#technically this may be part of Cooper’s main fic
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Sergeant Heath McCoy
Quick summary: After his older brother Cooper’s disappearance in 2007, when Heath was just 13, their parents vowed to make up for their perceived mistakes which they believed led to Cooper’s “deviance.” They put intense pressure on Heath to be perfect, wanting him to become their replacement oldest son. As a consequence, Heath excelled at both academics and sports, mainly football, and became a strict rule follower and perfectionist. He joined the army (branch tbd) after high school and reached the rank of sergeant before leaving and joining the Drug Enforcement Agency. While his parents were proud of him, they didn’t know that Heath had an ulterior motive for his career choice. Heath had worshipped his older brother and was devastated when he left without saying goodbye. Their parents had told him Cooper had become addicted to drugs and had fallen in with bad people and turned violent and therefore they felt it wasn’t safe for him to be around the rest of the family anymore. Heath never knew the truth, but he was determined to find Cooper somehow, and eventually is able to track him down through his position at the DEA.
Small snippet below the cut, a little bit after Heath and Cooper reunite:
Cooper sat in the tiny holding cell in the Hope County sheriff’s department, minding sifting through the options for his future. It didn’t look good. He already wouldn’t be allowed to post bail since he was such a flight risk, and he wasn’t sure how long it would take to get a lawyer and a trial date and all that. He had money but since all of it was made illegally, Cooper wasn’t sure if it would be seized or if he would be allowed to use any of it to pay for a good defender. The more he thought about it, the more Cooper kicked himself for not looking into these things ahead of time, because, as he was now realizing, it was more or less inevitable that he would be caught. Cooper leaned forward with his head in his hands as the bleakness of his outlook started to suffocate him.
“Cooper.”
He looked up. Heath stood outside the cell, a few feet away as if worried Cooper might reach through the bars and strangle him, which in fairness, Cooper felt like he might do just that. Out of every scenario Cooper had pictured for his future, he never imagined his own little brother arresting him.
“What?” he said gruffly, glaring at Heath who met his gaze steadily with a look on his face almost identical to the one their dad used to wear when he was disappointed.
“Look, I know you’re not happy about this,” Heath said, “but it’s for the best.”
“Oh yeah?” Cooper scoffed.
“Yes, this way I know exactly where you are….and I know you’ll be safe.”
“Safe? As soon as Silas—as soon as my old gang finds out where I’m at they’ll send someone to kill me. I stole a bunch o’ shit from ‘em, they ain’t lettin’ that go.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“What, you gonna come with me?”
“No,” Heath said calmly, though with a hint of irritation in his voice, “but I have some pull, I can make sure you’re well guarded.”
“Oh yeah, tell everyone I’m the brother of a DEA agent, that's a good idea.”
“Cooper, you broke the law!” Heath snapped suddenly, “this is happening because of the choices you made.”
“Guess I shoulda joined the army like you huh?” Cooper couldn’t keep the contempt from his tone, “Or get some stupid nine to five job or somethin?” he shook his head, folding his arms, “I’d rather fuckin’ kill myself.”
“Well you’ve had one here for the last year haven’t you?” Heath said with exasperation, “was it really that bad?”
Cooper went quiet while he pondered this.
“No…..no I guess it weren’t too bad,” he said after a while, “but I wouldn’t wanna do it forever.” He sighed and gave Heath a small smile. “I’m sorry, I know you’re just doin’ your job.”
Heath returned the smile hesitantly, but there was a sadness in his hazel eyes.
“I’m sorry too, Cooper,” he said, “but I really am trying to help you.”
Cooper’s anger flared again but this time he swallowed it back down.
“Well, if you really wanted to help,” he growled out, “you could let me go.”
“Are you serious?” Heath said, incredulous, “I’d lose my job, and end up in jail too!”
“Naw, you wouldn’t,” Cooper said, grinning, “cause I’d take you with me.”
“You’re crazy.”
“We could totally do it!” Cooper said excitedly, standing up, “whaddya say?”
“Cooper, I can’t just leave my family like that.”
“If you’re worried about Mom and Dad—“
“Not Mom and Dad,” Heath said impatiently, “I’m married. I have a kid.”
“What?” Cooper gasped, the shock knocking him back to his seat.
“Yup,” said Heath, he took his phone from his pocket and showed Cooper the lock screen photo. A beaming Hispanic woman with long dark hair held a chubby toddler on her lap. “That’s my wife, Annie, and our son: Tristan Cooper McCoy.”
Cooper stared at the photo. His brain felt like it was buffering; trying to process this overload of new information. He was an uncle.
“You….you named him after me?” Cooper felt tears rising in the back of his eyes as his heart filled with a bittersweet ache.
“Well, after her father first and then yeah, after you,” Heath smiled, “dad wasn’t too happy about that.”
Cooper tried to smile back but his lip trembled as a few tears started to run down his cheeks as quickly as he could wipe them away.
“Sorry,” he said with a sniffle, “he um, he looks like you.”
“Yeah a bit,” Heath said, looking fondly at his phone once before returning it to his pocket. “He’s a handful.”
“So were you.”
They both laughed this time, although Cooper felt so guilty it was like a physical pain in his chest.
“Heath,” he started to say, “I—“
“McCoy!”
Both brothers looked around as the federal marshal, Cameron Burke, entered the room.
“We’re heading out to arrest that Joseph Seed,” Burke spoke to Heath, ignoring Cooper completely, “would you be up for an assist? Local team could use an extra hand since uh….they’re short one officer.” He spared a quick glance Cooper’s way.
“Yeah, I guess I could…” Heath said with a shrug.
“Don’t,” Cooper said, suddenly worried, “please.”
Heath hesitated, looking between his brother and the marshal.
“I should go, Cooper,” he said, “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Heath, listen to me, this Joseph guy….his followers, there’s a lot more goin’ on there than it looks like.”
Heath frowned, “like what?”
“I don’t exactly but they got guns n’ shit, I just think you should wait. Take some more people with you.”
“Sheriff says you’re sleeping with one of them,” Burke interrupted, “Joseph’s brother right? John?”
Cooper flushed as Heath raised his eyebrows at him, “is that true?”
“I, um,” Cooper fumbled for the right words, “ok yes I am but—“
“You’re just trying to protect your boyfriend,” Burke said snorting, “come on, Sergeant, let’s go.”
“No I’m tryin’ to protect my brother,” Cooper snapped.
Heath blinked at him.
“That ship sailed a long time ago, Cooper,” he said sadly, but with a bitter edge to his voice, “I’ll be fine. We’ll figure out what to do with you when we get back.”
And Cooper watched Heath walk away with the marshal, a horrible sense of dread washing over him, and feeling, for the second time in his life, the acute fear that he might never see his little brother again.
#wake up babe new Strafe oc just dropped#oc: Heath McCoy#there really isn’t a lot to him yet#but we shall see#I might not do a whole lot with him just yet since I still have a bunch of stuff for Cooper to write first#but idk just wanted to intro him for now#far cry 5 oc#far cry 5#technically this may be part of Cooper’s main fic#I’m not going to be publishing anything in order on tumblr I don’t think#forgive the crappy graphic I got tired of trying to make it look nice#he’ll get better ones as he develops#my writing
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Sy’s Helsmits Masterpost
Figured it would be handy to have a list of all of my Helsmits, not just for y’all, but for me as well! Feel free to send asks about these guys, and check out this series on Ao3 for fics involving them. Not every Hermit is present yet--this list will be updated when/if new Helsmits are added. Some entries are much less detailed than others and that’s because I got lazy, sorry.
Evil Xisuma // Caesar
Tag: #Caesarvoid
Nicknamed as such because he’s the ‘leader’ of Helscraft and everybody hates him (and later because he was banned on the Ides of March). This nickname is barely used--he prefers to be known as Evil Xisuma, though after being stuck in Hermitcraft for a while and going through a bit of a redemption arc (the devil went down to georgia on Ao3, may or may not be continued but the events are canon to the timeline), he does adopt it as his proper name to avoid confusion. Caesar is obsessed with taking over Hermitcraft and getting rid of their Xisuma so that he can be the only one. His base, when he finally arrives in Helscraft Season 7, is in a ravine.
Evil Scar // Harvey, BadTimes
Tag: #Harvey BadTimes
Originally nicknamed BadTimesWithScar, ‘Harvey’ was a nickname that sprung out of too many stupid pronunciations of ‘Scar’ (Rye said ‘Scarvey’, Trip suggested ‘Harvey’, and it stuck). He’s an ender dragon hybrid and second of the three Hermitcraft-obsessed Helsmits. He was originally more mild-mannered, but after his first encounter with his Hermitcraft counterpart went sour, he’s sworn to tear up everything Scar holds dear. Harvey has a furious rivalry with Buck, which escalated after Harvey was accidentally responsible for Trip losing an eye (upside-down and backwards on Ao3). His base is a volcano with a fortress on the inside, inspired by the home of Smaug in The Hobbit.
Evil Welsknight // Bruce, Helsknight
Tag: #Bruce Helsknight
Technically named after Robert the Bruce, his nickname was chosen for him by the other Helsmits because they thought Helsknight was silly (and also got confusing with them all being from Helscraft). He’s third on the hierarchy of ‘obsessed with Hermitcraft’ after Caesar and Harvey, though is less focused on taking over Hermitcraft and getting rid of his counterpart and more on being as much of an inconvenience to Wels as possible. He mostly keeps to himself in Helscraft, too focused on his work with portals, and he’s a bit of a dork and the epitome of ‘you did the work wrong but somehow got the right answer’. He’s semi-allied with some of the other Helsmits, though mostly just for redstone components. His base is a Nether-themed castle, complete with lava moat and confusing maze-like layout. He is very jealous of anybody who has magic or hybrid powers, as he does not.
Evil Mumbo // Balderdash
Tag: #Balderdash
He chose his own nickname and is rather proud of it. Balderdash is very closely allied with Charleston, with whom he owns BD&C LTD. and all the associated businesses, including their anything-for-hire service Boon Boom. He’s proud, smart, and snarky, and often refuses to admit his own faults. He couldn’t care less about going to Hermitcraft, and even when he and Charlie accidentally end up there (an unexpected encounter on Ao3), they have no desire to take over the server or get rid of their counterparts. His base is an underground ‘city of gold’, themed around ancient architecture, with futuristic laboratories hidden inside.
Evil Tango // Charleston Tek, Charlie
Tag: #Charleston Tek
His name was given to him by Spector and initially rejected, but after he realized it could be shortened, he adopted it proudly. Charlie is the other half of BD&C LTD. and partner to Balderdash, with whom he causes an immense amount of problems. He’s argumentative, spiteful, and equally as smart as Balderdash, though they both claim to be the more intelligent one. His weapon of choice is a crossbow loaded with fireworks. His right shoulder and part of his neck and cheek is covered with a burn scar, which he acquired after an accident with one of Balderdash’s machines and a fire charge. Charlie’s base is an early 1900s-themed city, with his main home being inside an animation studio inspired by Bendy and the Ink Machine.
Evil Grian // Rye, Ryan
Tag: #Rye
His nickname was forced upon him by Reckless, who thought it was hilarious, and it quickly caught on, despite his protests. A couple of the other Helsmits call him Ryan, but it’s always with a nod and a wink. Rye is a phantom hybrid and a prankster, though most of his jokes involve destroying something or being otherwise mean. He enjoys spreading rumours about the other Helsmits and starting conflicts. Rye’s base is a skyscraper made to look deliberately dark and gloomy, and he often jokes that it’s a cliche supervillain office and plays into that by sometimes forcing the other Helsmits to meet him on the top floor where he does his best Godfather impression.
Evil Cub // Buck
Tag: #Buckfan135
Named Buck after a term used for deer, he’s an ender dragon hybrid and close ally to Trip. His base is a viking village with dragon motifs in a tundra biome. He absolutely hates Harvey and will do anything to try to prove that Harvey is up to no good. Buck’s fairly reclusive and cold, but he can be helpful when he wants to be.
Evil Bdubs // Trip
Tag: #Btripleo100
He’s missing an eye after spending multiple days trapped in a death loop created by Harvey (upside-down and backwards on Ao3), but that hasn’t put a damper on his upbeat, belligerent personality. He hardly ever sleeps, though, as he’s always faced with nightmares of his repeated death. His base is a medieval-style dungeon which is sometimes used as such by allied Helsmits.
Evil Doc // Spector, The Inspector
Tag: #Spectorm77
Spector, short for Inspector, is half-enderman half-machine and has a flair for the dramatic. Everything is a game with Spector, as he’s always agreeable but forces the other Helsmits to complete annoying tasks, riddles, and treasure hunts to gain his full cooperation. Nobody’s quite sure what his base actually is, because it’s hidden behind a maze of glass that has yet to be penetrated by wit or TNT.
Evil Iskall // Fiver
Tag: #58Iskall
Once a human on the quest for efficiency, Fiver is now more redstone and metal than flesh and blood. He’s always upgrading himself and never has time for any of the other Helsmits, though he’s tentatively allied with Doug and Spector. His base is a giant laboratory filled with deadly traps and surrounded by a minefield, which is slowly being taken over by plants as the building falls into neglect despite Fiver’s near-constant use of it.
Evil Ren // Doug
Tag: #Ramdoug
Part-wolf, part-ram, part-human, Doug’s a living contradiction and revels in it. He’s truly a wolf in sheep’s clothing and swings wildly from being friendly and agreeable to infuriating all the other Helsmits with his destructive and murderous antics. He lives in a snowy mountain biome with a base themed around the fictional planet of Hoth, plus a half-destroyed Death Star built into the base of the mountain for good measure.
Evil Impulse // Reckless
Tag: #RecklessSV
Sly, cheeky, resourceful, and self-centred, Reckless can never hold an ally for long, because he’s always stabbing them in the back. His base stretches deep below the ocean in an inverted pyramid, accessible through a controlled whirlpool. Reckless is aptly-named, for despite his claims that all of his plans are premeditated and thought-over, he spends less time thinking and more time double- and triple-crossing the other Helsmits.
Evil Zedaph // Damon
Tag: #DamonPlays
Damon lives in a cliffside lair filled to the brim with strange machines and contraptions, accessible only through a series of nonsensical puzzles--though these puzzles are often simply destroyed by the other Helsmits should they need to get in. He’s friends with Doug and Trip and certainly one of the more popular Helsmits, despite his affinity for flinging them into walls with slime block launchers.
Evil Cleo // Effie, Nefertiti
Tag: #ZombieEffie
ZombieEffie is a bit of a misnomer--she’s not a zombie, she controls the zombies. Effie is a necromancer, complete with sinister skull mask, and lives in a dark and spooky village filled with hybrid cryptid monstrosities that she’s created. She has a strange friendship with Reckless, though the two are not allies--they betray each other too much to actually do business together, but they respect each other enough to be considered friends.
Evil Stress // Penny, Pensive
Tag: #Pensivecreature101
Penny is another reclusive Helsmit, spending most of her time in her sprawling End-themed base. Her name is also incorrect, because though she doesn’t interact with the other Helsmits much, when she does, it always deteriorates into an argument very quickly.
Evil False // Claire, True
Tag: #ClaireSymmetry
Claire, or True, is an outstanding entrepreneur and successful business owner, spending most of her time negotiating deals with or between the other Helsmits. Her home is an industrial sky base above the ocean, from which she plots her next ventures. She’s had an alliance with almost every Helsmit at some point, most of them presently as well.
Evil Keralis // Idris
Tag: #Idris
Idris is a sour-tempered man, always difficult and annoyed by something-or-other. His base is farm-themed and rightfully so, because he has enough farms there to sustain himself and possibly the entire rest of the server if they had to. He gets along with Buck and Fiver.
#clay speaks#helscraft#evil hermits#balderdash#caesarvoid#harvey badtimes#bruce helsknight#charleston tek#rye#buckfan135#btripleo100#spectorm77#58iskall#ramdoug#recklesssv#damonplays#zombieeffie#pensivecreature101#clairesymmetry#idris#long post
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Now I'm just dying to know more about the demon summoning and if there are rankings among the angels like the demons. I hope this can be like a full blown story but if not, then that's ok too! How Many rankings are there and are there any stereotypes among certain demons and angels? I'm sorry that this is long and confusing but I am genuinely excited to know and read more!
Part 4.5
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Ohhh this is one of my favorite types of asks!! I love questions 💖
Alright, so Angels do technically have a ranking system—it’s usually based on the caliber, holiness, and mana-infusion that was used in their creation! Demons have a similar hierarchy in that way! They can also increase and decrease in rank—those with more mana will be higher, but if they do not form contracts or do not maintain their mana, they’ll become weaker over time!
This will be slightly more delved into with the next part, involving Tsukishima ;)
The thing about Angels, though, is that they’re less reliant on mana, and therefore can maintain theirs for a while, and sometimes even replenish their own. As such, they don’t have to worry about making as many contracts as demons do, if any. They’re also very busy
Now, what’s most fun about angels and demons is their abilities and the fact that they tend to hide their attributes. All angels have halos, fluffy wings, and these soft white, rounded tails. Some have little stubs of horns, which are rounded at the top. Demons tend to have sharp and angled horns, which are long and often dark—you can even tell some demon’s ranks based on the color, although that can also depend on their presence. Demon’s tails are pointed at the ends, and their wings are like those of a bat’s.
Usually when answering a summon, depending on the intent that’s radiating from the summoner during the introduction of DNA and mana to the summoning circle, the creature will use their best judgement in regard to their appearance. They have other forms that are available to them—some may transform into their original item if they pledge to be used as that object in the contract, whereas others may go into more supernatural forms.
For stereotypes, there’s the superiority complex for angels, as well as the inferiority complex of demons. Many demons see higher demons or angels of their counterpart-equivalent status and above to be superior (or that those demons consider themselves superior). Angels (or a good amount of them) see demons as impure and thereby lesser, as their rituals were performed in a manner that wasn’t apt enough to make them angels.
Then again, when imbued with enough mana, an object or animal can choose its path if there is no other will being imposed upon it. Some angels think about some demons as having made the wrong choice, where applicable.
More about ranks: During the wars, there would be tournaments held before the highest mages of the time, who’d offer mana and contracts to those creatures who showed the most potential or who presented the most ability overall. All beings took pride in being those contracted to those mages, especially when they were the sole contract and were fed high doses of mana. Of course, with too much power cane issues, as some demons felt that the reliance on raw ability in the tournaments would skew the results in favor of the angels, and so they schemed with one of the mages to usurp the champion of the time.
The ranks that angels gained during that time are upheld still, as they retained the mana they were given, and some demons clutch at their power with desperation, bearing their fangs at any lower-rank demons that threaten their positions.
Many demons even trick humans and secure very unjust contracts in order to climb up the ranks.
Hinata, thankfully, hasn’t had to worry about any fearsome beings yet, as many of them are attracted to the purity that radiates from his mana. Mana is most reliant on determination and will rather than strength or composition, although they can be supplementary to the summoner.
Higher rank beings often form clans to prevent an uprising from the lesser demons—some that exist include Aoba Johsai, Johzenji, Nekoma, Fukurodani, and Karasuno. There are more, of course, and Hinata will be exposed to them over time :’)
I’m not sure if it’ll be a story or if it’ll always be this messy—I’m currently working on chapter four of another harem fic (for KNB) so I can’t guarantee that I’d get past a first chapter, and it’d probably be more Drabble-y than a full, well written story (not that I write well lmao)—I’ll leave it up to full demand and it’d also be dependent on how consistent I can keep the plot here haha
I loved this ask! Answering it woke my Plot Brain, which is the only time my two brain cells manage to cooperate! If there are any questions I accidentally left unanswered, if things need more clarification, or if you want another addition to the main story, feel free to follow up on the ask or inquire in the comments! Thanks for the interaction yall! 💕💕
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••Part 4.5 of (?)••
•• Send Asks for more! Feel free to ask about characters and send Headcanons! Or if u wanna just talk Haikyuu/ships, I’m good with that too! :)
••AND as an FYI, I’m down for just about any hinata pairing! The only characters that are out are: Saeko, the Neighborhood Association folks, coaches, Yachi and Shimizu—you can probably guess any others if I left em out. Nothing against em or those who ship em, they’re just not my cup of tea ;)••
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More Lore
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fic writer interview
Tagged by @adventuresofmeghatron
I’m late so you’ve probably already done this but tagging: @laurelsofhighever @tanaleth @asaara-writes @allisondraste @pchberrytea @red-hot-chili-tiefling
Thank you for tagging me! Sorry it’s taken me forever, my imposter syndrome has been laughing loudly in my face at the idea of being considered a ‘writer’. Please, come in, sit down and have a look see at my complete lack of process or general idea of what’s going on :)
Name: Ginger
Fandoms: Fallout 4 currently. Dragon Age a while back.
Where you post: I put all my full fics on AO3 and if it’s a shorter one then I post the whole thing here on tumblr too. If it’s giant then I post a snippet here with a link to AO3.
Most Popular One-shot: Based on kudos The Wanderers - yeah i’m surprised too. It was my first venture back into writing after taking time out and it was a whole new fandom and a game I was new to. It was a fun silly little exercise in me learning my new otp and working out their fairly early days dynamic.
By comments, it’s Complicated. I’d had that one in mind for a while before writing it (probably why it took 4 rewrites before it felt how I wanted it to). It’s a good bit of post-feral encounter wound tending and hurt/comfort with some feels starting up (or becoming harder to deny).
Most Popular Multichap: I don’t have any multichapter fics any more. Once upon a time I had a Dragon Age Origins one. I’m not good at the commitment of multichapter. I made it 14 chapters into that one and it took me so long to drag myself out of Lothering I took it out back and shot it.
My Fallout one shots are part of an ongoing series - Then I Met You - which is a series of snapshots of Ivy and MacCready relationship (it’s still in pre-relationship stages right now). It’s mostly character driven rather than main plot driven, but it does fit within the fallout 4 canon with some backstory and timeline canon divergence.
Favourite story you’ve written so far: You know what, it’s my least popular Fallout one, but I have a soft spot for Blood & Rain. It’s the second one I wrote and it’s Ivy’s pov with a hint at her pre-war life (she’s a non-canon origin sole survivor). I got to indulge myself in writing descriptions and some action - my old faves from when I used to write (pew pew is way harder to write than stab stab). It’s also got a really important bonding moment between Ivy and MacCready.
Fic you were nervous to post: Every damn one. Sharing anything you’ve made really is putting a little piece of your heart out on a platter for everyone to see and waiting to see what will happen to it. I guess The Wanderers was extra nerve wracking because it was the first thing I wrote after telling myself I’d never go back to writing, it was kind of a make or break experiment. Blood & Rain because of the potentially triggering material, hoping I’d touched personal subjects with enough sensitivity but also still telling the story I needed to.
How do you choose your titles: hahahaha WELL, I finish faffing with the main story in AO3 and then am outraged that I’m expected to have a name ready before I can post it. Honestly though, I’ve no formula. They all have working titles in google docs which tend to be either a vague description of what’s happening, or a song title/lyric that’s running through my head while I write. Like, the current fic I’m working on is ‘mass pike pt 2’ which is a useless title since the part 1 was actually called Gunners & Grudges. And I won’t know until posting day what I’m going to call it.
I did put some serious thought into a title for my series - Then I Met You. I was cycling through song lyrics or things that might be a general vibe for them but settled back on one line from MacCready’s final affinity chat, “then I met you”. And it just fit so well. Meeting each other is a turning point for both of them; whether you just look at it as making a friend in the wasteland, or finding some direction after drifting for too long, or there finally being a glimmer of hope after a long time in the dark (this all counts for both of them), something changed when they met.
Do you outline: Sort of. I have a massive ‘fallout notes’ document where i just jot down whenever i have an idea of something i want to write, or just random bits of dialogue that spring into my mind (that may never see the light of day again). From there, if I want to expand them I tend to bullet point with plot ideas, more dialogue, key backstory or important things I want to cover. I tend to have multiple fics I’m doing this with at once and I bounce between them depending on where my mind has drifted off to that day. By the time I actually come to write something, I tend to have a lot of notes to work from, in fact quite often I have to cut back on all the ideas I wanted to cram in and some things get slotted back into the giant fallout doc for future reference.
Complete: I only have one shots, so technically they’re all complete and can be read, for the most part, individually without you needing to have read the others. They will make sense, there might just be some context from previous one shots in there.
In progress: Then I Met You is an ongoing series for my Mac x Ivy one shots.
Prompts?: I do put prompt list out there for Mac x Ivy when my brain isn’t cooperating and I feel like a need a little extra inspiration. For the current series I’m hoarding them and working them into the context one shots I have planned. Pretty much all my Dragon Age Origins one shots over on AO3 were prompt fills.
Upcoming work you’re most excited about: Ugh guys we’re getting close to them getting together territory and boy do I wish my brain was being cooperative so I could get these couple of stories in between down on the page and could start working in earnest on those ones. There’s a lazy morning in bed after a big party fic I’m really looking forward to writing (I’m looking forward to both tbh) - any excuse to explore stories behind scars and tattoos and I’m there for it. I’m even getting a commission from the amazing @tarberrymentats for it *discord wiggle*, so yeah, I’m excited about getting to that one!
Anyway thank you for reading my ramblings x
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Hiccup’s Full Character Profile
Slight Riddleverse ‘fic spoilers. Your mileage may vary.
Note: Hiccup is Foop’s alternate personality; this is how he sees himself although in reality, he shares Foop’s body.
OVERVIEW
Full Name: Anti-Poof Nebula Anti-Fairywinkle-Anti-Cosma
Title(s): Count / Prince / Väika / Foop’s alternate personality
Preferred Form of Address: Hiccup (Childhood); Anti-Poof (Adulthood)
Alternate Forms of Address: Nebula / Foop / Angel / Puck / Pucky
Born: Autumn of the Frozen Planet
Zodiac: Love Breath
Birthday: November 13th (Humblefest)
Hometown: Luna’s Landing, High South Region - Raised in the Blue Castle near the Anti-Fairy capital city (when not raised in Abracatraz)
Came Into Adult Wings: 143,555 (Earlier than average)
Age During Frozen Timestream: Mentally 12
Age As of “Live For the Moment”: Mentally 22
Age As of Devil’s Backbone: Mentally 24
Race: Fae (Unseelie Court)
Species: Anti-Fairy
Ethnicity: Mostly common anti-fairy (Faeumbra fae); ¼ anti-will o’ the wisp (Faeumbra lepidoptera); ⅛ anti-brownie (Faeumbra mundus)
Nationality: Hy-Brasilian (Obtained with Foop’s birth); recognized as Jakokërian in Twilight Point (Hawthorn Haven)
Patron Bat: Tadarida brasiliensis (Mexican free-tailed bat)
Mindset: Pilot
Dissociative Identity Disorder: Officially, Foop and Hiccup (and Angel in Identity Theft) are multiple personalities in the same body, referred to collectively as “the Nebula system.” Foop is considered the original personality, and suffered a lot of trauma in his youth that he can’t quite recall, as those memories are blocked from him. Hiccup is the protector who slips in control when life stress becomes too much for Foop to handle- he holds the trauma memories, but doesn’t like to talk about it with anyone besides his therapist. In their younger years, they flipped back and forth rapidly. In their older years, they sometimes go for days at a time without the other personality switching back.
In his youth, Foop’s goal was to integrate Hiccup back into himself. He eventually gave up on this, and now strives to cooperate with Hiccup, whom he grudgingly considers a twin brother. The members of their immediate family, as well as their roommates at school, acknowledge Hiccup as a separate identity from Foop. Their extended family and most of the media have their doubts.
Hiccup firmly sees himself as his own person. He describes himself as being “stuck in Foop’s body” and frequently makes comments about how “This isn’t what he really looks like.” He suffers from body dysphoria and desperately hopes to master magic well enough to adjust his looks.
Counterparts: Poof/Foop (Equal core sync) > Poppy
Core: Searchlight
Core Color: Yellow
Core Trait: Vengeance-seeking
Primary Fairy: Sport-loving hippie celebrity
Fairy Refract: Total weeaboo
Stats:
Power: Below Average | Average | Above Average
Endurance: Below Average | Average | Above Average
Wisdom: Below Average | Average | Above Average
Adaptability: Below Average | Average | Above Average
Charisma: Below Average | Average | Above Average
Openness: Below Average | Average | Above Average
Conscientiousness: Below Average | Average | Above Average
Neuroticism: Below Average | Average | Above Average
Magic: Tomte | Unstable | Weak | Average | Strong | Luz Mala
Crown Lift: ~7 in
Karmic Weave: Frayed | Sparse | Plain | Average | Thick | Elaborate | Royal | At Equilibrium | Manifests as _
Fagiggly Color: Blue
Preferred Shapeshifting Form: Rat
Signature Tactic: _Name - _Description
Wand Type: Copper
Kept in sheath on left side of body; Hiccup struggles to use Foop’s wand as his own wand is a handicap booster
Family: Nobility
Creed: Quil sa jujin relniva quilla s’raju - “Calm the spirits and they will calm your storms.”
Caretaker Spirit: Her Glory Laelaps (The hound dog)_
Permanent Residence: Foop’s mind Blue Castle, Luna’s Landing; Anti-Fairy World
Lives in the school dorms for much of the year - Rooms with Poof, Sammy Sweetsparkle, and Finley Hammerfall
Also has a cell reserved for him at Abracatraz.
Central Star (Purple) | Far East (Pink) | Lower West (Green) | High North (Blue) | High South (Navy) | Far West (Maroon) | Lower East (Teal) | Earthside
Occupation: “Spare to the heir”; part-time student; full-time guardian angel
BACKGROUND
Self-Perception: Friendly, helpful, and an all around good boy who looks after his younger brother(s) and strives to brighten everyone’s day.
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
MBTI: ISFP
Deadly Sin: Wrath
Heavenly Virtue: Diligence
Love Language: Physical touch
Reinforcers: The knowledge that he’s doing his job and helping Foop manage life; physical pleasure (Anything from hugs to sex)
Personality: _
Education: Sporadic. Attended classes at Spellementary School, Frederick Shinesworth Middle School, and Carl Poofypants High School whenever he randomly felt like it. Really doesn’t care about education at all, apart from his desire to master shapeshifting magic.
Spellementary School: _
Middle School: _Did well academically? Poorly? Sports?
High School: _
Further Education: _
Favorite Magic Subject: _
Least Favorite Magic Subject: _
Favorite Non-Magic Subject: _
Least Favorite Non-Magic Subject: _
History: _Anti-Poof is one of those kids who constantly has too much on his plate and yet never seems to have enough to do. He’s extremely efficient at getting things done (mainly achieved by cutting out his social life) and has a wide range of interests that he prefers to pursue alone. Such interests are further complicated by the fact that since his youth, Anti-Poof has always been afflicted with dissociative identity disorder, and flips regularly between his two personalities: Foop, the bitter and blunt one who harbors a fascination for biology and horticulture, and Hiccup, the gentle and giggly romantic who enjoys cooking and has a blatant streak of savagery.
Yet somehow, they seem to be getting along okay. Their love life is a mess even without including the politics, but since the two personalities have known each other all their lives, they’re used to compromise. One wonders how much longer it will be before their patience snaps.
Notable Likes:
_
Goals:
_
Beliefs:
_
Fears:
Has claustrophobia
That he’ll never be able to experience a loving romantic relationship
Upsets:
Having his identity squashed
Comforts: Sharing his feelings; open communication; Anti-Fairy culture
Indulgences: Frankly? Adult magazines, bat courtship videos, cuddling, kisses, and sex. Surprisingly he has no interest in sugar.
EXTERNAL
Verbal Notes: _
Language: Fluent in both Snobbish and Vatajasa
Physical Notes: Sort of well-built, but still very thin. He legitimately gets startled at the sight of his reflection, because Foop’s features don’t match his internal identity.
Handedness: Right-handed
Body Language: Hiccup frequently brings his hands together in front of his chest, making a small pyramid. He has a tendency to flap his hands downward, bounce on his toes, or lean all his weight on one leg. When he sits down, he’s more likely to sit on the arm of a couch and dangle a leg over the side than sit on a cushion. Those who know him well can usually tell when he’s fronting in the body by his relaxed posture.
Hair: Thick black curls that inherited Anti-Wanda’s sleekness rather than Anti-Cosmo’s scruffiness; in his mind, however, Hiccup sees himself as having short blue curls.
Teeth: Has a snaggletooth that pokes over bottom lip.
Wings: _
Iris Virus: Inherited
Scars: Scar on neck courtesy of Cavatina
Style: Hiccup favors a “modern college student” style, and while he doesn’t mind wearing Foop’s clothes, he prefers to wear his hoodie if he has the choice.
Regular Clothing: Usually found wearing Foop’s black undershirt, blue sweater vest, pointed shoes, and belt with a skull-shaped buckle.
Casual Clothing: If it’s an option, Hiccup can often be found lounging about in his purple sweatshirt.
Nightwear: _
Ceremonial Clothing: _
Other: _
Height: 3′6″ (Average for a fae; believes himself to be 3′0″)
Hiccup struggles with bulimia, and believes he is heavier than he is.
Hygiene: Hiccup takes pride in proper hygiene, as self-care is sort of his thing. _.
Morning Schedule: _
Typical Day Schedule: _
Evening Schedule: _
Sleep Schedule: _
PERSONAL
Relationship Status:
It makes Foop uncomfortable when he knows Hiccup is using his body to make-out or sleep with other people, but frankly, Hiccup doesn’t care that much. He does make an effort for Foop by blocking access to his awareness of the situation, and he tends to be very compliant when Foop wants to front in the body for the next several days, but he refuses to ignore his passions altogether. This body is the only one he’s got.
Hiccup isn’t normally into random flings and prefers committed partnerships; however, he makes an exception for extremely hot bad boys he isn’t sure he’ll see again.
During his adolescence he picks up a bad boy anti-fairy boyfriend, but continues working up the courage to ask Sammy Sweetsparkle out.
Due to being the alternate personality of a noble, Hiccup doesn’t expect to marry. However, he insists on being allowed to date whomever he wants, and prefers Foop to stay out of his business.
Ideal Relationship: Hiccup is looking for a committed partner he can openly share his feelings with, but also talk dirty with when he’s in that mood. He tends to be more submissive in his romantic relationships and would never date someone shorter or scrawnier than he is. He isn’t into nerds, and actually considers “brainy know-it-alls” to be a turn-off. While he does enjoy sex for the intimate bond it creates with a partner, his main goal is personal pleasure.
Sexuality: Romantically and sexually attracted to both Seelie and Unseelie Courters.
Attractiveness: _
Intimate History: Flirts with Finley on a regular basis, but mostly does it just because Finley’s there and doesn’t consider their relationship meaningful. Occasionally flirts with, kisses, and pairs with Anti-Marigold depending on his mood. Technically had a sexual experience with a damsel in his creche once, but considers his first “real” experience to be with a hot bad boy he crossed paths with during spring migration one year. He’s sexually active on a regular basis, and is generally always seeking out his next opportunity.
Turn-Ons: Bad boys, beefy muscles, and tight clothing. Especially all of the above. Hiccup is big on PDA and prefers when flirtation is very physical, such as holding hands, draping an arm over the shoulders, or softly smacking a behind. He’s undeniably the more adventurous and experimental personality here. He’s sensitive and somewhat guarded when out and about, and his true sensual colors come out during tender, private moments with a partner he loves. Ear scratches are his weakness.
Kiff-Tie: Not currently tied to a nature spirit, but it’s expected that he (Anti-Poof) will tie with Winni, the spirit who represents Breath on the Fairy zodiac, when High Count.
Honey-Lock Partner: Anti-Marigold Kelsia Anti-Goldenglow; Hiccup considers her “Foop’s girlfriend” and wouldn’t pursue her on his own, but if he switches into control when it’s clear she and Foop were being romantic and he’s in the mood, he won’t hesitate to flirt with her. I mean, if she’s into it, who is he to say no? Over the course of their lives, he will take over a few times during honey-lock nights when Foop is particularly distracted or stressed.
Father: Anti-Cosmo Julius Anti-Fairywinkle-Anti-Cosma (née Anti-Lunifly)
Grandfather: Anti-Robin Anti-Cosma
Grandmother: Anti-Florensa Anti-Lunifly
Uncle: Anti-Robin “Anti-Schnozmo” Anti-Lunifly
Cousins: Anti-Snowball Anti-Lunifly
Second Cousins: _
Notable Ancestors: Anti-Ky Anti-Braddocki (The first anti-brownie); distantly related to the von Strangle family
Mother: Anti-Wanda Venus Anti-Fairywinkle
Grandfather: Anti-Dusty Anti-Fairywinkle
Grandmother: Anti-Kylia Anti-Swiftspark
Aunt: Anti-Wendy Anti-Fairywinkle
Cousins: _
Notable Ancestors: Anti-Shylinda Anti-Coppertalon (The first High Countess of the Anti-Fairies); Anti-Ilisa Anti-Maddington (The first anti-will o’ the wisp)
Alternate Personality: Anti-Poof “Foop” Anti-Fairywinkle-Anti-Cosma
Met in youth
Brother: Anti-Dusty Smoky Anti-Fairywinkle-Anti-Cosma
Met at age 994
Boyfriend: Anti-Randon Jamie Anti-Feldspar
Met at age 159,202
Crush: Sammy Ryan Sweetsparkle
Met in youth
Other Important Relationships: Sees Cosmo and Wanda as his uncle and aunt, and Poof as his cousin. Not interested in Goldie himself, but knows Foop has a crush on her.
TRIVIA
Like all male Anti-Fairies, he has a scent gland on his head. He rubs his head against things he considers “his” (mostly his lovers). Hiccup tends to mark territory or people he likes without regard for the fact that he’s spreading Foop’s scent around.
Hates hanging upside-down.
_
APPEARANCES
Riddleverse Classic Timeline: Identity Theft > “Whenever Possible” > “Let’s Speak Vatajasa” > Hawthorn Haven > Devil’s Backbone
130 Prompts Timeline: “Hidden” > “It’s On Now!” > “Not All the Same” > “Lucky” > “Who Am I?”, “Repeat” > “Second Chance” > “Naptime” > “Teaming Up” > “Evolution Hopeful”, “Step Back” > “Take a Break” > “Shadow” > “Live For the Moment” > “Watch and Learn” > “Temptation” > “Mind Your Manners” > “All I Ever Wanted” > “Reality Doesn’t Work That Way” > “A Family Matter”, “No Refunds!” > “Whisper” > “Piggyback” > “Trance” > “Daddy’s Girl” > “Little Wonders” > “Bubbles” > “Revenge” > “Can’t Say Sorry” > “Not Like You” > “Reflection”
AU Appearances:
N/A
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We Are All Each Other’s Homes - Part II
The ACTUAL sequel to the first fic (technically part 3, because of Intersections)
Rating: Mature
Multi chapter, currently only one
Characters: (Main) Cooper, Laura, Leland, Sarah, (Supporting) Bobby, Donna, James, Audrey, Albert, Windom, Jacques, Leo, more to be added
Relationships: Coop & Laura, Bobby/Laura (young puppy love gone horribly wrong), James/Laura (ditto for this one), others to be added, specifically the gay ones
Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings (subject to change), Underage (Laura being in adult situations with characters of ambiguous age)
Other tags: Alternate Universe, sexual content not incredibly graphic, but definitely not implied, abuse not implied either, nightmare fuel, angst, and so on
(tags may also change or be updated as chapters are added)
#my fics#sibling!au#twin peaks#I bit the bullet and got the first chapter done with already#I think it'd technically be considered a prologue#like with the other two fics for this series#these will be will definitely be heavy shit content#I some chapters may also come with specific warnings in the summaries
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Lost At Sea: A List of WIP’s I am finally letting go of [ Part 1 ]
Finally going through my subscriptions on AO3 and clearing out the fics that haven’t gotten an update in too many years or have been orphaned since the last time I looked at them but what chapters were posted are worth reading as long as you don’t mind being left frustrated. Could also be considered a final plea and/or thank you/love letter to the authors for having written them at all, I don’t know how many parts this will take because I have like, 7ish pages of subscriptions on AO3 lmao so just, you know *hand waves* settle in the ride with me.
With the Bodies in the Gutter by TriDom
Summary: Derek works with the FBI to dismantle sex trafficking rings from the inside out. It's grueling, but he never believed that the wear on him outweighed the good he and his team did. Until he finds his mate with a new group that had been taken. He jeopardizes everything to get him out, only to have to turn his back on him before his mate is even awake.
Last Update: 2017
Fandom & Main Pairing: Teen Wolf; Sterek
Personal Notes: At 16 chapters it gives you enough progress to kinda feel satisfied. It dropped off at a kind of lull before ramping up into the next crisis action which also helps I think. Only mildly unsatisfying for not getting to the true “happy ending” but I’m not mad about it.
Where Is My Bright Future by Steamcraft
Summary: au: Derek and Stiles meet at a German camp.
“My name…” The boy trails, then grimaces. “Stiles Stilinski.”
Derek’s eyebrows rise. “Stiles. Nickname?”
Stiles nods. “You English, how is it… Butcher.”
That surprises a laugh out of him. Stiles looks startled at the sound, heart racing, before he tentatively smiles.“You laugh, but its true.”
Last Update: 2015
Fandom & Main Pairing: Teen Wolf; Sterek
Personal Notes: I read this a long time ago and I remember it being both really good and really heavy but also getting a little lost in the middle. It’s got 14 chapters though so, like the fic above I feel like it’s a satisfactory read even if there isn’t a real ending.
When Sparks Fly by LunaCanisLupus_22
Summary: “Derek,” Stiles thunders. “Were you ever going to tell me your house is trying to hook us up?”
Derek's head snaps up, eyes wide and scenting the evident crackle of magic in the air.
Or the one where spark!Stiles moves into an enchanted apartment block owned by a grumpy alpha and is completely oblivious to the building's efforts to matchmake them.
Last Update: 2016
Fandom & Main Pairing: Teen Wolf; Sterek
Personal Notes: This one is a little harder to categorize because it started out as a like, 2 chapter completely completed fic - and then the author came back and added more? So it’s unclear if they plan on coming back and adding more again since they’ve left it uncompleted but you know *hand waves*. In any event, it’s a definite good read, one of my favorites, highly recommended.
Where A Mask, Be A Hero by A_Whistful_Writer
Summary: Oliver Queen had started a crusade in his father’s name, alone. It was bitter, harsh and unrelenting. He was left with scars and bruises that only seemed to double with each passing day. But then he found companions in his fight. Laurel, Diggle, Felicity, Roy. They made things more bearable, and for a while, he was happy, even though there was a gaping hole in his heart. Something was missing.And that was when Oliver met Barry Allen.
Last Update: 2018
Fandom & Main Pairing: Arrow/The Flash ; Flarrow
Personal Notes: It’s honestly just a retelling of the first however many seasons of each show but with a little more OTP filling. The later chapters kinda lost the plot and I was hoping it’d pick up again and really start rolling but I’m throwing in the towel on this one.
The Fault Is Not In Our Stars - Orphan
Summary: After a long and wretched campaign, Asgard has conquered Jotunheim. To ensure King Laufey's cooperation and later friendship between the kingdoms, Asgard takes home the apparent heir to the throne, Loki Laufeyson. Loki is, unfortunately, anything but complacent.Based on the art by stunningly talented Wantstobelieve: http://wantstobelieve.tumblr.com/post/18102496999/guess-who-just-watched-troy-again-yup-that
Last Update: 2013
Fandom & Main Pairing: Thor ; Thunderfrost
Personal Notes: I had hoped this would be a case of the author regaining their writing inspiration with a new Thor movie on the horizon and promptly forgot about it for...a long time, lmao. I’m glad that the author chose to orphan the story instead of simply deleting it because it may only be 8 chapters but they’re very well written and the story is compelling, even unfinished.
Time Will Crawl by coldhope
Summary: Inspired by one of kaciart's amazing drawings: the Winter Soldier faced with a pre-serum Steve Rogers and--conversely--1940s Bucky Barnes coming home to find Captain America lurking in the kitchen.
Last Update: 2014
Fandom & Main Pairing: Captain America (MCU) ; Stucky
Personal Notes: It’s only two chapters which isn’t long enough to *really* get attached to something but the concept was interesting enough to hold my attention/hope that it’d get continued.
The What’s And How’s of Raising Werewolves by kit_cat
Summary: Stiles is twenty-five and shares his bed with a five-year-old werewolf who calls him mommy. This isn't how he expected his life to turn out.Or in which Derek is a kindergarten teacher, the Hales are alive, Danny is overly romantic for a five-year-old, and Stiles has somehow Magicked his way into being the legal guardian of three werelings all under the age of ten... and may or may not be on the run from a league of werewolf kidnapping hunters.
Last Update: 2017
Fandom & Main Pairing: Teen Wolf ; Sterek
Personal Notes: So I’m...technically not giving up on this one since it’s gone 3 years between updates before and really like this story so I’m going to hold onto this hope for a little while longer but it’s a very very slim hope. This is a fic that does NOT leave off with a satisfactory feeling even though it’s 9 chapters in, those 9 chapters really are just the place setting and maybe a charcuterie board or two while guests mingle but you could start smelling the main course from the kitchen.
Trust by trufflemores
Summary: "Barry reels Oliver in for a hug. Oliver grants him three seconds, pulling back with his own irrepressible smile, knowing he looks like young-and-in-love which is ridiculous because he's not. Maybe, a tiny, impulsive part of him argues, he wants to be."
Last Update: 2017
Fandom & Main Pairing: The Flash/Arrow ; Flarrow
Personal Notes: I have spent I don’t KNOW how many months on and off trying to find this fic again, only to discover I’ve had it the whole fucking time! Specifically, the way trufflemores describes how they interact - giving words to all of the silent conversations they have, how they translated Barry and Oliver’s body language to so perfectly into writing. Like, even after I stopped watching The Flash (and had long since stopped watching Green Arrow), I still watched the crossover episodes because watching Barry and Oliver (and later Kara) interact was always my favorite thing. Honestly, watching both teams together was always so much fun - the episodes were just fun, but I digress. I don’t honestly remember where this fic leaves off but it was fairly episodic so I don’t really know that it needs an end per say, reading it shouldn’t leave you too dissatisfied.
The Propinquity Effect by SwiftEmera
Summary: Oliver Queen pretty much ignored his bisexuality, until he clapped eyes on Barry Allen.Unfortunately, Barry is a social pariah, and Oliver's mother is currently running for governor, so Oliver is pretty much trapped in the bisexual closet, unable to come out and associate himself with Barry for the fear of tarnishing his mother's campaign. However, when their teacher pairs the boys up to work on a Psychology project based around the subject of sexual attraction, Oliver's willpower to keep his distance is strongly tested.
Last Update: 2015
Fandom & Main Pairing: The Flash/Arrow ; Flarrow
Personal Notes: I’ve been re-reading most of these as a final send off but this one I’m just not in the mood for unresolved angst. It’s really well written, the characters are really well adapted for the AU, but just knowing it isn’t finished and probably wont ever be I don’t want to invest my energy into something that doesn’t have a conclusion - for better or worse and this is the kind of fic I *need* to have an end.
#Sterek#Teen Wolf#Stiles Stilinski x Derek Hale#Arrow#The Flash#Flarrow#Barry Allen x Oliver Queen#Thor#Thunderfrost#Thor Odinson x Loki Laufyeson#Captain America (MCU)#Stucky#Steve Rogers x Bucky Barns#Lost At Sea
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Look me in my Eyes (Tell me Everything's not Fine)
Pairing: Aaron Warner x reader
Prompt: the hero shows up at the villain’s doorstep one night. They’re shivering, bleeding, scared. There’s also a slightly dazed look in their eyes– they were drugged [...]. Looking up at the villain, swaying slightly as they’re close to passing out, they mumble “…didn’t know where else to go…” then collapse into the villain’s arms. (I’ve modified the prompt a tiny bit, but that’s the gist of it)
Word Count: 5.5k (self-control, who?)
Warnings: nothing outside of stuff mentioned in the prompt itself, and a swear word or two.
A/N: yeahh... You can blame @pandemoniumambassador for this fic. She’s a hype master and was, for some reason, willing to beta this?? So like,,, please go love her??? She’s awesome and puts up with a lot from me tbh.
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The side of your fist hits the smooth white front of the wooden door so harshly that the skin over your bones threatens to bruise. Not that you notice. Or care.
You keep knocking— if you can call it that, that is. It’s more like pounding. Hammering. You’re hammering your fist against the door in the hope that it will open— in a desperate, sloppy, chaotic last-ditch hope that it will open right now.
“Leila!” You shout at the nearly invisible seam between the door and doorframe as if that would somehow help your voice carry— as if that would get you inside faster. “Leila, please! It’s me, Y/N.”
The words are loud. Too loud. Far, far too loud in your otherwise silent surroundings. They echo around your skull, ringing, bouncing around with an alarming intensity that’s dimming, dimming, dimming as your head fills up with fog.
The amped-up sedative in your bloodstream is affecting you more rapidly than you had initially thought— than you had wanted to believe.
Once you had slipped away from your make-shift guards and back into the real world, you ran. You ran at a flat-out sprint for as long as you could maintain, lungs bursting at the seams, heart thundering in your ears, deafening, and a taste of copper in the back of your mouth. You ran as fast as you possibly could with tar in your veins, lead in your limbs, and blood seeping from your skin and into your clothes. You ran, and this place, these few disgustingly, unnervingly pristine blocks that lay untouched by the havoc which now wrecked the world, was the first landmark you recognized.
You had intended on running right past these houses and into the more desolated wooded areas not far from here until you found a safe spot to hide away in until the drug wore off, but your legs had different ideas. Your feet led you here, to a house you had only been in a handful of times a lifetime ago, to a house you remember a kind woman once living in.
You don’t know if she will remember you.
Or if she still lives here.
Or, granted she is still here, if she’ll even take you in-
No.
No, she’s home. She still lives here. She has to.
The street is coated in darkness over your shoulder, illuminated only by the few-and-far-between stars peeking through the dark, cloudy sky. The porch you’re on is dark, too, but the faint light seeping through the cracks between the window curtains acts as a beacon—a spotlight broadcasting your location to the entire world, to anyone left in it who’s interested enough to look.
You’re not so foolish as to believe you lost them, they’re too good for that and you’re far too disoriented, but you would like to think you bought yourself a few minutes of time at the very least.
It’s hard to tell though.
The trees lining the front yards across the street are entirely blurry now, blending into their suburban background of white picket fences far too well for your liking.
The stinging sensation in your right forearm and left leg have practically numbed altogether, and the strain in your muscles and lungs may as well be gone too. It is all still there, you know that, but the feeling of it is becoming inaccessible to you.
You can’t smell anything either, not even the blood staining your clothes.
And your hearing…
You don’t know how much longer you have until you pass out. What little of a head-start you might have had is gone now though, you do know that much for sure.
“Please!” you try again, and it sounds slurred. “I didn’t have anywhere else to-”
The door is wrenched open so swiftly that in one second you’re staring at the increasingly blurry grains of wood, and in the next you’re staring at someone’s chin.
A part of you wants to ask Leila when and how she had grown half of a foot taller than you remembered her being, but by the time your brain catches up and your eyes see the face looking back at you, you’re already stumbling backwards.
No.
No,
No,
No,
No.
No.
Not him.
Shock courses through your veins and panic rifles through your brain, setting off every alarm bell still functioning. Confusion follows in its wake, and it all adds to the ugly mix of out-of-breath panting and the drugged tissues of your body which have turned to concrete. Immobile.
The subtle details of his expression are blurred and cast in a slight shadow due to the warm yellow light streaming past him from inside the house. From what you can tell though, Warner does not look happy. Not that you blame him though, considering that the last time you saw each other was when you shot him and then jumped out of a window after Juliette and Adam.
It had been quite the string of coincidences, really, that day.
Your hate for the Reestablishment and the fact that you never wanted to be a soldier in the first place led to two different outcomes. The first was a thick and colorful record detailing your insubordination and other “offenses” against your superiors which had been amassing since the very start of your training.
The second was your plan to desert.
Unfortunately, planning to successfully run away from a military base was less easy than you had hoped. It took time to collect some provisions, find a way off base, find someplace to go after you left...
You did it though, meticulously put together a plan to desert which was as foolproof as it was ever going to get. Except, days before it was to all take place, your plan fell apart due to an event which would have led to increased security, harsher superiors, stricter orders, and even less freedom than you were already granted.
Though your carefully crafted hopes for your future were viciously ripped from you mere days before they could take place, a different opportunity had been thrown directly into your hands and you had been physically unable to let it slide through your fingers like your original plan.
That day you happened to be inside the main building when a code seven alarm went off. You heard shouting from one of the rooms, went to investigate, and lo and behold you found an open window with “escape” written all over it, perfect for you to climb through and into freedom.
The only trouble was that between you and it stood three other people.
Juliette.
Adam.
And Warner.
You read the scene you walked in on quickly enough—it wasn't difficult considering the weapon Warner had been aiming at the other two, the two with interlocked hands and an open window at their backs.
The rest was history—a blur of actions and reactions you hardly had time to think through or decipher.
You stopped desperately seeking a way out of the life of a soldier you had been forced into—stopped looking for a chance to leave and an exit through which to run; you found one, and you were leaving.
A hand that wasn't your own had aimed your gun at the back of Warner’s head while a voice not dissimilar to yours told an incredulous Adam to grab Warner’s weapon. Keeping Warner in your sight, you then backed towards the window with Juliette and Adam at behind you.
Warner had not been particularly pleased. In fact, he mentioned some rather violent consequences and, when you failed back down, he lunged for your gun.
You pulled the trigger.
The few people currently looking for you might be bad, but this… Him… Warner… This might be worse. This is out of the hands of pissed off, blood-hungry citizens, and into the hands of the ruthless Chief Commander and Regent of Sector Forty-Five.
The one you shot as you looked him in the eyes.
Run.
Run, your mind screams at you.
Run as fast as you can while you can and don’t look back until you’re dead, otherwise you will be.
But you can’t run.
The floor shackles itself your feet, locking you in place even as the porch starts swaying before your eyes.
You think you manage to take a single stumbling step backwards. You assume you must have, at least, for the cold, smooth railing of the porch materializes beneath your hand and keeps you upright— keeps you standing as a tide of vertigo brushes over you.
Another few steps backwards and you would be down the stairs and on the front lawn. That’s the direction you want to go. Out. Away. Far away from the tall, imposing, deadly figure slowly stepping out of the doorway to approach you.
But your legs refuse to move even more insistently than they had a few moments ago, cooperating even less than they had. Traitors. They would get you killed.
Warner says your name.
He says something else too, something that sounds like a question. You can’t make it out—the sounds you hear don’t sound like words, but a chain of syllables strung together in an odd tone that’s even less decipherable than the sounds themselves.
Technically, you knew Warner could be here.
You knew, somewhere deep, deep down in the recesses of your mind that there was the tiniest, smallest, fraction of a possibility…
But surely, surely, you thought, your luck could not possibly be that bad.
You were wrong.
Darkness encroaches your vision, blurring and blocking out your surroundings one by one in a dull, unnervingly subtle wave.
The eyes looking back at you are the last things to fade out of focus.
They’re green eyes. So, so green.
Not the green of hatred or even the green of authority with that familiar fire always, always burning just below the surface.
But the green of a young boy you once knew in a lifetime before the world ended.
Green bleeds into black.
-
The first thing you notice when you wake is the pounding in your head— an amalgamation of the dull pain residing there and your own thudding heartbeat mixing together.
The next thing you notice is that you’re still alive, and –you open your eyes— unrestrained.
The fog which consumed your mind is gone now. You can acutely feel its absence in the clarity of your thoughts— in the clarity of your confusion, but… But tendrils of it still remain, a sheer film of murkiness lingering ever so slightly over your mind.
“Oh, good. You’re finally awake.”
Your head snaps towards the voice.
And your eyes…
Your eyes find Warner.
Warner.
Right.
Shit.
He sits at a small table in the corner of the room and holds your heavy, undoubtedly confused and startled gaze with ease. His left arm is in a sling. In his right hand he holds a data-pad which he sets down on the table without looking away from you. The device now sits a few inches away from the sleek black gun also on the table. Both remain within easy reach for him.
You swallow.
Your head spins as you sit up and as you try to understand why you’re not dead yet, why Warner hadn’t killed you immediately and on sight. Why, instead of bringing you back to the compound and throwing you in a cell, he brought you into what you think is the spare bedroom in Leila’s house and waited for you to wake up.
You know it must boil down to information, it always does, but still… It’s odd.
It’s a shame you’re unwilling to divulge anything serious though, anything at all that he might be interested in. A real shame, considering said information is probably all that’s kept you alive as of late.
Warner observes you in silence and with shrewd eyes, like he’s reading a book with a lot of unfamiliar jargon but reading through it all the same. The look puts you on edge, as it is likely supposed to do.
“I’m not going to tell you anything, you know.” It’s a hedged warning, a cautious one, but a warning all the same.
“But you haven’t even heard my questions yet,” Warner replies in a tone all too pleasant.
You shift atop the covers of the bed, more than thoroughly uncomfortable, and pain threads up your arm as you do.
Oddly enough, the three people who had grabbed you yesterday only hurt you enough subdue you. One of them had recognized you as a solider and they planned to interrogate you for information and—wow.
Wow. You really just traded one interrogation for another, didn’t you?
You really are that unlucky. Damn.
Regardless, after telling them that you had deserted they spent the next few hours arguing about what to do with you. One option they discussed involved taking you to the “others” –whoever they were— and the other few options they contemplated all ended rather bloodily for you.
Needless to say, you did not sit idly by while they so candidly discussed your apparently ever-shortening future. As luck –or your lack of it– would have it, however, you ran into one of them after slipping your restraints and she shot you up with a syringe half full of a goddamn sedative before you managed to get away from her. You want to blame it on said sedative for your clumsiness, but in your hurry to escape you jumped a fence rather poorly, managing to snag both your forearm and your calf on two different pieces of exposed, jagged metal.
Both injuries had bled a fair amount at the time. Now, they’re no longer bleeding. Now, white gauze spotted with dried blood peeks out at you through the blood-stained tears in your clothes.
You stare at the bandage on your forearm, blinking at it slowly as though it would answer your questions if you only looked long enough.
Why?
Why would he do that?
Why on Earth would he put in the two minutes of effort to help you –in any way, let alone medically– if he planned on killing you at some point anyway? Why-
You don’t understand this— what kind of game he’s playing.
And… And he’s not giving you any clues, even unintentionally.
You don’t have any superpowers, not like the ones you have heard rumours of, ones whispered about in hushed tones filled with awe or brushed off with a scowl, and you certainly don’t have any abilities like Juliette’s.
As it turns out, however, you do have exceptionally good hearing.
So that’s what you do now, in need of any kind of additional information available, you listen. You quiet the world inside your head, still the questions on your tongue, move past the noise of your own body, of Warner’s, of the idle sounds of shifting fabric and measured exhalations of breath, and you listen.
The sounds which greet you do little and less to placate your worries.
The house itself is alive.
Alive and humming with the sound of electricity buzzing in the rubber-wrapped wires behind the walls and the water flowing in the pipes beneath the floor under your feet, with the low thrum of the refrigerator in the kitchen downstairs and the roaring of the furnace in the basement tick, tick, ticking away the seconds until it turns off again.
The building is alive with the signs of life and inhabitation.
It’s also empty.
Not abandoned, empty.
Unoccupied.
Save for you and Warner.
“Where’s Leila?”
Out of all the questions dancing around your brain, you’re unsure why that one makes it past your lips.
You also have no clue what you had been thinking last night –for you assume it was last night given the early morning light streaming through the window a few feet from Warner— aside from the fact that you hadn’t been thinking. Sure, why not show up on a woman's doorstep, begging for help, despite the fact you hadn’t seen her in years and— oh, yeah, you shot her son less than a week ago.
Yeah. That was bound to go well.
Fuck.
“Not here,” Warner answers crisply. “Who were you running from last night?”
The question hangs in the air, suspended by silence.
There’s a high likelihood Warner already knows about the group who grabbed you for you assume he must get at least some reports about civil unrest, but on the off-chance he doesn’t…
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?
Despite how they so plainly discussed different ways to pry information out of you and other things you would rather not think about, you’re hesitant to blow the whistle on them— not when they are one of two groups willing to speak out, to do something about the Reestablishment. Hell, you might have helped them had they not been so… rough.
Well, rough and hateful.
Apparently, they had heard rumours about the resistance— about Omega Point, about how it housed people with abilities which might help to take down the Reestablishment. They hadn’t been fans of that, even using some artfully constructed and colorful language to describe the “freaks” there too.
“Where are Juliette and Kent?”
With any luck? Far away from here.
At the time, you had thought that you were rather smart, that the one bonus of your surprise escape –as opposed to the one you had planned– was that Warner would be focussed on trying to find three missing people as opposed to just one. Both Adam and you needed to take care of some personal business –though neither of you asked or wanted to know what the other’s was– and you both thought your odds were better if you split up into two groups. Besides, they didn’t trust you and you didn’t particularly trust them– not with your life, anyway.
Though the three of you knew that Juliette would probably be Warner’s top priority, you were not overly worried about either her or, by extension, Adam. No matter how terrified she seemed or how… oddly kind the few words she had spoken to you were, she could, after all, kill someone with a single touch.
After going your separate ways a few days ago and a few quick pitstops on your end, you had been en route to… Well, you’re not entirely sure where. You’ve heard rumours– a lot of rumours about where Omega Point is supposedly located and you’ve narrowed it down to a general area. That’s where you had been going yesterday before you got jumped.
You’re not sure where Juliette and Adam had intended on going –it’s best that way– but you can only assume they had made it there safely if Warner still hasn’t found them.
“Is whatever happened to you happening to her?”
His voice is harsher now. Stern. It’s less like the pleasant tone he began this conversation with and more like the one he uses to command the entirety of Sector Forty-Five.
His patience must have run out.
“Why do you care?” you counter, snapping out the reply before you can stop yourself. Then… Then you see it. You see his fingers curling together, tightening, and a muscle in his jaw clenching. You know the response is not due to anger either, at least not entirely. So, for some reason you don’t want to think about, you end up relenting after a quiet sigh. “Not that I’m aware of.”
The answer seems to appease him, but only for a moment. Without missing a beat or even chewing over the only answer you’ve given him, he asks the one question you least expect.
“Why didn’t you kill me?”
You gape. “What?”
Asking if you heard someone correctly has not really been an issue for you, not when you have the ability to hear the blood being pumped through a person’s veins and the grinding of their teeth, but… but that…
You had been mentally psyching yourself up for an interrogation– for roughly asked questions about the resistance and their numbers, about the extent of the dissent among his soldiers and troops, more about Adam and Juliette– especially about Juliette. Not-
“I was point-blank when you shot me in the shoulder,” he continues, seemingly oblivious to the now thundering rate of your heart and the rising emotions in your throat. “It would have been a clean shot, an easy kill. Yet you decided not to kill me. Why?”
“I missed.” The blatant lie thoughtlessly, stupidly, carelessly slips past your lips in a small voice that isn’t your own.
And Warner… Warner only smiles.
He smiles.
He smiles like your two meager words are best things he’s heard all month, like he’s suddenly enjoying this. Like talking about how easily you could have killed him but didn’t is amusing to him.
To make matters worse, it’s not a cruel smile of barbed wire and rusted nails. In fact, it’s almost… nice. It actually looks good on him. More than good, unfortunately. But it is wicked, a pleased display of a mind full of cutting knowledge locked behind an array of sharp white teeth and soft lips.
“The worst of my soldiers would have been incapable of missing a shot like that,” he says, “and I have seen you shoot, love. You have some of the best marks of all the soldiers within Sector Forty-Five. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you missed?”
The surety with which he speaks turns your blood into ice, makes it congeal and crystalize in your veins. It blooms enough apprehension and fear inside your chest that you can’t even correct him over the sobriquet he uses– though you’re sure your expression shows enough of your displeasure to make your feelings on it obvious.
You’ve seen more emotion in Warner in the last ten seconds than you have in the last ten years and you don’t know how to handle that- how to deal with the odd assortment of unorganized facts and small, peculiar details you’ve been handed.
The emotion contouring his features makes him look ten years younger too. It reminds you that Warner is, in fact, your age.
You had become so acclimatized to his blank expression cross-referenced with the occasional scowl and sharp commands that you became convinced the kind boy you once knew was long dead— that Supreme Commander Anderson had slowly, torturously killed him over the years and replaced him with Warner.
Then, a few weeks ago, you saw a brief, momentary, flickering crack in his façade, there and gone again in a moment. It made you remember the little boy with pale green eyes who took you out of the very house you now sit in, away from the wrath of his father which your short temper would have surely evoked. You had disliked Warner then, in that moment and with your young, righteous heart from keeping you from yelling in all your rage at his obnoxious, horrible, insulting father.
It was only later that you had come to realize the boy’s actions for the unnecessary kindness that it was. Though you never figured out how he had known you were seconds away from talking back rather sharply to his father, you were glad he had. He might have just saved your life.
That hadn’t been the only time you had met that summer, for you had seen each other a handful of times, but it had been the first– and the notable.
Warner is calm. You know that with certainty because you can hear his heartbeat: strong, steady, regular. He’s not the slightest bit ruffled or stressed. You suppose having a gun at one’s side helps with that.
In lieu of an answer you can’t give and don’t know how to provide, you keep listening.
To him.
To the house.
To the yard beyond the barely open window.
To wind filtering through the leaves of nearby trees, carrying whispers of halved-sentences.
Of voices.
It’s not Warner’s voice, though Warner is saying something to you. You can hear him in the back of your head speaking clear, understandable words, but you’re not listening to him anymore.
No, you’re listening to the other voices, ones you recognize.
Angling your ear towards the window, you strain your hearing to its full extent, cursing whatever remnants of sedative still lingering in you for making this more difficult than it usually is.
A quick debate in sharp tones, that’s all you’re able to pick up.
Then a click.
A distinct click that is all too familiar, one that doesn’t need any explanation.
You know the sound that will soon follow it too.
“Get down.”
“Excuse me?”
You don’t repeat the softly spoken words, not that there’s time to reiterate anyway. A sleeve is already being dragged against the coarse shingles below it, flesh is readjusting– tightening over a piece of hard, military-grade plastic.
You’re up and across the room before you even realize you’re moving– before you know what you’re doing– before you recognize your hands pushing at Warner’s shoulders.
By the time the two of you hit the ground, he’s somehow already switched positions and has you pinned you to the floor, no doubt assuming you’re trying to attack him.
But you’re not trying to attack him. You’re not even trying to fight him.
A half second later, you hear the sound you had been expecting. It’s rather difficult not to though, the bullet fractures the window panes in an explosion of glass before embedding itself in the wall above your heads with a soft thump.
You can feel Warner freeze at the sound, the sudden rigidity of his muscles.
You press yourself into the floor as two more bullets are fired, wishing for all the world that you could slip between the cracks of wood and rematerialize on the floor below.
Warner shifts as well. Closer.
Between the screaming of your heart and the ringing in your ears, a fleeting thought crosses your mind that you’re being covered. That Warner is covering you. Then the thought is gone– as it should be. He’s just trying to get closer to the ground.
He turns his head slightly to the side, towards you, and you wait, half frozen as you hold the calculating eyes which bore into you.
This time, when he asks who is shooting, you have no qualms about telling him.
This time, you answer without hesitating.
Because this time it feels different.
It is different.
“Civilians,” you state. “Third-party; hate the resistance but hate the Reestablishment even more.”
“How did you know they were here? How do I know you’re not with them?”
The words have a funny pitch and sound as though you’re listening to them through a pool of water. You’ve come to expect that part, the temporary and partial loss of hearing after listening to something particularly loud, but it’s still disconcerting to experience—to live a life listening to the uproarious, never-ending, screaming cacophony of the world and then have it just… vanish.
Needless to say, you became quite good at reading lips within the first few weeks of living on the military base of Sector Forty-Five.
You scoff at the words you see, and half hear, his lips saying. Or maybe you laugh, you’re not too sure which. “Narcissistic much? They were after me, I think you just became a big bonus though.”
Friend or foe? Enemy or ally?
Truth or lie? Deception or misperception?
The questions storming through his eyes and over his hardening features are obvious.
Warner pushes himself higher off of the ground, off of you, and you don’t need the full extent of your hearing to know what a bad idea it is.
Your hand, of its own accord, latches onto his elbow as you hiss at him to wait.
But it’s too late.
The warning is unnecessary.
The gunshot which follows his slight movement is sufficient warning.
Warner ducks down again.
Idiot.
What was he thinking?
God, what were you thinking? Trying to warn him? Pushing him out of the way? Coming back to this house in the first place?
Your own thoughts and feelings are so disorganized that it’s hopeless to sort through them, but when Warner looks at you there is such a mix of surprise and confusion– suspicion and intrigue in his eyes that whatever traction you might have had over your own feelings is immediately lost.
“They’re shooting at both of us,” you state.
The reminder, whether for him or for you or for both, works.
A long moment passes– a moment in which the ringing still in your ears quiets enough for you to hear the hearts, yours and his, crackling like thunderstorms and the intentionally slow breaths being forced into and out of two sets of lungs to try and counteract the rapid beating.
Warner nods, a fractional dip of his chin.
He looks over his shoulder, his good one, at the now glassless window, then at the door half-way across the room, his eyes calculating angles and distances as they trace a path to escape.
You listen, extending your hearing as far as it will currently go, examining the spaces around you and the roof next door for any tell-tale signs of dangerous activity to be careful of.
When Warner’s gaze again meets your own, it is you who nods this time.
The two of you crawl as close to the door as you can without being seen, and another shot rings out as you dash across the remaining distance and into the hallway.
Warner had snagged the gun from the table before leaving the room and now holds it extended in front of him, keeping a watchful eye on both you and the rest of the house as you silently make your way downstairs.
You could tell him that the house is still empty, that this isn’t some kind of ambush, but you don’t. You could also tell him that the shooter and his friend scampered off of the roof they had been perching on after failing to shoot either of you, that they’re now out of your hearing range entirely, gone, but you don’t. It would only lead to too many questions and fewer chances of your own escape�� something which you still have every intention of doing.
So when his wary and watchful attention habitually leaves you to scan the next room, it’s easier than you expect to trip him up and pry the gun from his hand.
You aim it at his chest.
“Well, this seems oddly reminiscent, doesn’t it, love?”
Outwardly, Warner is as calm as ever, his face a pleasant and blank mask. The mask is too tight, though, its edges plainly visible and showing the frustration underneath. You know he’s ready to risk a bullet and fight if need be, but he also does not look particularly surprised. He just looks… wry and nearly disappointed.
“I won’t go back to being a soldier,” you say, “and certainly not for the Reestablishment.”
You’re not sure if the words are a warning or an explanation, but either way he does not heed them.
Warner steps towards you.
A bullet pierces the floor in front of him in a miniature explosion of splinters. You wince at the sound and from the pain it causes, but it’s worth it. Warner stops advancing.
His expression is grim, eyes narrowing. “You won’t kill me.”
It’s a hard statement, nothing remotely close to a question, and you wonder how such conviction came to be.
There were a handful of times you thought you would be able to kill Warner if given the chance, that you could stomach doing it given all of the horror he’s allowed, but then things changed. The boy you once knew made a reappearance, surfaced for a few heartbeats too long, and changed everything.
Shooting to impair him is one thing, but...
You swallow– swallow the self-doubt, the curiosity, the regret, the pain, the nostalgia, the rage, the despair– and hope that your actions today don’t royally screw up future events, that this day won’t haunt you for the rest of your life no matter how short that ends up being.
“You’re right,” you admit, “and please don’t make me regret that, Aaron.”
Warner stiffens at the name, at his name. He freezes as if he hadn’t heard it in years, as if you had summoned up an ancient ghost and just carved out his heart as a sacrifice.
He makes no move to stop you as you slowly back out of the room, never taking your eyes off him for fear of snapping him out of whatever daze of memories he’s found himself in.
You walk backwards out of the house.
Out of the yard.
Then you turn, running, sprinting as fast as feet will carry you all the way to Omega Point.
#aaron warner x reader#aaron warner#shatter me#restore me#unravel me#defy me#ignite me#juliette ferrars#adam kent#shatter me fanfiction#shatter me fanfic#fanfic#fics#fanfiction#writing
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Hey, I did promise I’d share my rough timeline for my “One is Quick, The Other’s Tall” series, didn’t I? Well, here you go! Hopefully this makes sense, it’s currently uhhh past 3 a.m. where I am and I’m bad at math.
NOTE: While I drew heavily from the Titanfall and Apex Legends lore as found on the Titanfall wiki and the Apex Legends site, a lot of the stuff post Battle of Typhon is shit I made up to satisfy the ideas I already had before Apex Legends came out. I have theories about what the actual lore might be playing at, and some of those theories are integrated into this timeline, but yeah, this shit is super not canon except in my fanfiction. (Except for Cooper’s Birthday, that is actually canon. We also know his blood type. Fun fact.)
UPDATED 5/5/2020 to reflect some shifting headcanons and accommodate new lore (including more canon-accurate years).
Year: 2440:
The simulacrum known as “Revenant” is successfully activated.
Year: 2665
Coriolanus Marder born on Earth.
Year: 2668
Tai Lastimosa is born in Detroit, MI.
Marcus Graves is born in Hackney, London.
Barker’s brother Parker Taube is born in upstate New York.
Year: 2670
IMC first begins its colonization efforts in the Frontier.
April 20: Ashwin Narita is born in Oakland, California.
Year: 2671
December 8: Robert “Barker” Taube is born in upstate New York.
Year: 2672
James “Mac” MacAllan is born in the mid-west United States.
October 25: Barker’s brother Christian Taube is born in upstate New York.
Year: 2675
Due to increased conflict in the core worlds and (at the time) slow returns on investment in the Frontier, IMC presence in the Frontier begins to dwindle, leaving the colonies still technically under IMC control but effectively autonomous.
Year: 2683
Anton “Bear” Gates is born in the Frontier.
Year: 2682
Kuben Blisk is born in South Africa.
Isabelle Gates (born Isabelle West) is born on Earth.
Year: 2685
IMC returns to the Frontier to find it thriving, begins re-asserting themselves as a dominant governing force.
Year: 2686
Sarah Brigg is born in the Frontier.
Cheng “Bish” Lorck is born on Earth.
Year: 2687
October 6: Jack Cooper is born in Houston, TX.
Tomas Droz is born in England.
Year: 2688
Jack Cooper, Droz, and Tai Lastimosa arrive in the Frontier as part of a fresh wave of settlers and an increased IMC presence in the Frontier.
Jake Seung Davis is born on the ship to the Frontier.
Tai Lastimosa loses his sister and adopts his niece Cassandra Lastimosa (referenced in “the proving grounds”).
Year: 2690
The Titan Wars begin, though at the time they seemed like only a small series of uprisings on various planets.
Year: 2693
Barker arrives in the Frontier, along with Victoria Jo (see: “lessons learned”) and James “Mac” MacAllan.
The Titan Wars move from a few brush fire combats to regular, widespread warfare as more systems become upset with their treatment at the hands of the IMC.
Spyglass is activated.
Year: 2697
Barker and Cooper meet (as referenced in “steal my heart and break my pride”) while Cooper is being forcibly moved from a more coastal region of Persephone to an inland one.
Year: 2700
Barker is discharged from the IMC.
Mac commandeers the Odyssey.
End of the Titan Wars, and the beginning of the period known as the Frontier Wars.
Ashwin Narita is killed during one of the final battles of the Titan Wars, and re-animated as a simulacrum.
Year: 2701
Ashwin Narita breaks free of his programming and flees to Angel City, where he is eventually found and hired by Barker as a bouncer at his new bar.
Year: 2702
Alexander “Caustic” Nox is born.
Year: 2713
The main series of events in “steal my heart and break my pride” take place, culminating in Cooper joining Persephone’s “home defense” resistance group in early autumn.
Year: 2714
Elliott’s brother Miles Witt is born.
Year: 2715
Cooper joins the Frontier Militia.
Fracture Operation; Cooper gets a concussion.
Battle of Demeter (main events of Titanfall).
Anita “Bangalore” Williams is born.
Year: 2716
Elliott’s brother Christopher (AKA Chris) Witt is born.
Loba Andrade is born.
Vanguard Program begins (R&D for the Vanguard class Titan, supported by Captain Tai Lastimosa, headed up by Dr. Karen de Paul).
Year: 2717
BT-7274 is activated, one of the first three Vanguard-class Titans created.
BT-7274 links with Tai Lastimosa.
Year: 2718
Elliott’s brother Henry Witt is born.
Year: 2719
Jack Cooper and Tai Lastimosa meet for the first time; Lastimosa begins training Cooper (see: “the proving grounds”).
Year: 2720
April: Battle of Typhon (Events of Titanfall 2).
May: BT-7274 is re-activated. Elliott “MIrage” Witt is born.
December: Renee “Wraith” Blasey is born.
Makoa Gibraltar is born.
Year: 2721
Human!BT fics happen during this year.
Elliott’s father, Raleigh Medina, dies.
Year: 2725
By this point, the IMC and the Militia are in a technical stalemate. The arrival of IMC officials from the core marks the start of peace talks between the various factions making up the Frontier Militia and the IMC.
This same year, the Remnant fleet makes a final push to eliminate the Militia and, seeing the IMC leaders present in the Frontier as co-conspirators, attacks them as well. The IMC and the Militia must band together to defeat the Remnant Fleet.
“Revenant” breaks free of his programming and goes rogue.
This is also the year that the full extent of Hammond’s simulacrum program (along with other dubiously ethical practices) become known to the general public as new IMC leadership begins looking into what happened while they weren’t looking.
Year: 2726
Frontier War ends with the Remnant Fleet being driven “underground”; peace talks include trade agreements, planets assigned, etc. Roughly 1/2 of the Frontier’s core cluster of planets goes to the IMC while the other 1/2 is represented by individual governments, but technically part of a planetary coalition that made up the Militia. The Outlands (the various planets on the far reaches of the Frontier, all colonized by people fleeing the Titan and Frontier Wars) are technically independent operators as well, though some planets are contested (leading to on-and-off conflicts, with some still going on as of 2750).
Ajay “Lifeline” Che is born.
Octavio “Octane” Silva is born.
Year: 2728
Natalie “Wattson” Paquette is born.
Year: 2730
Pathfinder’s active memory begins. He immediately begins his search for his creator.
Year: 2738
Henry Witt is declared MIA.
Year: 2739
Miles Witt is declared MIA.
[SENSITIVE INFORMATION REDACTED]
Wraith’s first solid memories begin here in a mental hospital in IMC space.
Year: 2740
Last known sighting of the Remnant Fleet as of the events of Apex Legends.
Chris Witt is declared KIA during this final attack before they are forced underground again.
Wraith escapes the mental hospital and flees to the Outlands.
Year: 2741
Elliott and his mother move to Solace.
Year: 2748:
Robert “Barker” Taube passes away.
Year: 2750
Anita “Bangalore” Williams takes part in a covert IMC mission in the Outlands. During this mission, the ship she’s on (the Hestia) is attacked and her brother, Jackson, is MIA (presumed dead). Bangalore finds herself stranded in the Outlands.
Elliott and Pathfinder meet; Elliott encourages Pathfinder to join the Apex Legends competition.
Events of Apex Legends (AKA pretty much all of my “Talk Some Sense to Me” series take place here).
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The role of ship agents and shipbrokers in a digital shipping environment
A ship agent is someone who represents the interests of the ship owner and/or charterer (known as the Principal) while the ship is at any port around the world..
The agent takes instruction from the principals to arrange the berthing, unberthing of the ship and its cargo/husbandry operations..
The agent’s duties also includes attending to the requirements of the ship’s crew including crew changes, provisions, supplies, ship spares and many associated activities required by the ship, its owners, charterers, P&I clubs etc..
DEFINITELY NOT AN EASY OR SMALL JOB AND CERTAINLY NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART..
A shipbroker is often an intermediate entity between a ship owner and a cargo owner..
A shipbroker’s role is to bring the shipowners and charterers together to facilitate the charter of a ship for the carriage of cargo or negotiating and accomplishing the sale and purchase of a ship..
ALSO DEFINITELY NOT AN EASY OR SMALL JOB AND CERTAINLY NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART..
While the process of digitalisation in shipping has changed the roles of many of the entities involved in the business, digitalisation also offers opportunities for these entities to be a part of information sharing communities that transcend the traditional structures of operations..
In this transition process, ship agents and shipbrokers have a role in becoming the drivers for establishing new communities involving new sets of actors..
Ship agents and shipbrokers have been active in the industry since the beginning of commercial shipping and that coffee shop in London and have been playing an important role in the provision of services to various ship and cargo owners..
Digitalization is now changing the environment in which ship agents and also ship brokers operate, and we are seeing new and adjusted services emerging as ship agents and shipbrokers continue to strive to enhance service levels and provide added value to their principals..
The below article by Mikael Lind, Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), Jonathan C. Williams FICS, FONASBA, Sue Probert, UN/CEFACT, and Juan Carlos Croston, Manzanillo International Terminal (Panama) takes a look at how the traditional roles played by the ship agent and shipbroker might change in this digital shipping environment..
A business landscape at change
The traditional role of the ship agent has thus been to arrange for the provision of services to the ship before, during and after port visits. The goal has been to ensure that the turn-around process for a port visit is made as fast as possible by eliminating unnecessary delays, optimizing the use of port infrastructure, and reducing the cost of operations to a minimum.
To ensure that everyone is aligned, an important part of this effort has always been to provide up-to-date information and so ship agents and ship brokers have been enthusiastic early adopters of every new means of communication from cables to email and smartphones.
Digitalization will provide the means to exchange even more information, in greater detail, and in real time. The ship broker will also benefit from new business opportunities arising from digitalization, such as having more up-to-date information about, for example, the status, position, and condition of ships to be sold and/or available for charter.
Challenges and opportunities of today and tomorrow for ship agents and ship brokers
Ship agents and ship brokers constitute a substantial part of the work force in the maritime sector. Whilst exact numbers are hard to find, ship agents are present in every commercial port in the world and medium-sized ports and upwards will have many.
FONASBA has more than 5,000 companies in membership in 63 countries whilst the Baltic Exchange, the international ship broking market, has over 3,000 member companies worldwide, most of which are brokers.
A recent article by UNCTAD demonstrated how the role of the ship agent and the ship broker is being challenged in the emerging landscape of digitalizing maritime operations. Many other actors now seek opportunities to undertake some of the tasks that traditionally have been handled by the ship agent.
For example, tomorrow’s fleet operation centre is not only expected to encompass enhanced situational awareness on what happens at sea, but also the plans and progress of port operations, while many port authorities are now aiming to provide (local) data sharing environments that connect all the actors.
These two examples indicate how others are establishing situational awareness capabilities to rival those that ship agents have traditionally been providing to their clients. An urgent need therefore exists for ship agents and ship brokers to pay attention towards new opportunities and ways of doing business.
They now have an opportunity of capitalizing on the unique social capital they possess to ensure flexible and value-creating service provision and providing enhanced quality in information services, thereby attracting new clients as well as servicing their traditional ones.
Moreover, in less forward looking maritime locations, ship agents and ship brokers are not only in a position to leverage this opportunity but also to be front runners and become leaders by driving their local shipping communities to see the potential in the new way of doing business.
The main focus for both ship agents and ship brokers are the ships themselves. Ship agents continually monitor how the port call and cargo movements (as well as passengers) are managed and progressed, whilst the ship broker needs to know where the vessel is so that they can plan its next employment.
With digitalization, there is now an opportunity to also provide more enhanced and enriched information services to clients who have an interest in the status and movement of the ship and its cargo, such as carriers of on-carriage transport modes, the cargo owners and potential charterers. As has been reported within the concept of the smart port the port is conceived as a transhipment hub, and thereby not just a window to the sea, but also to several other related modes of transport.
Consequently, the smart port also entails the port being a provider of data to others, and thus not just a consumer of data streams. As a result of this development, ship agents and ship brokers can continue to have a very important role and, as a driver for change, should be asking themselves:
Are there any other services that we may want to provide to our clients beyond those that we historically have been providing?
Are there opportunities to expand our client base due to the additional connectivity that digitalization offers?
The ship agent should continue to be the natural information source for the fleet operating centre and the clients of shipping companies by providing increased transparency and predictability in the information flow associated with the plans and progress of port operations.
Similarly, the ship broker should continue to proactively support shipping companies in identifying the immediate and long term needs of ship capabilities by working ever closer with the cargo owners. Ship brokers as well as ship agents must continue to provide added value to assist the service providers in their resource optimization.
Upgrade of guidelines for tomorrow’s ship agents and brokers
In a current UN/CEFACT project, led by FONASBA General Manager Jonathan C. Williams FICS, guidelines have been developed to establish minimum international standards for ship agents and ship brokers in 2020 and onwards.
These minimum standards, refining and updating those originally issued by UNCTAD in 1988, now also include ship brokers, and put special emphasis on the expected capabilities of their roles as intermediaries and enablers of maritime transport.
The aim is to ensure that the expectations put upon ship agents and ship brokers by their clients can be assured through the provision of high-quality service delivered by qualified staff.
Further, special emphasis is also put on the response and responsibility of ship agents and ship brokers to counteract maritime fraud. It is anticipated the new version of these standards will be published by UN/CEFACT in early to mid-2021.
Key to success
Key to the success of the maritime operations of tomorrow is that the involved actors should share situational awareness of planned and conducted operations along the maritime supply route, as part of the global transportation chain.
In a digital landscape, the ship agent and the ship broker have a natural role in assuring quality in the information that they can provide and thereby also the services and capabilities that are delivered.
Ship agents and ship brokers can therefore fulfil a core role in contributing reliable spatial-temporal data that will be of use for both the parties that are requiring services and capabilities and for those that provide such services and capabilities.
For small or medium-sized ship agents and ship brokers who often find access to know-how or funding challenging, national or international business associations could provide assistance through scalability, access to technical expertise and funding sources and feedback regarding experience from other users.
Conclusion
Full-blown digitalization of the maritime sector means that maritime informatics opportunities arise for every party involved. This is both challenging and at the same time brings to the table new opportunities for traditional roles.
There is no doubt that a ship operator wants to acquire better situational awareness based on information provided by the port in its fleet operations.
Because the ship agent cooperates and liaises with private and public actors, the ship agent is the obvious provider of such enhanced information to the ship operator.
Further expansion of the actions of the ship agent and ship broker operations towards other means of transport would also be natural and in that way provide enhanced situational awareness for other means of transport and for the cargo owner.
Consequently, and building upon digitalization, ship agents and ship brokers should both be fully connected to such emerging digital communities to assure the highest possible value for their services as well as becoming the drivers for establishing some of the communities that will connect the actors.
This will transcend the traditional role of the ship agent and the ship broker.
About the authors
Mikael Lind is Associate Professor and Senior Strategic Research Advisor at Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) and has a part-time employment at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. He serves as an expert for World Economic Forum, Europe’s Digital Transport Logistic Forum (DTLF), and UN/CEFACT.
Jonathan C. Williams FICS is the General Manager of FONASBA and its accredited representative at IMO and the European Commission. He has been a ship agent since 1976, a Member of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers since 1980 and a Fellow since 2000. He has also been a Principal member of the Baltic Exchange since 1988.
Sue Probert is Chair of UN/CEFACT and of the UNLOCODE Advisory Group and represents UNECE at the IMO FAL Committee. She is also Lead Editor of the UN/CEFACT Core Component Library and the UN/CEFACT Multi Modal Transport Reference Data Model (MMT). She also advises the UK Government on technical standards at ISO and runs her own consultancy company, SEPIAeb Ltd.
Juan Carlos Croston is VP Marketing & Corporate Affairs with Manzanillo International Terminal, is a past president of the Maritime Chamber of Panama and serves currently as President of the Caribbean Shipping Association and as member of the IMO MTCC Network’s global stakeholder committee.
The post The role of ship agents and shipbrokers in a digital shipping environment appeared first on Shipping and Freight Resource.
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Keeping Ship Agents and Shipbrokers up to Pace
[By Mikael Lind, Jonathan C. Williams, Sue Probert and Juan Carlos Croston]
Digitalization offers opportunities for actors to be part of emerging information sharing communities that transcend the traditional structures of operations. In this transition process, ship agents and ship brokers have a role in becoming the driver for establishing new communities involving new sets of actors. Ship agents and ship brokers have been present in the maritime sector since the very beginning of commercial shipping, acting as important intermediaries ensuring the provision of the services and the capabilities required by ships to meet their port call requirements. Digitalization is now changing the environment in which ship agents and also ship brokers operate, and we will see new and adjusted services emerging as ship agents and ship brokers continue to strive to enhance service levels and provide added value to their principals.
Ship agents and ship brokers defined
A ship agent is the party representing the ship's owner and/or charterer (the Principal) in port. If so instructed, the agent is responsible to the Principal for arranging, together with the port’s operators, a berth, all relevant port and husbandry services, tending to the requirements of the Master and crew, clearing the ship with the port and other authorities (including preparation and submission of appropriate documentation) along with releasing or receiving cargo on behalf of the Principal. A ship broker is the party acting as an intermediary between parties (the Principals) engaged in negotiating and accomplishing the sale and purchase or hire of a ship.
A changing business landscape
The traditional role of the ship agent has thus been to arrange for the provision of services to the ship before, during and after port visits. The goal has been to ensure that the turn-around process for a port visit is made as fast as possible by eliminating unnecessary delays, optimizing the use of port infrastructure, and reducing the cost of operations to a minimum. To ensure that everyone is aligned, an important part of this effort has always been to provide up-to-date information and so ship agents and ship brokers have been enthusiastic early adopters of every new means of communication from cables to email and smartphones. Digitalization will provide the means to exchange even more information, in greater detail, and in real time. The ship broker will also benefit from new business opportunities arising from digitalization, such as having more up-to-date information about, for example, the status, position, and condition of ships to be sold and/or available for charter.
Challenges and opportunities
Ship agents and ship brokers constitute a substantial part of the work force in the maritime sector. Whilst exact numbers are hard to find, ship agents are present in every commercial port in the world and medium-sized ports and upwards will have many. FONASBA has more than 5,000 companies in membership in 63 countries whilst the Baltic Exchange, the international ship broking market, has over 3,000 member companies worldwide, most of which are brokers. A recent article by UNCTAD demonstrated how the role of the ship agent and the ship broker is being challenged in the emerging landscape of digitalizing maritime operations. Many other actors now seek opportunities to undertake some of the tasks that traditionally have been handled by the ship agent. For example, tomorrow’s fleet operation centre is not only expected to encompass enhanced situational awareness on what happens at sea, but also the plans and progress of port operations, while many port authorities are now aiming to provide (local) data sharing environments that connect all the actors.
These two examples indicate how others are establishing situational awareness capabilities to rival those that ship agents have traditionally been providing to their clients. An urgent need therefore exists for ship agents and ship brokers to pay attention towards new opportunities and ways of doing business. They now have an opportunity of capitalizing on the unique social capital they possess to ensure flexible and value-creating service provision and providing enhanced quality in information services, thereby attracting new clients as well as servicing their traditional ones. Moreover, in less forward-looking maritime locations, ship agents and ship brokers are not only in a position to leverage this opportunity but also to be frontrunners and become leaders by driving their local shipping communities to see the potential in the new way of doing business.
The main focus for both ship agents and ship brokers are the ships themselves. Ship agents continually monitor how the port call and cargo movements (as well as passengers) are managed and progressed, whilst the ship broker needs to know where the vessel is so that they can plan its next employment. With digitalization, there is now an opportunity to also provide more enhanced and enriched information services to clients who have an interest in the status and movement of the ship and its cargo, such as carriers of on-carriage transport modes, the cargo owners and potential charterers. As has been reported within the concept of the smart port, the port is conceived as a transhipment hub, and thereby not just a window to the sea, but also to several other related modes of transport. Consequently, the smart port also entails the port being a provider of data to others, and thus not just a consumer of data streams. As a result of this development, ship agents and ship brokers can continue to have a very important role and, as a driver for change, should be asking themselves:
• Are there any other services that we may want to provide to our clients beyond those that we historically have been providing?
• Are there opportunities to expand our client base due to the additional connectivity that digitalization offers?
The ship agent should continue to be the natural information source for the fleet operating centre and the clients of shipping companies by providing increased transparency and predictability in the information flow associated with the plans and progress of port operations. Similarly, the ship broker should continue to proactively support shipping companies in identifying the immediate and long-term needs of ship capabilities by working ever closer with the cargo owners. Ship brokers as well as ship agents must continue to provide added value to assist the service providers in their resource optimization.
Upgrade of guidelines for tomorrow’s ship agents and brokers
In a current UN/CEFACT project, led by FONASBA General Manager Jonathan C. Williams FICS, guidelines have been developed to establish minimum international standards for ship agents and ship brokers in 2020 and onwards. These minimum standards, refining and updating those originally issued by UNCTAD in 1988, now also include ship brokers, and put special emphasis on the expected capabilities of their roles as intermediaries and enablers of maritime transport. The aim is to ensure that the expectations put upon ship agents and ship brokers by their clients can be assured through the provision of high-quality service delivered by qualified staff. Further, special emphasis is also put on the response and responsibility of ship agents and ship brokers to counteract maritime fraud. It is anticipated the new version of these standards will be published by UN/CEFACT in early to mid-2021.
Key to success
Key to the success of the maritime operations of tomorrow is that the involved actors should share situational awareness of planned and conducted operations along the maritime supply route, as part of the global transportation chain. In a digital landscape, the ship agent and the ship broker have a natural role in assuring quality in the information that they can provide and thereby also the services and capabilities that are delivered. Ship agents and ship brokers can therefore fulfil a core role in contributing reliable spatial-temporal data that will be of use for both the parties that are requiring services and capabilities and for those that provide such services and capabilities.
For small or medium-sized ship agents and ship brokers who often find access to know-how or funding challenging, national or international business associations could provide assistance through scalability, access to technical expertise and funding sources and feedback regarding experience from other users.
Concluding remarks
Full-blown digitalization of the maritime sector means that maritime informatics opportunities arise for every party involved. This is both challenging and at the same time brings to the table new opportunities for traditional roles. There is no doubt that a ship operator wants to acquire better situational awareness based on information provided by the port in its fleet operations. Because the ship agent cooperates and liaises with private and public actors, the ship agent is the obvious provider of such enhanced information to the ship operator. Further expansion of the actions of the ship agent and ship broker operations towards other means of transport would also be natural and in that way provide enhanced situational awareness for other means of transport and for the cargo owner.
Consequently, and building upon digitalization, ship agents and ship brokers should both be fully connected to such emerging digital communities to assure the highest possible value for their services as well as becoming the drivers for establishing some of the communities that will connect the actors. This will transcend the traditional role of the ship agent and the ship broker.
Mikael Lind is Associate Professor and Senior Strategic Research Advisor at Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) and has a part-time employment at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. He serves as an expert for World Economic Forum, Europe’s Digital Transport Logistic Forum (DTLF), and UN/CEFACT.
Jonathan C. Williams FICS is the General Manager of FONASBA and its accredited representative at IMO and the European Commission. He has been a ship agent since 1976, a Member of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers since 1980 and a Fellow since 2000. He has also been a Principal member of the Baltic Exchange since 1988.
Sue Probert is Chair of UN/CEFACT and of the UNLOCODE Advisory Group and represents UNECE at the IMO FAL Committee. She is also Lead Editor of the UN/CEFACT Core Component Library and the UN/CEFACT Multi Modal Transport Reference Data Model (MMT). She also advises the UK Government on technical standards at ISO and runs her own consultancy company, SEPIAeb Ltd.
Juan Carlos Croston is VP Marketing & Corporate Affairs with Manzanillo International Terminal, is a past president of the Maritime Chamber of Panama and serves currently as President of the Caribbean Shipping Association and as member of the IMO MTCC Network’s global stakeholder committee.
from Storage Containers https://maritime-executive.com/article/keeping-ship-agents-and-shipbrokers-up-to-pace
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So a certain someone was egging me to write again after a throwaway comment on one of her posts (don’t get mistaken, I’m easy to convince and I love it when people’s so enthusiastic XD). And then the other night I couldn’t sleep and in a bout of madness I started writing. Get prepared for a crack fic with a side dish of crack.
The case of the missing boots
Ah, he had missed this! That sense of freedom and dread when you walked alone the treacherous paths of the Zone was strangely addictive.
Technically speaking his office on Cordon's outpost was also part of the Zone, but it was a watered down version of the real experience. Degtyarev enjoyed its harshness to a certain degree, and most of all he enjoyed seeing his old friends, the camaraderie between stalkers who unite to survive the Zone's cruel tricks. The excuse of meeting up with Strelok was only that, an excuse. There was no urgent intel to gather as he may have hinted to the newly promoted Major Tarasov before leaving him in charge of Cordon; he just wanted to get out and check on his old friend. And conveniently enough, the designated meeting point was Yanov.
So Degtyarev dug out his old stalker gear, since he had the feeling trotting around in military uniform wouldn't garner him much sympathy, and set on an adventure of his own. Just like the old times!
After a few days of travel he finally arrived to Yanov. He was pleased to note that not much had changed in all this time. The marshes were still full of mutants, Topol was still running errands for the scientists, and the echo of the fights between Duty and Freedom patrols was still the background music no one had asked for. It was like coming home!
Degtyarev was ecstatic nobody treated him differently, even if everyone and their mothers knew he was now in charge of the Cordon outpost. It was refreshing to treat with people that didn't immediately answer with a salute and a Yes sir, even if they were total assholes like Snag. What possessed Degtyarev to talk with him he had no idea, the stalker always irritated him. But meeting Vano, and Strider, and Zulu and many others was nice. Which is why he felt so betrayed when he woke up next morning and saw his boots were missing.
Last night he retired late to Yanov Station's basement, found a mattress in which to fall on, took his boots off and slept like the dead until the next morning. And then he saw his boots weren't waiting for him where he left them. In fact the boots weren't anywhere: not in that spot, nor in his backpack, nor stashed in some dark corner of the station. This wasn't a mere prank, it was theft. And Degtyarev didn't like thieves, so he did the only sensible thing he could think of: he closed off Yano Station until he found the culprit.
After strong-arming both Loki and Shulga to cooperate, all of Yanov's stalkers were assembled on the main bar area, while a barefoot, sock clad Degtyarev ambled up and down like he was trying to dig a trench in the floor.
"You'll be wondering why I gathered you all," Degtyarev addressed the sea of faces in front of him. Some looked still sleepy, others curious and some already bored.
"Because your boots disappeared!" Someone on the back row shouted. Of course it was Yar, nosy old bugger always knew what was going on.
All the stalkers swivelled at once to look at Snag, who had the gall to look affronted by their reaction. "Don't look at me! Why would I want a pair of stinky boots? Besides, I don't go around stealing..." The last part was added like an afterthought, lacking conviction.
A murmur of dissent spread around, with some stalkers airing their grievances and suspicions about Snag, until Degtyarev smashed his palm against the nearest table to him.
"Unless all those things disappeared last night too, now's not the time for it!"
A stalker in the crowd raised his hand, like a student asking for his teacher. Degtyarev looked at him. "Yes, Mitay?"
"Where and when did you last see the boots?"
Thank god someone was finally taking this seriously. "Last night when I left them by the side of my mattress."
"You take out your boots to sleep?"
That question, asked by someone he didn't identify, quickly sparked a debate amongst the stalkers, who were divided in two camps: those who always slept with their boots on and those who took the boots out when they weren't sleeping outside.
"Well if you left your boots lying around unprotected it's normal someone stole them, you were tempting fate dude." This stellar opinion was voiced by a loner famous for his deals with Jack’s bandit group. He didn’t quite remember his name now, but it didn’t matter because Degtyarev wasn’t planning on speaking with him ever again.
"Are you saying he had it coming because he was tempting thieves, leaving the boots by his side while he slept?" Vano squinted his eyes at him like he couldn't believe his ears, and Degtyarev shared that sentiment.
"Only a thief would think like that!" Gavrilenko said, and soon people started to point his fingers at the other man as the boot thief.
"I was only saying he should have been more careful!"
Degtyarev decided to intervene before things got out of hand. As entertaining as it was to see everyone ganging up on that idiot, it wasn't conducive to finding his boots. "Enough! In the future think before you open your mouth. Or better yet, don’t speak again."
"Degtyarev," Strider used the recently achieved quiet to speak up for the first time. "This morning I heard Trapper talking with Hawaiian about boots."
Somehow his emotionless delivery of it made the sentence sound strangely accusing. Degtyarev looked at the gobsmacked and unusually quiet trader to see what he had to say in his defence.
"That's not what it looks like!" Hawaiian squeaked, looking pleadingly at Trapper. "He asked me if I had any boots to sell him!"
"Yeah. Mine's are half melted, I stepped into a Fruit Punch yesterday," the hunter confirmed Hawaiian's story.
And they were back to square one. This was getting nowhere. At this rate he would never find his boots. He'd have to go meet Strelok barefoot... Or apparently Strelok decided to come for him. The small stalker appeared from the corridor leading to Bonesetter's office, like it was the most normal thing in the world to pop inside a supposedly closed off building.
"Strelok?" Degtyarev was pretty sure he wasn't imagining it, but to say he was surprised would be an understatement. Strelok just appeared out of nowhere carrying a can of energy drink.
"What's up dude." He greeted him nonchalantly and took a swig from his drink.
"How did you get in?" Degtyarev couldn't be more confused if he tried.
"The back door."
The back door. The fucking back doors. Shit, he felt like moron! How come that when securing the station no one remembered to check the back doors? In his defence, neither Loki nor Shulga thought about it either.
Strelok left the can on the table and looked at the gaggle of assembled stalkers. "What's going on?"
Before he could answer that, something impacted against the main door with a rather noisy CLONK. The reaction was immediate, all the stalkers drew their weapons and aimed at the door, waiting for the next attack. And waited.
And when he was bored to wait Degtyarev opened the double doors and poked his head out. A lone boot was lying in the ground right in front of the entrance. What the hell?
There was a rustle of leaves and then something dark and boot shaped came flying from behind a nearby bush and hit Degtyarev in the head, accompanied by a cry of "A NU CHEEKI BREEKI I V DAMKE!"
At least a dozen stalkers reacted to such unmistakeable cry and went out in response to it, eager to face their enemy once more.
"Oh blyat! Run Vanya run!" One of them yelled.
Two guys dressed in worn tracksuit pants and wearing balaclavas ducked out from behind a bush and started running like the devil was after them.
"I fucking told ya this was a bad idea!" Complained the same one as before.
"You dared me to do it Mitka!"
Strelok aimed his SGI-5k to the bandits feet and shot to the ground they had stood moments ago, making them yell obscenities and run faster. On his part Degtyarev stared at his boots lying on the dust and tried to find solace in the fact that surely the day couldn't get any weirder.
Author’s note: Apart from this I wrote another piece (completely unrelated to this one). I’m still editing the mess, because apart from writing nonesense like this, being sleep deprived means I make more typos than usual.
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