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dehvastation · 5 years

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The Escape Room Part 1 (With @V_Bloodletter)

V: I was off patrol tonight and doing my diligence behind the wall of monitors. It seemed relatively quiet out. At the moment I hadn’t seen any things that go bump in the night. I was itching to get into something tonight, fuck anything. My boredom was at an all time high and nothing good came from me being inactive. I was randomly searching out areas through the helpful eye of Caldwell electronic eyes. Tapping into the city’s system had been too easy, especially in this day and time. Either way, I had access to everything Caldwell did. My fingers slid over the pad, scrolling through various alley ways. Nothing was out of order, the streets as per usual had your pedestrians that preferred the dark and your drunks stumbling down the sidewalks and of course there was your common back alley fucks going on. Absently I realized I was humming a beat and just when I was trying to figure out exactly what song it was, the phone line to the Brotherhood broke my concentration. Usually I let the Doggen at the Manse filter through the calls but yeah, I needed a distraction so here I was listening to the voice mails. ‘IT WONT STOP...THE FLOOR…….EVERYWHEREEE… PLEASEE HELP US!’ And that was what greeted my extremely fucking sensitive eardrums as soon as the recordings started. I sit up, grabbed the only info that was left behind which was the number, the call was too short for the trace to pick up. But that was cool because in under sixty I had the address where the phone was presently at, pulled up. I might have gotten a little excited when I quickly realized that for some odd as fuck reason I couldn’t bring the location up on my monitors. Now now now, I was just going on about how I had full access into the city street cameras and here I am now, unable to see anything surrounding the address where the phone is. I was on my feet and checking to see who was inhouse and not on patrol and lucky Dehv got the drawl. I shot a text to Mr. Suave “Yo, meet me at the location I’m pinging to your GPS now. V.” I wasted no time and gearing up and dematting.

Dehv: ~ I’d just settled in for the day when the door sounded like it was about to be broken down. The knocking was so loud that the fists would happily come through the wood without much persuasion. Qhuinn and I had frozen in the bed, hardly daring to breath in case they heard us. Not that it changed anything. Qhuinn had been marched off to the Mansion with barely a couple of hours until sunrise and that had left me at a loose end. I demated home and crashed around the place before my phone peeped. I felt my heart jump as I rushed to dig it out of my pocket on the hopes that it was Qhuinn. I felt disappointment flash through me when I saw it wasn’t Qhuinn, but my smile was still huge when I saw that it was Vishous. Though it quickly turned to a frown when I realised that he wanted me to meet him somewhere asap. Was he insane? It was almost daylight outside. We’d barely make it there and back before we were scrabbling to try and find shelter away from the death rays. I arched a brow and contemplated for about half a minute before shooting back a thumbs up. I quickly changed into a pair of jeans, proper boots and a heavy jumper over a lighter long sleeved tee. I shoved phone and keys into my pocket and then checked my phone, frowning even harder when I saw that it appeared to be in the middle of an industrial estate of some kind. What the actual hell was V thinking wanting me to meet him out there. I had to hope that he was just picking something up and needed an extra pair of hands. I didn’t mind if he wanted to take me back to the mansion afterwards to wait out the daylight. It meant that I could be there when Qhuinn finally got done with whatever he was needed for, and it meant that I could ensure Vishous was home in one piece while also catching up with the guy. I tried not to go overboard to talk to the Brothers when they were training us. Not that Vishous did, he just lurked now and again. I didn’t want to be different to the other trainees, and being wtih Qhuinn already meant I stood out. But with the amount of time it took to train and learn in the field and sleep around that I barely saw any of them. It would be good to see the male and possibly we could crash with his favourite poison and a good film while the sun did its thing.

Once I was sure that my place was locked up tight, I took a slow breath and dematted to the coordinates that Vishous had given me. I landed in a small enclosed area that was probably once a bus stop across from a run down looking building. I instantly settled my hand against the knife I’d had the foresight to hide under my arm before stepping into the flickering streetlight. “Vishous, you get here yet?” ~

V: While I was waiting for Dehv, I patrolled the area, checking out for any obvious signs of issues. At the present time there wasn’t anything that stood out. Not sure what I expected to find but absolutely nothing at all, was not it. Okay yes I didn’t think whoever was causing the disturbance was going to leave me a bloody trail to the crime scene. Although it would have been mighty helpful if they did, ya know, considering how damn close the rays of sun busting out were. But no such luck was laid at my feet this time. The location had been closed down twelve years ago, since then it had been bought and sold a few times and the newest owners had procured it about five years before. Public records fed me that info but as to the company that was holding the lease on the land now, I came up against walls. I would have delve more in depth but Dehv’s voice cut into my scrolling for info. I stepped out of the shadows, entering the barely illuminated area he was now occupying. “Evening, Dehv. Long story short, a 911 call came into the Brotherhood and I was able to trace the phones location to here.” I blew out a breath and glanced at the concrete structure that definitely had seen its better days before and my shoulders came up in a shrug as I turned my attention back to the male. “Let’s do a clean sweep, retrieve any bodies, alive or dead or remove any threats, whichever the case may be and then get the fuck out of dodge. True?” It my head it sounded like a simple enough job but my gut reaction to the place was not completely on board with that assessment. “Usually with the size of this place, I would say let’s split up and cut the time in half, but yeah this time around let’s stick together and see if anything goes bump in the night.” I moved out of the dim lighting and headed towards the entrance. “It use to be an auto parts factory and then after that it was transformed into a tire treading company and they leased out the upper floors. But that all seized years ago and it’s been abandoned since. Once one business started to close down around here, others followed soon and it seemed it has been deemed the ghost yard of factories.” I stopped at the double door entrance and cast Dehv a rakish smile. “If we find a ghost, I am for fucking real going to figure out how to keep it.” Chuckling low key, I turned back to the task at hand and what do you know, the doors were not even locked. Big surprise, not. “No wondering off, I haven’t had time to go over the blueprints and there is no fucking telling how many reconstructions have been done under each new owner.”

Dehv: ~ I turned at the sound of the voice behind me, my entire body telling me that I should just tell V where to stick it rather than go anywhere close to checking out the place. “That sounds like a solid lead. But I guess if they called and had to hang up fast, that would make sense. Though you’d think we’d see something.” I swept my arms in a circle, gesturing at the area that was quieter than I’d ever heard. I’d been to a lot of places growing up in the human world, and rarely to never was it basically silent. Normally there was birds, wind in trees, the hum of electricity as it moved through the wires. It was basically like a dead spot here. It was not normal and it was giving me the creeps. “You get signal here?” I tapped at my phone and tried to send a message, though nothing happened. I was glad I’d managed to let Qhuinn know that I was with V, and the coordinates he’d given me. Though he’d been stuck with Wrath all day, at least we’d have something to talk about when he got back. We’d started checking in on each other when the shit had hit the fan and we’d been pulled away every night to patrol or train or any other number of things. I liked it, and it made me feel a little safer for when the sun went down. Right now though I knew we only had a matter of time before the sun came up and trapped us inside one of these places.

I followed on after V as he made his way towards what was obviously the main entrance to the huge building that seemed to be shrouded in darkness. Even more so than the rest of the place. I snorted at his instructions and jokes, my lips twitching in amusement. “We see a ghost, you’re welcome to it. I’ll try not to scream like a pansy.” I grinned and pulled a gun out of its little holder at my back, keeping it trained on the floor while I stood behind Vishous, knowing that I wasn’t any good if I was nervous or uncertain. The plan to get in and get out was a good one, and it was something that we needed to do fast, without distractions. I nodded along and then chuckled. “You mean you weren’t 100% prepared when you came here. You’re slacking. If I walk into a room with no exit, I’m going to blame you.” I winked and then nodded towards the doors that separated us from whatever horrors were inside. I swallowed hard and rolled my shoulders. I’d been with the Brotherhood long enough to see my fair share of weird and horrible. I’d fought a few of my own horrors. But this was unknown, something neither one of us were prepared for, and I just had to hope I didn’t embarrass myself and throw up all over another Brothers boots. “Ready when you are. I’ve got your back, and I can follow instructions. Check it out, pull out bodies whether they are dead or alive and then get back to the Mansion before the sun comes up.” I nodded again and stepped in closer, thankful that my eyes weren’t bothered by the dark as the doors opened. It was pitch black inside, no light at all, had I been human I’d have been walking in blind. As it was I could see a wall ahead of me, and a corridor to the right. “Looks like we’ve only got one way in, one way out. Lead the way.” ~

V: I didn’t say anything back to Dehv after we walked inside and saw at first the simple layout. My brows drew down and I scanned the vacant lobby for anything. Not exactly the setup that I expected but that thought lasted about as long as it took to blink. Because with the next breath all hell broke loose and I had no fucking time to react. Doors slammed lock, walls that weren’t there before, were suddenly dropped in place and the corridor vanished with one of those spontaneous walls. My head was spinning in every direction as I heard all the strategic mechanisms clicking into place and then it was total quiet except for the sound of our own breathing. “What the actual fuck.” I had a blade in hand and cautiously approached one of the new walls that was decorated as if we had been yanked right back to the fifties. “We are gonna go with staying extremely in close proximity, Dehv.” I ran my leather covered hand across the hideous mustard yellow wallpaper, seaking out any kind of hidden lever, button or what the fuck ever might send this shit back to where it came from. But nothing, I fingered and rubbed all over that damn wall as if I was going to bend it over and fuck it next. I looked over my shoulder at Dehv. “We might have a small issue here.” That was putting it fucking mildly. It was as if we were in lockdown in one of those cheesy as fuck escape rooms. This shit was done with some severe elaborateness and more importantly, made to lock us in with no obvious way out. “I hope you like figuring puzzles out at a breakneck speed while killing what the fuck ever set this shit up because it looks like we might be a tad fucked.” And then those words were followed up but a stream of curses when I tried to demat and not a fucking thing happened.

Dehv: ~ I followed V as he moved slowly into the space. It wasn’t big, and I instinctively moved towards the one way deeper into the huge building. I’d barely taken more than a couple of steps when the noise rose in the building until even if V had spoken I was unsure I’d even hear it. I stepped backwards to put my back to the wall as I watched and waited for whatever was making the noise to appear. The wall disappearing from behind me made me stagger, and with effort I kept myself on my feet and the gun in my hand. “Fuck it. What is happening?” I spun on the spot and watched as walls appeared that hadn’t been there before, and others disappeared. No longer was there a space with an obvious corridor into the building. We now had a box of a room with apparently no exits. I felt my chest tighten at the thought of being trapped. This really was not the time for a panic attack. I heard V comment about sticking in close proximity, and my body complied with the request before my brain caught up. I moved in to cover as much of the room as I could while Vishous checked out the walls. I blinked slowly, eyes scanning the space, though it was just four walls and not much else. I focused on keeping my breathing even and my thoughts away from the fact we were about to be stuck in a tiny space for all eternity. “Small? Yeah, I would say that was the understatement of the century.” I turned in a small circle, eyes darting up and down as well as along the walls. I watched Vishous work his fingers across the wall in an attempt to find something that might help us. Then I blinked a few times and moved further into the middle of the room, there was something faint on the floor. It was glowing just enough that I could see it, and I was glad that I wasn’t a human in this place, no way would it be visible to them. “I have no experience with puzzles, but I do design for a living, so hopefully I can pick things apart and put them back together. Tad fucked is yet another understatement, Vishous. We have less than an hour until the sun comes up. So we either work to get out in an hour, or we’re going to have to fight to stay IN here for the rest of the day. I’m not sure which is worse.” I tipped my head and walked in a circle around the weird glowing markings on the floor. No matter which way I went, I couldn’t figure out what it was trying to tell me. “Found anything on the wall? This floor things isn’t really telling me much……oh no, wait, it’s maybe an arrow, but some of the paint has worn away completely.” I crouched and ran my fingers along the faint line. “You think that phone call was some poor humans who are stuck in this place, or a way to lure us here?” I followed the weird point of the arrow with my eyes to the wall, then up to the ceiling. Squinting once again at what looked like cut outs in the ceiling. Though it was higher than either one of us could reach or jump to. I couldn’t quite figure out why the lines seemed to line up with the glowing mark on the floor. “We’re completely fucked!” ~

V: “This was definitely a set up. By who is the question, because this is way fucking more elaborate than those pale fuckers get credit for.” My eyes narrowed and I drew in a series of breaths because this lock down thing was a head fuck. I wasn’t going to voice that out loud. The facts of the matter, was any kind of confinement was not going to go easy on me. If it was just me here, I’d burn this fucker down around me and take my chances on if I made it out or not. But it wasn’t just me, I had actually for once followed Wrath’s laws about doubly up on patrols or any Brotherhood business. I’ll blame the King for this shit. I blew out a breath and went about searching for any damn thing. I was coming up empty handed. No matter where I looked, felt or checked out, not a fucking thing. And then luck shined down on us, or as the case was, it shined up from a place in the false floor that Dehv found. I followed his line of site up the wall and onto the ceiling where markings are etched in place. “Alright, Dehv…” My face already had a smirk on it even before I spoke. “I’ll hoist you up and you see what those marks do or don’t do.” I closed the distance between us, which in this enclosed space it didn’t take long before I was right in front of the male and directly under the markings. My diamond eyes bore into Dehv’s and my tone was dry as fuck. “After this night, no talks of me giving you a piggyback ride. True.” I ended that with a teasing smirk before I turned around and crouched down.

Dehv: ~ I nodded at Vishous’ assessment. It would appear that the phone call was a way to lure us here, but was the person in charge of this weird ass game human or vampire? If they were vampire, why were they targeting the brotherhood, without picking a specific target. If it was human, was it by chance they got us, or was it someone who knew our secret and was deliberately playing with us? I checked my watch and saw that we’d been wandering around and looking for clues for nearly 45 minutes. We were not getting out of here before the sun came up. I opened my mouth to tell Vishous that when he came up beside me. Those intelligent eyes of his looking over the weird shape on the ceiling, and I hoped like hell he’d see something I couldn’t. The smirk didn’t bode well, and I felt my jaw fall open when he suggested that I get up on his back. Two 6 and a half foot plus males doing piggy back rides was not exactly how I’d seen my day going. But I’d learned a lot when I was training, and the first thing was that usually you had to think outside of the box if you wanted to get anywhere. I turned to look at the Brother beside me and met his gaze, nodding grimly as I tried not to laugh at the entire prospect. “No talks at all, unless of course it’s to tease you where you can’t kill me.” I winked, trying to lighten the mood before I moved around behind Vishous. “I am not sure I’ve ever done this before, so apologies if there’s a bit of a false start.” I cleared my throat and then placed both hands on Vishous’ shoulders, using them as a spring board to try and jump high enough to get my legs wrapped around his waist. At least then he could hold my feet and help me get higher if I needed to. The additional height gave me enough leverage to feel across the ceiling and poke gingerly at the little shapes in the blacked out surface. I pressed at one, and felt it give under the pressure, “They seem to open, though I’ve no idea why. Hold on.” I took a slow breath, willing my heart rate to go down as I talked myself into poking my fingers into the space without knowing what was beyond the little flap of metal. “If they take my fingers, I’m blaming you.” I snorted and looked down briefly to the male who was taking all my weight and holding me steady before shoving my fingers past the barrier and into the ceiling. I felt around for a minute, hitting what felt like a little box with a hole in the top. I gently poked until I felt the box tip. I indistinctly tried to stop it, jerking Vishous below me as I did. “Shit, sorry. Hang on.” I felt something under the bottom of the box and I pressed my finger to it, pain instantly shooting through the nerves with enough force to make me pull my hand back. My body jerked and I stuck my finger in my mouth to stem the flow, numbing around the digit “Feels like boxes with gems under them. The gems fit in the holes and then the boxes go upside down to connect the whole thing. All without being able to see a fucking thing. The little stone thingies are sharp and I am not entirely sure I won’t lose a finger doing this. If you want a break, warn me before you drop me so I don’t leave a finger behind.” I snorted and shook out my hand before sticking it back through the ceiling to try and work the little, stupid fucking puzzle out. ~

V: All I could say is I was glad as fuck that noone was around to see this display. I mean here we were, warriors giving piggyback rides. After this night I will just black this shit out of my mind and pretend it never happened. The problem with that was, I needed to make sure there was an ‘After tonight’. It was clear as fuck that whoever arranged this elaborate setup, had at least some brain cells. So far, I was slightly impressed. I mean yes, Dehv and I were the rats inside of this maze but still, it was hard not to give props where props were due. Even if the detailed trap was mostly devised to end our lives. I was a sick bastard like. I huffed out a breath and snorted when Dehv situated himself on my back and I locked my arms around his legs and glanced up periodically to see how things were progressing. Every minute felt like an hour. I was keeping the rage locked down. The one thing that would always fuck me up is having my freedom taking away, in any form, bondage or that of a prison. I blew out another breath, focused my diamond eyes on the wall before me, using it as a focal point. I was already devising ways to tear our captors apart in my mind. Taking my time seemed like a good a place to start as any. As a matter a fact, I think I will draw it out for however long it takes Dehv and I to get our asses out of this fucked up place. I just about missed what all he was saying as I was too caught up within my own head devising death techniques. “I’m used to taking the blame. Just get that fucker to open because it is not that noticeable yet but…” The ground shifted only slightly when Dehv yanked his hand free and I inhaled the slight scent of his punctured finger. I was pretty fucking positive that if he didn’t get that fucking puzzel figured out within minutes if not seconds, that the floor would do a lot more than barely shift. “I don’t want any kind of break. I’m pretty sure if you don’t get that unlatched up there, this ground is going to open up and swallow us whole...Literally. No pressure though man.” I looked up at the large as fuck male attached to my back and gave a smirk.

Dehv: ~ I could feel the blood slowly dripping from my fingers as I fiddled around with the tiny boxes. I had to feel for the little gem they hid, then try and figure out which box that went with before slotting into the right groove. Each time I touched the smooth gem thing, it’s sharp edges cut into the pads of my fingertips. I was going as fast as I could. Though Vishous was pretty stoic as males went, when he sounded like he did, I hurried. That smirk was there to reassure, or that is how I was going to take it, and I really didn’t want to go through the damn floor. Each time I tried to lock them in place I’d slip off the wood because of the blood. They never got a chance to heal before another was opened up. They weren’t even big slices, but they strung and hindered how hard I was able to push at each of the little locking mechanisms. I was not at all sure Vishous was going to toss me on my ass at any moment, with each shift causing me to grip a little tighter to the opening in the ceiling, which only meant more of my hands were cut open. I was glad that I was wearing a long sleeved shirt, it meant the blood trickled down to my wrists and then soaked into the material. Saving me from messing up the floor. After what seemed like an age I clicked in the last piece. I signed heavily and then jerked backwards so quickly that I managed to dislodge myself from Vishous and land with a loud thud on the floor. It took me a minute of gasping like a fish out of water to convince my lungs to inflate again, when they did I was up and on my feet. Eyes squinted to dispel the blindness and try and figure out what was happening. After another minute I realised that the windows on the main doors we’d come through had been blacked out, and they were now very much not. Letting in a stream of sunlight that slanted across the room like two death rays. I reached out to check Vishous was still with me, unsteady on my feet as I looked around for the escape. I spun and saw it behind me. “Thank fuck. Keep watching those doors and move with me.” I kept a hand on Vishous’ shoulder as we’d been taught in training, watching where I was going while trusting him to have my back. As I moved into the next room I had to blink slowly to get my eyes to focus again. “Holy shit.” I’d just passed the threshold of the room when I felt something snap against my ankle. I had a split second to tighten my grip on the Brother at my back before I threw myself forward and to the ground. “MOVE”.

I landed with another thump, wincing at the awkward ankle against my already bruised hip. The minute I did, my eyes started stinging again at the sudden brightness. I turned away and waited until the room started to dim again before trying my luck to look back towards the door. A shaft of light shone stark and unyielding across the doorway, which was now also closed. No way were we going back that way. And I had no choice but to slowly sit up and look around the place. The noise from the machines drowned out my thoughts. In any other circumstance I’d be like a kid in a candy store, but instead I just felt dread settle in my gut. “This shit isn’t made for humans is it? We’ve stumbled onto something specifically designed for our kind. Is it just me, or is that worrying?” ~

V: Time went from feeling like each sixty seconds that passed by, felt more like they lasted five minutes or more, to suddenly things were happening way to quick and I barely had time to catch my breath. I had been standing there, trying to keep my feet rooted in place while Dehv worked his magic on the puzzle hidden from sight in the ceiling. Then in the blink of an eye he was dislodged from my back and I was stumbling around, trying not to land on my ass which I was not too successful at. I knew the male had managed to slice himself up pretty good, I could easily smell his lifes blood in the air. But there was absolutely no time to dwell on anything because once the puzzle was solved, all things started to move and re-adjust in the makeshift room. It was pitch black and then there was light but fuckkkkk was it the wrong kind of illumination that we needed right now. My internal clock had already been screaming at me that the big ball of sun in the sky was approaching, so I knew we had missed our window to bail out of here at a decent time. Now the point was to survive this fucked up maze and hunker down until it was safe to travel outside again. I got up off my ass and followed the male out of the first escape room, keeping close as fuck to him but the second I heard that one word shouted from Dehv, I did just as he said. I moved without thinking, nose diving pretty much over his shoulder and eating the ground as I face planted and the once opening was now sealed up as if it had never been there. I rolled over onto my back, taking a moment to take full stock of myself before calling out to the warrior. “Thanks for the heads up, Dehv. Now tell me, what did you break?” I came up on my knees and closed the distance between us. “Yes, you hit that assumption on the fucking nose. This place is evidently designed to take out vamps and not humans.” On the tale end of those words the semi dark space we were in came to life as if someone had flipped a switch on. Lights of all colors flashed on and off, coming from various signs hanging on the walls and that was nothing of all the noises and blaring special effects that was bouncing off of each arcade game and pinball machine. If you were and eighties kid, then this place would be right up your alley, from the pacman game to the hair metal music pinging from the surround sound system setup in the room. “I really fucking hate games.”

Dehv: ~ I blinked again and let my eyes run around the room slowly. It really could have just been picked up and transported from one of those little seaside arcades. It had everything, from the pinball machines to the little air hockey tables and more. They were all crammed in together, and each one seemed to be numbered. I shook out my hands again, happy to see that they weren’t bleeding any more, and that the cuts weren’t as pronounced as they had been. Thank fuck for faster healing. Now if only the blood would work on my damn shoulder and hip I’d be a happy camper. I looked at Vishous, showing him my hands so that he could see I was fine. “Nothing broken, but I landed hard on my shoulder and hip. Nothing a little blood once we’re out of here won’t fix. I can move, so that’s all that we need to be worried about.” I moved to my knees as well and then stood, holding out my palm to help the Brother up if he would allow it. “It is for sure, the sunlight over all the entrances and exists tell that story. I wonder how many have gone through here, and when whoever designed it decided to involve the Brotherhood. Fucking dumb ass move on their part.” I snorted and then winced, “This place has been bleached to within an inch of its life. I’m guessing that means at some point there’s been blood spilt in this room. Watch your back.” I turned in a slow circle, not bothering to look for cameras or wires, I knew that Vishous could do that without thinking, and far more easily than I could do it. Instead I tried to see past the sunlight at the door into the other room. It was impossible though, the shaft of light was concentrated and fucking bright. Instead I moved slowly around the room, fingers drifting over each of the machines without clicking anything. The metal music that was blaring was really starting to wind me up, and I found my body practically vibrating with uncertainty. “I’m not bad at them, but they don’t look like they’re rigged. Can you see anything I’m missing? This air hockey table is set up for one player though, which is weird.” I exhaled hard and then stepped up to the pacman machine, rolling my shoulders I gave a quick glance over my shoulder to Vishous and then reached up to press the button to start it, swearing loudly at the electric shock that was delivered to my finger. “Fuck! Well that doesn’t look good if these aren’t even wired properly. They didn’t have you around to get it all sorted.” I shook out my hand again and then used the various buttons to move my little munching man around the screen. I realised quickly that the game was set up so that the levels were melded into one. The game got faster and faster until I was inevitably consumed by ghosts. The minute the GAME OVER came up on the screen another shock was delivered. Forcing my fingers into a fist with the power that zapped up my arm and constricted every muscle. It took every ouch of control to successfully pull away without breaking the various buttons as I scraped my fingers off the panel. I couldn’t speak, instead just curling in on myself while cradling my arm, breath coming in harsh pants while I tried to get myself back under control. ~ #TheEscapeRoomPt1

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lyra-dragonsoul-blog · 6 years

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Scroll 12: The Battle

The day was warm, the sun beating down on the group of adventurers. Lyra found herself wanting for the cool of fall. Though she knew humans, and other races were more affected by the sun than she.

The horses, for example as they took off from town, were quickly becoming more tired, and thirsty. Lyra's heart went out to the animals, the poor creatures that carried them faithfully from place to place. She gave hers a pat, knowing in the grand scheme of things it wouldn't do much to help. It at least made her feel a little bit better.

The elf leaned out, looking towards their destination. She wasn't quite sure where that was, but she had hopes that it would be a while. The time out of the town was releasing much tension she didn't even realize she had.

Lyra broke formation, getting her horse to gallop again. She left her family behind her, and while she could not see their faces, they were full of worry. They did the same, now trying to catch up to the runaway elf girl.

Lyra was betting on their being water coming up, something that the horses could use as well as the rest of them. She laughed as the wind rushed around her, picking up her dark locks, making them billow out around her.

The horse seemed to be enjoying it too, letting out a loud whinny before doubling down on its speed. Lyra laughed, she gripped the reigns, then a shadow appeared above her.

She looked up, her heart pounding when she saw the brilliant, shining blue scales. Lyra blinked, and then realized the horse had not been having fun, the horse was running scared.

"Go!" she screamed, her own heart racing as she lowered herself to the horse, trying to cut down resistance. There was no way the horse would outrun a dragon.

Lyra pulled hard on the reigns, forcing the horse to a stop. She felt the claws of the dragon brush her hair as it overreached, missing her and the horse.

Lyra pulled again, the horse rearing as it turned, and took off back down the road. It was hard to keep it on the trail, more so when the dragon was able to get itself turn around. Lyra turned back watching it gain on them again. It roared, letting out a flurry of electricity.

Horse and elf were struck, both tumbling down to the ground, through dirt and grass. Lyra's armor covered much of the damage, though aches immediately started popping up. She stood, as fast as she could manage.

Blood fell from a cut on her cheek, bruising forming around it. She heard the horse starting to stand itself, letting out a pained neigh. Lyra looked back, her blue eyes full of concern. Burns covered much of the horse, in a beautiful webbing.

Lyra felt her body tense, her jaw clench. She took the sword from her back, bringing it to her side. The horse limped, the day's events too much for it at the moment. She could get her healed, she was sure. As soon as this thing was dead.

Her anger surged through her, though she kept it under control. She was to fight with a clear mind. Everything else would come later.

As the creature approached, she took a deep breath. She headed for it, hoping to take its attention from the injured horse. She winced, pain searing through her leg.

The dragon seemed to fall for it, swooping down at her, letting out another roar.

Great-sword in hand, she brought it up, jumping as she did so, swinging the blade in an arc. She slammed the blade into the leg of the creature, delivering a deep cut. The dragon turned, landing in front of her.

It's scales glittered blue, it's head was huge, even for being so young. Massive wings folded. It was then, with it standing right in front of her she saw the large metal collar setting around its neck, a chain falling the length of its neck to its chest.

Lyra looked at it, it backed up, taking in the chain. The anger faded almost as quickly as it came.

"What happened?" she asked, almost a whisper.

The dragon, for its reply, said nothing, simply reaching out with a claw. It was young, and now, Lyra believe more afraid than anything. She knew little about dragons, but this one had not had a good time of things.

She could hear the hum of electricity as it came closer, the sound seeming to emanate from inside of it. It roared at her, and as it came in to bite her, she made a quick turn, slicing at the metal collar.

The sound echoed, metal and metal meeting. The dragon reared back, brown eyes reflecting fear, and uncertainty.

"You will not take me!" He roared.

"I don't want to!" Lyra answered, the dragon turned swiftly, and Lyra felt the thick tail slam into her side, sending her off her feet and onto the ground.

"Lyra!" Zadicus' voice carried over the small distance they had yet to cover.

"Stop!" She screamed, pushing herself halfway up, her arms supporting her torso as she tried to get her father's attention. "He's escaped from somewhere, he's just scared!" she tried to get them to understand, but rather that making it easy, the blue dragon looked to her.

Lyra scrambled to her feet as it reached out, claws almost shining in the sunlight. She yelped as the claws ripped into her, blood flowing.

Injured, but not giving up, she went for the neck again, hitting the collar. She saw it crack as her brothers and father approached.

"I'm not going to take you anywhere!" Lyra promised.

The dragon reared back, a shower of electricity flowing again. She tried to run from the cone, but it covered too much distance. Lyra let out a scream, her body caught in the electrical force.

When it finally stopped, she held her blade still, now panting. She rushed forward, her sword still in hand. With a mighty blow, she decimated the collar, just as the dragon lifted a clawed hand batting the young elf like she was nothing into her father and brothers.

The collar fell away, and the dragon roared again. Lyra went to stand, but fell back into her father's arms. Her vision was unfocused. She knew she had freed it. She had to have.

That was the thing with evil creatures, though. A favor did not equal a favor, especially one done without conversation. The dragon was angry, and this group was perfect to take that out on.

Zadicus, and Tarron stood at the ready, Almon dumping a thick, sweet smelling liquid down Lyra's throat. She swallowed, and Almon joined his family on the front lines.

War erupted in that moment.

Their family against a dragon, young though it was. Tooth, claw, great ax, glaive, and halberd met in a battle of revenge. Lyra, stood, slowly getting to her feet. The injuries were gone, but soreness remained. It would soon fade too, but she didn't have the time to waste.

As she rushed in to help her family, another roar sounded.

The group looked to the sky, watching the glittering golden shape fall from the sky in a straight line. Lyra's family dove to the side, making room for the huge creature that now stood in front of them.

Thick whisker like tendrils seemed to move on their own as the golden dragon stood between the blue and her family.

"It had a collar on! He doesn't belong here, I... I think he's just lashing out."

The gold dragon looked to Lyra, though never let the blue out of its sight. It seemed to be sizing her up. She had thought it had come to help, but if not, it was going to be a battle much tougher than she had thought.

"You worry for this creature?" a female voice came from the dragon. It was soft, dignified, like a queen, "This creature that has caused you harm? That you have been sent to kill?"

"He's angry. I would be too if I was taken from my home. He's lashing out!"

"Lyra!" Zadicus shouted at his daughter, making her look away from the gold dragon. "Do not defend that creature. It would have killed you! It's a chromatic dragon. Evil," he looked to the gold dragon, "correct?"

"More often than not. I've not met a chromatic that hasn't been an evil of some sort." the gold dragon turned from them. "Stay safe, elves." she said, just as the blue dragon lunged.

Zadicus covered Lyra, pulling her into him, and shielding her with his body as the fight started, trying to get her to move. Tarron grabbed the two of them, leading them from the fight between the dragons.

Lyra pulled away, breaking free from her father. She ran to her horse, trying to lead the injured mare from the battle. As fast as Lyra could manage with the horse, they started fleeing the battle. She kept looking back at the tangle of bodies, watching them roll, fight, and attack one another.

As they got to a safer place, still close to the battle, she started going over the mare, making sure she was going to be alright, even if there would be no riding her for a while.

With making sure she was alright, Lyra turned her attention to the dragons. Blue and gold flashed together, one giant on top, then the other. Part of her felt sorry for the blue dragon. He hadn't wanted to be there. He was defending himself from a threat he didn't need to.

Zadicus came over to her, looking down at her. "Are you okay?" he asked, still watching the dragons.

"I want to help." she said.

"No, we stay back. They aren't giving us a chance to get in there. This is their fight now."

Lyra looked away, disappointed. "How many others were taken?" she asked herself more than anyone else.

"That's not for use to worry about."

"What if someone evil has them?"

Lyra jumped when the gold dragon slammed the blue into the ground, teeth digging into its neck. The blue dragon fell limp in her mouth. She dropped him on the ground, looking back over to the group that still stood there.

The dragon walked over to them, looking down at them before sighing. "You feel sorry for that creature?"

"He might have been evil. And then I wouldn't, but he had a collar around his neck. He didn't want to be here."

"You're right. You also freed him from that chain. He is no idiot. When you did that he knew you were trying to free him from the collar. Instead of thanking you, or backing off, he continued his assault. Do not feel bad for him."

"Thank you." Lyra said, "For saving me."

"It was what it was. I'm just glad I was here on time. Go home. Tell your people the dragon is dead."

"Thank you."

"I don't suppose the dragon had a horde." Almon asked, earning stares of disbelief from his family.

The dragon laughed. "I do not believe so."

Lyra walked past them all, leaning down to the head of the dead dragon, and laying her hand on its snout. "I am sorry for whatever you suffered.” She kissed its nose, then looked to her father. "We should bury him."

"We need proof of the kill to bring back." Tarron said, ignoring his sister's request.

Carefully, the gold dragon plucked teeth from the dragon, handing them over. "Take this as your proof." she said, then handed one to Lyra. "Here, to remember him by, since you are still torn by his death. I will bury him as you requested."

"Thank you." she said, before looking down at the tooth. It was big, that was for sure. She didn't know what she was going to do with it, but right now it was more important that she had it.

"Go home. Heal, and be safe."

With that, the golden dragon took flight, grabbing the body of the blue dragon and disappearing into the sky.

#dungeons and dragons #dungeons & dragons #dungeons n dragons #dnd #dandd #d&d #roleplay #rp #original character #backstory #elf #fighter #writing #my writing #creative writing #scroll 12

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scripttorture · 7 years

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Sensory Deprivation

There’s a lot of confusion in the press, fiction and occasionally research about sensory deprivation. So as with solitary confinement I’ll start off with some definitions.

Sensory deprivation set ups reduce or mask at least the following senses: sight, hearing, smell and touch.

Additionally some equipment reduces the sensation of gravity.

I try to avoid describing tortures as ‘extreme’. I feel this can imply that some tortures are ‘less damaging’ or ‘safer’ and this is not true.

However the way that sensory deprivation damages human beings demands the term.

This is extreme.

It is almost uniquely damaging and the speed and extent of the damage inflicted is frankly terrifying.

Thankfully sensory deprivation has never ‘caught on’ as a torture.

I accept that as writers we often depict things that aren’t true to life. My advice regarding sensory deprivation is usually to avoid it. It has only been used to torture in isolated cases (a small number of mental health facilities in America) and the damage to characters is so severe that functioning in a basic way is unlikely.

I’m going to cover methods of sensory deprivation and then go on to the effects seen in volunteers and victims. So if you do decide to use it in your story you can do it as accurately as possible.

Baldwin’s Box

Confusingly not developed by Baldwin (it was developed by Donald Hebb who used it in ethical experiments), ‘Baldwin’s box’ is actually a small room. It’s padded and equipped with a ventilation system that masks smells from outside.

It is sometimes soundproof and sometimes the occupants wear ear muffs to mask sounds. It can be dark or under a constant, low lighting level. The interior is uniform and undecorated.

Occupants occasionally wear oven gloves, dark glasses or padded clothing to further mask their senses.

Baldwin’s box has been used in ethical and consensual experiments but it has also been used on unconsenting mental health patients and members of the American armed forces.

This is a structure that has to be specially built and quite sizeable. That means it both costs money and is relatively easy to detect. This is something that you’d need planning permission for.

So if you decide to use Baldwin’s Box sensory deprivation in your story consider how the structure was built or adjusted and how it might be disguised. Does your villain have the resources to build it from scratch? Do they have the space for this kind of structure? If they build it themselves where do they get the materials and are the materials flimsy enough that the occupant could break out (something that happened in at least one real life case).

Lilly’s Tank

Lilly’s tank is a sealed structure that’s significantly smaller than Baldwin’s box but significantly larger than a coffin. They might be around the size of a double bed (although Lilly’s original was significantly larger).

The tanks either has an air regulation system that masks smells from outside or a breathing mask that goes over the occupant’s head. It’s sound proof and it closes over the occupant cutting out light sources. Then tank is filled with a saline solution, kept at body temperature. This masks the sense of touch generally and also reduces the ability to feel temperature and creates a feeling of weightlessness.

Lilly’s tank affects more senses than Baldwin’s box. It’s significantly more complicated to make but smaller and commercially available. They’re currently used in some spas as a relaxation treatment, usually for an hour at a time.

Lilly, to his very great credit, halted his research and left his institution shortly after receiving questions on the use of his tank against ‘involuntary subjects’. His tank was never used on anyone unwilling and the vast majority of his research was done by experimenting on himself.

They’re expensive, the spa varieties are somewhere between $3,500-6,500 (via Rejali). They’re also cumbersome, difficult to maintain and full of water. This means that an unconsenting occupant would have ample opportunity to drown themselves, making their use as a torture device extremely unlikely.

Time frames for sensory deprivation experiments

As with solitary confinement the amount of time a volunteer will stay in one of these devices is a really important measurement.

During Hebb’s work using ‘Baldwin’s Box’ half of his volunteers left at around 24 hours. The extreme outlier in the group stayed in the ‘box’ for six days. Most of the others had left after two days.

In contrast the longest a volunteer has stayed in Lilly’s tank is 10 hours with the average duration a little under 4 hours.

Effects of Sensory Deprivation

Sensory deprivation produces extreme disorientation, insomnia, confusion, loss of ‘disciplinary control over the thinking process’ and hallucinations in willing volunteers.

Let me give you an example of what that means.

Hebb’s volunteers were so disorientated that they sometimes got lost inside the bathroom they went to for breaks and couldn’t leave it without assistance. One of them started hallucinating after 20 minutes. Hallucinations in Lilly’s tank occur in under three hours.

So far as I can tell willing volunteers who were confined for short periods (24 hours or less) didn’t suffer any lasting effects.

Beyond that the situation begins to get somewhat murky due to unclear records and poor research practices.

Baldwin, after whom the box is named, locked a US Army ‘volunteer’ in a sensory deprivation chamber for 40 hours during which Baldwin’s notes describe the man breaking down, crying and begging to be released. The ordeal ended when the man kicked his way out of the box.

Ewen Cameron subjected around 100 patients to sensory deprivation along with forced ECT keeping one woman ‘Mary C’ confined for 35 days.

A follow up study of 79 of Cameron’s patients ten years later noted unspecified ‘physical complications’ in 23% of the group. 85% were either hospitalised or ‘maintain psychiatric contact’.

60% had lost large chunks of their memory surrounding their time as a research subject, lost memories ranged from six months to ten years. 75% were judged as ‘unsatisfactory or impoverished’ when it came to interacting with other people and forming social bonds. Of the patients who had been working before they went into Cameron’s hospital around half could no longer work full time.

All of these people had received treatment in the intervening time.

In 1980, around thirty years after the experiments, a group of Cameron’s former subjects sued the CIA and Canadian government. Two of these people were unable, thirty years later, to recognise faces or everyday objects.

Some of the sources I’ve read recently that followed up Cameron’s patients suggest that a small number of them were able to leave hospital, find employment and live a relatively normal life. Which goes against my previous statements that all of them were permanently hospitalised or otherwise in care.

It’s not clear whether these victims were subjected to shorter periods of sensory deprivation.

Further factors to keep in mind

Sensory deprivation is, by definition, also solitary confinement. So victims subjected to sensory deprivation will also be suffering from the negative effects of solitary confinement and the effects of solitary confinement are likely to be exacerbated by the effects of sensory deprivation.

A lot of the asks I’ve had referring to sensory deprivation seem particularly interested in the effect this would have on children. Thankfully no one has ever done that experiment. My best guess is that the effects would be much much worse and would affect the child’s development and ability to interact with others profoundly.

The confusion and disorientation caused by sensory deprivation is also extreme enough that a character confined in this way might not be able to reliably eat, drink or take medication they’re provided with. Remember the long term is one day.

This is not as detailed as I’d like it to be; I’m struggling to find better sources. Hopefully this helps put sensory deprivation in perspective and clears up some of the questions people have had.

Sources

For clarity I’m breaking these into the ones I’ve actually read in full (which come first) and the original source or research material with some further reading.

Torture and Democracy by D Rejali, Princeton University Press, 2007

Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture by I Cobain, Portobelo 2012

‘Effects of Decreased Variation in the Sensory Environment’ by W H Bexton, W Heron, T H Scott, Canadian Journal of Psychology 1954, 70-76

‘Production of Differential Amnesia as a Factor in the Treatment of Schizophrenia’ by D E Cameron, Comprehensive Psychiatry 1960

Intensive Electroconvulsive Therapy: A follow-up study by A E Schwartzman, P E Termansen, Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal 1967

The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, by J Marks, Norton Co 1991

The Mind Manipulators, by A Scheflin E Opton, 1978

A Textbook of Psychology, by D Hebb 1966, 2nd ed

‘Effects of Repetition of Verbal Signals upon the Behaviour of Chronic Psychoneurotic Patients’ by D E Cameron, L Levy, L Rubenstein, Journal of Mental Science 1960

Edit: Spending a short amount of time in one of Lilly’s tanks on a consensual basis does not make you better able to describe the hallucinations, terror and psychotic breaks they can cause when someone is locked in one for a prolonged period (over an hour) against their will.

Disclaimer

#tw torture #sensory deprivation #masterpost #unethical experimentation #tw ableism #Baldwin's box #Lilly's tank #effects of sensory deprivation

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tisfan · 7 years

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Holiday Spending

Chapter 10 -- Fruit of our Labors

All I Buy For Christmas - Renting in the New Year - Will you Steal My Valentine - Up for (Mardi) Grabs - Hopping Down the Money Trail - (In) Memorial Day Sale - (Folding) Paper Anniversary | (Financial) Independence Day | Back to School (Fundraiser)

“... 29 year old male, Caucasian…”

“Applying pressure, where is all this --”

“... cutting him out of this… what is this?” The EMT held up a pair of mangled safety scissors.

Tony blinked, glanced up. “Stark Secure body armor,” he said. He couldn’t bring himself to look away from Bucky’s hand. He was secured in the gurney, face-down so the EMTs could work. His hand was limp, dangling over the side like a pale starfish. Blood dripped down his skin from the shoulder, travelled in thick rivulets over his wrist, and splattered onto the floor of the ambulance. “You won’t be able to cut it. There are velcro closures on the right and left sides.”

“What the hell is it made of?” The EMT was still holding her scissors like a child she was mourning for.

“Cellulose nanocrystals,” Tony responded. He’d been primary in inventing them; part of his Materials and Processes 417 class project that Howard had jumped on, tossed over to R&D with a muttered “guess that’s what I’m paying for” about Tony’s classwork.

The ballistics resistant material was in testing phases, still, but Tony had liberated a few pieces for Bucky’s personal use. If nothing else, they were lighter and more breathable than a standard tactical BPV. Made from plant fiber and coated with molecular crystals, the Stark Secure was supposed to be the better option; the best option. Certainly more protection by the pound, more protection for the dollar. That was supposed to be what it was.

“I’ve got a blood pressure of about 70 over fuck you,” another reported. “Not registering. He’s already deep in shock.”

“No, seriously, you think?”

Someone peeled back the tactical vest, cut away Bucky’s stained tee underneath, dripping with blood. Not… not as much blood as Tony might have expected. He held onto that hope.

That hope lasted about two minutes until Tony got a look at the fucking hole in Bucky’s back. Furious red and black at least the size of Tony’s fists together, just to the right of his spine. Damnit, it couldn’t have hit where the arm and plates already were? Some of that would have deflected--

Blood welled, and the EMT covered it with a thick pad, putting pressure down. Tony would have thought Bucky too out of it to feel pain, but he groaned, thick and guttural. More blood dripped out of his mouth.

“Ok, he’s as stable as we’re getting,” one of the EMTs reported. “Let’s get this bus going before this poor bastard is a DOA.”

“... non-responsive to verbal, BP still not registering…”

“Pulse is weak…”

(more under the readmore, or catch the entire fic at A03)

“... eavy deformity to the upper back, Behind-Armor, Blunt Trauma, bleeding as expected. Pulse 45, respiration rapid, thirty-five. Full spinal immobilization including C-Collar in place per BLS protocol, O2 via NRB at 12LPM. ETA five minutes.”

The two guys in the back nudged around Tony, and one of them poked him, hard, in the shoulder and indicated that he should grab onto a strap. Tony did his best to get out of their way.

Bucky had stopped making noise. He barely seemed to be breathing, although the paramedics didn’t seem too upset by that. Tony looked down at his lap, bracing his feet on the rough metal of the ambulance. There was blood on his pants, his tie. His hands.

Literally, blood on his hands.

Tony had looked through the various ballistics material when developing the nanocrystals; the theory was sound. Tests on dummies had provided a lot of good information. But that wasn’t the same as a flesh and blood human. He wasn’t even sure testing had gotten as far as the gelatin-stuffed proto-test models, the ones that imitated the surface tension -- if not as far as bones and interior organs -- of humans.

What the hell was he thinking, letting Bucky be a first live-fire exercise? Not that Tony had any intentions that Bucky be fired upon, but wasn’t the motto safe, rather than sorry? He thought it might be something like that. Of course, Tony’s personal motto was more like run before crawling, so there was always room for improvement, and even with --

The ambulance jerked to a stop and the EMT shoved Tony against the wall in their hurry to get Bucky out of the back and into the med bay, which Tony thoroughly approved of.

He hopped down, but at that point, someone else caught him by the elbow. “We’ll take really good care of him, Mr. Stark,” someone said. “But for right now, we need you out of the way. Let the doctors do their jobs.”

Tony found himself standing on the pavement, just outside the Emergency Entrance, not quite knowing what to do. Not alone, exactly. There were people around, but they were people who were utterly and completely unconcerned with Tony. Other emergency cases came in and EMT teams wandered around. For people who were in the medical health industry, Tony took note of the fact that many of them smoked cigarettes. He overheard a conversation between two drivers, talking about the problematic drivers who refused to get out of the way; that could kill someone, and Tony found himself absently plotting a new grid-traffic system that could be controlled from dispatch, to clear holes. He brought out his phone, tapped a few notes and sent it away to R&D.

Eventually it occurred to him that there might be paperwork or red tape that Bucky needed to have cut or filled out. As Bucky’s technical employer, as well as his boyfriend, he could assist there.

Tony was always at his best when he had something to do to keep him from dwelling on everything that had happened.

But by the time he made his way around to the check-in and visitor’s section, Jenn had arrived on site. She covered him immediately.

“We don’t know what happened to the shooter,” she confessed, bustling him into the hospital, and then directing him to a private waiting room. That seemed unfair, somehow. It wasn’t that everyone else loved their relations more, or were more important, but that the same time, “no, this is best, Mr. Stark, if someone comes after you for a second chance, we don’t want indiscriminate firing in the lobby, someone entirely uninvolved could get hurt.”

Tony let her lead him away. The white walls of the room -- some spare patient consultation thing, covered with advertisements for pills and diagrams of how the body worked -- were clean, but somehow sad. Jenn checked the exits, pulled the blinds all the way shut.

The whole thing felt very surreal, like Tony wasn’t actually here, wasn’t actually in his body at all. That he was still in front of the restaurant, Bucky’s blood on his hands. “I did this,” he said, looking down. Somewhere, someone had gotten him wiped off, a bit, but his jacket and shirt were still stained and Tony wasn’t sure he could handle it any longer.

“Can you--” He held his hands out for Jenn to see.

Jenn nodded, already on her cellphone. “I’ve pulled together some of your security team,” she said. “They’re on their way in, including Bain, I know you find her a comfort. They’ll bring you a change of clothes and a bit of a way to clean up. It’ll be a while before we know anything, but I’m prepared to stay, if you want to. Anything longer than sixteen hours, however, and we’ll need to relocate you to a safer place, all right, Mr. Stark?”

Was there a safer place?

Tony hadn’t wanted to spend his life ruled by fear, but it wasn’t his life that he was spending anymore, was it?

He nodded, listlessly. “When Bain gets here, see what news you can get, okay, please?”

He collapsed into the flimsy plastic chair, let his face sink into his hands. Smelled Bucky’s blood on him.

Bucky woke up screaming for Tony.

And then he was just screaming.

Pain. Oh, god. Pain. And he was strapped down. He could barely move, and yet he struggled against restraints. His left arm was totally numb, worthless. And his right was on fucking fire.

No. no please, not the other arm.

Bucky could barely turn his head; pain radiated up his spine. He was still screaming, struggling. There were voices and nurses, and the smell of medical antiseptic. Someone was saying his name, but he couldn’t listen, because where the fuck was Tony, where was he?

A cotton smell and the fluff feel at the back of his throat, and he… garlic taste flooded his mouth...

darkness...

tony…

ow.

The second waking was a little less frantic, although pain still clouded everything, hanging over it like thick blankets on the clothesline. Bucky fought his way through to the light; opened his eyes.

It wasn’t too hard to recognize a hospital room. They sucked.

The bed was uncomfortable and his back ached where he was slumped over; not quite reclining, certainly not laying down.

He was covered in tubes; a cannula was looped around his ears, blowing too-dry, too cold oxy-mix up his nose. Two IVs were jammed up in his arm -- at least his arm was still there, thank god, he remembered a burst of panic and black terror that he’d lost his other arm. A thicker tube lay against his hip and the less he knew about where that one went, the happier he’d probably be.

Dozens of monitors and measuring tools were stuck all over him; he resembled nothing more than a tasty fly, waiting for a spider.

As awareness trickled back, the noises were regular, but annoying. A blood pressure cuff inflated itself, squeezing his thigh. Between the IVs and his artificial arm, he guessed they didn’t have room for it elsewhere. Each time it squeezed, it tugged unpleasantly on his leg hair; he was going to have a bruise and a bunch of plucked hairs when they got done with him.

He twisted his neck, trying to see; his right arm was cuffed with a padded leather restraint, held down. The left one unmoving -- he’d been in the hospital before, they probably turned the fucking thing off. The nerve-cluster in the back of his brain that let him feel pressure and operate the device wasn’t pinging, so it probably wasn’t malfunctioning.

No call button.

Fuck, what the hell was he supposed to do now?

Spiraling up into a panic again seemed to be the answer; the heartbeat monitor picked up on his distress first, and then his breathing got erratic.

There was pain, but pain was secondary.

Where the fuck was Tony?

Was Tony okay?

Why… why wasn’t he here?

He turned his head, watched the heartrate monitor go up, and up again until it was beeping with distress. This wasn’t the military where the philosophy was, if you’re on the table, you’re important, and if you’re not, you probably won’t die in the next six hours. A civilian facility had some sort of quality control, right?

His breath jerked in and out of his lungs. He couldn’t breathe through his nose; his mouth dropped open and he took great gasping breaths. His mouth was so dry, thick and cottony. His tongue and teeth were coated with sticky and he couldn’t work up any spit.

The blood pressure cuff activated again, squeezing. An alarm went off for that, too; he could barely read the numbers, but he was pretty sure that was high. Better than low, he supposed.

A strange bubble of calm stayed there in the center of his head while all the other parts of his body checked into Hotel High Anxiety.

He took another few breaths, then fell back on the bed. He couldn’t maintain that level of anxiety, he was too damn exhausted. And then he was in too much pain. Everything hurt. Literally. He went through from nose to toes and couldn’t find a single thing on his body that didn’t ache, throb, pulse, or sent shooting sparks up his nerves.

Pattern recognition was a thing Bucky did; being in the military so long, everything happened in chunks of time. After a while, despite the erratic breathing and the stupidly excessive heart rate, the blood pressure cuff was going off rhythmically. Every fifteen minutes, it squeezed his thigh.

Which gave him some sort of measurement of the passage of time. He drifted off from time to time, waking to blink and wonder all over again where he was, why he hurt so much. Was it night? He couldn’t tell, the ward wasn’t quiet, but hospitals never were. The light under the door was brilliant and he could see feet pass by from time to time.

Eventually, seven times he could recall the machine checking his BP, the door slid open a crack and a shadow moved inside.

His heart rate spiked again, and then the shadow separated itself, stepping into the vague light from machines and monitors.

“Tony.”

Bucky’s voice was barely a croak, a shaking whisper rattle. He wasn’t even sure it was a complete word, but Tony, oh, god, there he was. All rumpled hair and wearing an MIT sweatshirt and looking like he just rolled out of bed. The most beautiful thing Bucky had ever seen.

“Oh, god.” And Tony was there, at his side, fingers absently plucking at the blue and flowered hospital gown that Bucky was wearing. Bucky leaned his head as far as he could to one side until Tony took the hint and brushed his hand down the side of Bucky’s face.

Bucky licked his lips; there wasn’t any spit in his mouth at all, and the sound his tongue made was raspy, alien. Lizard-like. “Water?” It wasn’t what he wanted to say, there were so many things that Bucky wanted to say instead, like how relieved he was that Tony wasn’t shot, that Tony was the most precious thing in the world to him, and that Bucky was just so damn happy that he was okay, that everything was fine. But he didn’t have the breath for that anyway, and his mouth and throat were screaming for something to drink.

“Uh,” Tony muttered, staring around. The room was mostly dark, the most light crept in from around the door, but eventually Tony found a tray on the far side of the room with a styrofoam cup. He rattled it, and the sound of ice and slushie water swirling in it send flames up through Bucky’s throat.

Tony unfolded a plastic straw and stuck it in the cup. “Just a little, baby,” he said. “I don’t know if they’re gonna want you for a surgery.”

The half-sip or so that Bucky managed before just leaning forward enough to let the straw touch his mouth was gone too soon. And yet, he fell back against the mattress, trying to suppress his groan of agony.

Everything hurt. His fucking shoulder hurt worst, pain that spiraled up from his fingertips, wrapped around his arm like concertina wire, scissoring and fresh and silver, all the way up. “Why’s my head hurt?” Bucky asked. It wasn’t like he could check anything. He could barely move, and his arm was strapped down.

Tony made a face -- Bucky wasn’t even sure there was a name for the expression that twisted up Tony’s mouth. “You got shot, baby.”

Essense of no, really.

“Yeah, got that,” Bucky said. He licked at his mouth again; now that there was spit there, he was a little more conscious about how nasty his mouth felt. Coppery and full of cotton. His teeth were coated with a scrim of plaque. Still, his head hurt. Not like a headache -- although he’d be a fucking liar if he said he didn’t have a headache. That would have been bad enough, but there was a stinging, slicing pain, just above the back of his neck.

It wasn’t the pain, although that was bad enough in its own right. The sick, blinding fear that he’d lost the use of his right arm -- and that hadn’t even let go, not a little bit, it crouched at the back of his mind like a feral animal, ready to bite and pounce and tear if he took his eyes off it for a second. Now that he had eyes on Tony, some of the despair was gone. But at the same time, he couldn’t see himself.

A doctor hadn’t been in to see him, and Bucky was hovering over a pit of ignorance. He had no idea how bad his injuries were. The look on Tony’s face, a skittering of his gaze, alternating with the way he stared at Bucky’s face, it couldn’t have been good.

And Bucky was a coward. He couldn’t seem to bring himself to ask.

“The shooter--”

“Don’t you worry about that, honey,” Tony said. He couldn’t seem to stop touching Bucky, his face, the side of his neck, fingers dancing down Bucky’s chest. Even though it hurt, each touch and tap were like having the apple-soft center of a bruise poked, Bucky couldn’t ask him to stop. Didn’t want him to stop. Wished he had his arm free, so he could return the favor. Each drop of pain was just a little more realism.

“Don’t-- don’t worry? Tony, you’re still at risk, and I’m… stuck here and --” he struggled against his injuries, the tie-down. He didn’t mean to, but it was…

dark

slithered around him like snake...

The next time Bucky was aware that he was awake -- according to the one nurse that he talked to some time in the deep early morning, he’d been drifting in and out for several days now, not a thing that made him happy, and that sometimes he was awake and aware, but that he wasn’t absorbing those conversations, so every time he woke up, they were having to go through it again -- the straps on his arm were gone, but his arm still hurt so much that moving it was torture.

He did have a call-button, though, so he pressed it.

“Mr. Barnes,” the nurse said, efficient and cheerful. She gave him a few sips of ginger-ale that sat unpleasantly on his stomach for a bit before his body decided to let him have it. “You came out of surgery well, how are you feeling?”

“Surgery?”

“Your acromioclavicular joint was separated, and you have three distinct scapula fractures. On the plus side, Mr. Barnes, since we were in there anyway, the doctor took the liberty of upgrading your bracing hardware for the prosthetic. Once you’re back to seventy percent, at least, you should notice some better movement, and certainly less pain. Technically, we did it to make sure that therapy on the opposite arm was effective. But, consider it like a bonus.”

The way the nurse laughed, Bucky didn’t have to wonder what his expression looked like. “The shooter?”

His nurse glanced at him. “You are single-minded,” she said.

No, Bucky thought. It was just that he didn’t remember. He knew someone had told him, but between the pain medications and the surgeries, he wasn’t holding on to information. There was something vaguely wrong with that, something that made him desperately uneasy, but he couldn’t even hold onto it long enough to get his fret on.

“Just tell me,” Bucky said.

The nurse checked a few of his vitals, humming thoughtfully. “They think it was that boy,” she said, finally. “That college football player, the--” then pressed her hand to Bucky’s chest as he surged forward.

“Rumlow,” Bucky said. Ow. Why did she have to shove him like that.

“That’s the one. Stay put, Mr. Barnes.”

His heartrate was already spiking, blood pressure cuff doing its thing.

That didn’t make any sense; what the hell would Rumlow gain from murdering Tony now? He was already out of school, just because Tony was dead, it -- ow, fuck, there went his chest again, just thinking of Tony dead and cold and unmoving was enough to ache -- wouldn’t change anything. Not for Rumlow, at least.

“That’s stupid,” Bucky finally managed to say.

The nurse sighed, pulled an injection kit from her pocket. “You keep saying that,” she said. She stared at him, her eyes huge and wide and somehow not quite innocent. “Why do you think that? Did you see something, the day of the hit?”

“Huh?” Why the hell would a nurse care about something like that? He was vaguely befuddled that she knew even that much about it; although he supposed if he’d asked about it a few times, some of the shift-staff might have gotten the run down, just to answer the questions.

“Oh well,” she said. She tapped the needle a few times. “You’re well compromised by this point. No one’s gonna believe anything you say, even if you saw anything at all. Head wound, brain damage. Mental trauma. Not a reliable witness.” She pulled the cap off the kit and took a step to the side.

Something cold slithered into Bucky’s belly. “What are you doing?”

“It’s just for the pain, Mr. Barnes,” she said. “Once you get excitable like that, you--”

“No,” Bucky said, firmly. Didn’t a nurse, a real nurse, flush the site with saline before injecting anything into the shunt? Why… why couldn’t he remember anything for more than one waking period at a time.

He looked more closely at the nurse.

“Bain.”

She sighed. “Don’t draw too many conclusions, Mr. Barnes,” she said. “You’ll blow my cover, and that’ll make me cranky. If you just stay asleep, all of this will be over, and I don’t really want to kill you. Too much mess to cover up.”

Bucky struggled, but he was so weak, and everything hurt so much.

“Don’t worry,” Sunset Bain said. “You don’t have to be afraid. You won’t even remember this…”

That was precisely what Bucky was worried about.

What had she said, earlier, about the bracing hardware; they’d updated his arm, his prosthetic?

Bucky twitched, just barely heard the servos in his left arm and stilled his fingers again. He let a low, helpless whimper escape from his throat. “Please…”

“He’s not worth all this, I hope you know that,” she said, coming closer. “Spoiled little rich boy; he has no idea what he’s doing, the company is infinitely more valuable to the lives of our American soldiers without him behind the wheel. You should appreciate that, Mr. Barnes. There’s no need for you to have been so injured. Drone soldiers, they’re the way to go.”

“Is that how you shot Tony? With a drone?”

“Ah, well, there are some satisfactions to my work, a little personal touch, that means so much.”

Braced. Waiting.

She stepped closer, needle out. She reached for the shunt, pressed the tip of the needle into the soft plastic ring.

Bucky twisted.

Oh, fuck. Everything lit on fire; his spine, his arm, his shoulder.

But he twisted anyway.

Got the full use of his hips behind it, swinging the prosthetic up and over; he could barely bend his elbow, so it wasn’t a punch, just a heavy blow, the full weight of steel alloy and plastics underneath. He’d had to learn to move it, it was so damned heavy when he’d first gotten it, he’d walked lopsided for months.

Bain shrieked in surprise as he rolled, but she’d been caught unaware.

The sound she made when the arm struck her was small, almost a whimper, and she went down in a splatter of blood and a crunch of bone.

Bucky screamed. The pins and supports in his spine were electic agony as the weight of the arm, still mostly immobile, pulled and yanked at him.

Call button. Call button.

Bucky fumbled, felt something tear in his shoulder. Found the remote and mashed it.

There were footsteps, running. He didn’t care.

Bain was struggling, weakly, on the floor. Squirming. Trying to crab away.

Whatever was in that syringe… foggy, fading… Bucky shifted again, grabbed hold of the IV tube with his teeth, as close to the site as he could manage. Bent the tube in his mouth and bit down.

He…

darkness...

“You’re so fired,” Tony said.

Bucky was struggling with the fog and disorientation that came from yet another round of surgeries.

This time, at least, he’d woken up with Tony’s hand firmly in his, with his prosthetic alive and buzzing with new information. With a brightly lit room and a feeling of safety.

“Why?”

“Why, he asks?”

Behind Tony, Jenn Walters gave Bucky a thumbs up, then slipped out of the room.

“Because I don’t think I can go through this again, baby,” Tony said. He pushed Bucky’s hair away from his face. “I know, I know, your month’s been worse, but this may well have been the worst week of my life.”

“Did I miss anything new?” Bucky asked.

The on-again, off-again memory loss bothered him more than he knew how to say. Every time he woke up in the morning, hospital walls around him, someone had to fill him in. Repeat everything that had happened since that bullet struck the vest.

Bain… she’d fucked him up, but good.

“We got Bain to roll on her boss,” Tony said. “She’ll do ten, with time off for good behavior. Probably back out on the streets in seven. I’m not entirely happy with that, but her face is all over the papers, so hopefully she won’t be able to snow anyone else as thoroughly as she’s done to us. It’s hard to be an assassin if everyone knows what you look like.”

Bucky managed a very painful shrug. “There’s surgeries. And other countries.”

“Yeah, don’t remind me,” Tony said. He swallowed hard. “Turned out, she was being financed by Obadiah Stane.”

“Your godfather?”

The look that flittered across Tony’s face was both pain and annoyance. He’d probably told Bucky this before. “Yeah. Turned out, he was behind my parents, too. That third body? One of his stooges that was supposed to make sure my parents were dead after a hitman slammed into their car. He got run over by accident. If the hitman hadn’t left the body behind, we might never have had enough warning…”

Bucky made a small, soft sound. He didn’t think he could bear it, if something had happened to Tony. Knew he couldn’t have.

“So what’s this got to do with why I’m off th’ job?”

“I have a new job for you,” Tony said, brushing invisible wrinkles out of his tee.

Bucky’s eyebrow went up. “Do you?”

“Well, I suppose the question is, more, will you?” Tony reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, velvet box. The kind that everyone knew. Bucky heard the heart rate monitor speed up, echoed by the feeling of his pulse in his ears and throat.

Tony cracked the lid, and the ring was Tony, all the way. Golden metal swirling around rubies, the band thick enough that if Bucky put it on his hand, it’d cover from knuckle to knuckle. Not ostentatious, but obviously expensive. Tasteful.

Bucky cleared his throat, a rumbling sort of cough, and then, he thought, maybe he could breathe again.

“Ohgod.”

There went that eyebrow again.

“You’ve asked me before,” Bucky said, suddenly.

“Yes,” Tony said.

“Have I turned you down yet?” He knew that answer, of course. He never, ever would. Tony was his whole life.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Tony said, shrugging like it didn’t matter.

“I may not be able t’ hold onto my mind,” Bucky said, shuddering a little, “but what’s in my heart, Tony? That ain’t gonna change. Yes. You already know it. Yes.”

#winteriron #prompts #tony x bucky #tony stark #bucky barnes #holiday spending AU #September #medical stuff #violence #drama #angst #this fic #the author has regrets

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smoakmonster · 7 years

Note

I cannot stop day dreaming about Olivers bday party. It prob going to be at the loft. Of course everyone else will leave first, 'giving them the room. When he finally goes to leave I NEED Felicity to get up on her tip toes and kiss him on the cheek whispering "Happy Birthday" and then I just want him to say fuck it and kiss her. REALLY kiss her. And scoop her up and go upstairs. And at some point, whisper the words, "I want to come home." Then I can die happy. Or just be dead. Whichever.

Anon, you beautiful soul!! Way to go guessing the loft! I don’t know what I did to deserve this, because I NEVER get messages like this one, so thank you. Ugh, my heart is so very full from the picture you’ve given me that I ended up writing a *short* spec fic about it. (Based on recent spoilers, I know most of what I have written here ain’t gonna happen; but alas, I started this fic last month and wanted to finish it anyway. My Oliver deserves a happy spec fic on his birthday.)

Here’s my new favorite photo to set the stage. LOOK HOW HAPPY THEY ARE. I’M FINE.

xxx

“NO!”

Felicity’s cry echoes across the expanse of the loft, her words bouncing off its high ceilings, sending all party guests into an unprecedented silence.

Oliver stills, every fiber in his body already tightening, already on edge, ready to pounce to protect her if need be– He relaxes a little when he realizes Felicity is not, in fact, reacting to any sort of danger. Instead, she stares with wide, horrified eyes at the knife he’s still gripping, hovering over the direct center of the cake. The cake he was just instructed to cut himself. The cake covered in exactly 32 little plastic arrows, all pointing towards the center to form a giant O.

Yet he knows that look means trouble of a different sort…a Felicity-sized and always important portion of concern.

“What’s wrong?”

Oliver quickly makes eye contact with the rest of the group, just in case anyone’s picked up on something he’s missed. But everyone appears just as confused as he is by Felicity’s new state of peril.

Felicity visibly swallows as she slowly tiptoes towards him. She licks her lips once, hesitating before meeting his gaze; and he can practically see the wheels spinning behind her eyes, as she calms herself down and tries to explain.

“I just mean…you should have the corner piece, you know? Because it has more frosting. You like frosting, right? Everyone loves frosting.”

“Felicity…” He has no idea what she’s hiding, but he can tell something’s off.

“You know what? I’ll just cut the cake. I mean, you already do so much, the least I can do is cut you a piece of cake.” She’s taking the knife from him and already cutting off a corner piece, before he can even try to stop her, all the while muttering something to herself. He leans in a bit to try to hear, but Curtis and Quentin have resumed their conversation across the table, so all he catches is something along the lines of “What was I thinking…”

God, if only he knew. He’s spent years learning to understand what Felicity Smoak says, let alone trying to make sense of what could possibly be going on inside that beautiful head of hers.

“There. That is your piece.”

Oliver eyes the plate skeptically, still unsure why this particular piece should belong to him above all the others. “This isn’t going to knock me out, is it?” he remarks.

He’s rewarded with a teasing smirk in return, one of his favorites. “Don’t worry, Mr. Masterchef. I didn’t even make it. I mean, how do you even bake for the designated baker in the group?”

He shoots her a look. “I’m not a baker, Felicity.”

That perfect little crinkle starts to form between her eyebrows, and she pouts her lips just a little, making her appear…so incredibly appealing right now. “Umm…I seem to recall one or two chocolate soufflés that strongly suggest otherwise.”

He smiles, remembering fondly one particular dinner that involved soufflé for dessert…and how differently that night could have gone if…

“Thank you,” he says, accepting the plate from her as though she were handing over her heart.

He hesitates before taking a small bite, trying not to focus too much on the fact that she’s blatantly staring at him as he eats.

“So…what do you think?” Felicity asks.

“Hmm. It’s good,” he answers truthfully, his mouth still half-full.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Felicity, what…?”

“So you’re saying you like what is in the cake?”

He pauses in his chewing to study her, trying to make sense of the question in her eyes.

“Yeah, it was great.”

“And that’s it?”

“I mean, it might be a little dry in the middle, but the chocolate tastes pretty good.”

“What?”

He frowns at her tone, somewhere between offended and worried.

Suddenly, she invades his space again, grabbing the fork from his hand, and unabashedly proceeds to rake the small metallic instrument through the cake.

“Felicity–”

“Oh no,” she breathes. He watches, slightly stunned, as her head quickly pops up, and her look bounces across the room before landing on Quentin Lance, who, heaven forbid, decides to begin cutting the other corner of the cake.

“Quentin!”

Oliver is reluctant to let her go, relishing the close, easy warmth that only Felicity can provide him, something he hasn’t experienced in ages. Yet he has little choice in the matter, since Felicity darts around the dining room table with surprising speed and makes a beeline straight to Lance.

“Can I ask you something regarding SCPD policy?”

“Well, that’s not really my expertise anymore Felicity–”

But she’s already yanking at the older man’s suit, pulling him away from the group and, Oliver notices, distinctly out of earshot. Oliver chuckles to himself, as he watches Felicity play hostess some more in that vibrant red dress of hers. And once again, since he walked back into this place that used be home earlier tonight, Oliver cannot shake the feeling that something else is going on…not just regarding Chase, but regarding them. What else is Felicity Smoak planning?

xxx

It’s almost midnight by the time the last of the birthday party crowd–John, Lyla and Thea–shuffles out the loft front door, leaving the two of them alone to fill the space that suddenly feels ten times bigger…and somehow safer. Out of some deep, calming habit, Oliver instinctively fills the silence by picking up the remaining dishes off the dining room table and moving them to the kitchen sink.

“Oh, Oliver, you don’t have to do that!” Felicity interjects. “It’s your party.”

He just softly shakes his head. “I don’t mind.”

As though moving a small stack of plates is a hassle or belittling act. Before the island, a much younger and much more selfish version of himself might have thought so, but not today. Not tonight. In truth, he feels privileged to find any easy excuse just to spend a few minutes more with in her company, to kickstart his new year with the woman he loves at his side. He’s been itching to be alone with her all night, to follow up on their recent reconciliation via a bunker lockdown.

“You should kick everyone out of here, so I can ravage you,” Felicity had teased earlier when they had managed to briefly talk alone. She’d abruptly shaken her head then, when she’d realized what she’d said–or mis-said. “I meant ravish. That’s not better.”

Though, in truth, Oliver has missed those kinds of moment between them, moments when Felicity truly lets her guard down, reminiscent of a simpler, perhaps kinder time. When she’d asked him to come over tonight, he’d been aching to know if that was a sign that maybe they’re back on the same page again, hesitant but longing, wanting to start over, to give this–them–another chance. Even now, he dares to hope that the easy, friendly, familiar manner they’ve maintained all night might still lead to something more in the future, something to live for.

It’s been awhile since the two of them have shared this particular space under strictly pleasant circumstances. The last time he was here…he was begging her not to risk her life, not even to protect him, and not unlike all the those times she’d asked him–not the Arrow but him–to stay. Angry words and yearning gazes that will always haunt him.

“It’s the least I could do,” Oliver replies, making his way to the sink. “Thank you for…hosting this.”

Felicity just waves it off in that lovely way of hers, like effortlessly making him feel more at ease in a single night than he’s felt in months is nothing. But it’s never nothing…not with her.

“Well, when John and Lyla said their place was a mess to the point that, and I quote–” She pauses to appropriately make the quotation marks with her hands, dropping her voice as deep as it’ll go in a poor but wonderfully funny impression of John. “‘Even Argus couldn’t have it ready in under a day’–and obviously we couldn’t have the party in the Arrow bunker, because…well, we work there. And that would just be awkward. And a little sad. Not that you living there is sad, I just…”

She clears her throat. “And besides, it’s only me here”–she starts, squinting her eyes–“Which you know, obviously. I’m just…I’m going to go pick up the glasses and….”

He doesn’t catch the rest, because she’s scurrying away, the punctuated tap-tap-tap of her heels is a familiar sound, filling up the empty space. And isn’t that just like Felicity Smoak–filling in all the nooks and cracks of his life with her personality. He smiles to himself, as he turns on the hot water and begins rinsing off uneaten cake crumbs. He’s almost finished with the second to last plate, when he feels a slight but somehow intimate tap at his shoulder.

He shuts off the water and turns to face her.

She’s wearing that secret smile again, her hands tucked behind her back. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Without looking away from her, he reaches for the nearest dish towel–his heart lifting strangely when his fingers find it in exactly the same spot the towels were kept all those months ago while…while he was still living here.

He watches in quiet fascination as Felicity’s cheeks turn a slightly darker shade of pink. “I um…I have another surprise for you.”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure I can handle another surprise tonight.”

She laughs once. “It’s a good surprise. I promise.”

“Fine.”

“It seems I forgot to give you your present.” She’s grinning mischievously, and for some reason that expression kicks his heart into an even higher gear.

He frowns, glancing around the now empty loft. “Um, I thought the party was my present?”

She flashes him the don’t-argue-with-me look, and he has to bite his lip to keep from chuckling out loud. “You’re allowed to have more than one, Oliver. Didn’t those parties at the Queen Mansion teach you anything?”

“I’m sorry. It’s been awhile since…” Since the mansion. Since I’ve had a birthday party. Since I’ve had a reason to celebrate anything.

His heart freezes when she holds up a small black box.

He’s not sure why he should be terrified of whatever she could possibly have tucked in there, but without warning he suddenly struggles to catch a full breath. He knows whatever is in that box holds something important. Because there was a time when the greatest present he could offer her was also tucked away in a little black box, just like this one.

And suddenly…he’s nervous. He can’t explain it, but somehow he’s pretty sure he knows what he’s going to find when he opens that little black box. He looks back up at her, tentatively, like he’s not sure whatever could be in such a small box could really be worth getting. But she just gives him a brief, reassuring smile.

He swallows. Is she ready for this? Are they ready?

As the box rests in the palm of his hand, Oliver feels the weight of the small object grow heavier and heavier with each eternal second.

“Oliver? This is usually the part where you, you know, open your present. I mean, no pressure. Take your time–”

Without warning, he pops the lid. He frowns, partly out of confusion, and partly because…he can’t dare to hope that… He blinks, but when he opens his eyes again, sure enough, they reveal a small silver key still covered in a few chocolate flakes and a streak of green icing flickering against the dim kitchen lights.

He’s too overwhelmed that he can’t even look at her.

“It’s a key,” Felicity chimes brightly, like that explains everything. “I tried putting it in the cake earlier, but then I realized–choking hazard–so I just decided to give it to you the old fashioned way, which is why I didn’t have time to…wrap it… Oliver?”

It’s possible he’s stopped breathing.

He can see that it is a key, but he still doesn’t understand how this could be happening. It’s too good to be real. “What…?”

“And it’s more of a symbolic gift than anything, because obviously you’re more than capable of getting into this building without a door. But I figured you’d want to have it so…” She halts, misreading the shock on his face. “Unless…you don’t want to move back here? I-I realize it’s kind of sudden, but I just thought, with everything that happened in the bunker that night… Maybe you’d like to stay here…for awhile? If you want. No pressure. I can have the guest room ready in like a day.”

She laughs once and runs her fingers through her hair, a little nervously, a little unsure, clearly waiting on him to respond. But it’s like his brain can’t even process what is happening. He’s frozen.

In the silence, Felicity presses on. “You know what, you’re probably right. We should take some time to process before making any rash decisions–not that I consider this to be rash per se. Though, if our relationship history is anything to go by… I mean, I did quit my job to run away with you–which, for the record, I do not regret–but now I’m asking you to move back in with me, and it’s all so sudden–”

He can’t even hear what she’s saying amidst the panic of her assigning words he did not say to his actions–or lack thereof–assuming the worst of him, when all he can focus on is that this seems too good to be true.

“We probably shouldn’t have a repeat like last time. Maybe we can just put a pause on the us thing and focus on you, since it’s still your day, at least for another few minutes–”

“Felicity.” Simply saying her name centers him.

She moves to take the box from him, but at last his reflexes seem to be functioning again, because he snaps the lid shut and moves the box out of her reach.

She stills, meeting his eyes, her hands resting on his arms. She swallows at whatever look he’s sending her, making his desire blatantly clear to her, now that he seems to have found his voice again.

Suddenly, the tables have turned, and she’s gone still, safe for pushing her glasses up a little further up the ridge of her nose. She licks her lips, and he zeroes in on the movement.

He leans in a little closer, and she follows his lead easily.

“I don’t want to pause.” Don’t ask me to say that I don’t love you.

“Oh.”

And suddenly he’s standing in the hallway of another old home, watching her with a heavy, confused heart, as he bares his soul for his enemies to trample and destroy. Only there’s no enemy waiting in the shadows to hurt her this time. There’s no one listening in on this conversation. It’s just the two of them…it’s finally just the two of them.

“I want to come home.” I want to be with you.

And he can’t wait any longer.

It’s like a switch goes off. One moment, they’re a safe five or six inches apart, and the next, their arms are wrapped tight around each other. In the frenzy, he quickly pushes her back against the nearest pillar. He kisses her deeply, and he feels he could absolutely drown in her here and now and have no regrets. Oh, how he’s missed her. His whole body sings, aching for her, and he’s incessantly torn between needing to cherish her everywhere and also just hold her as close as possible for as long as possible.

They slow down to a more gentle pace as the moments tick by, but they don’t stop touching–his hands running up and down her arms and the bare, perfect skin of her upper back; meanwhile, her hands are grazing his shoulders, her fingers threading the back of his neck and playing with the tips of his hair.

He likes them like this–silent, safe, where words aren’t necessary, where he can just rest in the security and steadfastness of loving her and being loved by her.

Suddenly, the kitchen microwave alarm goes off, startling them both. She gasps, twisting just enough in his arms to check the clock that’s just beyond his shoulder.

“What’s that?” He gasps, not bothering to turn around. He can’t look away from her yet.

“Midnight.” She gives him a small grin.

He sighs, leaning in just enough to press their foreheads together. His day is over, but somehow he feels like his life’s just begun anew.

Her smile changes, deepens, as she makes the first move again, rising up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. She whispers, “Happy birthday, Oliver.”

He can’t stop himself from reaching up to cup her smooth face in both hands, like he did in yet another hallway, when his life was at another crossroads, and he took the wrong path. It seems all they’ve been doing of late is living their lives in a hallway, always hovering by an unlocked door. Well, he’s done waiting. He’s done lingering.

So this time, when he kisses her, he says what he really should have said that night in the hospital, what he made a habit saying to her–and showing her–every day when he was living here. Now that he gets to do that again, he doesn’t want to waste any more time. His lips hover just over hears as he whispers, “I love you.”

He watches her eyes shine with tears, as she whispers back, “I love you, too.”

This kiss is different than the one from before. It’s slow but warm and intimate and building…. It’s more akin to the first one they shared the night they moved in here.

He starts when water splashes against his thumb. He breaks the kiss, pulling back to see that yes his Felicity is crying…tears of joy, relief, sorrow…some combination of everything. And he knows exactly what that’s like…to wrestle with a mixture of feelings that defy explanation, and how the hurt never really goes away. It’s always in there. You just learn how to carry it and keep moving forward.

But unlike so many other nights this past year, she doesn’t hide her hurt from him. They no longer have to dwell in the sadness alone. They can confront the darkness together…as they embrace the light together.

“Come on,” says Oliver. “Let’s go home.”

Felicity nods. Taking him by the hand and leading him upstairs, with his new/old key in his other hand and his heart safely in hers, she brings home. She always brings him home, the greatest and most priceless gift of all.

#olicity #olicity fic #olicity spec fic #arrow spec fic #arrow spoilers #arrow 5x22 #happy birthday oliver queen #my ficlet #shelley does fic #ask shelley

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lilyjane-e-blog · 7 years

Text

Weak

Drip.

The sound of the leaky faucet was enough to drive Lily Evans insane. With each drop she slipped further and further into her now cold bathwater until she was full submerged. How long had she been in the tub? She had no watch but Lily was sure it was verging on hour three by how icy the water felt against her skin. Holding her breath and closing her eyes Lily held herself under the water until her lungs felt on fire, as if each individual bronchi was moments from exploding. It was an addicting feeling knowing she was in control of whether or not she lived. If she stayed where she was it was over, if she came up then life carried on for her. The decision was in her hands.

Resurfacing Lily took a gulp of air her throat aching from her latest experiment of seeing how many times she could play this game before she could grow bored. How long until the control was not enough? The euphoria of fresh air in her lungs had become nothing more than a small spark of relief by this point and so she willingly chose to leave the bath tub. It wasn’t that Lily Evans wanted to die, not at all she thought as she toweled off and unhooked the stopper from her clawfoot tub. Wrapping the white fabric around her svelte frame Lily dragged a towel and conditioner through her thick, red locks. On the contrary, Lily Evans wanted to live.

Bruises and scars marked her pale skin and she traced them each with vitamin oil. As a child her mother used to bathe her cuts in it to stop from scarring, and though there were probably spells to do just that, Lily still felt that sometimes muggle methods were better. Opening her drawers Lily easily selected a set of undergarments where her obsessive habits of neatness even extended. Not a single thing about Lily Evans was disorderly from the perfectly made bed to how all her lotions were lined up in size order. If you were lucky to see what was under her outfits than one would realize Lily Evans never wore anything that was unmatched; if her bra was a lavender than the silk panties matched, that was her secret. The way Lily viewed the world was that if everything went to hell at least she would still have personal order. Personal order was vital to life.

In contrast Lily selected an over sized jumper from her closet to both keep her warm and hide her battered skin from view. Potter the name stretched from one shoulder to the other of garnet piece that Lily had selected, stolen months before from James’ pile of old sweatshirts that no longer fit. Lily was not one to often wear his clothing, this was one of her few exceptions. Her stomach growled with hunger pains and Lily realized she hadn’t eaten all day though it was approaching the evening, it was hard to remember to eat when she was busy and there was no one to remind you. A piece of rye bread in the toaster and the half avocado in her fridge would be good. Methodically spreading the green over her toast Lily made a mental note to go to the grocer tomorrow.

The couch had been her safety net since the attack on the Ministry and Lily had spent many nights curled up in its welcoming arms clothed in the blanket her grandmother had knitted when she was a young child. The same blanket she pulled up over her bare legs to stop the chill from goose bumping her legs now. In the silence she sat staring at the adjacent wall her mind doing all the talking, much against her will. Her mind was never something in her control and often it drifted to places that she had no intention of reaching. Today’s topic was her place in a world that didn’t want her there.

Lily had spent the last few months torn between staying in a world where the number of people who wanted those of her blood status was small in comparison those who did not, or returning to the muggle world. It was safer to live anonymously far from London maybe somewhere warm where she would never have to worry about being a witch ever again. The last time Lily regretted being a witch was when she was eleven but yet here she was thinking how much easier life would have been if she had never discovered magic. Alice and James often comforted her in those thoughts,

You have just as much right as anyone else to be here

The words were well intended and Lily appreciated the sentiment though she knew they would never quite understand. They were purebloods and whether they wanted to realize it or not if it came down to it then they would always be safer than she based on their blood alone. Lily was not afforded that luxury. To be honest it might be better for them if she was to leave, whether they recognized it or not.

That was another deep seated fear that Lily kept to herself, just how unworthy she felt. James Potter could have anyone girls who were prettier, smarter, and definitely more magic savvy. Why had picked a mudblood like her was beyond Lily. For years she had watched girls throw themselves at James Potter and for years she had seen him only watch her. It was she that he worked to impress when really she didn’t deserve that. His love was unconditional and had been for a long time and Lily would never be able to repay that back to him. All she could do was love him and pray that one day he wouldn’t wake up and leave, never to return. Even at that Lily would not blame him.

IT was not just him that made her feel unworthy. It was her whole life that made her feel unwrothy. She was a muggleborn, nothing else. A witch born to two muggles who didn’t even want anything to do with her these days. It was because of that she was set for failure. Her blood made her weaker in comparison to others though that was trivial. She was not weak. She was strong. She had to be strong. Lily could still remember specifically the first time she was afraid due to her blood status and though she had gotten good at fighting the feeling back on days like today it felt just as real as the first time it had settled into her stomach.

A warm hand on her shoulder awoke Lily Evans far before even the sun had risen. “I need to speak to you” the voice was a whisper in the dark but Lily knew Minerva McGonagall’s tone too well to be afraid. Messy hair, crusty eyes, and confusion led Lily out of bed behind the Professor and down to the common room. “Professor, is everything okay?” Lily had no clue why she was being pulled out of bed at such an odd hour. Was her family okay? Did something happen to her sister? “Lily, keep your voice down” McGonagall was no more than a faint whisper as she gestured for her to follow into the hall. It was not odd for Minvera to pull her aside, she was a prefect after all however tonight was much different. Remus was not there and so she knew it was more personal than professional. The stone felt cold against her feet and wrapping her arms tightly around her body Lily stood searching out the Professor’s face in the darkness. “There was an attack, Lily. You cannot repeat these details to anyone but Mary Macdonald is in the infirmary”. That was exactly why Professor McGonnagall had grabbed her, it was quite well known in the castle that Mary and Lily were practically attached at the hip, there was no one Lily was closer to besides maybe Alice. Her heart dropped into her chest, “Is she alright?” Lily did not like the way Minerva was avoiding her eyes, avoiding her questions. “Alive”, but that was it and Lily knew by her expression not to ask anything else.

Lily did not need to keep the conversation between herself and Professor McGonnagall quiet for very long because by the time she was awake the next morning it seemed half the castle knew. Slytherins were bragging about how Mulciber and Avery had done in the pathetic Gryffindor, Lily’s friend. Though they were not friends James had been the first to offer her a hug and words of reassurance that Mary would be alright, it’d been the first true genuine moment the pair had shared. Lily spent the days after seeking solace on Remus’ shoulder and crying with her roommates over Mary’s empty bed. They were sisters bonded by more than just their house status and this was a blow to all of them. Mary did get better though and after two weeks had returned to her rightful place in the Tower but the damage had been done. They had attacked her over her blood status, slurs thrown at her because she was a halfblood. It was the first real time Lily had seen the hatred spill over into something almost deadly. Lily had nearly lost her closest friend at Hogwarts because of blood status.

The unsettling fear of being targeted for her blood status had never left Lily. When she spoke too boldly in front of her pureblood peers there were times that she wondered if she would end up like Mary, or worse. It was so trivial in her eyes the fact that she had been born to muggles, it wasn’t of her choosing so why was she so hated? That was not to say all purebloods felt that way, but the majority it seemed did and that was frightening. What if she angered the wrong person? So far it had only been nasty words thrown in her direction, but what if one day it was a spell?

That same fear had also been the driving force in her decision to join the Order. Those that knew her decision teased that it was because she was dating a Potter, but James had been the farthest thing from her mind when Dumbledore approached her. It wasn’t uncommon for her to drop in on the Headmaster’s office, he often held an open door policy and Lily had always enjoyed their conversations. The Order had come up organically when Lily voiced her concerns about leaving the safety of Hogwarts, how the wizarding world was not as forgiving as these walls. Dumbledore had simply asked what she would be willing to do to make the world safer for people like herself and her friends and Lily had answered him honestly that she would do anything. He warned her that there was a war brewing and doing anything would mean she was caught in the crossfire, but Lily did not care for that. If her bloodshed meant that others could be safe and free then that was a minor price to pay. It was that same afternoon Dumbledore informed her about the Order and that he thought she could do well within it’s ranks. In one afternoon Lily had signed her life away and had yet to look back.

Even on her worst days when Lily felt like up and leaving she did not regret her decision to join the Order. How could she? They were doing real things and trying to help real people. Death Eaters, that was the other faction, they were the ones who wanted her dead and everyone like her. How could Lily simply stick her head in the sand and watch the persecution from afar? Her life was not that valuable, nor would she ever consider her safety over the greater good. The Order was the greater good.

Many would argue that the Ministry was who Lily should have supported, but she was far smarter than that. The Ministry did nothing. They were a scheme run by corrupt officials who could not be trusted. The worst purebloods seemed to find their way into the Ministry and they were treated as kings. It was the Ministry who refused to do anything about the attack on Mary, they were just kids being kids they had claimed and the boys were not expelled nor did they receive anything besides weeks of detention. If the Ministry could turn a blind eye there then how could she trust them to do anything at all? The truth was that the Ministry was too afraid of rocking the boats, too afraid if they actually did something against the injustice that the purebloods would simply close their purses. It was money, that was all the Ministry cared about. Money over morality. Money over safety. Money over their own citizens.

Snapping herself from her thoughts Lily reached for her television remote flipping on some ridiculous reality tv show to keep her mind busy. Tonight was not the night to run, not when she had too much to lose. She had friends, a fiance, and people who depended on her. Being a coward was not her and running would be cowardice. There was no option other than to fight. Fight that in hopes one day there would be a world where blood status was not even a thing. It was a wishful thought but Lily felt that through the Order anything was possible.

The television began lulling Lily into a much needed sleep when the sound of footsteps awoke her once on the cusp of rest. Green eyes found Peter Pettigrew walking in through her door causing Lily to smile, it wasn’t often she got to see her friend these days. They all had spare keys to her apartment, she had probably handed them out too liberally but that was a worry for another day. Peter was a sweet boy, one that Lily had come to love almost instantly. There was not a bad thing to say about Peter nor did she ever think that day could come. Sweet, trustworthy, and as cuddly as a teddy bear Lily did enjoy when Peter Pettigrew came to visit. “Come, sit. I was just watching television. Real Housewives, James would kill me if he found out I watched” she laughed moving so her friend could join her. Curling herself to cuddle up next to Peter, Lily began relaxing once again the thoughts of running away and being alienated far from her mind. “I’m so glad you stopped by, Peter, I really needed a friend this evening. Can I get you something to drink?”

#closed #drabble #drabbles

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catearsandchaos · 7 years

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Look at me, actually posting two things close to each other. I've just finished this thing, it's the first piece of writing I have actually finished in months. It's nice. I like this feeling, of being mildly competent and completing things.

Things have happened since I last posted. I got some new lovelies following me from my hugs catch up. Thank you so much for that, all of you. It's really great when I get someone new over here. I don't exactly run a conventional blog, so I'm very glad when someone decides they like me enough to follow me. And it makes a change from the 3 spam blogs a week I need to block. Real people! You're lovely.

I also got the sweetest anon message. It's still making me smile just thinking about it. Whoever you are, thank you. I will admit to a burning curiosity to know who it was, so I can thank them properly and send them all the love they deserve, but I have no wish to pressure anyone to come forward if they do not wish to. I use the anon system a lot, I know how much easier it can be.

And I wrote a thing. Be proud of me. It's another word prompt from my wonderful friend across the seas, but this one may have gotten away from me a bit. It developed plot. It's kinda long, I think I broke the 3000 word mark, but I'm kinda proud of it. And on that note, if anyone finds a particularly good word they want to donate to me, I'm always happy to receive them. I love doing these prompts a lot. So this is 'Nefarious'.

Nefarious- (typically of an action or activity) wicked or criminal.

Of all the words used to describe you, that one might certainly be your favourite one so far. You curl it around your tongue slowly, trying it out. It's a good fit, you decide. It seems just right, much like dear little Goldilocks and her bowl of porridge. Such a sweet darling she was as well, all blonde curls and rosy red cheeks wrapped up under a blue cloak. It was a shame she had met such a gruesome end, but really, you can't be held accountable for the actions of wild animals, no matter how docile and domesticated they may appear. The girl should have known better than to venture that close to a cave full of bears, although you, of course, mourn a life lost too early.

You step quietly out of the bath, dropping a robe over your shoulders and picking up the newspaper, glancing shortly at the headline which screams its accusations at you in bold print. The media and the press were always a bit of a wild card. Something you could never control, no matter how hard you tried. There were always going to be rogue publications, undercover message systems and it was far safer to allow them to continue to act where you could see them. Let them think that they have won their battle. Perhaps you should have kept a closer eye on them.

‘NEFARIOUS QUEEN’S PLOT UNCOVERED!’

It’s not entirely your plot. Your ministers put together most of it, you simply signed the relevant papers and smiled prettily at foreign ministers sent with varying degrees of threats and promises that they simple would not stand idly by if such events were to occur. The tricky network of spies spread across the kingdoms was known to all, but rarely mentioned. To remove one spy was to leave room for two to appear in its place and endanger your own in a far off court. An eye for an eye. A spy for a spy.

You chuckle lightly at your own rhyme and unfold the thick paper, scanning the article lazily. Really, they'd done their research well and must have an ally somewhere in your cabinet. Someone has broken their vows and that is treason of the highest order. It's a shame the old punishments are not still in place. You would have enjoyed hearing them scream, you think.

There is no doubt declarations of war are currently flying in from across the kingdoms. You wonder whose will arrive first. The King of Troya is your closest neighbour, but he will be reluctant to launch a campaign against you. His army is weak and economy wrecked after a frankly ridiculous squabble with Numor. After 37 years of fighting over such a tiny principality as Chibir they are in no place to stand against your might.

No, the first challenge will arrive from Queen Cynthia of Nedia, who considers herself the bastion of all that is right and good in the world. It is a funny little kingdom, run by farmers and peasants alike. You wouldn't be surprised if they showed up on the battlefield with pitchforks riding their donkeys. But far before any foreign army would arrive, the castle and the kingdom would be taken by the mob that was advancing from the capital.

The article had ended with a rather rousing call to arms for all those close enough to reach the castle by midnight. It was cute, really, but you aren't stupid enough to dismiss the power of anger. And angry they will be. You knew when you took the throne that the rule of a tyrant was dangerous, lonely and, ultimately, short-lived. That was the risk you took.

You pluck at the sleeves of your robe and decide you should get changed. You would rather not face the angered mob and the end of your reign naked if you can avoid it. The floor to your bedchamber is cold, the fireplace empty, only a scattering of ashes left. The castle staff had fled when whispers first arrived about the advancing forces. You will probably see some of them again, weapons held high and the fire of vengeance in their eyes.

The wardrobe is well stocked and you consider your choices, but soon enough you decide that if this is indeed the end, then you will of course face it in a manner befitting an Evil Queen. The dress is difficult to lace up without help, but the blood-red gown flows gently to the ground as you inspect yourself in the mirror. It doesn't fit perhaps quite as well as it once did, since it was tailored you’ve had one too many of Cook’s sweets, but you try to ignore the tightness around your stomach.

You twist your hair on top of your head, shaking a few droplets free. The sweltering summer sun will dry it in no time, and you would rather avoid the tangles. It's easy enough to pin it in place with a crown. The twisted circlet of silver and iron glints as you step up to the window to track the progress of the mass of browns and blues and reds marching across the city. You estimate you have about an hour before they reach the doors and will probably double in size as they reach the dense centre where the castle lies.

There's not much time to do anything, but you pick up a book from your bedside table. A few chapters remain unread and you have no wish to leave things unfinished. Time passes slowly and you find it difficult to keep your attention on the book in front of you but you eventually snap it shut with a sense of satisfaction. It was a terrible ending, of course, but it is finished and that brings a certain feeling of contentment.

It slots easily into the gap on the shelf and you wander the room straightening the bed sheets and picking up cushions from the floor. Only when the room is picture perfect do you glance outside the window. You feel almost flattered at the amount of people who have joined the march. Really, it's heartening to know you succeeded in making an enemy of so many people.

You smooth out the creases in your dress and make your way steadily to the main hall, heels echoing through the empty stone corridors. The candles around the door have been extinguished, perhaps with the hope of convincing those outside that the castle is empty, but the stairs remain mostly lit, a few lights extinguished by the wind. It's just as you step into a stretch of shadow that the sound of cries and roars becomes almost deafening and the doors of the castle crash open, a handful of men stumbling in.

They pull up short at the lack of reaction to their entrance, perhaps they were expecting an onslaught of royal guards, but they still squint suspiciously into the darkness. Most of them are young men and women, all too eager to lay down their lives for the cause of justice, although there are a few older faces among them, faces battle hardened and wielding steel.

A party of three is shoved forward, a young girl in crudely made leather armour and a large stick held tightly in her grip, a veritable knight in shining armour, a beacon of glowing silver in the shadows, and a cloaked and hooded figure leaning heavily on a cane. It's almost adorable, the motley group sent forward to face the evil queen.

You step out of the shadows into the flickering candlelight as the doors slam shut behind the party, cutting them off from the rest of the group. Your presence goes unnoticed until as they scramble desperately to open the door, until the girl gives out a short scream of fear on looking over her shoulder and tugs sharply on the robes of the figure next to her.

“So.” Their voice is calm and steady as they address you without turning away from the door. “You’ve finally decided to show your face.”

“At least I have the common courtesy to show my face while in the company of others, unlike some of us, Yennan.”

The posture is almost unmistakable. Yennan was one of your lesser advisors, an air of mystery always trailing him like a heavy fog. You feel slightly vindicated that the contempt he felt for you wasn’t imagined, but it isn’t quite enough to smother the heavy rage that threatens to build in your chest. But before you can step down to speak directly to Yennan, the young girl jumps in front of him, brandishing her stick in shaking hands.

“You… you shut up about Yennan! You d-don’t know anything about them! He can keep his face covered if he wants…”

She trails off as you give a cold laugh, before now most successfully used in persuading foreign embassies that it is in their best interests to sign the papers in front of them, but you suppose the it can learn to adapt.

“You silly girl. I know enough about Yennan. I know that he worked for me for 3 years, bowing and scrapping before my throne, desperate for a lick of favour. He was such a loyal dog. But it appears old dogs can learn new tricks, although I was not expecting leading a rebellion against your Queen to be among them.”

Yennan steps forward into the faint glow of light that reaches the bottom of the staircase, cane echoing around the hall with each slow and steady step. He pushes the girl behind him, where she is yanked back into the shadows by a firm grip on her arm. It is only once they reach the very foot of the staircase that they come to a halt.

“I spent 3 years working for my people and my kingdom. Not for you. Never for you.”

“Oh? I was under the impression that they were my people and this was my kingdom. I am the Queen after all, am I not?”

You wave your hand dismissively as he begins to talk again and watch in satisfaction as his mouth clicks shut. You still hold a little power while in this palace.

“What is it you want, Yennan? If you were after my death, then I would be bleeding out on these stones already.”

You ignore the darkly muttered murmur that sounds suspiciously like ‘we can arrange that easy enough’ from the girl and the chuckle from the soldier next to her and keep your attention fixed on Yennan, gazing at him expectantly.

“We want answers. We want to know why you would do this and what we can do to stop it.”

“You think you can stop it?” You laugh, delighted. “That is adorable. But if you insist of demanding answers then let us move to a more comfortable setting. And I would like to see the sun set one more time if this is to be my last night.”

As you sweep down the stairs Yennan shoots out a hand to grasp your wrist. You jerk away but his grip is strong and a struggle would ultimately be futile.

“I hardly believe you have developed a sudden appreciation for the sunset. Why do you want us outside?”

“Perhaps I have or perhaps I have not. I do have a heart you know, cold and shrivelled though it may be. But either way, the only way you are going to get answers out of me is letting go and moving with me to the gardens.”

The girl is the first to leap forward into the light, aiming her stick at your throat in a rather unthreatening manner.

“It’s a trap.” She snarls, spittle flying across the short gap between you and landing on your face. “You can’t trust a thing that comes out of her filth lying mouth.”

You hear the clanks of movement before you can see the soldier step into the light, hand resting on his partly unsheathed sword as he gazes steadily at you, a menacing look in his eye, before he turns to Yennan.

“For once, I find myself inclined to agree with Annikaa. It is most likely a trap, Yennan; you should proceed with the utmost caution.”

Silence reigns in the entrance hall, the tension almost stifling. You gaze steadily at Yennan, watching the cogs turning behind his eyes until he comes to the only conclusion possible. He sighs heavily and drags a hand across his face, shoulders slumped.

“We will follow you to the gardens. You will tell us what you have done and how we can stop it. And then we will decide what to do next. You do understand you will likely die? There is a mob outside vying for your blood, they will not let you leave unharmed.”

You remain silent and sweep past them, down a dark corridor, the others trailing behind you like lost ducklings. The stone echoes with the click of your shoes, the clank of armour and the clack of the cane. The girl is silent.

The sunset streaks red and purple across the sky when you emerge outside, the air still and quiet. If you strain, you can hear the murmur of the mob, but it is dampened by the stone between you. The garden was built for solitude, to block out the hustle and bustle of the city. The paved square itself that you lead the little party to is immaculate, not a blade of grass out of place, hedges neatly trimmed.

There is silence. You keep your gaze on Yennan, and his remains on you, as Annikaa and the soldier gaze around the square. Eventually you sigh and drop onto a carved marble bench, gesturing to the other seats with a lazy flick of a hand. No one sits.

“So what is it you want to know? There is little point telling you anything you already know.”

“We want to know what is going on. Something is happening down at the docks, people are disappearing. A newly stationed troop of 100 royal guards tends to attract people's attention, we have known for a while. We just don't know where they have gone. There's no trace of them.”

“I would like to think that my guards are capable of spiriting away a few peasants competently. Otherwise it would seem I have some reappointments to make.”

“Where are they?” Yennan presses. “It's more than a few peasants. Hundreds of innocent people have disappeared since the beginning of your reign and thousands more lives ruined because of it. Try for some goodness once in your life. Tell us where they are.”

“They've been taken away to the seventh circle of hell, where they will emerge again as demons ready to do my bidding.”

Silence meets your proclamation and in the blink of an eye there is a sword at your chest, gleaming red in the sunset. Annikaa holds it steady and gazes at you, eyes blazing bright and fierce.

“My parents are missing.” She snarls. “My grandparents, my aunts and uncles. My sister. She was 4 years old when your men took her. I'm the only one left and I swore that one day I'd take revenge. You have destroyed all of our lives and yet you still have the gall to spew lies, and you can't even be bothered to make them believable? How stupid do you think we are?”

“That depends on if you're clever enough to ask the right questions.”

“Enough questions. This ends here and now. I don't care how long it takes us to find those people. I will search every corner of this kingdom by myself if I must. But you will pay for your crimes once and for all, your Majesty.”

You gasp as the blade pierces your chest and you grasp the sword and pull it away, your hand coming away blood soaked. You chuckle weakly, pushing yourself up from the bench with what little energy you have left. You can feel your life draining from you as the blood pools and spills out of the open wound.

You lift a trembling hand to Annikaa, stood in front of you with a satisfied look on her face as Yennan and the soldier stand behind, frozen and horrified. You stroke her cheek, leaving a streak of red across her skin.

“You foolish girl.” You whisper. “You have no idea what you have just done.”

As she releases you in shock, you stumble forward, legs too weak to hold you up. Blood streaks across the paving stones, before soaking into the ground. You mumble feverishly, words tripping off your tongue in a hurried rush. And finally, you slump, ritual completed.

“What… what have you done?” Annikaa stumbles over her words, backing away from you, tripping over a bench and scrambling away as fast as she can.

“It's more a case of what you have done, my dear.” You gasp, feeling a familiar dark force fill your lungs, coursing through your veins. “You really should have believed me.”

With a gasping rattle you lunge for her, unnaturally fast, black shadows and smoke dancing around your form, now taller, stronger, not quite human and not quite monster. You watch with satisfaction as the shadows wrap around her, smoke creating a mockery of hands encircling her neck, squeezing the breath out of her lungs.

As she collapses, lifeless, you feel the power bubbling up inside you, sending you into a giddy reel. It only takes a flick of a hand for the two other men in the clearing to fall to the ground and you can hear faint screams of terror from the city and castle. You've imagined this day for years, so vividly that you can almost see it.

All across the city, black shapes are rising, twisting and howling under the dark sky. It's an enchanting image, black smoke and shadows swirling along the streets, leaving destruction wherever they go. Deadly, it would only take a few seconds for limbs and organs to fail, with no hope of recovery upon contact with a demon.

The force isn't as strong as you wished, you had hoped for a few more years to increase your strength, but it is more than enough to achieve your immediate purpose. There will be time, later, to add to their ranks. This is only the first stage of your plan. First the city, then the kingdom. Then you can move further afield. Perhaps you will start with Nedia. Or leave her until the end. Let her see how well her ‘good will’ works when her neighbouring kingdoms were burning around her.

As the sky darkens, you listen as the city falls quiet. No signs of life remain and as you fill your lungs to let out a great rattling cry, you can hear the echo, low but loud, across the city as they answer to your call. With ease you rise to the top of the castle, floating gently above the parapets.

There is only darkness, as far as you can survey, the only colour the streaks of red made by the sun as it vanishes from sight under your gaze. Night falls as you survey your kingdom, peaceful and quiet and empty. You stretch out your shadowy figure, rejoicing in the power that wells up inside you.

In the breeze, your dress flows in tatters and your crown seems to gleam with a light of its own, twisted iron twisting into your skull and around your face. You let out another cry and watch the shadows rise from the buildings, a flock of darkness swarming and dancing, mesmerising patterns in the moonlight.

Perhaps nefarious was the right word to describe you. But in the end it does not matter. They, they are dead. And now you rule the night.

#Morven's Writings #Nefarious #rambling galore

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thecoroutfitters · 5 years

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Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.

Editors Note: Another guest contribution from R. Ann Parris to The Prepper Journal. If you have information for Preppers that you would like to share then enter into the Prepper Writing Contest with a chance to win one of three Amazon Gift Cards with the top prize being a $300 card to purchase your own prepping supplies!

I’m the first to suggest that many prepper packs can go on a diet. However, there are some handy gadgets that can make our lives easier or be downright must-have’s, whether we’re mid-disaster, packing for fun, or heading out to hunt, fish, or cut timber.

At the moment, I’m going to umbrella all the various bags preppers carry under Bug-Out Bags. So, when I say “BOB” also consider the GHB-Get Home Bag, GOOD-Get Out Of Dodge bag, day/patrol packs, kayak/canoe grab bag, belt bags, and whatever our non-pocket, semi-expanded EDC-Everyday Carry kit goes in.

Many are also worth the weight and space as permanent fixtures in our everyday and rec vehicles, our SIP-Shelter in Place and vehicle-evac totes and rolling bins, and our sheds and fence-mending coats.

Besides the bare-bones basics that are universal (yet situationally dependent), here’s a handful of BOB items to think about…

Disposable Gloves

Whether they’re truly disposable gloves or the kitchen types that are reusable but not truly a one-time purchase, some liquid-shielding gloves can be beneficial.

Many hunters use them to avoid pathogen contamination. One of my main purposes in keeping them handy is similar – protecting any nicks or larger cuts in grubby situations (I know for a fact you can use hand sanitizer and wash your hands wearing decent medical gloves on only one hand).

They’re also useful for preventing contact and cross contamination of something like poison oak/ivy while treating it or gingerly removing a suspicious leaf from Survival Dog’s coat.

Regular household gloves are a little tougher than exam gloves, and with some tape or an elastic hairband can still provide a decent seal. They can also go over a jersey-glove “liner” to form a warmer combination, one more resistant to rainy, wet conditions than the commonly packed leather shells or PVC-dipped garden gloves.

Skip the cafeteria/catering service gloves – they don’t fit well, they’re tough to get tight enough to be useful, and they’re very light duty.

Super long, heavy-duty work gloves are a little too bulky for me. There are some really good PVC-coated fisherman and janitorial gloves out there, but they’re a little pricey for me and a little too bulky for my purposes (versus a “good” set of “real” gloves).

My picks are the 7-10mil exam gloves in 5-pair pouches or the 2-pair packets of kitchen gloves, the ones that fit in back pockets and shirt pockets, and offer multiple changes for the same space and weight.

Pliers

Specifically, needle-nosed pliers with both decent textured ridges and decent to good wire cutters can be incredibly useful – useful enough to consider mod’ing a pouch for them or having them in your chest carrier.

Having them on-the-move handy helps with a biggie: detaching yourself from brambles or wire.

The ability to get a good grip on small and slick objects is huge, and my primary purpose – the snap that won’t pop, the strap that’s stubborn, the knot that got wet and then dried into concrete, a stiff zipper or if the zipper pull pops off, and getting a stubborn bottle lid open various ways.

They also give us the torque to turn wire coat hangers into anything we want, among the various intended-use repair and access purposes.

My test of how good cutters are is if they can handle a fishhook.

I know for sad fact that you can get through steel chain link, three-strand barbed wire, and definitely the thinner cattle/dog wire fencing with less-robust options. (And the next on the list – oops.) These guys did a nice review on a fair variety in price ranges.

Pruners

I like bypass pruners over anvil types, and vastly prefer one-handed operation – to include the lock, but I will acknowledge that grip-loop latches have fewer failures than slider locks. Like a knife, a full tang is going to be sturdier than hollow plastic, although they’re heavier.

They’re a biggie for me, because I forage and I typically make small fires using mini tin-can rocket stoves or a Dakota pit. A good pair of pruners can handle even starchy cattail rhizomes, upland grasses, willow, and the size limbs I want, with far less noise and weight than a hatchet or machete, and eliminate carrying my curved harvest blades while packing.

Like the pliers mentioned above, they can also be used to clip and detach briars from gaiters, chaps, pants, sleeves, dogs’ coats, etc.

And, as I accidentally discovered on several different occasions, you can cut through your fence with a good set.

Hankies

I specify hankies, because they’re small, thin, and light. I know plenty who carry large bandannas for their noses, but I like having multiples that I can cycle through, and to not have any question which was for brow mops and coffee cups, and which was for my nose.

Small cloths are also easy and fast to wash and dry, and – huge – I can be washing and drying 1-3 and still have 1-3 dry and ready for me. Equally huge, I can pass a clean one to a partner and retain my own. With a bandanna, it’s all or nothing.

(I do, absolutely, use and carry bandannas – just not for my nose.)

Cotton & [Something] for Ticks

Ticks can be serious business. Attached long enough, they can transmit all kinds of diseases. Removed incorrectly, not only is the disease vector an issue, we can leave bits inside to create other infections.

That’s no good.

Snopes.com and others have low opinions of it, but I have great success soaking a cotton ball in vegetable or olive oil and holding it against a tick for 1-5 minutes. Some of them let go on their own. Others require just the lightest of tugs.

Since I tend to pack with cotton balls a small container of oils anyway, it’s easy enough.

Others have used options like petroleum jelly and vapor rubs, and I can remember using Dawn (specifically name-brand that time) as a good option for an initial flea, mite, and tick bath for rescue cats, dogs, horses, and even birds back in the dark ages before Advantix and shoulder-neck oils.

The advantage to each of those is that, like the oil, they have other purposes inside our kits – some of them multiple alternate uses – and they’re available in pocket-sized, pack-able containers without extra steps.

Decent tweezers and a light are also biggies for adding to or including in a first aid kit for ticks alone, and well worth the weight versus cutting open a paw or hand to remove a broken thorn tip, splinter or insect stinger.

Even if you don’t go for making your own first aid kit instead of buying, and don’t go for those options, if you’re anywhere susceptible, please make some plans for ticks. We’re not in Permethrin head to toe 24/7.

Pet owners: Remember, ticks will hitch rides on even treated animals – they just don’t bite or suck, by treatment. Our critters can then carry them into our houses/camps, where they can easily transfer to humans.

Claritin

By “Claritin” I mean any allergy-type that will stop sniffles and sneezing without rendering our brains to noodles, although I do specifically really like Claritin-D and the Walmart 10 mg loratadine generic (versus other brands and generics).

For us, it’s not just about allergies – it’s about controlling the symptoms of any running nose.

Whether it’s hunting or trying to slide somewhere unnoticed, an ill-timed sneeze can bust you instantly, or mess up an aimed shot.

Sneezing and having to snort/shoot rockets to breathe is going to make it tough to get rest, especially if the best rest possible is already cat naps or light dozing. It may also disturb any partners who also desperately need rest if humping the backwoods.

Cough Drops

Cough drops are there for the same reason – stopping the various types of coughs we might have to avoid detection, inopportune timing, and disturbances.

As with small packets of hankies, I tend to think small rolls or boxes stashed in readily-available pockets/pouches is best.

I also prefer the types wrapped in waxed-paper vice plastic. There’s a noise aspect as well as personal leanings about the type of waste produced. Small snack-sized zip-close baggies can keep them dry and contained.

Baggies are also an option to replace any bags we choose to buy instead of rolls/boxes. If we skip the Ziploc, double check that those bags have resealable tops.

Weight Sucks That Are Worth It

There are basics that are listed in every single article about our various bags and kits. Shelter, warmth, foot gear, first aid, knives, duct tape, rain gear, and others are ubiquitous, while also being hugely dependent on our skills, intentions, family/group composition, location, and even season. Rope and bungee cords are biggies for any packing, evac and even SIP situations.

I’m not big on overloading or hauling rucks built for multi-day patrols in hostile nations. The basics and water take up enough weight and space as it is, especially in some climates and with pets and-or children.

These particular weight sucks are worth the load to me. I have them in multiple locations, multiple bags and boxes and in some cases tool belts and coat pockets, on a daily basis.

They regularly have multiple uses, although some require something to go “wrong” before we value them. They can keep us safer, make us more efficient, and save the day even before a Big Thing happens or a storm has us trapped, just bopping around our daily lives.

And, I have to throw it in there, even though it’s an “obvious, always” list item: Water.

As much as you can bear even “just” for an afternoon park stroll, in whatever containers work for the budget, water is worth its weight.

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therearemonstersinthedark · 5 years

Text

Book 2: Luciferous

Chapter 6: The Case of William Smith

A Guardians of the Galaxy Fanwork

Pairings: Peter Quill / Gamora (one-sided), Peter Quill & Nebula

Genre: Adventure, general

Word Count: 5k

Rating: T to be safe, mild gore in later chapters

Links: Fanfiction.net || Ao3

Summary: The trial finally comes to pass.

Author’s Notes: Title is from 'The Case of William Smith’ by Astronautolis

Chapter 6: The Case of William Smith

Marlowe had parted ways from the group as soon as Peter gave her the coordinates for Ego's location. Peter hoped she would keep her word about helping them track down Gamora's parents. They could use all the help they could get.

Cosmo had left along with her, claiming he had calls to make and business to attend to with his generals back on Knowhere. Drax returned to their room shortly after, supposedly going back to continue the rest that Peter had interrupted.

With nothing else to occupy his time, Peter wound up spending his morning wandering the ship with no particular destination in mind. It was a pretty impressive ship by Peter's estimation. Not quite twice the size of the Eclector and obviously designed to hold a large crew in comfort, even if not all of the systems were fully functional. He discovered from some chatty engineers that the ship's name was the Starburst, and that while the loss of the Empire had sorely crippled their efforts, they were still working tirelessly to get the remaining half-finished systems online, though the going was slow at best. Peter wondered if maybe Rocket would be able to help with these improvements once he was up and about, but didn't voice his thoughts.

By the early afternoon he had wandered his way down to the hangars. An entire fleet of Nova Ships were docked in their bays. Some of the ships he passed bore dents and marks that were probably from their recent rescue mission to save him and his friends. A handful were gutted or missing larger pieces, the mechanics working on them too busy to spare Peter much more than a cursory glance.

This was where he happened to run into Dey. The Denarian was strolling down one of the rows, dressed in full flight gear with his face so buried in a tablet that he hadn't even noticed Peter until he called out a greeting.

"Peter?" Dey asked, halting and lowering the tablet. The glow from its screen casting shadows that exaggerated his surprised expression. "What are you doing down here?"

"Scoping out the ship." Peter gave a sheepish shrug as he caught up. He'd be lying if he said he hadn't enjoyed some time to himself, but he was more than ready to have a friendly face to talk to. "You getting ready to go somewhere?"

"Just getting back, actually," Dey said, tucking the tablet under one arm. "Running some of the Corpsmen on their defense patterns. The younger crew and new recruits need as much experience as they can get."

"New recruits?"

"Yeah." Dey scratched offhandedly at the stubble on his chin as he spoke. "Most of the people we help, we relocate to safer portions of the galaxies, but now and then some of them want to stay and help us fight."

"Oh." In the distance, Peter thought he could see a group of corpsmen in flight gear moving through the hangar as well. As the capitol planet of a vast empire, Xandar had always had a very eclectic citizenship, so Peter had no clue which of them were new recruits and which were just young members from before the fall of Xandar. "This wouldn't have anything to do with going to see my father would it?" Peter asked, the sight of the young and inexperienced aliens suddenly filling him with an unexpected wave of apprehension.

"No." Dey's face softened into a smile, like he understood what Peter was thinking. "That group already left. It's a good crew. They know what they're doing. These drills are a regular part of life around here."

"Wait, they left already?" Peter felt a small trill of annoyance at that. He had asked to stay in the loop after all.

"Before morning cycle was up," Dey affirmed, beginning to walk again. "Nova Prime didn't want to waste any time."

"No one told me anything about this." Peter fell into step beside Dey.

"No one knew where you were," Dey replied with a look that was more amused than anything else.

"Oh," Peter huffed, deflating slightly. "Right."

"Don't worry, Nova Prime's leading the mission himself. They'll all be fine, and back before you know it. Marlowe told me she thinks they might even be calling the trial tomorrow morning if the tests come back quickly enough."

Peter chewed his lip as he considered the impending trial with a mixture of dread and impatience. He'd been waiting for this trial for cycles but the thought of it actually being so soon wasn't as relieving as he hoped it would be. Marlowe's warning about all the worst ways it could end came unbidden to the back of his mind.

They walked on in silence for a bit while Peter shuffled through his head for what kind of questions he might need to ask Dey as long as he had him, but his musings were interrupted by a low musical alarm chiming out across the bay.

"Oh?" Dey said, coming to a halt and staring up at a blinking screen far above their heads, fastened high along one of the walls of the hangar. "They're back already? That was quick."

"That's... good right?" Peter asked.

"I'm not sure," Dey said slowly. "Let's go find out. They'll be docking in the far wing. Follow me."

Dey turned and led them through the winding aisles of ships to a new section of the very impressive docks. By the time they were in sight, the ships had already docked and the crews had disembarked. Some of the crew were already running through the familiar routines of a post-check flight, while others were vanishing back towards the dock exits. Several of the Nova Crewmen shot him sideways glances as they passed.

"Dey? ...Peter?" Marlowe's voice distracted Peter from wondering at the strange looks, and he found the Nova Prime and his assistant approaching down the walkway. "What's he doing down here?"

"Just getting a tour of the ship," Dey answered easily, unperturbed by Marlowe's accusatory tone.

Marlowe and Saal had come to a halt in front of Peter and Dey, and for a moment Saal pinned Peter down with a deeply thoughtful look, the wrinkles on his face deepening slightly.

"How'd it go?" Peter broke in, too impatient for their small talk.

Marlowe's eyes flickered over to Saal for a moment before answering.

"It went remarkably well," She answered, in a tone that made Peter think she was carefully considering what to tell him.

"Was Mantis there?" he asked, when she let the pause linger too long. "Was she alright?"

"There was someone fitting your description of Mantis present, and she seemed to be under no immediate duress."

"Great!" Peter all but crowed, his heart feeling lighter at the news. "Did you see my father?"

If Mantis was there, then Ego must have been, too.

"We met him, actually," Marlowe added, after another quick glance Saal's way. "We have some DNA which is being sent to the labs as we speak to run against yours."

"Everyone's Okay, though. So he wasn't suspicious?" Peter asked slowly, ignoring the way his heart beat faster at the mention of coming face to face with his father.

"We'll have time to discuss this later," Saal cut in, apparently losing patience and beginning to move off. "For now you should prepare your crew. We'll be holding the trial tonight."

"So soon?" Dey's brows rose in surprise.

Marlowe just shot him a quick smile, hardly more than a twitch of the lips and toss of a shoulder, before hurrying to catch up to Saal.

"I wonder what happened?" Dey murdered, brows drawing together as he watched the Prime and his assistant go.

-x-

Peter was more than happy to take Saal's advice and gather his crew as quickly as he could. Drax and Groot, who had wandered from the room, proved difficult to locate. He and Dey, who had agreed to accompany him so he could convene with his incarcerated crewmates as well, eventually tracked them down in some out of the way viewing room, seated on a pair of dark couches set under a massive glass wall that provided a decent view of the outside of the ship. Between the couches was a small matching table with an empty lunch tray and a mug, probably the remains of Drax's lunch.

"Whoah!" Peter gasped, staring out the window at a huge asteroid that was drifting lazily by. It was so close to the ship Peter could make out tiny black flecks, like shards of broken glass or obsidian, set into the brown surface. "Where are we?"

"An unnamed asteroid field outside of the Blackmoon Quadrant." Dey joined him at the window, his distant smile reflecting off the glass. "The metals in the asteroids and a strong electromagnetic field make it impossible to use scanners or trackers to find us. A ship this big and this new isn't easy to hide, and on top of not wanting to be found by Thanos, we'd be an obvious target for scrappers and pirates.

"Of course," Dey added, rubbing at his nose sheepishly, "it makes our communications a bit tricky sometimes. Our ship can't really send or receive hails from outside of the field. Your friend Yondu almost didn't find us in time to save you."

"Wait." Peter pulled away from the window. "I thought Cosmo said he was going to be calling his generals back on Knowhere today?"

"We have scouts that patrol outside of the asteroid fields at set times to keep an eye on the surrounding areas and intercept communications from our allies. Cosmo would have to go with one of them on their rout to send a message out. He'll probably be gone for a while."

"Will he be back in time for the trial?" Peter tried to keep the trepidation from his voice, but it must have shown through as Dey's smile faltered a bit.

"I'm not sure. Patrols return pretty late in the cycle, so he might not."

"Trial?" Drax asked, rising from his seat on one of the dark couches.

"It was moved to tonight," Peter informed him. "I was coming to gather you guys so we could meet up with the others. But first, can we swing by the mess hall?"

-x-

Peter led the way down the hallway, a warm mug held carefully in his bandaged hands. After nearly setting a new personal record for how quickly he could cram a meal down, Peter had insisted on finding some broth to bring with them on the chance that Rocket was more awake by now. He was really hoping he might be awake enough to gather at least some of what was going on. Rocket wasn't always the best at making good impressions. In fact, in their months together as the Guardian's, Rocket, and his complete lack of anything resembling a filter, had single-handedly caused more disputes and cost them more allies than all of the other guardian's combined, and that was saying something. The last thing they needed here was a repeat of the incident with the Sovereign. For the sake of getting them all out of here and moving on, Peter was not above begging or bribery.

Inside the Containment Unit, the first thing Peter noticed was that Gamora was sitting, cross-legged, on the floor next to the wall that separated her cell from Rocket's. Nebula was on the floor as well, at least an arm's length away, with her elbows balanced on her bent knees, but closer than Peter had seen the sisters willing sit together since coming to this universe.

"How is he?" Peter couldn't quite see Rocket from the entryway and was suddenly worried that something had gone wrong with his recovery, but when Nebula glanced up at him her eyes were dull with boredom and the first hints of frustration, rather than any concern.

"Coming along," she answered, rising to her feet. "Is that for him?"

"Yeah. Broth, like Gamora said." As Peter made it to the end of the hallway he found Rocket sitting directly in front of Gamora, arms crossed and ears pressed back. An unpleasant look was smeared across his face as he glared back at her.

"Hey Rocket," Peter tried.

Rocket turned his head slowly, the dirty look shifting from Gamora to Peter. Despite his sour expression and rumpled appearance, Rocket was obviously much more awake and alert than he had been earlier. Well, it was progress. It was really hard to reason with someone who was too out of it to understand your words.

"Glad to see you're looking better. I brought you some broth." Peter raised the mug and wiggled it slightly. "You like Bereth broth, right? There weren't many choices."

Rocket just narrowed his eyes and flattened his ears more, like Peter's voice was too loud. He was reminded again of Rocket with a killer hangover, and tried to lower his voice.

Dey, who had been watching them interact quietly, stepped forward and unlocked the door before stepping back. The remote to Rocket's collar was hidden away in one of his pockets. Dey had gathered it while Peter, Drax and Groot were busy in the mess hall. Peter was grateful for the discretion at least.

Rocket's glare didn't waver as Peter entered, but there was no growling or hissing and Peter felt immeasurably more reassured at seeing his friend acting a little more like his normal self.

"Here." Peter knelt down an arm's length away and held the mug out. Rocket made no move to take it from him. Those hard brown eyes studied him carefully for several long beats before Rocket finally opened his mouth.

"Just leave it," Rocket grunted out. His voice was raw and cracked, even more so than usual, and though Peter had been expecting as much after his last few trying days, he was still surprised at exactly how bad it was, and found himself wondering if it was from more than just a few days of sickness and disuse.

"Okay, sure." All of Peter's bravado and determination seemed to melt away at the reality before him. There was the sharp clack of ceramic on tile as Peter set the mug down between them. "Just, um, let me know if you want more I guess."

Rocket's only response was a rippling twitch of his whiskers which could have meant anything, and Peter had to be satisfied with that.

"Anyways," Peter said as he stepped back out of the cell and let Dey close it again. "We're here because the trip to see my dad was a success, and they're calling the trial tonight."

"So soon?" Nebula asked, her arms crossed and brow arching upwards.

"Sooner's better, isn't it?" Peter asked, though she was only mirroring his own doubts on the matter. "Mantis was there. And the sooner the trial, the sooner we can get you guys out of here, save her, and start looking for Gamora's parents." As Peter spoke, he risked a glance at Rocket to see if he was listening, and was happy to see him watching carefully.

Nebula just hummed in response, the noise muffled slightly by the thick glass between them.

"Do you know what this trial will consist of exactly?" Gamora asked, joining her sister at the door but leaving the same arm's length between them that had been present earlier.

"Not really..." Peter looked back at Dey who was standing behind him in the hallway.

"It should be pretty simple, really," Dey said, speaking for the first time since arriving. "The council will be acting Jury and Nova Prime will be presiding over it. Some of the crew should be present, too. Mostly it's an assessment of the danger present to the crew and how best to deal with it..."

As Dey had been speaking Peter noticed Groot behind him, still lingering in the doorway to the rest of the ship.

"Groot?" Peter asked, leaning over to get a better view of the collosus. "What are you doing? You should be a part of this."

"I am Groot," Groot muttered, shifting back.

"What do you mean 'no thanks'?" Peter asked, raising a brow in surprise.

"I am Groot."

"It's not that cramped. Look. Drax is in here and he's just fine." Peter waved at the maniac standing quietly at Dey's side as he spoke.

"There is adequate space in here for the tree," Drax agreed.

Groot shuffled reluctantly through the doorway, but stopped inside the break area and refused to come any further.

"I am Groot," he grumbled mutinously.

"Suit yourself," Peter sighed, giving up trying to persuade Groot in any further. If he wanted to be difficult, that was fine. He wasn't the one in any danger here, so Peter would worry about puzzling out this sudden change of attitude later.

"Is your friend alright?" Dey asked, watching Groot from over his shoulder.

"Yeah, he just... doesn't like small spaces," Peter answered lamely. "He's spent a lot of time in prisons lately."

There was a loud snort of laughter and Peter turned in surprise to stare at Rocket.

"Lotta time in a prison, huh?" he laughed with a sneer that flashed the tips of his teeth, though the effect was somewhat lost to his crackling voice. "Cause no one else here would know what that's like, right?" He turned to stare expectantly at Gamora and Nebula in their cell, but his wheezing laugh trailed off when they didn't respond, and his face fell back into its ugly glare. His lips peeled back, and Peter was pretty certain that if his body wasn't so sore, the raccoon would be flipping the assassins off right now.

"Why don't you quit being a baby, you overgrown court weed?" Rocket spat out, loud enough to be easily heard by Groot who was still hovering out of sight from Rocket's cell.

Groot remained silent, but was shifting his weight around where he stood. There was a dark look that Peter had never seen on his friend's adult face before, but was oddly reminiscent of his sullen teenage phase.

Well this was new. Rocket and Groot had been such an inseparable pair in his own reality, Peter hadn't really considered any other possibilities here, and yet, there was obviously something unpleasant between them. Peter realized with a small jolt that he had been somewhat relying on Groot to help persuade Rocket to join them. That plan was quickly tossed in the scrap heap.

"The tree is a baby?" Drax asked, his brows raising in surprise. "If he grows any larger, it will be difficult to fit him on any ship."

"It's a metaphor," Peter sighed. "Groot's not going to get bigger. Right?"

In actuality, Peter had no clue if Groot could grow any bigger. They'd only been together a cycle or so before he'd burned, and since then had been regrowing. Peter had sort of just assumed this was his adult form. But Groot didn't correct him, so his assumption was probably correct.

"Still," Drax persisted. "It is deplorable to send a baby into battle."

"He's not a baby. It's a metaphor," Peter repeated "Rocket was just saying that Groot was behaving like a baby."

"I am Groot!"

"I wasn't agreeing with him!"

Rocket seemed to be enjoying the chaos he was causing. Under the thick layer of misery was a small but definite spark of a devious humor that Peter had long since learned to dread, and maybe even fear a little.

From his spot in the middle of the hallway, Dey cleared his throat.

"Do you guys... normally get along so well?"

"Things are a bit strained right now." Gamora's calm voice of reason came to the rescue, saving Peter from having to answer. Anything he could say to make Dey feel better would probably have been an outright lie. "I'm sure you can understand why."

"Of Course." Dey didn't seem entirely convinced, the corners of his mouth were pulled down in a small frown.

"How long do you think we have?" Peter asked, trying to get them all back on the same page. All this in-fighting wasn't good. Marlowe had made it pretty clear that their freedom was hinged largely on his ability to control the team. Gamora and Nebula seemed to be in the spirit at least, but without being able to ever be alone with Rocket, Peter could only hope that he could figure it out on his own, or the assassins could explain the plan and convince him to play along. They had clearly been doing something when he had come in, but he didn't dare ask any details with Dey hovering over his shoulder, and give away just how little control he had.

"We're well past midcycle," Dey answered, checking the little screen on his wrist. "So not too long, I'd imagine. But they'll have to run the tests first and prepare the room and crew. They'll probably be sending an escort once everything else is ready. You might want to get cleaned up a bit before then."

Peter glanced down at himself and realized the Denerian may have a point. He'd been running around the ship all day and his clothes were a bit sweaty and rumpled. He could probably use another shower, too. He had taken one the day before to wash the rest of the blood and grime from the battlefield off, but a surreptitious sniff of his shirt proved he still stank quite a bit.

"Ughf. Okay, yeah. Is Yondu still around? He has the Milano, so I can see if any of my clothes survived the crash." It would be nice to get back into his own clothes anyways. He'd been running around in spare cadet uniforms for long enough.

"I think so. Do you have anything more formal?" Dey asked, turning to question Drax. "We might have some spare formal shirts in your size-"

"I will not be wearing a shirt," Drax cut him off stubbornly.

"But it would-"

"Don't bother," Peter cut Dey off now before they could wander too far off-topic again. "He won't budge on this. But I'll get you some more pants while I grab my own clothes." Drax's ravager pants had been damaged beyond repair during the fight on Traxxon III. Like Peter, he was just borrowing spare clothes from the Nova Corps right now. He knew it was silly, but Peter found he couldn't help but feel better at the thought of his crew back in their ravager red to face this new, strange threat.

"Do you guys want some new clothes, too?" Peter asked, turning back to face the assassins. Nebula was still wearing her jumpsuit she'd sequestered from the Eclector before leaving, but it was looking worse for the wear with several torn pieces along one shoulder and a couple of burns and blood stains. The black of Gamora's outfit hid the blood and grime well enough, but it was still ripped and tattered from the shrapnel of the exploding Milano. Gamora opened her mouth, looking ready to refuse when Nebula spoke over her.

"Sure."

"Great." Peter perked up a bit at the tiny victory even as Gamora shot her sister a questioning look which went unanswered. Yondu's ravager faction was currently composed entirely of men, but it wasn't so much a rule, as just the fact that no women really wanted to join the marauding crew of over one hundred men who were so very accustom to living with other men in a seemingly never-ending contest to out-disgust each other. Later, after Yondu's funeral, Peter had learned from Stakar that this was a pretty common phenomena among the ravager factions; ships would often drift to being composed of entirely men or entirely women. Still, there had been a few occasions during Peter's time with them when females had briefly joined Yondu's crew, and he knew they always had a handful of women's uniforms floating around in crew storage.

"Don't even bother," Rocket rumbled out when Peter glanced at him thoughtfully. That was fine, though. Peter honestly didn't think he could do anything about Rocket's uniform anyways. Last time the ship's tailor had made Rocket's jumpsuit, but Peter didn't have Rocket's measurements memorized, and doubted he would be persuaded to give them over even if there was time for it. He would just have to settle for everyone else.

"Alright, I'll be back as quickly as I can."

-x-

Yondu proved easy to locate with just a few inquiries -The Ravager captain had been hanging around after news of the impending trial had blown his way- and Peter was delighted to learn that the Eclector was stationed nearby. It wasn't long before Peter was returning with a stack of fresh uniforms folded in his arms. Dey, who had accepted Peter's offer to come along and had visited the Eclector with a mixture of delight and poorly-hidden horror, returned with him now so he could drop off the clothes. Groot, still in some sort of bad mood and not needing any sort of uniform, had returned to their rooms as soon as they had left the Containment Unit. Drax left to join him as soon as Peter handed over his change of clothes.

"Sorry, they're a bit dated, but they're clean." Peter smiled as he handed the remaining uniforms to the assassins through the flow glass.

"They're fine." Nebula accepted the uniforms, passing one back to Gamora without looking.

"Okay, well, I'm going to go back to the room and get ready myself. It's been suggested I stay there until they call for the trial. I think they don't want us conspiring." Peter laughed at his joke, but no one else laughed with him and it died back down. "Anyways, I probably won't see you again until then. Dey said they'll be sending an escort for you guys, which probably means-"

"Hand-cuffs and armed guards. Yes." Nebula cut off his awkward babbling with a flat look that reminded him this wasn't anyone's first time as a prisoner. "Is there anything else?"

"One thing," Peter mumbled, suddenly nervous about his request. "I know it's really not your style..." He paused to glance at Gamora and make sure Rocket was listening as well to include them in his request. "But I think an apology would go a long way here..."

Across the glass Nebula stiffened. It was subtle, hardly more than a sharpening of her features and a deepening to the creases of the uniform held in her arms, but it made Peter's heart beat a little harder and his palms sweat as he feared the worst in her reaction.

"Of course," came the unexpected response, the deceptively mild tone not matching the tension in her body. "You're the captain."

"G-great." Peter had no doubt that he had upset her, and that any apology she gave would be for the sake of the trial and maintaining the appearances, and nothing else, but out of all of them, Nebula was honestly the one he was most worried about here. Even more so than Gamora, who's crimes were not as personal to the crew and who had a calm air about her at all times. Even Rocket, who had been referred to as a weapon with a casualty that set Peter's nerves on end, seemed to be afforded some sort of pity which Peter was sure would work out in his favor, just as sure as he was that Rocket wouldn't appreciate it. He hadn't missed the sharp looks Marlowe had sent Nebula's way, however, or how she been just a little cooler towards the younger assassin, nor had he forgotten that Nebula was the only one there when Xandar burned. There was a bad blood between her and the Nova Corps that didn't exist between the Xandarians and either of the others. "Thank you."

-x-

Back in their shared room, freshly washed and dressed, Peter's hair wasn't even done drying when a Nova Crewman he didn't recognize knocked on the door to alert them the trial was beginning. Peter, Drax and Groot were led back to the same room he had been questioned in. The Council members and Saal were once again seated behind the desk on the raised dais. As before, Marlowe was seated discreetly to the side. Her flight suit had been replaced with a more formal uniform featuring a skirt that was reminiscent of the first time they had met in his own universe. A couple dozen or so crew members in full formal uniform as well were seated as audience around the room, making it feel much smaller and more claustrophobic than before. Yondu was there as well, his normal attire and bored slouch making him stick out like a sore thumb among the crowd. There was a wide berth of open space in front of the dais where Peter supposed he and his crew were meant to plead their case or do whatever they were going to do here.

"Star-lord. Guardians. Please take a seat." Saal indicated a row of empty seats inside the empty space.

"Where's the rest of my crew?" Peter asked stubbornly

"They will be joining us shortly. Before that, we have some things to review."

It seemed the Nova Corps hadn't just been twiddling their thumbs these last couple days. Among the information brought to light were a long list of bounties on Peter's Star-lord alias, all of which could be traced back to Thanos in some way or another, a more recent bounty placed on Nebula's head that had been circulating in some underground channels to the tune of desertion, and reports of the Oasis's destruction which lead to a whole new round of questioning. By the time they had circulated back to questions about Halfworld, which apparently the Nova Corps had only ever heard rumors of and were fascinated, and horrified, to learn of the reality of it's existence, Peter was glad that the rest of his crew wasn't stuck here listening to this endless babbling that was nearly putting Peter to sleep. Whenever the line of questioning would get too far out of Peter's very limited knowledge of this universe and the inner workings of Thanos's army, he would be reduced to offering a shrug and a 'Nebula probably knows' or 'You could try asking Gamora' and Saal would quickly move them along to the next topic.

While they spoke, Marlowe was busy recording and organizing information onto her tablet with fascinating speed, and the members of the council would occasionally scribble notes onto pads next to them.

Eventually, when Peter was unable to answer anything with certainty, the questions wound down and the rest of his crew was brought in.

As Peter had predicted, they were all bound with some very heavy duty looking handcuffs, and escorted by a number of rather imposing looking and well-armed crewmen. Despite the aggressive precautions, everyone appeared untouched and unfazed. Gamora was more calm and composed than he had seen her since Knowhere, surveying the room with her head held high as she entered.

The trio were shown to a set of chairs in front of the dais, far enough away from the others to allow a clear view of the prisoners from all sides. Gamora and Nebula took the offered seats, but Rocket just sneered at the guards and remained standing, his tail lashing slowly back and forth while he inspected the room through narrowed eyes. Peter tried to catch Rocket's eye when his inspection swept over his section of the room, but he was steadfastly ignored.

"I am sure by now you are well aware of why you are here, and the predicament we all find ourselves in," Saal began, addressing all three at once with his hands clasped together on the desk in front of him.

He was met with only silence.

"This is far from what I would call an ideal situation, however, the fact is that in times like these, opportunities often come to us under the guise of obstacles. What I see before me are some very large obstacles for my people, indeed, and an opportunity is just what I'd like to see made of it."

From his spot behind the assassins and slightly to the side, Peter could see Rocket's lips peel back into a silent snicker. The sight made the hair on the back of Peter's neck prickle, but Saal continued on like he hadn't noticed.

"All three of you have committed atrocities; so many that it would be a waste of this court's time to list the crimes in your records, let alone speculate at the horrors committed beyond our knowledge."

Peter thought he saw Gamora's carefully schooled expression falter for a moment, but from his angle he couldn't be certain.

"Regardless of this, it has always been the way of the Nova Corps to learn from the past but to be willing to step over it in favor of moving towards the future. Our previous prime, Irani, lived by this ideal, and she died by it as well. She devoted her life to making peace with our greatest enemy, and achieved it, but that peace would ultimately be what cost her-what cost all of us here today-everything. It would be easy to let our hearts be embittered by this. To let our loss and our grief excuse our own atrocities in turn. Surely, we could excuse the destruction of Thanos's favorite children and one of his greatest weapons as a necessary evil to spare the universe from a greater loss, and never once bring to our lips the word revenge, but to do that would be to let die the very core of the Nova Empire- the very last of what holds us together, and the one thing Ronan could never hope to destroy on his own, even with all the powers within the universe. I believe that in killing you, we would be delivering that final blow with our own hands."

He paused here, perhaps to gauge the Guardian's response, but more likely to let his words sink in for his own crew as well.

"It is not lost to us, as well, that now is no time to pass up any opportunity to do harm to Thanos's army. Your friend, with his Celestial heritage, presents quite the opportunity to do just that, and your continued survival has been listed among the payments he would extract from us in exchange for this help. What is in question here and now, is what form that continued survival should take."

Here, Saal's speech took on a harder tone and he leaned his weight forward onto his elbows, pinning the three Guardians down with a heavy look.

"What is it you want from us?" Gamora asked, flipping her hair back with a haughty toss of her head and taking control of the Guardian's end of the conversation.

"I am sure you can understand the risk I am taking with my crew's safety -something, I assure you, I take very seriously- in allowing you three to remain on our ship. First and foremost, I am looking for an assurance of your loyalties. For now, your word, at the least, your promise of obedience, and any information you possess which may aid our battle against Thanos. The details of your parole have yet to be determined, but I can safely say the level of your freedom and restrictions will be a reflection of your own actions. We have heard much from your companions of your supposed characters, but before we begin deliberation, I would give you the chance to speak on your own behalf." Here, Saal leaned back, gesturing with his hands for the trio to take the spotlight.

Gamora continued to take the lead, standing from her chair to face Saal and the council with a composure and grace that made Peter almost feel like he was looking at his own Gamora again.

"You can have our word that we mean your crew no harm," she said confidently. "More than that, you can have our assurance that our obedience to the Titan is ended. We will not deny the things that we have done under his rule." From where he sat, Peter thought he saw Gamora hesitate for the briefest of moments and wondered how far along she had made it in sorting through her memories. Did she even know all of what she had done? What she was confessing to? "But, we will deny any accusations of committing these actions under our own free will or desire. Free from his sway, and under the power of our own choice, we would see the Titan fall, and preserve the rest of the galaxies from his cruelties."

There was a general murmuring and rustling through the crowd assembled around them in the silence that followed her words.

"Pretty words." The lines around Saal's lips were deep as he stared at the Guardian's with an unreadable expression. "But we will take them into our consideration. Is there anything else you would like to add before we move on?"

The red tips of Gamora's hair bounced and rippled when she turned her head towards Nebula who was still seated beside her. Peter couldn't see whatever look they shared, but a moment later Nebula rose to her feet as well. A hush fell over the makeshift auditorium, so still it felt as if no one dared breath and even the soft tapping of Marlowe's fingers across her tablet faded away. In that brief silence Nebula tossed a glance over her shoulder to catch Peter's eye. It was so quick and subtle Peter might not have noticed at all if he wasn't watching her so intently.

"An apology won't do anything to change what has happened," she began, her voice taught but steady. "But for the part I played on that day, and the losses incurred by your people; I am sorry." Peter was sure he recognized Gamora's prose underneath Nebula's uncomfortably clipped tone, and wondered if they had worked something out after he had left.

"I thank you for your apology." Saal's words were nearly as tight and withdrawn as Nebula's had been, but he seemed to be a bit appeased by the gesture at least. "With no further matters to raise, we will begin-"

The Nova Prime was interrupted by a rasping chuckle that only grew louder in the resulting silence. Peter felt his blood run cold as Rocket threw his head back into full blown laughter, cruel and mocking.

"What is the meaning of this?" shouted one of the council members.

"Oh!" Rocket's howling laughter fell back down, but refused to fade away entirely. "I'm so sorry," he chuckled. "Cause that's what we're doing here, right? Sayin' I'm sorry and makin' everything all better? 'I know I murdered everyone you ever loved-" he screwed his face up and raised his voice as he mocked Nebula, "-but I'm sorry so let's all hold hands and get along!' What's next? Are we gonna go park on a planet so we can skip through some fields like one big happy family?"

"Rodent!" Gamora's hiss was nearly drowned by the shouts of outrage and Rocket's bellowing laughter.

Rocket's jaw snapped shut abruptly and he rounded on Gamora with a snarl.

"You might be spineless enough to grovel at their feet, but I'm not!" he spat at her with venom.

"Rocket!" Peter shouted, barely hearing his own voice over the pounding of his own heart. "They're trying to help-"

"Bullshit!" Rocket rounded on Peter now. "How stupid do you think I am?! This ain't the first time I've been bought but it sure as hell is gonna be the last!"

"No one's trying to buy-"

"You can call it whatever you want, sit on your precious council and spout out the word ‘parole’, but I still got a collar 'round my neck and chains on my arms, and the only options I hear are obedience or death. You're just a new boss singin' the same old song, and if you ask me, I'm no better off here than I was with that oversized raisin. This isn't a trial, it's just another god-damned auction block."

"We have a chance to save the galaxies," Gamora said stiffly. "To kill Thanos."

"I don't give a flying crap about the galaxies! And I hope he kills you! I hope you all kill each other and there's no one left!" Rocket turned his head, sweeping his glare across the room to leave no doubt that he was including everyone present. His voice had risen to near hysterical levels and was beginning to crack under the strain of its abuse.

"That's enough!" Saal slammed his hands down on the desk as he rose, his furious eyes landing squarely on Peter. "Control your people or-"

"Control me!?" Rocket howled, whirling now on the Nova Prime. "Oh, no. I'm in control of me now, and I ain't going back quietly!"

To Peter's absolute horror Rocket gave a final twist of his wrist and the cuffs holding his arms in front of himself fell to the floor. He must have been undoing them this whole time, but Peter had been so distracted with his endless whirling and erratically thrashing tail that he hadn't even noticed. Peter's mind was still reeling in surprise at this new development when Rocket launched himself straight for the Nova Prime and everything seemed to burst into life at once.

In one fluid movement Gamora hooked the leg of her chair with her ankle and flung it after Rocket, hitting him square in the back and knocking him down. At the same time Nebula raised her foot and stomped down on her own cuffs, ripping her right hand free with a horrible crunch then diving after Rocket, grappling him with her working arm and pinning him down before he could regain his feet.

Peter had leaped forward without even realizing it, and now he stood frozen over Rocket who was thrashing and screeching profanities while he clawed and snapped at the mechanical arm pinning him down. As fast as things had come to life they froze again. A terrible hush swept over the room, making Rocket's cries all the more stark and jarring. When Peter lifted his eyes he found that nearly everyone else had sprung to action as well.

Every member of the council was standing now, and many of the guards that had come in with the assassins and Rocket had moved forward with weapons drawn to protect them. Marlowe, with the tablet nowhere to be found, stood steadfast between Saal and Rocket's interrupted path, a gun gripped white-knuckled in her hands. Peter couldn't even begin to fathom from where in her court uniform she had drawn it. His eyes swept around the room and he found that every member of the audience had risen into various battle ready positions as well. All, that was, except for Yondu, who still slouched in his seat, coat thrown back and the corner of his lip pinned between his teeth in preparation for a whistle. The weight of the silence seemed to settle a bit heavier on his shoulders as Peter realized he didn't know with any certainty where that deadly arrow might have been pointed had it been loosed. Drax and Groot had risen from their seats but remained rooted where they were. In the center of it all Gamora stood, alone and unchanged.

The first to break from the frozen tableau was Saal. Something cold and dark had taken over his expression as he slowly reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out the remote to Rocket's collar.

"No-" Peter stumbled forward a step, but a soft click froze him in his tracks again. Peter's heart dropped to his boots when he glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of the barrel of a blaster pointed squarely at his own head.

"Please." Peter licked his lips and raised his hands in a placating gesture as he turned back to plead with Saal. "Please don't."

"Center button." Gomora's cold voice sent a chill down Peter's spine. "Press it three times, then hold it down."

Saal's cold eyes considered the assassin for a moment before he raised the controller.

"No-" Peter jerked forward, but was stopped again by the all too familiar sensation of a gun barrel pressed against the back of his head. He could do nothing as Saal pressed the button as instructed and Rocket's curses contorted into a pained scream that abruptly cut off.

Rocket's final cry was still ringing in Peter's ears when the rest of the assembly roared into life. Shouts of outrage mingled with slews of insults directed at Rocket and the assassins. Through the cacophony, he could make out demands ranging from locking them up, to throwing them out the airlock, to more creative forms of execution. Peter's heart was beating like he'd just finished a marathon, and he suddenly caught a taste of the same hopelessness that had gripped him on Traxxon III when he was sure Ronan had won.

They didn't have weapons, Rocket was unconscious, and Gamora was still bound. There was no way they could fight their way out of here, and even if they tried, Peter was still loath to hurt these people who he had considered friends in another time. Unbidden, Peter's bandaged hands raised up to run through his hair, as his thoughts raced like a panicked mouse inside his skull. What was he supposed to do here?

As if in direct answer to his thought, one voice broke through the din.

"Perhaps, I can offer a solution."

Peter's heart nearly stuttered to a stop at the smug, easy tone which had haunted his nightmares for so long. Feeling like he must be mistaken, Peter slowly turned around to face the source of that voice. The rest of the assembly seemed to sense the shift in the air and the shouting died down as all eyes turned now to one corpsmen who stood with his hands in his pockets and an untroubled composer that made him stick out among the crowd. The strange man's eyes seemed to light up when they met Peter's and a soft glow rippled over his body, distorting it like an image under a clear water which had been disturbed. As the rippling settled the image resolved into the all too familiar and all too unwelcome sight of Ego.

"Hello, Peter."

End

0 notes

otomefantasy · 6 years

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Storage Sheds – Building, Designing, and Mastering

Storage sheds serve as far more than a place to put your extra stuff. They make your yard look spectacular, give you building experience, give your kids or pets a place to hang out, and sometimes house unexpected (but welcome) visitors. Convert them into a man cave or a tiny cabin to get the most out of your shed without building an entirely different structure! DIY sheds are cheap, go up in about a day, and finding the materials is easy compared to more complex structures. The sheer diversity of shed plans is astounding, allowing you to customize your storage shed.

So, how do you set about building your own storage shed? Why would you want to build it over other structures, what rules do you have to follow, and how do you choose your shed plan? This article goes over those things and more. Sit tight if you want to learn more about finding materials, building your shed, and using every nook and cranny of your storage shed to your advantage! This comprehensive guide goes over everything you could ever want to know—even if you’ve never built a home in your life! Without further ado, let’s begin.

Why a Storage Shed?

Storage sheds offer a whole array of versatility when it comes to long-term usage. You might build it for storage, but down the road, you can convert it to a workshop, playpen, or even a man cave! Trust me on that last one, I’m an expert. The shed adds value to your house and looks great once you finish building. It helps you utilize space in your yard and saves you just a little time mowing.

Their main advantage might be to keep your house and garage clean. You can put random knick knacks or seasonal stuff in the storage shed and keep your home looking great. No one likes a cluttered attic or garage, and keeping your stuff exposed in the yard just looks trashy.

So, why choose a storage shed when there are many other kinds of buildings to pick? Well, first of all, anything labeled as a storage shed can be repurposed as a different type of building. Secondly, storage shed plans are the most popular type out there, so you actually have the largest amount of diversity as you build your shed. Large barns and second homes take many more resources and a long time to build. Sheds on the other hand take barely a day to build, unless you decide to make a cement foundation! Then it takes two days of work. That’s still nothing compared to a large construction project.

Making Outdoor Buildings

I’ve briefly mentioned the legal to-dos for shed building in this article, but I want to touch on it in full detail here. Before you build any type of outdoor building or shed, check the legality of the shed plan. Building laws have many layers, and you need to check each one to ensure your hard work pays off in the end. Tearing down a storage shed is the last thing you want to do after you build it!

For most areas, you want to obtain something called planning permission. Your building has to conform to a certain code in order to get that planning permission. Not every county has building codes enacted into law, but it helps a ton to plan ahead and build something that weathers the years easily. Here are some typical restrictions that apply to sheds:

Distance from Other Buildings

Must Build a Proper Foundation

Must Minimize Risk of Fire

Needs Proper Ventilation

Needs Resistance to Natural Disasters

Number of Exits and Their Location

Restrictions on Materials Used

Type of Roof Restrictions

Restrictions on Types of Walls

Zoning laws also determine the type of buildings you are allowed to build, so check those ones in particular. If your plot of land is in the center of a city, that city might have designated the area for transportation or business, rather than personal storage or buildings. If you owned the property before your zone changed, you can grab a lawyer and use the old zone codes. Once you’re sure your shed plans match requirements, get your building permit and start your project.

Guidelines of a Building a Great Shed

With those basics away, let’s look at which rules you should follow, no matter what the law requires! First and foremost, the foundation can make or break the worth of a shed…literally. Keep your shed well above the water table and then some. The area around the shed should slope away. If you build close to another building, make sure it is level with the building and then slopes outwards to prevent water from wearing away the foundation of the original building. Also make sure that the roof of a shed close to a building diverts all water away from the building (lean-to sheds are good for this).

Obviously, you want to use materials that are safe. Don’t fill your shed with asbestos. If you use insulation, pick a fire retardant. Treat your wood properly so it doesn’t rot. Ensure your roof tiles or tarps are firmly attached so that they don’t blow away in a windstorm. If you live in somewhere hot or humid, provide proper ventilation—unless you want a bunch of mold. If you live in a colder climate, ventilation only matters if you are a smoker or plan on having people spend time in the shed. Sheds typically stay insulated against the cold unless conditions become extreme for extended time periods.

To elaborate on a dwelling that you plan on using for social stuff or relaxation, you’ll want to take special safety precautions. You don’t need to keep a fire extinguisher nearby (although I encourage it), but you will want to provide multiple exits. Something as simple as an extra window gives the shed some nice, natural lighting and makes it that much safer.

Now that you know this, some of the weird laws and regulations make more sense, right? The only thing to watch out for now is a Home Owners’ Association, if you’re unlucky enough to have one!

Choosing Your Shed Plan

If you want to check out a whole slew of plans and styles, I made a dedicated post here. If you just want the summary, let’s go over how to quickly choose your shed plan now! Beyond the stipulations I outlined above, think about what sort of features you want for your shed. Will you need a large door to get machinery in and out? Do you need a garage door for a car? Or maybe you just need a simple door to keep things nice and secure? In any case, the door’s a great place to start, if only because it’s the first thing you interact with in a building!

After you narrow down the designs based on that, think about the size and style of shed you want to build. If size is of no legal concern, consider building it as large as possible, without taking up the whole yard. Why? It greatly improves the value of your home, plus, you might have the funds down the line to upgrade your shed into something livable. Not bad for a weekend project, right?

If the exterior is also a free-for-all, check out all the neat architectural styles out there. Instead of building a typical shed, you could have a colonial shed with a patio, or an impressive Tudor-style shed! These alternative designs look amazing and elevate it from a simple shed to a true addition to your home.

Lastly, choose a shed design that matches your skill level. That doesn’t necessarily mean going with the most simple design if you have no building experience. Different designs contain varying amounts of instruction, so find the instructions that work for you! I recommend using this design collection, but you can find several other types of shed plans on Amazon, the rest of the net, bookstores, and so on. Specialized shed plans are just a bit difficult to get your hands on unless you buy from a collection.

Finding Materials for Your Backyard Shed

The obvious location for backyard shed materials is a home improvement store. They have a huge range of pre-cut sizes of wood, every type of nail and hammer under the sun, and basically everything you would want for your shed. However, these stores have two big disadvantages. The first is that they overcharge for their wood. Granted, their nails and other utilities are competitively priced, but most of your money will be going into your actual building materials. Another disadvantage is the quality of this wood. Wood that goes through too much shipping and handling shows the wear and tear of its journey through small defects.

To circumvent this, purchase all of your wood from local lumberyards. They have a wider variety of wood types, sizes, and everything they sell simply has a higher quality than what you would find in a store. The workers there know exactly how to handle these types of wood and can pass that knowledge on to you. Some even offer special services with custom cutting, letting you build a shed from any type of shed plan!

Backyard Sheds and Yard Sheds

When it comes to outdoor sheds and backyard sheds, make sure you treat your building properly. This might seem strange to talk about so early, but if you mess up during the building process, it can be a pain to fix these things. Outdoor storage sheds should have an elevated foundation and floor, ensuring that water doesn’t creep in. Use a sealer to cover any nooks and crannies to insulate the shed further and keep out pests. Start with the roof and move down, taking care to do the corners properly.

After that, make sure to prepare good materials for a roof. Any shingles or tiles should be firmly attached to the roof or a strong breeze would blow it away. Gutters help mitigate swamping in certain areas of the yard, so if one side of the shed will receive more water than the other, think about installing some of those. If you neglect your insulation, you’ll get a bunch of bugs and water in the room. I guess that’s fine, if you’re okay with mold on the walls and black widow spiders in the boxes. To each their own, right? However, I highly recommend doing things the proper way with backyard sheds!

Wood Storage Sheds

When you make a storage building out of wood, picking the wood ends up just as difficult as finding your materials. If your shed plan doesn’t list a particular type of wood, use this guide to determine which type of wood works best for your storage shed. Always choose construction grade wood! I also talk about wood sheds in this post.

Cedar Wood – This is very lightweight and resists both decay and insect infestation. It is dense enough to stand up on its own at the same time. Cedar wood has a distinct aroma that will stay in the shed for the duration of its life…so make sure you’re not allergic to it ahead of time!

Cypress Wood – Cypress wood stands out thanks to its amazing resistance to water. Even if you submerge it in water for months, it shrugs off the water damage. Since these trees are native to the American south’s coastlines, they are built to withstand all the flooding that comes with living in a swamp.

Elm Wood – A beautiful tree that offers a lot of shade, you rarely see this in yards nowadays thanks to a very proliferous disease running around the nation. Despite this, it works spectacularly well in construction projects and other things that require hardwood.

Fir Wood – This is the most common type of building wood out there. You will run into several varieties that have unique attributes, so be careful which ones you pick. Spruce trees, Douglas Firs, Hemlock, and a few other types of trees will be labeled as whitewood alongside pine. This is generally a bad choice for outdoor building, since it rots fairly quickly. It at least works well for furniture.

Of course, these hardly represent the full range of woods you can use. There are also manufactured types of woods that are cheaper and just as durable. Here are the types of engineered wood that you’re likely to run into:

Cross-laminated Timber – By stacking sheets of wood on top of each other and gluing them, you can create an extremely strong type of paneling. It is good to use if your area is prone to fires, since it has a great heat resistance. This works so well that people are starting to build insanely tall wooden buildings with it! The only disadvantage is that it’s difficult to find.

Glulam – By fusing various sizes of wood together with phenol glue (which is a tiny bit toxic), you can create very large and strong beams. You normally see it used in roof work—and keeping it up there instead of in your walls or floor boards helps a little bit with the air quality of your home!

OSB – You’ve probably seen this type of wood before. It’s not as durable as plywood and doesn’t stand up to rain as well, but that doesn’t matter as much when it’s in a covered place where no one will see or stand on it.

Plywood – Yep, it was only a matter of time until you saw this! Since this resists a lot of wear and tear, plywood works great for floor beams, floor boards, roof supports, and studs.

Small Storage Sheds

By choosing to build a small storage shed, you drastically reduce the costs needed for your project. You can even buy them preassembled and have them shipped to your door, if time is the most expensive part of a shed for you. Simple shed kits provide all sorts of styles and you can make your own shed according to a plan in just a day…provided you have all your materials picked out and bought. The disadvantage of a small storage shed is, of course, the small amount of stuff it can store. However, sometimes you only have a small amount of space to use! Let’s talk about how to maximize this space.

If you plan on hanging out in the shed, keep any decorations thin and make sure the room is brightly lit. The shed should have windows to make it look even larger. The better your view, the better you feel in the shed. Small furniture is hard to find in America, but some antique shops and places like IKEA offer you a few options.

If you plan on using it for its actual purpose of storing stuff, make sure you know how much it can hold before you build. Don’t assume that you can fit everything in the yard in that small space without doing a little math. Try to include extra vertical shelves and use the tips I talk about in the Tool Sheds section to avoid catastrophe.

Tool Sheds

For tool sheds, use hooks, shelves, and gambrel roofs to maximize the amount of space you use. Pent sheds plans or lean-to shed plans offer the most space for the least amount of money and building expertise. Since tool sheds never end up becoming domestic, feel free to fill the space with ways to store and organize things. You also have no need for windows or ventilation. Let’s get into the specifics of creating the perfect storage shed now!

DIY Tool Storage

By building your own tool storage, you ensure that even your specialized tools have a home to return to. You no longer need to shuffle through your own storage shed to find that one ruler that slid to the back of the shelves. When building your own tool storage shed from scratch, your only concern is the size of the shed. You want it to store everything you need—both for the house and the yard. Yard tools tend to be bulky, while home tools tend to get lost in the cracks.

Purchasing a tool shelf or using pin boards for the small tools helps mitigate the lost tool issue. However, the only thing that helps your large tools is foresight and good planning. I find a typical lean-to shed to be the perfect size for a tool storage shed, plus, it doesn’t cost a fortune. It goes up quickly and all of the work is easy, even when you build from scratch! You can read about making your own in this dedicated article, or you can follow along with the general shed building instructions I put further down!

Utility Sheds

A utility shed is simply a shed where you can store your yard and building materials for a time you need them. A tall and thin shed does the trick, but a lean-to shed also served the job and lets you store larger things like bikes and lawn mowers. When your man cave, kitchen, or attic starts to overflow with what I call ‘one-trick-items,’ you throw them in the utility shed. These items are quite useful, but maybe only once a year, and for one thing only. They offer utility, but not often enough to warrant a place in the home.

Anyways, make sure that your utility shed is nice and organized! If things go missing inside it, you might as well have never built it. Use pegboards to store all of your small tools. Put all of your large tools at the bottom of the shed and incorporate shelves that become gradually smaller the higher up they go. And, of course, keep a stepstool or a ladder handy so you get a good view of those upper shelves. With this method of organization, your utility shed gains a lot more…well, utility!

Here are a few ideas on what you might want to store inside the utility shed that people often overlook. Saws, hammers, screwdrivers, and pliers are a given. Throw in masking tape, duct tape, a leveling tool, a tape measure, a triangle ruler, a protractor (which is a godsend during any building tasks), and enough markers to last a lifetime. You only really need one marker, but they tend to go missing. If you live in a very warm place, replace the markers with some large pencils so that the ink doesn’t burst and stain everything vanta black. A fire extinguisher, flashlights, ice scrapers, picks, work gloves, pressure gauge, and bike pump also serve some niche needs that might present themselves.

Portable Storage Sheds

Sometimes, your backyard storage needs to be movable. You may only need it for a temporary event, or perhaps to protect your car from hail, or you might want to move it when you get the time to build a patio, or maybe you want to live on the go for a while and keep it in tow. There’s plenty of possibilities. Whatever the case, portable storage sheds help you make that happen. Portable storage sheds are universally small (they have to sit on the back of a truck, after all), and it’s not worth it to build a proper foundation for them. Portable sheds tend to cost more than permanent sheds, so if you just need a shelter for some of your stuff, I recommend…

A canopy or a garage tent. These large tarps use a shed-like frame to create a small garage or storage space for your stuff. Sometimes labeled as greenhouse tents, they don’t serve as a secure location for storing goods, but they do protect your stuff from the weather and keep it all in one place. If you live in a good neighborhood, one of these is more than enough for your needs. Plus, they cost less than $400…compare that to the thousands you would spend on a portable shed!

Cheap Sheds

If you want cheap storage sheds, you have to put in some extra work. Good storage sheds range in price from $1,000 to $10,000 depending on the features you want. And, honestly, a $1,000 shed doesn’t cut it for most things. Of course, there are ways to cut down on these typical price tags without chopping the trees down yourself. This section guides you through building on a budget and helps people in every financial situation stow away a little money for things to put inside your shed!

Finding Materials for your Storage Shed on a Budget

The best way to find materials for your shed on a budget is to check out discount and clearance sections of big box stores. You’ll find all kinds of materials marked down for little things like a scratch or some unappealing patterns in the wood. Since you’ll be building the shed from scratch, these types of problems will likely go unseen in your finished product. As long as your materials look structurally sound and the price looks good, go for it.

Another great way to find cheap materials is to browse online trading sites like Craigslist. Many people give up on their projects or just find themselves with extra lumber. They really want to get it off their property. You can score a bunch of stuff just by trading some junk from your garage. Or, you could be lucky enough to get your materials for free! Always make sure these materials are properly treated and in a good condition before you start to build with them.

The last way I recommend saving money—and the way to go for people who don’t like buying used stuff—is to go straight to a local lumber yard. This cuts out the shipping and upcharge that big stores give you, plus it saves you the potential damage the wood would receive as it changes hands. Lumber yards carry all kinds of sizes, wood types, and may even cut some custom stuff for you if you show them your shed plans. Ultimately, they charge far less than any other place for brand new and fresh materials. No matter your financial situation, consider this your best option!

Pre-made Sheds

Sometimes, the most expensive part of a shed is the time it takes to procure materials and build one yourself. Of course, hiring contractors is out of the question if you want to save money…but how do you build a shed without spending time or extra cash making it happen? Quite simply, you don’t. You purchase a pre-made shed! Lots of online and retail outlets offer pre-made sheds that they ship right to your door and place in your backyard. Since everything is built, any extra money is more like a delivery fee than a contractor fee. The building gets finished the moment it touches your yard.

The main downside to pre-made sheds is their small size. Obviously, a pre-made shed needs to fit on the road in order to get shipped around the nation. You might be able to find a very wide shed that looks more like a trailer, but that still hardly functions as a proper shed. They look a little more like storage closets. Another big disadvantage is their materials. They usually contain a lot of cheap wood and plastic to cut down on prices, which means more repairs in the long run.

If you dole out some extra money, then you can find some high-quality pre-made sheds to save yourself some time. If you don’t care about saving time and simply want the most cost-efficient method, skip the pre-made sheds.

Storage Shed Kits

From simple garden shed kits to huge two-story sheds, storage shed kits save you the time of finding materials and help you build your shed quickly and efficiently. They cost less than fancy pre-made sheds or contract work, plus they look great. A few companies even allow for customization! Building from a storage kit takes very little time and the instructions provided also speed things along for people new to building. This is by far the best option for people who want to cut down on the price and the time spent without lowering the quality or building everything from scratch.

Furthermore, if you have a shed plan, it’s quite possible to get your own custom storage shed kit from local lumberyards. I’d be lying if I said all of them offered this service, but some of the more professional ones will gather your materials and cut some custom pieces of wood if you give them a list. That definitely saves you time and gets you exactly the sort of shed you want!

When a storage shed kit arrives at your door, simply check the quality of the materials. Then, set aside a day to get everything done. Storage kits typically come with walls pre-assembled, so it’s just a matter of picking out a spot and nailing everything together. Siding and roof tiles usually come separately, so you can pick out what sort of decoration (if any) you want the shed to have. No one can really tell the difference between a shed built out of a kit or a shed built out of scratch, especially if you choose a nice design. Definitely go with storage shed kits if you want to save some time without breaking the bank!

Storage Shed Ideas

Do you have an old storage shed laying around and have no idea what to do with it? Maybe you have plenty of room in your garage, or perhaps you moved into a brand new property that contains a shed. Clearing out the shed to make room for the new also opens up possibilities. In any case, these shed storage ideas help you figure out what to do with that space. After all, you can use a shed for far more than storage, especially the bigger ones!

Man Cave Shed

Hey, look what site you’re on. Clearly, I have a bias towards building man caves. Man cave sheds give you space all your own, separate from the house, and let you customize the room in ways you can’t do inside a home. For example, setting up a surround sound system is far easier when your ceiling opens up into the rafters. It gives you way more space to maneuver up there! Building a second story doesn’t fill the home with sawdust, plus, you can create a loft to make the man cave that much more impressive! For more ways to convert a shed into a man cave, check out my post here.

Garage Shed

When you find the perfect home…minus a garage…don’t despair! Use a simple storage shed plan to create a garage of your own. Most storage sheds take up very little space and a ton of plans exist to ensure you stay within building codes of your area. You can opt for a single car garage or go all-out with a two-story four car garage shed! If you do make your garage two stories, make sure to include excellent ventilation and insulation. The fumes from the cars below can collect on the upper floor if the cars are left running.

Workshop Shed

Building a workshop inside a house is just asking for trouble. Sawdust, paint splatters, loud noise, and grease stains are just a few things that ruin the coziness of a home. On top of that, any damage done by an active workshop detracts from the value of your home. By building a storage shed to serve as a workshop, the opposite is true—your home goes up in value and feels much more peaceful. The benefits of hosting your workshop outside include letting you mess up the room with the filth of dirty work and customizing it to suit your needs—even if it goes against a few building codes or your wife’s wishes!

Gardening Shed

By adding in windows or skylights, your shed quickly becomes the perfect gardening environment! The warmth of a shed during winter keeps your plants safe. You only need to cover them if temperatures get extreme for long periods of time. During the summer, it’s easier to control the sunlight your plants experience. They won’t wilt as frequently if you can easily cover the windows or move them into the shade. Watering becomes easier and your shed just looks better.

You can continue to use portions of your shed for its original purpose—as a workshop, storage area, or otherwise. The plants filter out the air and keep it from getting to dusty or musky. It benefits you in the long run to have nice clear air to breathe as you use your shed. The only disadvantage of a gardening shed is that they get a little muggy at times. With a proper ventilation system and a few humidity and temperature monitors, you can negate that entirely.

Barn

The biggest shed of them all, a barn actually fits the bill for a jumbo storage shed! To convert a shed into a barn, grab some extra lumber and divide the room as needed. Stalls or small rooms help keep it organized. While a storage shed deals with storing items, a barn deals with storing animals! Keep in mind that the health and happiness of the animals should be on your mind as you build the barn. Even one extra foot of space in the stable makes the difference between an aggressive stallion or a tame horse.

Another integral part of building a barn is making it easy to clean. Keep the floors smooth by using large boards of wood or loose gravel. Taking things in and out of the barn should not be more of a chore than it is already! Typically, you want to make the door as large as possible to accommodate your animals. Huge machinery needs an equally huge entrance. For more information, check out my dedicated post on building barns.

Making the Most Out of Your Storage Shed

Ultimately, your little storage shed helps you out with some big life problems. Whether you choose to house your cars or bikes with one or convert your shed into a man cave, these storage sheds provide some essential shelter and seclusion in a world that’s becoming busier by the moment. The effort you put into its function and appearance determines whether you created a mere shack or an essential addition to your property.

Hopefully this post helped you learn everything you need to know about building storage sheds and using them. Cutting down on material costs, finding the perfect plan, gathering the proper tools, and figuring out how to construct everything proves tricky the first time for everyone. If you have any questions about building a storage shed, please let me know in the comments section. I can help you and everyone else who has the same question!

Once you build your first shed, you store all of this knowledge. It comes back to you naturally with your next building project. My goal in writing this was to give you as much knowledge as possible. Next time, you’ll be able to improve all on your own! Good luck, and get building!

The post Storage Sheds – Building, Designing, and Mastering appeared first on TrueManCave.

from TrueManCave https://www.truemancave.com/storage-sheds-building-designing-and-mastering/

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clapyourhandsrec · 6 years

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Storage Sheds – Building, Designing, and Mastering

Why a Storage Shed?

Making Outdoor Buildings

Distance from Other Buildings

Must Build a Proper Foundation

Must Minimize Risk of Fire

Needs Proper Ventilation

Needs Resistance to Natural Disasters

Number of Exits and Their Location

Restrictions on Materials Used

Type of Roof Restrictions

Restrictions on Types of Walls

Guidelines of a Building a Great Shed

Now that you know this, some of the weird laws and regulations make more sense, right? The only thing to watch out for now is a Home Owners’ Association, if you’re unlucky enough to have one!

Choosing Your Shed Plan

Finding Materials for Your Backyard Shed

Backyard Sheds and Yard Sheds

Wood Storage Sheds

Plywood – Yep, it was only a matter of time until you saw this! Since this resists a lot of wear and tear, plywood works great for floor beams, floor boards, roof supports, and studs.

Small Storage Sheds

Tool Sheds

DIY Tool Storage

Utility Sheds

Portable Storage Sheds

Cheap Sheds

Finding Materials for your Storage Shed on a Budget

Pre-made Sheds

Storage Shed Kits

Storage Shed Ideas

Man Cave Shed

Garage Shed

Workshop Shed

Gardening Shed

Barn

Making the Most Out of Your Storage Shed

The post Storage Sheds – Building, Designing, and Mastering appeared first on TrueManCave.

from TrueManCave https://www.truemancave.com/storage-sheds-building-designing-and-mastering/

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frankachental-blog · 6 years

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Samuel Family Fixer Before Tour

If you missed our new house news, head to this post first and you'll be all caught up, but to summarize… we bought a big family home in Michigan and we are going to do our best to turn it into our dream house in the woods, where we can raise our littles. We are trading the palm trees for pine trees and 1,200 square feet for 4,300 (!), in hopes of giving our kids the best childhood we can offer. And if we hate it, well at least we have an exit plan. We are keeping our LA house and renting it out, for the time being (my business will still also be based out of LA), which is helping us rationalize buying a house over the internet, while we were sleep deprived from a newborn and a toddler, and moving our family across the country. So now, let's get onto the house!

The house was built in 1980 but has the mid-century modern lines I'm drawn to, along with unique features like a 5 foot round skylight, spiral staircase, 22 foot ceilings, a reading loft, and a screened in porch. I fell in love with the project house's architecture, the peaceful wooded setting that feels miles from anything but is just minutes to downtown Grand Rapids, and that it's ready for us put our stamp on it. The previous owners were the original owners and they had vision. They worked with an architect to build their own custom dream home and their attention to detail is spot on. The bones of the house are incredible (unique homes like this are much fewer and far between in Michigan, in comparison to California) and while I am calling it #samuelfamilyfixer, it isn't a major fixer like our a-frame was (thank God). Which means we, hopefully, won't be having to sink a ton of money into the structure of the house, but all the bathrooms, and kitchens (yes that's plural) will be getting full renovations, we will be putting new flooring throughout and there will be some walls moved and adjustments to the floorplan made. So, if you didn't think driving across the country with a baby, a toddler, and two dogs was enough madness, we are adding living through renovations to the mix.

As I mentioned, we still haven't seen the house, so I'm sharing a tour using the listing photos. I'll post a full empty house tour once we see it for ourselves and can take some pics!

MAIN KITCHEN

This kitchen technically doesn't neeeeed renovation. I actually love l.o.v.e. love the cabinets BUT, we do want to open it up to the living room by dropping that wall of tall cabinets and then expand the kitchen to include that breakfast nook so that it fills the space and flows right into the living room. I am planning to save all the cabinet doors and possibly use them somewhere else in the house or for a future project. It does look like the range could definitely use an update but overall it is a great kitchen and I hope to make it even better (and more us). How good is that rug/runner in front of the sink though? I kinda wanted to ask if it would come with the house.

MAIN FLOOR FAMILY ROOM & LOFT

Right on the other side of that wall of cabinets is the family room which, as you can see, if we took out that run of cabinets would flow right together. One of my favorite features of the house is the loft area (hello kids play space) and the half-moon shape nook that houses the spiral staircase leading to the lower level. The wood cladding and the cut-out in the floor, how awesome is that? I am going to have to get creative on how to child-proof it but it is definitely staying. Right now I am hoping to make that lofted area in to a play space for Archie so we will definitely have to figure out a safer railing situation.

MAIN FLOOR LIVING ROOM

Hello amazing HUGE room with tall wonderful ceilings. To give you an idea of the scale of this room, those are full sized sofas and that is a full sized grand piano in the corner (not even a baby grand). I have no idea what I am going to do with all this space but I can't wait to get in there and start figuring it out. One thing I need to make a decision on soon is the flooring and I am so torn about it. I don't love the look of wood on both the floor and the ceilings and I do love the wood on the ceilings here, so while installing some wide plank light-ish wood flooring would be the most cost effective and easiest way to go, I feel like then I would have to paint the ceilings, which I don't necessarily want to do (even though I love me some white paint). I won't be making this decision until I see it in person because in these photos the wood reads pretty orangey, it is after all that 80's, probably pine, wood, but it could look totally different in person. In a perfect world I would keep the wood ceilings and do terrazzo in the main living spaces but it may be cost prohibitive given the large amount of square footage. Oh decisions, why is it so much harder when it is for yourself?

DINING ROOM

Look how grown up I will be with my very own dining room. We can even throw dinner parties where everyone gets a chair.

MASTER BEDROOM

The master bedroom won't need much outside of some new flooring and a lick of paint. Seeing the green through the windows alone is getting me excited about waking up in this room.

MASTER BATHROOM

And on the less exciting side is the master bathroom. You know me and carpet in the bathroom aren't friends, for starters, but also in a house so big the master bathroom is relatively small. I have plans to expand it and re-work the layout all together. When we added our master bedroom and bathroom onto our Los Angeles house, we didn't go crazy with square footage because we wanted the extension to not feel like an extension at all. We wanted it to blend in with the cottage size and style of the house, so even though we built it from the ground up, and could have technically made large rooms, we kept both the bedroom and the bathroom on the small side. But in a house this large you better believe I am going to finally get my dream bathroom, freestanding tub and all (I hope).

LAUNDRY ROOM

On the main level there are only two bedrooms and we almost passed over this house at first glance because of that fact. In my opinion, my kids are too young to be on an entirely separate floor than me at night. But when I saw the size of the laundry room (I'm pretty sure it is about the same size as Archie's current bedroom) and where it is situated on the floorplan, my wheels got turning and we are planning to knock down a wall in here and steal some space (and some windows) from the garage to turn this into a third bedroom and bathroom on the main level. We will then move the laundry room into the lower level, which isn't the most convenient but I'd rather my kids close at night than the wash.

DOWNSTAIRS LIVING AREA

This space will be my office for the time being while we get our feet wet in Michigan.

DOWNSTAIRS BEDROOMS

The two downstairs bedrooms are quite large and will be reserved for guests. I want to pinch myself that we will finally have space to host friends and family. Currently visitors from out of town sleep on make-shift beds in my studio, so this will be a nice change to have a dedicated space just for them. Guests will also will have their own bathroom and kitchen to boot… who's coming over?!

DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM

They didn't skimp on space in this bathroom. We will be tackling the main floor renovations first but this bathroom is on the list for a big update as well.

DOWNSTAIRS KITCHEN

The layout is a bit funky but the kitchen feels huge, especially for a second kitchen. All that counter space…woah. This will be getting an overhaul but again the priority will be the main floor first.

SCREENED IN PORCH AKA THREE SEASONS ROOM

This screened in porch is another space that I am itching to get my hands on. I think this ranks right up there with the spiral staircase as one of my favorite features of the house. Once we paint over the red (sorry to those of you who like the color red. It is my mom and my sister's favorite so I don't judge but I can't take it in large amounts or almost any kind of amounts. It is just one of those polarizing colors) and swap out the flooring, this will be the perfect spot to hang on the warm summer nights.

There is also another bedroom and another bathroom on the main level that I don't have photos of, but you know I already have plans for. I am sure some plans might change once we are able to see the house in person but for now I think we have a good start. Once we do reach Michigan I will have to document our first impression of the house and will be sure to share it with a video tour on my IG story so follow along at @sarahshermansamuel!

So what do you think now that you have seen just as much of the house that we have seen. ha Would you have bought it from these photos?

P.s. I've started a new category on the blog for this renovation which you can find under the “categories” tab on the right under “michigan home renovation” or click here.

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