. It…

Fuck, where would he be now? Dead somewhere? Given up, following behind NERO like he was supposed to, fight beaten out of him? Dragging himself through the same routine, same hopeless struggles since day one, like a lifeless corpse?

He had no idea which one, but it wouldn’t be here. It wouldn’t be trying. It wouldn’t be living, at all, with whatever little time he probably had left.

Yeah.

He was…really grateful.

He couldn’t forget that day, alone, in an old, no longer used lockdown unit, used a long time ago for decontamination of samples, before better facilities were made, staring at a face that was his and not his, hand shaking with his palm full of hair in it. Realizing with a slow, unbeatable horror what they’d done, and that it was all too late now. Maybe it had been for years. Seen in his head things that must be coming in some form, and felt his heart die. Thinking about his family, and the little bit of relief he’d been clinging to of having some of them left. Gone. Fading. Seeing things broken about his body he knew nobody was ever going to be able to fix, feeling that loss. That theft. Thinking about all the things he didn’t know that were going to happen to him, and he couldn’t stop. It had been the most helpless he’d ever felt in his life. The most broken, beaten. Alone.

There had just been…nothing. Left to do. It was all too late.

Nothing…

And then he’d thought, ‘There’s still some people out there, it’s not too late for. Maybe. For a while. Maybe—I don’t know. But it might not be.’ He’d thought about Deacon, and thought, ‘There’s one thing I can do, not nothing. I can still do one thing to fight back. To change this. There’s one person out there in the real world who might trust me enough to listen, and it might not be too late to warn him—it might still be possible to save him, and maybe he can save someone else too—maybe some of them can get away. Maybe it’s not too late for someone.’

And he’d survived it. He’d survived the worst moment of his life, even worse than those first days, Farewell, Silver Lake. He’d hit the lowest point he’d ever been to, and there had been a rope he could climb, not just hang himself with, and he’d pulled himself through to the next moment.

Tried, so hard, to reach Deacon. Tried the radio, tried to learn the little he could. James had known that even if he’d just reached out on the radio, risked being heard by his bosses using an unsecured, non-military frequency, he had no idea what channel the drifter might be on – might hear. But he’d done it. He’d figured it out his best bets of what frequencies to try, and he’d risked everything, and called for him, and he’d come, and-

…And it had been pretty bad.

He. James had known he wasn’t going to take it seriously, not really, not fast enough, unless he showed him, and the second he’d taken off that mask, St John had looked at him like a monster—like a freak.

That had been okay—it had been what he’d expected, more or less. He had time, to explain, to talk, to warn him. Maybe…maybe even ask for help, if his wife, if Sarah Irene Whitaker was looking for a cure, but. He…hadn’t expected Deacon to be afraid of him.

It was hard to put into words, but…there was a difference between expecting to be viewed as a horror, and viewed as an enemy, and he’d only been prepared for the first one of those. I mean, he felt that way too, looking at himself. But. He hadn’t expected St John to assume it would change who he was in that capacity. In the one that meant he thought he’d want to kill him.

I shouldn’t have given up, thought James, tired and a little sad, remembering that night—that last time until today—yesterday? He wasn’t sure anymore—when he’d finally seen St John again. Maybe I could have done more. It could have been different.

But, it had been enough. St John had listened to the warning, and James had paid attention when he could, which wasn’t often, but. He’d known the guy hadn’t done nothing, and that had been enough. He’d thought, ‘Well. Maybe none of us will make it out, but they have a shot. Even if it’s almost nothing. And. And I should try myself too, we all should, because it’s something,’ and he’d been doing that ever since.

“Didn’t think you could fight.”

Huh?

Deacon—St John, he’d said it in a friendly way, sort of. “What?” asked James, coming back out of his head.

“Didn’t think you knew how,” said Deacon, gesturing vaguely, “Not well, anyway.”

“Oh,” said James, surprised, “Uh. I don’t—I mean, I did—I can. But—I never studied, or, uh. I didn’t take any lessons.” He’d done pretty well though, he thought, all things considered. Yeah, and I was shot, too! I think I was winning before he shot the other guy? I wasn’t losing anyway. That’s got to be pretty good for already shot.

“Well, it was about the last thing I expected, but you were really kicking the shit out of that other freaker pretty damn well,” said Deacon.

“Can you stop calling me that?” said James, feeling distressed and proud at the same time, and not really sure which emotion was winning. Both, it was starting to look like. “—I know, technically, yes, I-I am. But come on. Can’t you at least differentiate a little? This sucks a lot for me. It would be hard for my condition to suck much more. At least call me a mutant—that’s what they are—what…I am, a ‘homo sapiens mutans’—a—a person who’s just…changing a little.”

This seemed to somehow surprise St John, and the man looked almost guilty for about one tenth of a second, then it was gone. “Sure,” agreed St John, glancing away quickly, which was honestly about the last response he’d expected.

I…guess I’m getting it easy for the moment because he shot me. Silver linings. “Thanks,” said James.

It was quiet again for a moment, but this was an awkward quiet.

“…I uh. I think that’s the first time I ever punched—really punched someone, back there at the station,” said James, wanting to lift the mood.

St John glanced at him and smiled again. “Not a bad first punch.”

“Yeah,” James almost laughed, “I uh. I guess it was memorable, at least.”

There was a change in St John’s expression then, for the worse, and he had no idea why.

Shit. Uh.

“…Did you know him?”

Huh?

“The uh, the guy I killed—either of them,” said St John, not exactly looking at him.

Huh. That was. A lot more sensitive than he’d have expected him to be. … “No,” said James quietly, thinking, “But thanks for asking.”

It was a relief. He had considered he might end up fighting to the death with someone he knew, at some point. But he’d been trying not to think about it.

Still. In another timeline, that could have been me, he thought, depressed again.

Well, maybe that wasn’t true. He didn’t really picture himself breaching a building to hunt down drifters who’d broken in, no matter what else changed. But…

“Alright, well,” said St John, standing and stretching a little uncomfortably, “I uh—I’m gonna go find Sarah. She wanted to talk to you—you up for that?”

“I guess so,” said James dubiously, not really about getting grilled, but because whatever they’d given him for the pain, it was starting to wear off and he did not enjoy that. Dear GOD, a stomach could hurt more than anything else in a fucking body.

St John exhaled through his nose like a laugh. “She won’t be too hard on you right now.”

“She remember me at all?” asked James hopefully as it occurred to him she might.

“Yeah, I think so—I mean, she was stabbed, so I don’t think she remembers anything from that night clearly, but, she remembers it all just the same.”

That was kind of nice.

“I see Addy heading back now, so you don’t got to worry about any random camper walking in on you alone and freaking out,” added St John.

James gave a nod.

St John went to the door and hesitated. Glanced back at him with his hand on the doorknob. Looked like he was thinking about saying something, then decided unhappily against it, and went out. He stopped though, halfway through the doorway, and leaned back in, almost agitated.

“Look uh. O’Brian?” he said, “Thank you. For coming back to help.”

A little surprised, James gave a nod, like the last time Deacon had thanked him, and like the last time, St John didn’t look over for a response—just walked off.

“We’re all allies now, right?” said James like Sure, no problem, since Deacon hadn’t seen the nod. It was almost what St John had said to him, a while back, and the drifter paused and glanced over his shoulder at him and gave a kind of smile.

“Yeah. Guess so,” admitted St John, and he stepped out the door.

Well, thought James, feeling more relieved than he would have expected possible, given his situation in life in general, and at this particular moment, That actually wasn’t so bad.

He glanced at the old oak walls, the beds, the books and various trays of medical tools around the little infirmary that had clearly not been an infirmary in its first life. Then at the IV drip in his arm, and what he could see of the bandages around his torso. It hurt like hell, even though he could tell from the slightly weightless sensation in his head that he was on some sort of pain medication along with the sedative.

That’s…really generous of them, I bet, he thought with some confusing amount of guilt, I doubt they’ve got a lot left. And I’m not even really one of them.

He was certainly thankful for it. He could still remember pretty vividly how close to entirely debilitating the pain from before had been, and he was very much hoping not to experience that level of pain ever again in his life.

I can’t believe that so many of them actually helped me, he thought as he had time to really process that alone, shakily holding up his hand to look at the drip in his wrist. Huh.

They had though.

They had…

#Days Gone #Days Gone Fic #days gone spoilers #james o'brian #deacon st john #addy walker #there's Rikki Boozer and Sarah too but since they're not getting major sections yet I'll try to avoid cluttering tags here #I don't have a name for this says. in my word docs it's just 'days gone 2' bc I wish we had one lol #anyway enjoy and late happy brithday to me since now it's past midnight #this one ain't so action packed but it cute so : )

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