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daryl-dixon-daydreams · 3 years

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Words: 6,188 Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader Reader pronouns: she/her Era: Alexandria, pre-Negan + flashbacks in other eras Warnings: language, fear and anxiety, mention of fear of heights Summary: Y/N and Daryl head out on the run for the requested medical supplies. Things are tense, but possibly about to get worse... This part is written in Daryl's POV!

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* * *

“I ain’t waitin’. I got a whiff of him and I gotta go before it disappears.”

“Daryl, are you sure about this?” Carol pressed him, creases from worry between her eyebrows. “Are you sure you’ve really thought this through?”

“What is there to think through? If he finds her again, he’ll kill her. And I ain’t waitin’ around for that to happen.” The archer was a blur of activity, gathering his gear and shoving it into his pack.

“I think you need to talk to her about this,” Carol insisted, relinquishing her hold on his poncho somewhat unwillingly as Daryl pulled it from her hands.

He shook his head. “Nah. Ya know she’ll want to be there and I can’t risk that…” he trailed off. “I can’t risk—can’t risk that.”

A thick silence stretched for a moment and Carol wrung her hands. “Well, what are you going to tell her?”

He paused, his hands on the clasp of his pack. “I ain’t tellin’ her anythin’. I’ll leave before its light tomorrow. By the time everyone is up, I’ll be gone.”

“What am I supposed to tell her then? When she inevitably asks?” Carol pressed him. “You want me to lie to her too?”

“I ain’t lyin’,” Daryl snapped. “‘M just not—not tellin’ her everythin’. ‘M ending this so she can move on.”

Carol’s jaw tensed. “It feels like a lie.”

“Just tell her I went north. To see what I could see. Lookin’ for supplies,” he drawled, setting his pack and crossbow on the ground beside his bed. “I don’t know.”

Carol sighed heavily and shook her head as he straightened up. “I don’t think this is—”

“Look, tell her whatever ya want. Just wait until ‘m gone. This is happenin’. It’ll be done. S’gonna be over with. For good.”

She shook her head and gave him a long look before crossing his cell and gently clasping his shoulder. “Be careful. I mean it,” she said, surrendering to the fact that there would be no changing his mind. He nodded, pulling his bottom lip in between his teeth for a moment.

“I will.”

Carol gave him one last look full of anxiety and left him.

* * *

I hardly slept. Maybe caught 20 minutes here and 15 minutes there. Anxiety about the run—that’s all it was. At least, that’s what I kept tellin’ myself. Wanderin’ into a hospital was about the dumbest shit we could do. They always promised to be loaded with unexpected bullshit and floods of undead assholes. But lyin’ flat on my back in the dark, I knew deep down it had a helluva lot more to do with her than it had to do with the run. I was tryin’ to remember the last time I’d spent more than ten minutes alone with her and it left me with a feelin’ like somebody had dropped a damn lead weight onto my chest. I turned over in bed in an attempt to throw it off, but it still sat there on my lungs. I knew exactly when we’d last been alone for longer than a few minutes. Of course I fuckin’ knew. It was burned into my goddamn memory.

But it wasn’t doin’ me a lick of good to think on it so I pushed it away and waited for the clock beside me to read 5:15 before I climbed out of bed. My gear was all waitin’ ready, except for pickin’ up a gun on the way out. I half-expected to run into her in the armory, but it was dark and empty when I grabbed a handgun and some ammo. It felt like a lonely walk to Aaron’s, up the empty street, dew heavy on the grass, and my bootsteps echoing loudly off the dark rows’a houses. I never feel right in here… with the square little lawns and lights on by the front doors. It just felt fake, like somebody had built paper houses and was plannin’ to light ‘em up to burn any minute. I couldn’t feel settled. I just felt… lost. Outta place. Like I didn’t belong.

I’d gotten rid of that feelin’ once… My mind drifted back to her like it always did. It was like I didn’t have no damn control over my own mind. She’d been the one who’d made me feel like I belonged. But now? Fuck. I’m doin’ it again. Focus, dumbass.

She wasn’t waitin’ by my bike either, so I rode up to the gate. As the lookout platform came into view, I caught sight of her climbing down, followed by Gabriel. Her pack was slung on her back, a shotgun hanging at her side and her favorite pistol in a holster on her thigh. I found myself chewing the inside of my cheek. Nerves. Anxiety. This was gonna be a long fuckin’ day.

“I’ve got the gate,” Gabriel said, heading for the latch. She wandered over and I felt a jolt when she met my eyes. I nudged my nose up in a nod, but she just looked back at me with that same stony expression. Unreadable. It always seemed like I never saw her smile anymore. Maybe she did, just not around me. I got that blank look or a glare that I probably deserved…

“Were ya on watch?” I asked, curious why she wouldn’ta gotten rid of her shift in favor of sleep, knowing we’d be heading out on a run early.

“No,” she said simply. No extra info. Typical. Why waste more on me when one word would do? She didn’t owe me nothin’. And she knew it. I swallowed my other questions and leaned forward on my bike so she could climb on. I felt her settle in behind me and glanced over my shoulder at her. She caught my eyes for a brief moment before looking away, down toward the ground. That was typical too. It was like she just couldn’t look at me. Felt like somebody twisted a blade in my chest every time she dodged me like that. And yet I couldn’t get enough of her, even if she was purposely a giant pain in the ass most of the damn time… I still felt like she was a mirage in a desert. A mouthful of cool water in a drought. Food for a starvin’ man.

Gabriel was waiting with the gate open, so I revved the bike to life again. Her arms wrapped around my waist to hold on and for a second I thought I felt her cheek press against the back of my shoulder, but I knew I must have imagined it. My heart was racing as we pulled out. I was more anxious than I had been all night. The thoughts rushing through my head moved so fast I couldn’t even focus on any of them.

Gabriel yelled at us to be safe as we moved through, kickin’ dust up that left a glowing red cloud behind from the reflection of the taillights. The ride to the city was smooth. We made good time, luckily only passing lone walkers or small herds that were easy to avoid. Around the curves, for a brief moment, she’d hold tighter to me and lean into the turns like I’d taught her in what felt like another fuckin’ lifetime. Each corner I could feel every individual fingertip pressing into my waist or stomach. It was always followed by a sudden wash of heat like somebody had shoved me in a shower with the temperature all the way up. I couldn’t control it. Didn’t matter how hard I tried to ignore the feelin’ of being so damn close against each other…

I slowed down as we neared the hospital. Cars sat rusting in gridlocked traffic, tires long gone, frozen in time—same place they were when everythin’ shut the fuck down. I slowed my bike to roll over some debris and hit a chunk of concrete a little harder than I meant to. Her arms tightened around me reflexively at the jolt before loosening again the next second. My heart jolted at the same time. That feeling… of her clinging onto me for safety—but fuck. Let’s not make it out to be more than it is, dumbass. I turned toward my left shoulder. “Sorry,” I murmured. She didn’t say anything back, just shifted in her place behind me, puttin’ an inch more space back between us. The hospital came into view ahead, tall over everything else on the block.

She tapped my arm and I turned so I could hear her over the engine. “We should park. Sound of the bike,” she said. I knew what she was thinkin’. Any walkers or people anywhere around would hear us. I turned down a side street and parked in a loading dock bay. She climbed off about as damn fast as she could. Kicking the kickstand out and swinging my leg over, she was already walking back toward the corner of the building to look down the street.

“Hold up,” I called after her. I still had to get my gear off the back. She either didn’t hear me or didn’t give a shit and I found myself gritting my teeth. But when I rushed around the corner, I nearly collided with her. She did wait. She was leaned up against the brick, her shotgun in her hands, staring ahead at the looming building.

She straightened up as I stopped beside her and we started windin’ our way down the last couple blocks, keepin’ to the shadows of the buildings, stayin’ in cover as best we could. Even so, I couldn’t help glancin’ up at the endless windows, too many high points. All it would take is one asshole with a rifle and a scope... My hands started to sweat as I gripped my crossbow. I glanced at her, but she was as stony-faced as ever. “C’mon,” I said, quickening my stride. “I wanna get the hell off this street.”

I heard her let out a small scoff behind me. “Yeah, you’re the only one worried about being out here,” she murmured. My teeth clenched again but I did my best to ignore it. There was no point gettin’ riled up this early in the day. We still had a lot of fuckin’ work to do. We reached a set of double doors on the side of the hospital, but one glance inside showed they were well barricaded. I stood there rubbing a hand over the stubble on my face. “S’try the south door,” I drawled. To my surprise, she didn’t argue. But that side was a fuckin’ bust too. “Shit,” I spat out. There was a tall cabinet blocking the entrance.

“Good call,” she said sarcastically.

I shot her a glare. And this time when I bit my cheek, I tasted blood. “Ya got a better fuckin’ idea? Huh?” I challenged her.

She rolled her eyes, studying the door for a moment. There was a large glass pane above it that was broken out and I saw her eyes lock in on it. “Boost me up there,” she said, inclining her chin to indicate the window.

Did she want to go in alone? Well, that sure as shit wasn’t fuckin’ happenin’. “Like hell,” I growled back. She rolled her eyes again.

“Just boost me through and I’ll get the door open. I’ll let you in.”

Now it was my turn to scoff. “Ya gonna move that cabinet? By yerself?” I asked skeptically. The muscle in her jaw tensed.

“I don’t have to move it far. Just enough to let you squeeze in. And you can help from the outside.”

I pulled my bottom lip in between my teeth. I didn’t like the idea. I paced a tight circle, thinkin’, as she shifted impatiently beside me. “What if ya get in there and there are walkers? Huh? We can’t see shit down the hall.”

“I’ll be quiet. Come on. We haven’t got all fucking day and we’re sitting ducks out here. Unless you’ve come up with something better—”

I didn’t like it, but she was right. Shit. “Fine,” I interrupted. She leaned her shotgun up against the wall as I set my back against the door, fingers locked together and hands low at my bent knee. “C’mon. Gimme yer foot.”

She seemed to hesitate and I wondered if she was having second thoughts, but the next moment she stepped close in front of me and her hands came to my shoulders. “Ready?” I asked. Her face was maybe six inches from mine, her hands light. I started to feel warm again, a flush of heat across the back of my neck that started spillin’ into my chest. I could see every fleck of color in her eyes, the upturned curve of her eyelashes, that little scar on her chin... Fuck. Focus.

“Ready.” She planted her boot in my hands and I boosted her up so she could grab the window edge. The tinkling of glass dropping in was all I could hear for a moment, and then her weight disappeared from my hands. Spinning around, I watched her pull herself through onto the top of the cabinet. She stayed perched there for a moment, glancin’ behind her, scoutin’ the hallway, before she dropped to her feet lightly. She made it look easy. Graceful.

I couldn’t stand still, constantly shifting my weight. I watched her face tighten as she wedged her shoulder into the cabinet, using all her weight, and it started to move at an angle away from the door. I pushed in with my shoulder from the outside and we finally had enough space for me to slip through. I passed her shotgun through first before turnin’ sideways and slidin’ in. It was dark and completely silent except for the sound of our own breathin’. It felt stuffy inside, and I could vaguely smell somethin’ sharp like animal piss and a sickeningly sweet smell. Death. Decay. I paused to draw the string on my crossbow back, cocking it ready to fire, a bolt nestled in the flight groove.

She pulled her flashlight out from the side pocket of her pack and clicked it on, shining it partially up the hallway ahead. “Jesus…” Her boots crunched over broken glass. She adjusted the shoulder strap of her shotgun, her eyes fixed down the hall, following the moving beam of her light. “This place is a fucking wreck,” she whispered. In her distraction, her tone lacked the usual hostility or sarcasm.

“Somethin’ went down since we were last here,” I agreed. There was a lot more debris and furniture toppled over and strewn about. A lot of obstacles to a clean getaway if we had to make one. “Let’s just get this done and get the hell out.”

“What a unique idea…” she remarked over her shoulder. There it was. Damn sarcasm was back.

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes and movin’ past her so I was in the lead. I knew it would annoy her, but I secretly wanted to be the one in the line of fire if somethin’ was crooked. I headed for the stairwell, pullin’ my own flashlight out and shinin’ it inside before I tried the door. It looked clear. “Upper floors are more likely to have shit left. Let’s go.”

We moved in silence. I could feel her ghosting behind me the whole way, almost mimicking my movements. This was the first time the two of us had been alone on a run since… since I dun even know when. But despite it being so goddamn long, we weren’t out of step. Once we started movin’ it was like no damn time had passed. We fell right back into our old rhythm. I knew her and she knew me. We worked well together when she put aside her need to argue with everythin’ I said. It still felt like we each knew what the other was thinkin’. Not that I expected this run would magically make working together bearable again for good, or solve anything, but at least we could if we had to. I also now was realizin’ this whole thing was probably orchestrated by Rick. Did Denise really need the supplies? Sure. But did it have to be Y/N and I gettin’ ‘em? Alone? Fuck no. I dunno exactly what he was hopin’ for but I’m pretty sure he’ll be disappointed…

Moving steadily upwards, we had most of the supplies on the list, plus plenty of extra finds, but I was growing more and more uneasy as we went on. We hadn’t run into a single fucking walker yet, and to me that meant they were probably herded up in a massive hoard somewhere. It felt like a matter of time before we found them or they found us. I could sense Y/N’s tension risin’ again too. She was more fidgety, more careful about each step she took. I found myself frequently sweeping my eyes back behind us to make sure nothin’ was lurking just outta the flashlight beams. There were the usual signs of walkers nearby; smears of blood on the floor and walls, that fuckin’ smell ya could never get outta yer nose, even chunks of flesh from the rottin’ fuckers. But we still hadn’t seen one, and I was fuckin’ worried.

“Almost got everything,” Y/N whispered to me, shoving a couple more bottles into her pack. “We just need to find the CPAP machine,” she murmured, staring down at the list. “I don’t have a fucking clue what the hell that looks like.” She glanced over at me, one of her eyebrows quirked in a question and I realized she was waitin’ for some kinda response.

“What? Yer lookin’ at me? I ain’t got a goddamn clue what the hell that even is,” I said gruffly. Shit. I saw it. Just for a second, but one corner of her lips twitched up in a smile and I swear there was a spark in her eyes—like the ones I used to see in her all the time. My heart jumped and I tried my best to ignore it. She seemed to turn away, hidin’ her face right as I was puzzlin’ over it.

“Right… well, let’s try down the hall. There’s probably another supply closet at the other end,” she said, nudging her head toward the darkness ahead.

We made our way cautiously. I pushed into the lead again and was surprised when she didn’t argue. I tried every door handle but most of ‘em just led to empty or trashed patient rooms. I caught her frozen in the doorway of one that had a massive bloodstain on the floor and spatter partially up the walls. Her eyes were wide and vacant, and I wondered what she was reliving. “Hey,” I said, just over her shoulder. She seemed to pull out of it abruptly and she turned away, moving on like nothin’ had happened. I let her go ahead, mainly so I could keep an eye on her for a minute and make sure she still had her head in the game, but I didn’t need to worry. Not about that anyway. She’d always been tough. She wasn’t shaken by shit easily. I knew that. And yet I still had this drive to want to protect her, even though she didn’t need it from me. And she definitely didn’t want it from me.

“Here,” she said suddenly, slinging her gun back on her shoulder and more fully opening the door to a small supply closet. There was hardly enough room for her to stand inside, so I posted up just behind her and strained my eyes and ears for anythin’. “It’s all electronic stuff,” she whispered, entirely focused at the task at hand. Her hands floated from one device to the next, illuminated by her flashlight. She was looking for some label or model number or somethin’ to tell her what they were. She bent down and grabbed some scattered papers from among the boxes on the floor. Swearing under her breath she held one up to the flashlight. “Of course the cover and all the useful shit in the front is torn off,” she muttered. She was bending down to grab another handful when there was some sudden, deep noise on the floor above us.

My heart seemed to stall out for a moment and she straightened up and froze, her eyes lifted toward the ceiling, lips partially parted. The sound seemed to reverberate through the building. I could feel it beneath my feet. It resonated through the walls. After a moment, I was looking at her and she glanced over and met my eyes, her eyebrows a little furrowed with worry.

“What the fuck was that?” she asked in a harsh whisper. I only shook my head. She gulped and refocused, shakin’ it off, focusing back on the papers. She was flipping page after page, scanning them as fast as she could.

I started to hear some more noises above us and then eventually spilling toward the other end of the hall. My grip on my crossbow tightened. “We need to move,” I said, keeping my voice low.

She was still intensely focused on the manual in her hands. “Just gimme a minute…” she said vaguely.

I shifted, turning more toward the far end of the hallway, straining my hearing. There was more clattering above us. “We might not have another damn minute.”

“Just—hold on—”

Fuck. I stood frozen for a moment as a herd of walkers started to spill out from the stairwell at the other end of the hallway and start toward us. “We ain’t got a minute, Y/N!” I urged in a harsh whisper. She didn’t seem to hear me.

There were more walkers than I could count. They hadn’t spotted us yet but I had to move fast, so I did the only damn thing I could think of and pushed her forward into the closet, pressing in after her and shutting the door as quietly as I could. I instinctively clicked my flashlight off and hurried to grab hers and do the same, plunging the two of us into darkness in that small space.

“Daryl, what the hell?!” she snapped at me. She’d been so focused she was completely oblivious to the mass of dead wandering our way. The goddamn closet was so small I had no choice but to be pressed into her… My heart started to pound and I think it had more to do with her against me than the undead assholes outside. I was sure she’d be able to feel it and prayed she’d just think it was adrenaline or somethin’. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

I shoved my hand over her mouth, all my patience gone. Did she really think I’d shoved her in a closet for the hell of it? “For once in yer goddamn life just shut up!” I growled in a low voice. She seemed to tense against me but in the quiet the sounds of the walkers outside the door were now easily heard above our ragged breathin’ and they were growing louder every second. I still had one hand over her mouth and the other clenching my crossbow at my side. She shifted against me and pulled my hand away. I could hear and feel her breathin’ pick up pace. I planted my palm on the wall behind her, next to her head, very aware of the growin’ heat pooling between the two of us where we were pressed together. The air felt suffocatin’. I started to worry the walkers outside the door would be able to hear my breathin’ I was so nervous. I wanted to shift, move away from her like I’m sure she wanted… I wanted to change positions and get my bow up, but it was impossible.

She didn’t seem to know where to put her arms within the tight, dark space. I couldn’t blame her. I was leaned in against her, sorta over her even. I felt her hand accidentally brush my arm and my body jolted a little at the contact, like some reflex I didn’t know I had. My teeth ground together. After that she seemed to settle away from me, into the wall behind her.

We had to just stay there, fuckin’ frozen, hardly room to breathe while the hoard passed by. Every once and a while, a body would thump hard against the door and I’d feel her flinch. I could feel sweat dripping down my neck and beading up on my face, my hair sticking to it. We were so close I could feel her breath against my skin when she faced toward me. I felt the rhythm of her breathin’. And I couldn’t ignore the fact that in that tiny ass closet, the only thing I could smell was the faint scent of her shampoo. I tried hard not to notice, but I’d be lyin’ if I said I didn’t try to put some name to the smell. Lavender? Not quite. Maybe more like rose? I dunno. And despite the possible death lurking just outside, I found it hard to focus on anythin' other than the feeling of her against me.

It felt like it took hours for the hoard to pass, but it was probably only ten minutes. But after the sounds drifted away we were still left with a big fuckin’ problem. They had to go somewhere, and my best guess was that they were travelin’ down.

It was so dark in there I couldn’t even tell if my fuckin’ eyes were open or closed, and it seemed to be makin’ it hard to think… Or maybe the angle of her one hip pressed into me was—fuck. Get it together, man… I fumbled for and clicked on my flashlight, findin' the two of us both wincin' at the sudden glare, noses almost touchin'. She was lookin’ up at me, her lips softly parted, her expression only full of concern for once, that little worry line she always gets near her eyebrow.

We both stayed like for a second. I guess just struck by actually seein’ how close we were in the sudden light, until finally she tore her eyes away and turned her head.

I tried to clear my throat, worried my voice was gonna come out soundin' strained or somethin’. “Uhh… sounded like they were goin’—”

“—down. Yeah,” she finished.

My eyes traced the angle of her jawline as she kept her face turned away from me. I heard the paper manual crinkle in her hand and groped for the doorknob behind me. “Yeah,” I agreed quietly. “So, we got a problem about gettin’ out.” My hand finally landed on the doorknob and I turned it and slowly opened the door on the hall, checking both directions carefully but also feelin’ like if I didn’t put some damn space between the two of us again I was about to explode. It looked clear and I stepped out. Glancin’ back, she still seemed frozen, up against the wall, her face turned away toward her shoulder so I couldn’t really get a read on her. “Hey. What is it?” I prompted her.

“Hmm?” She seemed to snap back to herself. “N—nothing…” She went back to searching the manual in her hand, like nothin’ had fuckin’ happened. Just one goddamn time I’d like to know what the fuck is goin’ on inside her head… But I ain’t got no right to that. She’s made that pretty fuckin’ clear.

It wasn’t the right manual or the right machine. But she went through two more until she found it. “Got it,” she announced, waving the paper at me before shoving it into her already full duffel bag. She seized a small machine from the shelf and started trying to rearrange items to make it fit in her pack.

“I got room,” I said, still nervously checkin’ over my shoulder. I thought I could hear the hoard moving below us, maybe two floors down.

“It’s fine. I can make it fit,” she said, jostling more stuff in her bag.

I rolled my eyes and grabbed the damn thing from her, slinging my crossbow strap over my shoulder. “Ya’d really rather split yer pack at the seams than take any fuckin’ help from me,” I murmured. I didn’t wait for an answer. I didn’t need one…

She stepped out of the closet and I caught her wiping her forearm across her forehead. It left a smear of dirt near her hairline. I had to pull myself back to the present. “So, how are we getting out of here?” she asked, adjusting her pack and the duffel bag strap on her shoulder.

I glanced at her, knowing she wasn’t gonna like my idea.

She rolled her eyes. “Well, you’ve obviously got something. Just get on with it.”

“Fire escape,” I said.

I watched the muscle in her jaw twitch as he jaw clenched. “Fuckin’ great…”

“Unless ya got somethin’ else—”

“You know I don’t,” she snapped back at me. She wiped a hand across her forehead again, swiping away fresh drops of sweat. “It’s—” She cut herself off. “Let’s just go,” she sighed, defeated.

I looked at her for a second more, trying to gauge just how freaked out she was, but it didn’t seem to matter. We didn’t have any other options.

“Let’s go,” she snapped again. “Before I change my mind about being able to handle this.”

“It ain’t—”

She squeezed her eyes shut and I watched her body tense. “I swear to god, Dixon, if you say ‘It ain’t that bad’ or ‘It ain’t that high’ right now, I will lose my shit and attract every fucking walker in this goddamn building. I don’t even give a fuck.” Her jaw muscle twitched.

I couldn’t help letting out a sigh that was more of a growl than anything but then I turned and headed for the window a couple doors down that I’d noticed was busted out. Leaning through, I scanned the outside of the building for a fire escape. Nothing on that side.

“It’s probably around the other side. Let’s try the end of the hall,” she suggested. Her boots stayed rooted to the floor and I glanced at her again. She caught my eyes and must have read the concern on my face.

“I’m fine. You’re the last person I need worrying about me,” she growled.

Fuck. She could be infuriating… I found my hand clenching and unclenching a few times before I followed her back out of the room.

She was right. There was a fire escape down that side. I grabbed a piece of metal off the floor and straightened up. “Ya ready?” I asked one more time. “They might hear this glass break so we gotta fuckin’ move.” I thought her hands were a bit shaky.

“Just do it,” she said. And this time, I could hear the quiver in her voice.

I smashed the window and knocked out the glass before pullin' myself through. The metal grates rattled under my boots and she looked suddenly sick as she approached the window sill. I hesitated a second before reaching a hand out to help her through.

“I’m fine,” she said. She didn’t look fine, but she gripped the ledge and climbed out. “Oh, fuck. Fuck…” she muttered as her feet landed on the platform. She was keeping her eyes fixed straight out. Even just the metal grates at th prison used to freak her out, and that was one floor.

I wanted to comfort her but… I wasn’t dumb enough to think it’d help or that she wanted me to, so instead I just started down the stairs at a good pace. She followed stiffly behind me, gripping onto the railing with white knuckles and falling behind.

Every once and a while I’d glance back and she looked like she was about to be sick, but she was still following. We hit a snag as we reached the third-floor platform. A large part of it had rusted and fallen away, leaving a gaping hole we would have to edge around to reach the next set of stairs.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” I heard her behind me and when I looked back her eyes were wide and round and she was clutching onto the railing like it was a lifeline.

“S’fine. I’ll cross first. Just keep over—”

“Oh, really, Daryl? I should keep over to the side? You mean I should stay away from the huge fucking hole in the goddamn floor?” It kept drawing her eyes and I’d see her rip them back up and away, reeling.

I knew that was mostly coming from the fact that she was fuckin’ terrified, but every harsh word from her still stung. “Fine. Clearly, yer good,” I spat back. “Ya don’t need me and ya don’t give a shit and yer fine. I fuckin’ got it.” So much for trying to calm her down. I edged past the hole in the metal grating and went down the next set of stairs. Finally, I just had to push down the ladder, climb down, and we’d be on solid ground again. But when I looked back up, she was still frozen where she had been, on the far side of the platform. I watched her for another minute, waiting to see if she’d move. I knew she wasn’t gonna ask for help, not from me, but she obviously needed it and tough shit, I’m the only damn person here. I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck, anxious to even try again, and climbed back up. I edged past the rusted-out hole and stopped next to her. “Just gimme yer hand.” She didn’t loosen her grip on the railing, and her eyes landed on my face. “S’fine. Just for two seconds, lemme fuckin’ help ya.”

Her chest was heaving with fearful breaths and I guess the idea of tryin’ to cross along that edge alone was worse than puttin’ her hand in mine. Part of me still thought she’d take the heights over me, but she didn’t… She pried her hand off the railing and placed it into mine. I—I can’t say my heart didn’t jump when my fingers closed around it. The motorcycle. The fuckin’ closet. Now this. We’d hardly been within six feet of each other for years and now all this in one day… I felt dizzy. It ain’t like Rick could have predicted these things would happen. He sure as shit couldn’t command a hoard to force us into each other in a tiny closet… but he must have been hopin’ for somethin’ by sendin’ us out here. Was it gonna work on her? I fuckin’ doubt it.

As we stepped along the edge of the edge of the platform, she held her breath. She always seemed like nothing in this fucked up world scared her anymore, nothing phased her. Half the time it almost seemed like she didn’t give a shit if she died. But this? Heights? This still scared her on some level she couldn't reason away.

But we made it across just fine. She was gripping onto me so tightly I thought she might have bruised the bones in my damn hand. And as we climbed down the next set of stairs, long past the danger, she was still holding onto me. But just as quickly as I realized it, she slipped her hand out and stiffened next to me again, fixing her eyes away toward the railing, which she grabbed onto again desperately.

We made it down the ladder, dropping onto the concrete and making a run back to my bike, slippin' from cover to cover, packs heavy and weighing us down. I was thinking how batshit crazy it was that we’d just done a hospital run and hadn’t had to kill a single walker AND managed to get all the damn supplies... when we rounded the last corner and a string of curses left her mouth.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. What the fuck?!” She knelt down next to my bike and as I looked, my stomach dropped.

“Son of a fuckin' bitch.” Both tires on my motorcycle were slashed. Ruined. Fuck.

We were stranded in the city without a runnin’ vehicle and somebody knew we were here.

#daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon twd #the walking dead #twd fanfics #daryl dixon drabbles #daryl imagines #daryl x y/n #fanfics #writers of tumblr #twd drabbles

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mcmansionhell · 3 years

Text

Underground, Part 1

[Author’s Note: A year ago, when waiting for the DC Metro, I came up with an idea for a short story involving two realtors and the infamous Las Vegas Underground House, typed up an outline, and shoved it away in my documents where it sat neglected until this month. The house recently resurfaced on Twitter, and combined with almost a year of quarantine, the story quickly materialized. Though I rarely write fiction, I decided I’d give it a shot as a kind of novelty McMansion Hell post. I’ve peppered the story with photos from the house to break up the walls of text. Hopefully you find it entertaining. I look forward to returning next month with the second installment of this as well as our regularly scheduled McMansion content. Happy New Year!

Warning: there’s lots of swearing in this.]

Underground

Back in 1997, Mathieu Rino, the son of two Finnish mechanical engineers who may or may not have worked intimately with the US State Department, changed his name to Jay Renault in order to sell more houses. It worked wonders.

He gets out of the car, shuts the door harder than he should. Renault wrinkles his nose. It’s a miserable Las Vegas afternoon - a sizzling, dry heat pools in ripples above the asphalt. The desert is a place that is full of interesting and diverse forms of life, but Jay’s the kind of American who sees it all as empty square-footage. He frowns at the dirt dusting up his alligator-skin loafers but then remembers that every lot, after all, has potential. Renault wipes the sweat from his leathery face, slicks back his stringy blond hair and adjusts the aviators on the bridge of his nose. The Breitling diving watch crowding his wrist looks especially big in the afternoon glare. He glances at it.

“Shit,” he says. The door on the other side of the car closes, as though in response.

If Jay Renault is the consummate rich, out-of-touch Gen-Xer trying to sell houses to other rich, out-of-touch Gen-Xers, then Robert Little is his millennial counterpart. Both are very good at their jobs. Robert adjusts his tie in the reflection of the Porsche window, purses his lips. He’s Vegas-showman attractive, with dark hair, a decent tan, and a too-bright smile - the kind of attractive that ruins marriages but makes for an excellent divorcee. Mildly sleazy.

“Help me with these platters, will you?” Renault gestures, popping the trunk. Robert does not want to sweat too much before an open house, but he obliges anyway. They’re both wearing suits. The heat is unbearable. A spread of charcuterie in one hand, Jay double-checks his pockets for the house keys, presses the button that locks his car.

Both men sigh, and their eyes slowly trail up to the little stucco house sitting smack dab in the center of an enormous lot, a sea of gravel punctuated by a few sickly palms. The house has the distinct appearance of being made of cardboard, ticky-tacky, a show prop. Burnt orange awnings don its narrow windows, which somehow makes it look even more fake.

“Here we go again,” Jay mutters, fishing the keys out of his pocket. He jiggles them until the splintered plywood door opens with a croak, revealing a dark and drab interior – dusty, even though the cleaners were here yesterday. Robert kicks the door shut with his foot behind him.

“Christ,” he swears, eyes trailing over the terrible ecru sponge paint adorning the walls. “This shit is so bleak.”

The surface-level house is mostly empty. There’s nothing for them to see or attend to there, and so the men step through a narrow hallway at the end of which is an elevator. They could take the stairs, but don’t want to risk it with the platters. After all, they were quite expensive. Renault elbows the button and the doors part.

“Let’s just get this over with,” he says as they step inside. The fluorescent lights above them buzz something awful. A cheery metal sign welcomes them to “Tex’s Hideaway.” Beneath it is an eldritch image of a cave, foreboding. Robert’s stomach’s in knots. Ever since the company assigned him to this property, he’s been terrified of it. He tells himself that the house is, in fact, creepy, that it is completely normal for him to be ill at ease. The elevator’s ding is harsh and mechanical. They step out. Jay flips a switch and the basement is flooded with eerie light.

It’s famous, this house - The Las Vegas Underground House. The two realtors refer to it simply as “the bunker.” Built by an eccentric millionaire at the height of Cold War hysteria, it’s six-thousand square feet of paranoid, aspirational fantasy. The first thing anyone notices is the carpet – too-green, meant to resemble grass, sprawling out lawn-like, bookmarked by fake trees, each a front for a steel beam. Nothing can grow here. It imitates life, unable to sustain it. The leaves of the ficuses seem particularly plastic.

Bistro sets scatter the ‘yard’ (if one can call it that), and there’s plenty of outdoor activities – a parquet dance floor complete with pole and disco ball, a putt putt course, an outdoor grill made to look like it’s nestled in a rock, but in reality better resembles a baked potato. The pool and hot tub, both sculpted in concrete and fiberglass mimicking a natural rock formation, are less Playboy grotto and more Fred Flintstone. It’s a very seventies idea of fun.

Then, of course, there’s the house. That fucking house.

A house built underground in 1978 was always meant to be a mansard – the mansard roof was a historical inevitability. The only other option was International Style modernism, but the millionaire and his wife were red-blooded anti-Communists. Hence, the mansard. Robert thinks the house looks like a fast-food restaurant. Jay thinks it looks like a lawn and tennis club he once attended as a child where he took badminton lessons from a swarthy Czech man named Jan. It’s drab and squat, made more open by big floor-to-ceiling windows nestled under fresh-looking cedar shingles. There’s no weather down here to shrivel them up.

“Shall we?” Jay drawls. The two make their way into the kitchen and set the platters down on the white tile countertop. Robert leans up against the island, careful of the oversized hood looming over the electric stovetop. He eyes the white cabinets, accented with Barbie pink trim. The matching linoleum floor squeaks under his Italian loafers.

“I don’t understand why we bother doing this,” Robert complains. “Nobody’s seriously going to buy this shit, and the company’s out a hundred bucks for party platters.”

“It’s the same every time,” Renault agrees. “The only people who show up are Instagram kids and the crazies - you know, the same kind of freaks who’d pay money to see Chernobyl.”

“Dark tourism, they call it.”

Jay checks his watch again. Being in here makes him nervous.

“Still an hour until open house,” he mutters. “I wish we could get drunk.”

Robert exhales deeply. He also wishes he could get drunk, but still, a job’s a job.

“I guess we should check to see if everything’s good to go.”

The men head into the living room. The beamed, slanted ceiling gives it a mid-century vibe, but the staging muddles the aura. Jay remembers making the call to the staging company. “Give us your spares,” he told them, “Whatever it is you’re not gonna miss. Nobody’ll ever buy this house anyway.”

The result is eclectic – a mix of office furniture, neo-Tuscan McMansion garb, and stuffy waiting-room lamps, all scattered atop popcorn-butter shag carpeting. Hideous, Robert thinks. Then there’s the ‘entertaining’ room, which is a particular pain in the ass to them, because the carpet was so disgusting, they had to replace it with that fake wood floor just to be able to stand being in there for more than five minutes. There’s a heady stone fireplace on one wall, the kind they don’t make anymore, a hearth. Next to it, equally hedonistic, a full bar. Through some doors, a red-painted room with a pool table and paintings of girls in fedoras on the wall. It’s all so cheap, really. Jay pulls out a folded piece of paper out of his jacket pocket along with a pen. He ticks some boxes and moves on.

The dining room’s the worst to Robert. Somehow the ugly floral pattern on the curtains stretches up in bloomer-like into a frilly cornice, carried through to the wallpaper and the ceiling, inescapable, suffocating. It smells like mothballs and old fabric. The whole house smells like that.

The master bedroom’s the most normal – if anything in this house could be called normal. Mismatched art and staging furniture crowd blank walls. When someone comes into a house, Jay told Robert all those years ago, they should be able to picture themselves living in it. That’s the goal of staging.

There’s two more bedrooms. The men go through them quickly. The first isn’t so bad – claustrophobic, but acceptable – but the saccharine pink tuille wallpaper of the second gives Renault a sympathetic toothache. The pair return to the kitchen to wait.

Both men are itching to check their phones, but there’s no point – there’s no signal in here, none whatsoever. Renault, cynical to the core, thinks about marketing the house to the anti-5G people. It’s unsettlingly quiet. The two men have no choice but to entertain themselves the old-fashioned way, through small talk.

“It’s really fucked up, when you think about it,” Renault muses.

“What is?”

“The house, Bob.”

Robert hates being called Bob. He’s told Jay that hundreds of times, and yet…

“Yeah,” Robert mutters, annoyed.

“No, really. Like, imagine. You’re rich, you founded a major multinational company marketing hairbrushes to stay-at-home moms, and what do you decide to do with your money? Move to Vegas and build a fucking bunker. Like, imagine thinking the end of the world is just around the corner, forcing your poor wife to live there for ten, fifteen years, and then dying, a paranoid old man.” Renault finds the whole thing rather poetic.

“The Russkies really got to poor ol’ Henderson, didn’t they?” Robert snickers.

“The wife’s more tragic if you ask me,” Renault drawls. “The second that batshit old coot died, she called a guy to build a front house on top of this one, since she already owned the lot. Poor woman probably hadn’t seen sunlight in God knows how long.”

“Surely they had to get groceries.”

Jay frowns. Robert has no sense of drama, he thinks. Bad trait for a realtor.

“Still,” he murmurs. “It’s sad.”

“I would have gotten a divorce, if I were her,” the younger man says, as though it were obvious. It’s Jay’s turn to laugh.

“I’ve had three of those, and trust me, it’s not as easy as you think.”

“You’re seeing some new girl now, aren’t you?” Robert doesn’t really care, he just knows Jay likes to talk about himself, and talking fills the time.

“Yeah. Casino girl. Twenty-six.”

“And how old are you again?”

“None of your business.”

“Did you see the renderings I emailed to you?” Robert asks briskly, not wanting to discuss Jay’s sex life any further.

“What renderings?”

“Of this house, what it could look like.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Jay has not seen the renderings.

“If it were rezoned,” Robert continues, feeling very smart, “It could be a tourist attraction - put a nice visitor’s center on the lot, make it sleek and modern. Sell trinkets. It’s a nice parcel, close to the Strip - some clever investor could make it into a Museum of Ice Cream-type thing, you know?”

“Museum of Ice Cream?”

“In New York. It’s, not, like, educational or anything. Really, it’s just a bunch of colorful rooms where kids come to take pictures of themselves.”

“Instagram,” Jay mutters. “You know, I just sold a penthouse the other week to an Instagram influencer. Takes pictures of herself on the beach to sell face cream or some shit. Eight-point-two million dollars.”

“Jesus,” Robert whistles. “Fat commission.”

“You’re telling me. My oldest daughter turns sixteen this year. She’s getting a Mazda for Christmas.”

“You ever see that show, My Super Sweet Sixteen? On MTV? Where rich kids got, like, rappers to perform at their birthday parties? Every time at the end, some guy would pull up in, like, an Escalade with a big pink bow on it and all the kids would scream.”

“Sounds stupid,” Jay says.

“It was stupid.”

It’s Robert’s turn to check his watch, a dainty gold Rolex.

“Fuck, still thirty minutes.”

“Time really does stand still in here, doesn’t it?” Jay remarks.

“We should have left the office a little later,” Robert complains. “The charcuterie is going to get –“

A deafening sound roars through the house and a violent, explosive tremor throws both men on the ground, shakes the walls and everything between them. The power’s out for a few seconds before there’s a flicker, and light fills the room again. Two backup generators, reads Jay’s description in the listing - an appeal to the prepper demographic, which trends higher in income than non-preppers. For a moment, the only things either are conscious of are the harsh flourescent lighting and the ringing in their ears. Time slows, everything seems muted and too bright. Robert rubs the side of his face, pulls back his hand and sees blood.

“Christ,” he chokes out. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” Jay breathes, looking at his hands, trying to determine if he’s got a concussion. The results are inconclusive – everything’s slow and fuzzy, but after a moment, he thinks it might just be shock.

“It sounded like a fucking 747 just nosedived on top of us.”

“Yeah, Jesus.” Jay’s still staring at his fingers in a daze. “You okay?”

“I think so,” Robert grumbles. Jay gives him a cursory examination.

“Nothing that needs stitches,” he reports bluntly. Robert’s relieved. His face sells a lot of houses to a lot of lonely women and a few lonely men. There’s a muffled whine, which the two men soon recognize as a throng of sirens. Both of them try to calm the panic rising in their chests, to no avail.

“Whatever the fuck happened,” Jay says, trying to make light of the situation, “At least we’re in here. The bunker.”

Fear forms in the whites of Robert’s eyes.

“What if we’re stuck in here,” he whispers, afraid to speak such a thing into the world. The fear spreads to his companion.

“Try the elevator,” Jay urges, and Robert gets up, wobbles a little as his head sorts itself out, and leaves. A moment later, Jay hears him swear a blue streak, and from the kitchen window, sees him standing before the closed metal doors, staring at his feet. His pulse racing, Renault jogs out to see for himself.

“It’s dead,” Robert murmurs.

“Whatever happened,” Jay says cautiously, rubbing the back of his still-sore neck, “It must have been pretty bad. Like, I don’t think we should go up yet. Besides, surely the office knows we’re still down here.”

“Right, right,” the younger man breathes, trying to reassure himself.

“Let’s just wait it out. I’m sure everything’s fine.” The way Jay says it does not make Robert feel any better.

“Okay,” the younger man grumbles. “I’m getting a fucking drink, though.”

“Yeah, Jesus. That’s the best idea you’ve had all day.” Renault shoves his hands in his suit pocket to keep them from trembling.

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#architecture #design #fiction #las vegas #underground house

1K notes · View notes

rfadaydreaming · 3 years

Text

the rfa playing minecraft

oh the chaos a mysme minecraft server would bring ♡

jumin

• does not know how to move in any direction except straight

• keeps falling into caves because he just… walks

• stands there in the dark for a few seconds to process what happened

• “the game broke, i cannot see”

• yoosung is like wtf how is it broken

• cave noises start to happen

• “h elp”

• seven has to track him down and it takes absolutely forever just because jumin does not know where he is… not even a hint... he was just walking around

• finally seven finds him and brings him up with a fishing pole, but when he finally gets him up, they both get blown up by a creeper

• “i don’t like this game very much.”

• has a house with v because there’s no way in hell he’s about to share a home with zen

• their house is actually so cute, modern on the outside but super cozy and cute on the inside

• here’s some reference pictures of what i think their house would look like !! starter home / end game home

• his room is so naked omg v comes in and adds a desk, some pictures, plants, just to make it more homey

• has so many cats to the point where it lags HEAVILY when you enter his room, it’s just a giant barrage of meows

• his playstyle is fishing, taming cats, naming cats, fishing again

• he gets lost in the boats so much though, you have to come save him because he’s stranded in the middle of the ocean

• you show up and there’s a cow stuck in the back of his boat, he’s starving to death, the phantom is killing him

• but the nice part about fishing all the time is he gets really good loot and enchantments so he’ll give them to whoever wants them since… well he doesn’t really need them

• except zen omg he gives him like. chain link boots, seaweed, paper

• zen breaks into his room and takes whatever he wants though because jumin doesn't know how to make a locked chest

• he’s honestly just here for the vibes, he’ll lay on his bed even when no one else is sleeping and listen to what everyone’s talking about in the voice chat

• you cannot even see him on his bed because it’s just a sea of cats + a drop in frame rate the second you open up his door

zen

• he’s so bad with technology so he has to read the tutorial like three times before he plays

• takes awhile to get used to the controls so he’ll stop walking, jump over a block, pause, keep on walking

• it’s cute to watch actually

• he follows everyone else around and likes to pretend he knows what he’s doing? but really doesn’t

• beats the shit out of jumin for just existing

• gets stuck in a village well and silently flips out because he’s too embarrassed to ask for help

• jumin finds him and they just stare at each other in silence… jumin figures out how to hit him one singular time before running away

• he lives in a dirt home with the green top for so long it’s actually embarrassing

• inside is just a torch, furnace, crafting table, basic bed and chest literally just a straight mans home

• it’s so ugly

• v tries to spruce it up a little because he just does not like to look at it… every time he walks by he gets the ick

• jaehee eventually adopts him out of pity and they live together, but she has to do all the hard work

• their house looks like this

• he mooches so hard oh my god she’ll spend an entire day cycle mining only for him to take all the iron and make himself a silly little outfit

• she never complains though because he’s really appreciative about it

• will give her little flowers in exchange for outfit materials

• and of course gives you flowers just because you’re you

• leaves them in a pot in your room with a sign that has a little winky face

• is always changing his clothes, every time he wakes up he changes into something different

• jaehee works so hard to find diamonds for him so he can be the first to have some diamond armor

• seven kills him the second he steps out of his house and snatches it from his dead corpse

• zen’s playstyle is just following everyone else around and pretending to help but he doesn’t do much, being sweet to jaehee and you, annoying jumin

• he gets bored easily so he doesn’t play for very long :( also gets mad at jumin and rage quits omg

yoosung

• absolutely loves minecraft and he’s been playing for years, he’s really good at it!!

• so sweet and fun to play with hehe he’s like the cheery little team leader

• helps everyone get settled and works hard to make sure the newbies have a nice amount of starter materials

• even if they die and lose them all he’s like “oh that’s okay don’t sweat it you guys!!” and runs to get them new stuff

• hums to the music while he’s playing, always updates people on what he’s doing and asks if anyone needs anything

• a man on a mission, gets to work on gathering materials with jaehee the second the game loads in, knows exactly what he’s doing

• he’ll move fast to make a quick little community house for everyone to sleep in for the night

• doesn’t like the day one dirt homes it gives him anxiety

• it’s a little small but cozy!! makes everyone a chest and puts a sign above it with their name on it

• adds a “:D” at the end of everyone’s names on the signs, but a “♡” to your name only!!

• zen goes off and makes his gross little dirt house because he doesn’t wanna sleep next to jumin

• he ends up just expanding off the community house once everyone leaves and lives solo with his little parrots

• unless you want to join him!! go ahead he’d love the company

• so nervous in caves and will only go into the shallow parts where the sun still hits, a very silent miner because he’s concentrating

• he’ll go deeper into mines when seven and saeran are with him but he almost pees his pants when the cave noises start to play

• gets startled so easily and screams whenever something happens, it's so loud that the mic automatically cuts it off– so you hear 0.2 seconds of a scream, dead silence, then suddenly “yoosung fell from a high place” it’s so funny

• 9 times out of 10 seven pushed him off too

• takes it seriously, wants to play until the end of the game but everyone else is busy running around with gremlin energy

• his playstyle is a little bit of everything, he’s not a bad builder but he doesn’t spend too much time on it. goal for him is survival and exploration

• if anyone needs anything he’ll run to get it without a second thought doesn’t get the appreciation he deserves >:(

• seven picks on him so much oh my god, once he asked him to come help mine diamonds but actually pushed him into lava and yoosung started to cry

• everyone made seven feel kind of bad for it so he apologized with a full set of diamond armor, tools, flowers and a cake… it still hurt though

jaehee

• minecraft queen

• plays by herself a lot, the music, building on peaceful mode, all the alone time she gets

• loves it a lot actually, especially after a hard day at work

• but she gets so stressed out playing with everyone else

• it’s kinda bad for her health

• sighs into the mic whenever someone’s acting like an absolute fool

• tolerates no bullshit

• do not hit her. not even by accident. do not do it

• it’s so tense, she slowly turns around stares at them for what seems like forever it’s actually so scary

• only you’re allowed to hit her because for the two of you it’s not a smack, it’s a boop

• she does it back too

• “boop!” with a cute little giggle afterwards

• instantly goes to get the basics set up when the game loads in, sticks with yoosung in the beginning to get a bunch of starter materials gathered together

• is always running around doing something but no one knows exactly what because she doesn’t share. she is doing something though, a very productive crafter

• she has never died, ever. probably the highest level here out of anyone else

• the resident necessity provider, will throw you stacks of bread exactly when you need some, it’s like a 6th sense

• has basic mining chests set up for everyone to take from if they want to, so torches, food, tools, dirt, armor etc

• she really likes to decorate more than build, but she’s still really good at it!

• loves designing up floor plans

• not the best at adding the little details though

• her homes always look kinda square so v helps her out with that

• she organizes other people’s chests because she just hates how messy it looks, seven gives her so much anxiety especially

• she’s always cleaning up after him and shutting his doors since he leaves them open constantly

• her play style is a little bit of everything, not afraid of the caves whatsoever so she’ll mine if no one else wants to do it

• you can usually find her decorating though

• spends so much time making a cute little kitchen in her house especially

• a “coffee machine” is definitely a must in her house, also has a really pretty and huge bedroom

• white concrete and dark wood slabs, her house looks so lovely

• decorates zens room for him too

• she doesn’t talk much in the voice chat when jumin’s in there because she doesn’t wanna get fired

• likes to come into peoples houses and jump around a few times to say hi before running off again

• her and zen throw flowers back and forth to each other while crouching up and down like a couple of nerds ♡

seven

• the second the game loads he is off to the races, he is gone baby!! no one knows what he’s doing but everyone knows he fears nothing so it must be exciting

• “GOD707 was slain by enderdragon”

• we’ve been in the game for an hour max how did he- nvm don’t question it

• he’ll randomly show up to the community house out of nowhere, do a few random things here and there, leave again for a few days

• comes back on a skeleton horse, enchanted diamond armor, a fleet of dogs, elytra, the wandering trader enslaved on a lead

• saeran follows him around most of the time so they’ll usually be off doing something together

• seven dies so much omg every five minutes there’s a death message in the chat

• if you manage to track him down you find that he is living absolutely lavish

• has so many bases scattered around like this, this, or this

• spends a lot of time building once everyone else goes offline, does not sleep until his base is done and he’s actually an amazing builder

• v loves to go around in his bases and just gawk

• he does not decorate whatsoever, that's for saeran to do! jaehee comes and organizes because he just throws everything into a chest and leaves

• his playstyle is chaotic horrifying, he does a bit of everything but the main goal is to get to the void and beat the ender dragon with his bare hands, he wants to become god

• never shuts his doors so there’s just big creeper explosion holes in his home that he’s too lazy to fix, claims it adds ~character~

• he loves spelunking so you can find him running around in caves most of the time, there is no fear in this man's soul whatsoever, loves battle and fighting mobs, insults them most of the time while killing them

• throws his diamond armor into lava just for the funsies, always parkouring in caves, you will get so much anxiety being around him

• sometimes mimics the cave noises just to scare yoosung

• burns down villages, starts random fires, jumps into holes, beats up any animal he sees

• sometimes he comes in to hit jumin’s cats just to hear him raise his voice a little and be like “Hey!” it’s really funny but annoys jumin

• he edges the creepers omg gets them to the point where they almost blow up but backs up before they actually do

• redstone master!! builds so many insane things out of it, has an entire theme park dedicated to himself, definitely has a torture room somewhere in his mansion

• he’s always joking around with everyone, especially with you

• “hey mc, hold this for me?”

• he slowly gets real close to you until your hands are touching and your heads are almost morphing into each other

• “bro... are we ab to kiss rn...”

• will come into your bedroom when everyone’s asleep does NOT knock first this man barges right in and stands over your bed, silent for a few seconds before suddenly tossing hundreds of diamonds down on you, throws back some ass a few times before running off once again

• hits people for absolutely no reason and yes he will hit with the intention to kill

• “no swearing in my christian minecraft server”

• gets motion sick at video games usually but he actually really likes minecraft!!

• a complete dad so he takes a little bit getting used to the controls but warms up quick

• don’t you dare hit him. that’s evil. he’s like “woah!! something just happened, i got attacked out of nowhere!! we have to be more careful you guys!”

• he’s genuinely so confused and concerned for everyone’s safety

• adores building so much, not just houses but also little structures here and there

• he’ll make greenhouses, vineyards, beach homes, treehouses, statues

• villages get completely revamped if he thinks they’re ugly which most of the time, he does

• his playstyle is completely just building and decorating, sometimes he’ll send jumin out for supplies but it ends badly most of the time

• aka jumin gets lost and/or dies

• he helps build everyone their own little structures so jumin gets a luxury cat mansion, zen gets a shrine dedicated to himself, yoosung gets a stage for his parrots to dance on, jaehee gets a coffee shop in the village, seven gets a giant ph pepper statue, saeran gets a sunflower farm all to himself, and of course you get whatever you want! omg he’d make you a heart shaped nether portal

• he’ll help when he’s needed but he doesn’t really play, he just builds

• everyone brings their spare materials to him if they don’t need them, yoosung and saeran help him farm for stuff if he needs something in particular

• really loves giving house tours when he’s done with a build and it is the cutest thing in the entire world

• he is just so insanely giddy and excited as he shows off all the little details, you can hear the smile in his voice

• everyone validates him and matches his energy too it’s so sweet :’)

• he’s always complimenting everyone on anything and everything they do

• “look at you, finding diamonds! good job!”

• “this house is so very lovely, i love the warm energy it brings.”

• he likes to wander around and find white cats for jumin to tame

• on the rare occasion he comes caving, he’s always the little cheerleader for everyone else of course

• “good luck down here everyone, please stay safe and call out if you need anything. we’re all here to help each other, alright?”

• two seconds later yoosungs drowning in lava, seven is mining bedrock, jumin is being shot by a skeleton, jaehee is fighting off a mob spawner, zen is lost, saeran is riding minecarts around

saeran

• he’s pretty quiet while he plays so no one ever knows what exactly he’s up to, he’s just shy

• picks flower fields absolutely clean, not a singular flower in sight, only if he finds a beehive somewhere then he’ll leave some for them

• has a lot of dye because of that, resident banner creator!!! he’ll make anything that you’d like

• he follows people around– especially seven, and just goes with the flow of whatever they’re up to, chaotic or not

• sometimes you think he’s afk so you just stop and stare at him but then he moves and you jump a little

• yoosung and him will just spam crouch for minutes on end together when they’re bored

• by himself a lot of the time, you can find him playing with some turtles on the beach somewhere or planting flowers

• builds a lot on his own solo server, but doesn’t really like to in the main one because he gets insecure comparing it to v’s and seven’s work.

• he does have his own little house away from seven’s mansion basement though

• if you come in and start complimenting it he gets so shy and blushy

• “thanks… it’s not that impressive i just whipped it up really quick…”

• seven knowing damn well that house took him several hours: 👁_👁

• he hits people to get their attention and then crouches all guiltily when they turn around, throws them a quick little flower before running off

• he has a ton of pink sheep collected outside his house, an army of jebs live in his basement

• his playstyle is just doing whatever he feels like. sometimes he’s getting materials for everyone, other times he’s just sliding around on ice with the polar bears for awhile

• he likes enchanting potions and that kind of stuff

• smacks seven with random potions like slowness, fire, poison

• had a pet fish in a little aquarium at his place, one day it despawned and he nearly burnt down his whole house from being so upset

• still convinced seven killed him

• he doesn’t get scared from the mines

• the nether though is is a different story, it’s terrifying to him

• especially ghasts and the sounds they make. will not go in there unless you are and you beg him to hold your hand or something

• has secret little minecraft pinterest boards full of silly statues and stuff that he likes to build around randomly

• blames herobrine for all of them which scares yoosung

mc (hey thats you!!!)

• jumin lets you name his cats, dye their collars, anything you want even if it’s silly. if you have your own cats then sometimes he brings his favorites over and they have little baby kittens together, you both spam crouch and jump around afterwards from the excitement of it all. don’t worry he pays child support !! you don’t know where he got diamonds but. you’ll take them anyways

• zen brings you random little presents that he thinks are super useful but… are not. you don’t have the heart to tell him that though. thinks spider eye is like the rarest thing in the entire game, secretly comes in to give them to you and message you something like “shh… keep it secret jagiya~ ;)” it’s the thought that counts

• yoosung is always so sweet with everything he does, he’ll bring you any sort of materials, tools. anything you need it’s yours. once he ran in front of you to take the hit from a poison spider when you know he’s absolutely terrified of them so you could get away safely. he tries his best to be brave for you <3

• jaehee invites you to her kitchen for taste testing, you’ll come in and try all the lil cakes she has sitting out while giving your feedback on all them in detail. mm yes very good, love the electric taste of the pixels in this one! finally she’ll be like wtf are we doing

• seven surprises you by making a cute little heart shape out of redstone, you press a button and it lights up red, fireworks go off, he’s jumping around throwing flowers and diamonds at you. he’ll put a sign down that says “will you… put your minecraft bed next to mine?”

• v is constantly checking in on you, he’ll say “knock knock!” before coming into your room, you’re like hey what’s up!! he replies i missed you! i just wanted to say hi :) before leaving again, comes in every day cycle with snacks to make sure you’re eating properly of course

• saeran brings you flowers all the time, he’ll shyly sneak into your room, crouch over to the bed super slowly, suddenly start throwing stacks of flowers all over you, crouch up n down a couple of times before running for the hills. forgets to shut your door and runs back real quick to shut it before leaving again

thanks for reading! find more on my mysme masterlist ♡!

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bracefacefreak · 3 years

Text

So I just finished the first fic I have written in AGES and the first thing I’ve ever written for TMA, so I thought I’d post it here.

It’s an alternate take on S3 from about MAG 98 in which Nikola kidnaps Martin, not Jon. Basically very angsty with some realisation of feelings and implied canon-typical violence because I like to make my boys suffer apparently. May write more if I feel like it but for now this is just a peek at my idea.

CW: implied violence, knife violence, strongly implied graphic violence, implied blood, implied skinning, captivity and kidnapping, restraints, stalking.

I cut you a piece of me

also available on ao3

“Martin? Tim?”

Jon pokes his head out of his office, tired eyes squinting through murky lenses to try and make out anything moving amongst the shelves and teetering boxes. A chill creeps up his spine, the sensation akin to the slow tickle of spider’s legs over his skin. It makes his stomach turn; the sour taste of bile rises at the back of his throat. A light flickers somewhere on the other side of the archives. It is brief, likely nothing more than some dodgy wiring - or a plastic body passing in front of a bulb. Jon bites down, catching his tongue between his teeth.

His fingers twist in the wool of the cardigan he wears, tugging at the well-worn fibres as if they are some sort of lifeline. The garment is too big on him, the fabric spilling over his shoulders and bunching in thick folds around his wrists. He had found it shoved under a shelving unit in document storage, the crumpled, butter-yellow lump too inviting to ignore. It has quickly become a comfort for him during long nights in his office poring over statements, something soft and warm to counteract the increasingly dark world he finds himself inhabiting. He pulls it tight around him, but finds today it offers little more than a thin veneer of safety.

CLUNK.

He starts.

His eyes flick towards the stacks to his left, scouring the shadows that rest heavily between the shelves. The noise comes again, more drawn out this time and followed by a series of metallic taps. It doesn’t take much imagination to hear the snap of huge, mechanical jaws in the rhythmic sound.

Jon swallows thickly.

“Martin? I-is that you?”

The hollow clang comes again; this time Jon is able to trace it to somewhere above. Lifting his eyes, he half-expects to see a grinning plastic face staring down at him from the highest shelves. Instead, he is met by the sight of decrepit pipes, quivering slightly as the ancient heating system struggles against the pervasive chill. His shoulders droop as the pipes rattle in reassurance.

Slowly, he turns back to the original source of his suspicion, staring down the narrow walkway that leads to the assistant’s office and break-room.

Beneath the occasional clang of the heating, the archive is silent, still.

But he could have sworn he’d heard footsteps earlier: the soft shuffle of shoes over carpet and the squeak of the bottom stair that no-one seems bothered enough to fix, despite the numerous emails Jon has sent to maintenance. He had been recording a statement, one from the early 2000s about disappearances from a travelling funhouse, when he had heard it. He was certain. But then again…He takes a shaking breath; could this just be his rearing its ugly head?

No.

NO.

He was over that.

He knew what he had heard. Jon squares his shoulders, knowing that his small stature and bright yellow cardigan will hardly strike fear into the heart of any evil creature that has managed to get into the Institute. He pulls the pen out of his hair anyway. It will not be much use if it comes to a struggle, but it is better than nothing.

Measured steps lead Jon across the archive floor.

He calls out in a tight voice, rising to shrill at the end.

“Melanie?”

His pulse thuds in his ears.

“Tim? Basira?"

Sweat coats his palms and pools in the well of his clavicle, turning cold and tacky.

“Martin?”

He rounds a corner and is greeted by three empty desks.

Since arriving, Melanie has settled at Sasha’s old desk; it no longer bears its previous look of organised chaos but is strewn with shredded paper, a few crumpled fast-food wrappers, and pages covered in black scribbles that are indecipherable to Jon. It sends a pang of grief through him that echoes around the empty space where Sasha’s memory should be.

Tim’s desk is clear, no work having been done there in months.

And Martin’s is….

Jon frowns.

Next to an empty mug and a collection of pastel fine-liners Martin sometimes uses to make notes, is a cassette tape. It is unmarked, the brand different from any he has seen before in the archive. Jon reaches for it, hesitates, and then snatches it up. He turns it over in his hands, the shape and weight familiar. Something is building beneath his skin, fizzing, crackling, a flurry of static that rises and rises the longer he holds the tape. It calls to him. The white noise is a siren song drawing him in until he is moving towards his office and the tape recorder he keeps on his desk. His hands shake as he pushes the tape into place and snaps the recorder shut. For a moment the world narrows down to the feeling of the play button beneath his finger, its weight as he presses down, the soft whir-like a sigh-as the tape begins to play.

“Hello, my dear archivist.”

The saccharine voice that spews from the tape washes away the frantic desperation that had sent him scurrying to his office like a starving dog. He shivers, the memory of hard plastic hands around his throat making it hard to breathe.

The Eye drinks in this flash of terror, consuming it with abandon.

“It’s so luvely to be able to talk again. I was hoping to see you in person but ….I’m sure we’ll get to that later.”

There’s a tinkling laugh; the sound of fairground chimes, or blood dripping on porcelain.

“I thought now would be a good time to check in about that old skin you’re supposed to be getting for us. Not that I really need to. I am having you followed. It’s not because I don’t trust you but…well, I don’t trust you and I want to be sure that when you find it you don’t do anything silly. It is very powerful after all. I have to say, little archivist, I’m mighty….disappointed….by your lack of progress. It’s been a week now and nothing and I am on a bit of a deadline, you know. The world won’t dance itself new on its own.”

Nikola stops with a breathy gasp.

Jon waits, fingers clenched in the sleeves of his too-big cardigan.

He can make out the creak of plastic, followed by what sounds like a heavy door being opened. He leans in, straining to hear the dull thud of feet on stone. The jaunty melody of carousel music lingers in the background, ever-present and just flat enough to set his teeth on edge.

“Unfortunately for you, that means I need to up the stakes a little. We can’t have you getting complacent, that just won’t do.”

Another grating sound, metal against concrete and then a jumble of muffled grunts, almost as if someone is trying to speak against restraints.

“Do try and keep him quiet.”

Nikola hisses to someone whose response Jon cannot hear.

Something coils in his gut, cold and heavy.

“He spotted one of us outside the Institute one evening, tried to follow us. A rather stupid move if you ask me. You may want to rethink your hiring strategy.”

The mumbling intensifies.

Jon feels sick. His stomach churns, a deep sense that something is very wrong knotting up his insides.

“He seems awfully fond of you, I must say, putting himself in all that danger to try and keep you safe. What on earth did you ever do to deserve such devotion, little archivist?”

He shakes his head, trying to speak around the hard lump in his throat even though he knows Nikola can not hear him.

“P-pl…”

“Would you like to say hello?”

There is a painful ripping sound, then a scraping and a few ragged breaths.

The cold dread in Jon’s gut begins to unfurl, spreading out, freezing him to his chair.

“Jon?”

His heart stutters.

“Jon, p-please….please…d-don’t…”

Martin’s familiar voice, shaking and edged with panic, erupts from the speaker like a scream.

The copper tang of blood spills over his tongue. He looks down, realising he’s been biting his knuckle so hard his skin has split. Even as he watches the blood pool and trickle down his fingers, he feels no pain.

Nikola laughs again, something knife-sharp behind the sweetness.

Jon is cold, so cold, even beneath his tea-scented cardigan. His hands are like ice as he claws at the tape recorder, smearing blood over the plastic casing. He is not sure what he’s trying to do, his thoughts too muddled. He thinks he may be trying to reach through to wherever they are, to wherever Martin is.

“You see archivist, now we have some collateral. So, if you don’t manage to find that ancient relic, well….shall we have a demonstration?”

A strangled whimper is all Jon can manage as he listens to the squeak of plastic fingers, the tearing of fabric, the clear zhing of a blade. His eyes lock onto the tape recorder, transfixed with horror as he hears Martin grunt and then…..

Jon has never heard screaming like that before.

It cuts through him, reverberating down to his bones and settling in his marrow, so deep he will never be rid of it.

At the same time, it drowns him. Each new cry washes over him, relentless, never giving him time to breathe. He is suffocating beneath the sound, helpless and guilt-ridden, hands twitching as if trying to pull himself up for air. He can’t think, can’t speak, can’t breathe – chest too tight, pulse racing. His vision swims, blackness creeping in from the edges as Martin screams and screams and screams.

Jon squeezes his eyes shut, cold tears spilling down his cheeks. He presses his hands over his ears, but no matter how hard he tries he cannot escape it.

It feels like a lifetime before the screaming begins to quiet and an eternity until Nikola speaks again, high and airy.

“Impressive. That was even through a gag. What fun we’re going to have!”

A sob fills the silence, faint and broken. Jon matches it with his own.

Somewhere the Eye swells and glows in gluttonous satisfaction. Jon can feel it preening, brimming over with stolen terror. He shoves it away in disgust.

“Lucky for us there’s plenty of him to use.”

Something slaps wetly. There’s a squelch, like fingers being shoved into dough.

Jon retches.

“This will make a luvely pair of gloves, don’t you think?”

He doubles over, heaving dryly into his wastepaper bin, for once glad he didn’t have lunch. Sweat beads at his hairline, spots dancing in front of his eyes as he gasps around the convulsions of his nauseated body.

“Now now archivist, no point getting upset. The sooner you find us the gorilla skin the more of your assistant there will be left. I wouldn’t wait too long if I were you. Goodbye.”

The voice fades, leaving only panting breaths and pained groans before the recording ends with an abrupt click.

Jon lets it run on while he struggles to find a rhythm to his breathing. The background whir is a comfort, something to dampen the horrific shrieking that still rings in his ears.

Guilt sits heavy on his shoulders, a deadweight. First Sasha and now Martin. How many more people will he fail before the end? Who else will have to suffer because of him? He curls himself up in his chair and tries to consider what he should do, but his thoughts either will not come or fly past too fast to crystalise into an actual plan. Eventually, he gives in to the lingering heaviness of his limbs and the hollowness in his chest and he cries.

---

He isn’t sure how long he sits there.

The tape finally finishes and cuts off with a burst of static and the pop of the play button.

He is sat in silence when Basira finds him, folded up and trying to ignore the screams in his head. Her firm footsteps alert Jon to her presence as he can barely see out of his tear-swollen eyes. Her breathing pauses as she takes a moment to assess the situation.

Jon can picture the scene clearly: he sits, knees to his chest, hands tangled in his greying hair. The tape recorder perches haphazardly on the edge of his desk, smeared with blood that has dried a rich, rust colour. There are gouges in the surface of his desk and matching splinters beneath his fingernails.

“Jon?”

He thrusts out an arm, knocking Basira’s hand out of the way. The tape recorder falls to the floor with a crack, the cassette flies out, magnetic tape spooling on the floor. He stares at it for a moment. At least now she cannot….will not….and he does not have to either.

“Jon!?”

Her voice is clipped, hard. There is no room for argument or bullshit, no hint of concern. He would expect nothing less of Basira, and he has always respected her bluntness and the ability to bury her emotions so she can get the job done. As much as he would like to believe he can do the same, he knows it is a lie. Today has just proven that.

“Jon!?”

He opens his mouth to answer but only manages a strangled whine, which devolves into a sob. He takes a shuddering breath before trying again.

“M-“

It hurts. His throat is raw, almost as if he has been the one screaming. He is not entirely sure he hasn’t been. No one would have heard him all the way down here. He thinks Elias meant for it to be that way.

“Ma-“

The name sticks in his throat, coats his tongue with a sour taste, and lodges itself behind his teeth. He can not say it….does not deserve to say it…Nikola’s words repeat in his head, over and over.

What on earth did you ever do to deserve such devotion?

Jon thinks of all the times he has berated Martin, the mornings he has purposefully left his tea undrunk just to spite him, the cold manner he has used to decline every offer of help or comfort. And still, Martin had smiled, had rinsed out his mug and stubbornly left another on his desk made to his exact taste, had even pushed himself to research the Vittery case, almost risking his life just to try and get a good word out of his boss.

Martin, who writes poetry that overflows with tender melancholy. Martin, who had stayed up into the early hours with Jon while he had been staying in the archives, somehow aware that Jon was alone and afraid. Martin, who had persuaded the ECDC to hand over a jar of Prentiss’ ashes so he would feel safe. Martin, who had made it his mission to ensure Jon got at least one hot meal a day. Martin, who had lied on his CV to help his ailing mum. Martin, with his mop of curls and goofy smile and stupid hipster glasses and…oh…Martin....

Jon buries his nose into the yellow wool at his shoulder, inhaling the faded scent of Early Grey and spearmint toothpaste and lavender laundry detergent. It only leaves him feeling emptier.

Nothing, he wants to shout in reply to Nikola’s question, less than nothing!

“JON! What's going on?”

He sniffs, lifting his eyes to stare blankly down at the ruined tape recorder.

Basira’s gaze flicks to the device, before landing back on Jon.

He shivers, licking his parched lips and forcing the words out, voice cracked and tight.

“M-Martin….I-I need to f-find Martin.”

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deathonyourtongue · 3 years

Text

Resurrection | 11

Summary: A ragtag team of Spec-Ops operators are brought out of retirement for all the wrong reasons. When the dust settles, only the best will be left standing. Pairing: Pablo Schreiber x OFC, Henry Cavill x OFC (listen, she gets with the whole team, okay? Don’t lie, you would too.) Word Count: 2.1K Warnings: Nothing much really. A/N: Shit hath hitteth the fan. Again.

“Ooh, smells like semen in here!” Jake says with far too much enthusiasm, smiling brightly at me as he pours two cups of coffee, doctoring mine just how I like it.

“Shut up. If you or anyone else brings it up, be ready to be on the receiving end of Beef’s fist,” I mutter, giving Jake the only warning he’ll get from me as I take my seat at the conference table, rolling my neck side to side, amazed at just how sore I am.

“My lips are sealed. I just gotta know one thing: What was he holding out for?”

“Me,” I whisper, watching as Jake’s eyebrows go sky high and he leans back in his seat, silenced.

“I mean, we all sort of suspected. He’s not exactly subtle about...well, anything, but you never seemed to catch on, so we left it alone.” He shrugs, his smile more genuine this time, Jake looking truly touched by the revelation.

“Yeah, well, next time do us both a favor and tell me sooner.”

“And spare him the blue balls? Where’s the fun in that? Was it a mess? Did you have to stick the shower head up there after?”

“Jake, shut up!” I crow, throwing a spare pen at him just as Rick walks through the door, breakfast in hand.

“Literally the last two people I expected to be up early after last night, but I’ll take it. Where’s the rest of the gang?” Rick asked, setting the bags of food and the tray of coffee down in the center of the table.

“What did you get up to last night?” It’s my turn to interrogate Jake, my eyebrow going up as I watch his smile go impish.

“Her name was Star and she did things to me that are deadly sins in most religions.” Jake says with as much seriousness as he can muster for all of 2.5 seconds, his face breaking into a smile just as he takes a sip of his coffee.

“Just be glad you weren’t stuck in a box with him for more than 24 hours,” Benji mutters as he takes the seat to my left, squeezing my shoulders before sitting down.

“Morning,” Max mumbles as he sits to my right, avoiding eye contact with everyone, including me.

“Save the act, Beef. We all know you got some,” Dom cuts in, moving to sit next to Rick, leaning back in his seat, and grinning like that cat that ate the canary.

“Congratulations on losing your V-card, bro,” Flip adds as he comes in, patting Max on the back as he scoots by him.

“Alright, enough. What d’we got, Rick?” I cut the shenanigans short, knowing if I let it go on any longer, the guys will yank Max’s chain a little too hard first thing in the morning. Even I’m not that patient before coffee.

“Well, since we let Wallace literally walk out the front door, we have to chase again. I asked intel for his whereabo--”

There’s barely time to hear the blast before the shockwave hits us, taking out the bulletproof glass as if it were single pane. I feel Max’s body collide into mine, before we both hit the ground hard. Car alarms and smoke detectors go off in nearby buildings, making it clear the blast came from the outside in, but leaving no doubt we’re the targets.

Breaching charges come next, one at the front door, one at the secondary exit. I finally open my eyes as I get to my feet, keeping low and feeling Max’s hand clamped around the back of my neck. Though smoke fills the meeting room, I get enough of a glance to know that the guys are all okay, each of them in the same crouched position I am, all of us moving with precision.

Max pushes me into my room, slamming the door behind me. Without hesitation, I grab a t-shirt, vest, pants and socks, throwing everything on in a hurry. My boots go last, the laces double knotted so I don’t have a slip-up later. I pull my hair into a messy knot before grabbing my M4 and checking the mag. Seeing it fully loaded, I push it back into place and slam it home, ready to go.

The knock at my door comes just in time, and I knock back once to let whoever is on the other side know I’m ready and armed. Pulling it open, I fall in behind Flip, covering him and bringing up the tail end of our little procession down the hall. Up front, I hear Dom call out targets, he and Rick taking out three men without hesitation.

“Let’s move!” Rick calls out, and I pivot so that as I move forward, I can cover us against anyone who might want to come up behind. Within moments of doing so, two of Wallace’s men come out of the meeting room and into the hallway. Leveling my M4, I take four shots, ensuring both men’s deaths.

Just as I pass the last of the bedrooms, I feel my body get pulled sideways. With little time to react, I let my gun fall to my side and pull my knife out of my vest. Before I can sink it into the nearest limb, I feel his arm go around my throat in a rear naked choke, the man squeezing hard enough to make me see stars. I only have six seconds before the chokehold takes me out, and with gunfire sounding ahead of us, I know the boys won’t be coming to save me. Stepping forward, I pivot towards the man’s thumb, palm striking his hand away as I go. Out of the hold, I don’t waste time, wrapping his neck in a guillotine choke and cranking with every ounce of anger I feel towards the man who’s made our lives a living hell for the last few weeks.

It takes a second, but I feel the distinct pop of tendon and bone breaking and from how limp the man goes, I know he’s gone. Swinging my gun back into my hands, I check my corners and sprint to catch up with the team, reaching them as they start going down the exterior stairs of the building. At street level, more of Wallace’s men are posted up, guns aimed directly at us. I pause for a moment, eyeing the most imperative man to take out, and with a quick check through my scope, put two through his forehead, taking him out just before he can let a shot off; a shot that would’ve surely hit Rick where it counts. Taking out two more men before moving again, I sprint for our car, slipping in just as Dom puts the pedal to the floor.

“Everyone good?” Benji calls, his eyes wide as they dart around the van, watching carefully as we all pat ourselves down. Unlike our last shootout, I don’t find a hole where it shouldn’t be. Still, I’m not surprised when I find Max’s fingers lifting my chin.

“Jesus,” he hisses as I turn my head out of his grip, nodding.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be muteville for me tomorrow unless I can ice this soon,” I acknowledge, resting my head back against the seat as the pain finally kicks in.

Our secondary safehouse is nowhere near as luxurious as the one we use for headquarters, being nothing but a small, modified warehouse, but it has water, ice, and a place for me to lean back while I ice my neck. Max brings me the bag and gingerly sets the ice down on my neck, smoothing my hair back after. With a gentle kiss to my forehead, he takes his seat next to me, his gaze focusing on the screens where Rick is pulling up traffic cameras.

“Home Office is going to love knowing you broke the Freedom Act just for one man,” Max deadpans, all of us focusing on a different part of the screen, trying to figure out where Wallace and his men went after the bombing.

“I’ll have a look at security cam footage from right after the stairs, see if I can pinpoint what direction he went in,” Dom says, pulling his laptop closer before entering the same camera network the traffic ones are on. If nothing else, I’m glad we’re in London because as one of the most surveilled cities in the world, the chances of not finding him are slim to none.

Silence falls over the room as we all study the feeds, looking for any sign of the black vans Wallace and his men got into after the bombing. It seems like hours go by before Dom finally speaks up, his voice terse as he checks and double-checks his findings.

“Cameras show him headed east-”

“I got him. He’s on A12,” Rick interjects, standing to get a closer look at his square, where the two vans are headed in the exact direction Dom had said.

“A12 ends at London City. He’s gonna try and hop ship!” Max is the one on his feet now, reaching for his phone.

Taking the ice off my neck, I sit up, well-versed in what’s about to happen. Joint ops are always a mess, but we need the airport locked down with him and his team in it, and with the head start Wallace has, we’ll never make it in time.

Max paces as the call rings, his face making it clear he needs the person on the other end to pick up, and pick up quickly. As he waits, we all start getting ready. Vest plates are checked, mags get loaded and stowed, and extra ammo is stuffed into a singular go-bag one of us will carry just in case.

“John. Hey mate, I need a favor and I need it fast. No questions right now. I need you to lock down London City as quickly as you can. No making calls to anti-terror, understood? This one’s ours and ours alone. He’s an animal and we need to put him down. Can you do that, mate? Good, thank you. What’s your ETA?”

Max listens intently to his friend on the other line even as he starts prepping his own gear, knowing we don’t have much time.

“Great. I’ll see you there, mate. I’ll explain over a pint when it’s all over, I promise.” Closing the call, Max grabs his gear, on my heels as we all rush out the door and back into the truck.

We check and recheck everything as Max drives towards the airport we know Wallace will be trying to fly out of. The silence in the truck is deafening, all of us tensed and ready for what we hope will be the end of this nightmare.

London City’s facade reminds me of a used car dealership, all concrete and glass, with the airport’s title written in blue letters across the top of the entrance. It’s not a stunning piece of architecture, and despite its prime location, it’s nowhere near as heavily-trafficked as Heathrow or Gatwick. I try my best to keep my face neutral as we arrive; by the amount of lights and personnel standing around outside the building, the Mets weren’t exactly subtle about their approach. The chances that Wallace is still in the building drop more and more, the closer we get.

Max tears out of the car like a bull in a china shop, eyes narrowed with laser precision as he marches inside to find his friend. We follow suit, scanning the area for any sign of Wallace or his men, knowing he could be waiting to spring another trap on us at any moment.

“What the hell happened, John?” Max barks as he makes a beeline for his friend, having no idea how scary he looks when he’s on the warpath.

“We were too late, mate. He had a private jet set to take off. Wheels were up by the time we got to the counters. We’re pulling surveillance and the flight manifest as we speak.” John, to his credit, manages to face Max without shrinking in his presence, unintimidated by the rabid dog routine he tends to default to whenever a plan is going south.

Appeased by the quick reaction to missing their primary objective, Max backs off, scrubbing a hand over his face as he turns back towards us.

“We’re all in consensus that he wants to recreate the night he was arrested, correct?” He asks as we all gather around, ready to rejig the plan as necessary. Everyone nods, the rest of the team’s anger rising to the level of Max’s, none of us wanting a repeat of that night. “So he’s headed south. Probably back to Libya.”

The flight manifest appears before anyone can say another word, and as Max reads over the report, I know the bad news is about to be compounded.

“He took a hostage. FUCK!”

#henry cavill #pablo schreiber #henry cavill x ofc #pablo schreiber x ofc #resurrection #deathonyourtongueoriginals

31 notes · View notes

valkblue · 3 years

Photo

— masterlist, AO3

Chapter 3 on 12

Chapter wordcount: 5,241 Rating: General Warning: You know the drill by now, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ swearing and technobabble!

Author’s notes: Soft engineer goes yeehaw.

Tag list: @hathorik, @pheedraws, @the-blind-assassin-12

Does anyone else wants to be added to the tag list? Let me know. 💙

— Chapter 3

In front of the mirror, Vivian was enjoying a pretty flattering image of herself in this Old West apparel; it was brand new, from boots to hat, all worn looking with some sort of a distress effect for which Vivian had actually paid good money. The staff didn’t always get to choose among the bespoke best of the best considering the renting was free… But if one aimed for ever so slightly better, it wasn’t anymore!

For now, Vivian regretted nothing, except maybe that she wouldn’t get to keep it all at the end of her stay. She even afforded a gun!

But considering where she intended to go, it wouldn't be just a pointless luxury. And neither would be looking a bit more weathered than as if straight out of the tailor's shop…

Filled with pride, Vivian flushed at the thought she hoped not to be the only one to think her pretty, and to make an impression on the other guests. For no reason other than to boost her self-esteem. She pulled her hair up, trying to shape them into some fancy beachy waves, same as for a western starlet, Sharon Stone in that antic 95' movie, "The Quick and the Dead"… but not as sexy. Also, less blond.

And clearly, everything else was so frickin stylish as well! Thanks so much, Design.

All the available outfits for the clients were carefully recreated with historical sewing patterns but with all the benefits of current materials. And the gray linen shirt, the vest and the pants Vivian was wearing were cut better and no doubt from much more comfortable fabric than her everyday clothes that it was borderline upsetting!

Still, she smiled to her reflection while tying a large beige and red kerchief around her neck.

This time, she chose what she would wear. No way she’d suffer dresses or puffed sleeves and flowered hats ever again!

Her first visit in the park, not too long after she started in Behavior, was on the occasion of a "team building" week-end of some sort but after a few hours — a day, maybe? — everyone had scattered around in the limits set to them during their onboard train briefing… So much for team spirit!

That being said, Vivian was fine with that; she was of the quiet kind, more observing than extroverted, and to go forth befriending new people, stuff like that, wasn’t really her strength. Even if everything had been set up to spur her on that way. Like, a Team Building week-end…

But then, it was also because she was the way she was — alone and no strings attached — that Vivian had grasped this golden opportunity to work as a coder for Delos in their now famous park. She only had a few friends all around the world, mostly online, and didn’t keep much contacts up with her family, especially her sister with whom she shared an old resentment.

It was this lack of ties that could let people believe her more focused and available than her otherwise committed colleagues.

These thoughts discarded, Vivian put her stetson on, stuffed her gloves in her gunbelt and picked her saddlebags up before leaving the dressing room to walk the hallways down to the elevator. It took her in one go all the way to the level right below the surface, from which the maglev shuttles' terminal was distributing the entirety of the park; she almost jumped out of the cabin and kept a brisk pace in the last long corridors to reach a plainer hall than the client’s terminal.

Shifting her saddlebags’s weight on her shoulder, Vivian moved across the space, ignoring the curious eyes to get to one of the shuttle’s platform. She was already getting in character, and she enjoyed it.

Maybe a bit too much, she thought as she tipped her hat to three techs in suits and apron. She was discovering herself an unsuspected confidence that she liked very much; she giggled with pleasure as she stepped in the shuttle she was about to share with a group of techs from various departments and two guys from QA’s security, including one who gave an enormous yawn.

The shuttle carried them at high speed and stopped first at Vivian's meeting point, where she was the only one to step off.

With a peek at her pocket watch, Vivian hoped she wasn’t late, provided that she didn’t get stood up. But passing one of the many concrete pillars in the huge low lit tunnel, her worries faded; Graham didn’t let her down. He was there, waiting for her next to a freight lift, holding a beautiful chestnut horse by the bridle. At least, she wouldn’t have to walk, or rely on the train and start all the way back from Sweetwater.

"Thanks, Graham! Sorry for the trouble…"

"No problem," he answered. "You’re aiming to make a mess someplace, aren’t you?"

Vivian scoffed and buckled her saddlebags to her steed’s gear.

"No, not even! I’m just gonna visit remote corners, far from the tourists’ standard circuit."

"Mmh, good luck…" Graham replied lazily, handing her the reins. "Cry for help and shake your arms to the camera if you need us to come get you!"

She punched him lightly in the arm and he smiled, unfolding a tablet on which he confirmed Vivian and her horse’s exit in the logs.

"You’re good to go."

"Thanks, Graham."

"Yeah, yeah…"

He waved her away towards the glass lift; as she was getting ready inside, her horse still held by the reins, Graham ordered it to go up — the doors closed, and the cabin shook in its tubular frame.

"Yeehaw, babey!" he shouted, playfully.

Vivian shrugged before patting her horse’s shoulder as to calm it. It didn’t need any of that, it was actually more about alleviating her own stress by petting it. The lift slowly raised Vivian and her horse to the surface where the bright daylight was jarring. She lowered her head to look around under the brim of her hat; a great plain spread out in front of her eyes, surrounded by crisp red hills covered in tall grass and a few crooked trees like old charred bones.

The lift shook again before coming to a stop, startling the horse that jolted at the end of its reins. Vivian patted its neck and when the doors opened she steered it out; a gust of wind full of a warm earthy smell rushed a cloud of dust against the armored glass.

Gathering the reins on her horse’s neck , Vivian hoisted herself in the saddle; it wasn’t something new by any means, but the feeling of it was strange anyway — she hadn’t been on a horse for a very long while. But as they said, it was like riding a bike…

For now, she was happy just by staying in the saddle, unmoving, and took the time to put her gloves on to observe the landscape. According to the map she did her best to memorize, Las Mudas was north-west from this outpost, within a few miles. On horseback, it wouldn’t take long. And she would find the road eventually, even before reaching the town.

Vivian clicked her tongue to encourage her mount to walk, and it obeyed; she was in no real hurry but if she hoped to be in the right place at the right time to smoothly intercept the narrative of her choice, she ought to end up galloping at some point, fast!

She picked in her pocket, pulling out her watch; it was past two in the afternoon and, provided she didn’t wind up lost, she’d be there around four. Comfortably set in her saddle and stirrups, Vivan pushed the pace of her horse with another click of her tongue while the freight lift was quaking back down.

Gallop wasn’t uncomfortable, but galloping that long could quickly become so and, once she reached the dirt road meandering in the sparse vegetation all the way to Las Mudas, Vivian let her horse go back to a trot. And that gait was straight down uncomfortable but she preferred riding all the way there rather than popping up through a building access right in the middle of the town, fresh as a daisy, hands in her pockets, saddlebags on her shoulder… and without any pony.

Not fishy at all…

The truth was she didn’t had much of a choice about the available access points, really! She did what she could with what was among the closest. But it was fine by her. It would make the experience more authentic and gave her the time to check what she could have overlooked before leaving, or even think things through instead of just dive head first into trouble.

That being said, she hoped there wouldn’t be any; she wasn’t there to go on an adventure, but to hold a promise… while taking notes on her script in field conditions.

The thought that she’d remove it if it caused any issue was kinda gut wrenching but she thought it best to blame it on hunger. Vivian hadn’t had lunch yet so nervous she was, and now, she was starving.

But, at last, the shape of the town’s walls cut out on the hills gray with garrigue. Maybe she’d eat something once settled there. She had heard that the food was kinda good around these parts…

Vivian let the reins loose; only a few yards and they entered, walking, on the town’s dusty square. Even if her poor horse had done most of the work, it wasn’t the only one to be tired by this scamper; they both had a sore back and stiff legs. Getting her feet back on the ground would be an interesting experience in a few moments…

She stretched her shoulders as she was slowing down her horse, until it stopped, nose in front of the fountain. Apparently, she was better at parallel parking with a horse than with her car!

That thought made Vivian snicker as she slowly slid down her steed. As she expected, dismounting was tough; the pain surge from the sole of her feet all the way to her thighs, getting her knees to shake. She stood still for a second, taking the time to pat her horse who had already dived its big grey nose into the water of the fountain.

"Good idea, buddy,” she whispered, out of breath.

She took her canteen from her saddle horn to take a long sip from it. The water wasn’t that fresh anymore but it still did the job; Vivian felt like all the dust of the road was in her throat right now! Her steps heavy, betraying her lack of habit to ride for so long, she sat with less grace than hoped on the edge of the stone basin, beside her still drinking horse. Vivian took a hot minute to breathe and watch the scenery of Las Mudas; she could make out the colors of the house fronts under the dusty patina, feel the cool air and hear the quiet bustle of its inhabitants. Children were running after a few panicking chickens with a dog barking in excitement and wagging its tail like a whip.

Vivian removed her gloves and untied her neckerchief to wipe her face. When her horse raised its head, its mouth dripping with water on her shoulder, she chuckled and avoided its forehead coming a bit too fast in hers. Then, she plunged her hands in the water to wet her face and neck. That felt really good.

Vivian tied her neckerchief back while a plump red hen came pecking pebbles at her feet, fleeing when her horse stepped on the side; she snorted as her eyes followed the hen’s erratic dashes. Vivian enjoyed the calm ambient, the subtlety in details, but at the same time, she was recognising the work of this team, that department… Vivian grunted as she turned away from the daily life scene and leapt to her feet, startling her horse. She shouldn’t let her insider knowledge get in the way of what she came to do here, she shouldn’t "trash her own immersion" as much as she should be careful of what she was going to say, and to whom.

After this little clarification with herself, she brought her attention back to the people around her; the border between hosts and guests was finally getting a bit blurry — that guy who was scraping horse shit from his soles on the edge of the cantina’s boardwalk was just that, a man… And these kids, bickering around who would be the hunter in their next game of hide and seek, were all just kids. It was more pleasing to imagine oneself like a time traveler — she had to adapt to what was around her, not the other way around.

Her horse cut her thoughts short with a soft headbutt to her back, like a nudge to immerse herself back in and she took it to the hitching post, a few steps away; Vivian rolled the reins around the rod, searched in her saddlebag for a few coins she pocketed in her vest and walked without hurry to the cantina’s rickety tables. She pushed her holster back a little on her hip and sat on a chair. Even though she had spent the last few hours with her butt sticked to a saddle, she felt like it was the first time she was really sitting since the morning! Her shoulders stooped in relief and she stretched her legs with a grunt, propping one heel on the seat in front of her.

"Shit…" she sighed between her teeth.

She noticed the three patrons at the closest table staring at her. When their eyes met, under the brim of her hat, they turned away, focusing back on their tumblers full of whisky and their domino game.

"What are you having, newcomer?"

Vivian almost jumped; the barkeep was standing right beside her, a dirty rag in his hands. His face was as weathered as the walls and he looked simply tired to be himself.

"Actually, I’m looking for someone," she explained.

The barkeep’s whole face wrinkled as he frowned, wincing a smile that was as embarrassed as it was embarrassing.

"What kind of someone?" he asked, cautious.

Vivian understood her mistake. It might not be the best way to break the ice to accidentally imply that she was a bounty hunter or something, as she suddenly realised. She tried to fall back:

"Someone with good knowledge of these parts to take me to Pariah without going in circles."

The barkeep couldn’t have looked more relieved had he cracked a fart, Vivian thought, her eyebrows raised in amusement.

"Oh," he said before flicking glances around. "You’re sure gonna find a great deal of good folks like that around!"

He gestured towards one of the domino players.

"Carlos, here, can take you. Hey, Carlos…"

That one turned a suspicious look towards Vivian’s table, but stood up anyway to step forward; he was the dirtiest of the three and under the brim of his own hat, his face had something alarming — maybe because of his broken nose and missing teeth. With a calm motion of her hand, she stopped him to make another step. Carlos froze, looking frankly disappointed and Vivian glared at the barkeep.

" Someone trustworthy."

Carlos grumbled and spat some black tobacco goo on the ground, through the spaces between his teeth before sitting back among his cackling friends. Vivian looked back to the barkeep who winced again awkwardly.

"D’you have that around here?" she quipped.

Far be it from her to be disparaging; she was only being playing the game… She figured out that the barkeep wasn’t a model of bravery, or honesty, and he needed to be pushed a little for her to get what she wanted. He shrugged, twisting his rag.

"Yeah, yeah," he assured her, nodding almost exaggeratedly. "Sure! There’s…"

He cleared his throat and one of his shaking hands flew from the rag to point her towards the stables — or at least what looked like it — opposing the cantina on the other side of the street.

"Thanks," she answered, almost ironically.

But he heard nothing of it, bobbing his head without adding a word before leaving for a table where a guy was calling for him loudly. Vivian stood up without haste, sparing her sore muscles useless efforts, before heading to the wooden awning. The street wasn’t very large between the cantina’s boardwalk and the stables and yet, she had time to come across enough people to wreck her immersion; two women were walking down the southern aisle, commenting almost out loud on the realism of the place.

"Feels like the real thing!", a guy uttered as he caught up on them after having thanked a woman who had given him direction on the doorstep on her house.

The real what, exactly?!

It’s wasn’t like they were in the middle of Sweetwater, which was more or less the park’s entry point, with all its market-tested banalities! No, this was one of these remote areas where things started to get a bit more "hairy" as Margaret said… "Epic", according to Thawal.

Basically, what the fuck were those tourists doing here, in this area of the park, if they weren’t going to forget, not even for a second, the limits of this questionable reality they were clinging onto at each step to focus on all the possibilities of where they were right now?

Vivian let out a slow sigh. She shouldn’t get angry, or judge; maybe these people lacked self-confidence — she knew all too well what a pain it could be — and were afraid to lose control; control of themselves, or the situation.

Vivian rubbed her neck under her kerchief and slowed down as she arrived in front of the stables. From there, exited a tall black guy with broad shoulders under his long duster, and with one look, he seemed to evaluate her from head to toe as he went past her, leading his horse by the bridle. He nodded to Vivian, and she nodded back.

By the fountain where he hoisted himself in his saddle, several others came from the nearby street; she heard the guy giving orders to the troop gathering around him and they all went ahead, galloping towards the western gate, frightening the chickens away to the sides of the street, scattering their feathers as they flapped their flightless wings. A strange silence fell on the town after the riders disappeared.

Despite her being kinda bothered about "tourists", Vivian would admit that long-returning guests like that man with the duster, had an uncanny ability to blend themselves in the narratives, to make them theirs to the point of changing the entire thing sometimes. At least, until the next reset.

Vivian brushed her hair off her forehead under the brim of her hat to try to gather her thoughts, and courage, before stepping in the stables; two men had their backs turned, at the right of a bay horse’s tail, facing to talk to another Vivian couldn’t see, except for his worn hat between their heads. At the moment, he seemed more concerned about his saddle’s straps than about what the two other men were telling him on a hurried but hushed tone. Vivian couldn’t hear everything from where she was; one of them didn’t want him to leave, not now, and the other was arguing that it was exactly what "the other brother" was waiting for, that he should at least let them come with him…

The horse shifted its weight, nudging the man leaning on its croup — he and the other moved aside, clearing the line of sight to the third, someone Vivian recognised with no effort. Even dressed.

She sucked her teeth and wrinkled her nose as to hold back a laugh. But all cheerfulness vanished when the two men turned to her, almost threatening. Certainly surprised by the sudden silence, Lawrence then looked up, letting go of the straps he had just finished buckling around a Winchester scabbard.

"The fuck d’you want?" spat the one of the two with a big mustache and a split leather vest.

Vivian didn’t answer right away, and that silence prompted the other to slowly put his hand to the handle of a knife in his belt. The unspoken threat made Vivian’s heart rush. Yet, she kept her chill — way more than she imagined herself able to. So, she explained:

"The barkeep sent me here when I told him I was looking for someone trustworthy to take me to Pariah."

The one with the mustache glanced at Lawrence, himself staring at Vivian with an expression she could have qualified as grumpy or disappointed.

"I can pay, if that’s what concerns you," she added to break the silence before it settled.

Lawrence suddenly unfroze and shook his head, before checking a second time on the straps securing his rifles’ scabbard to the saddle.

"No," he grumbled. "Sorry, lady… You’ve been fed some bullshit."

He patted his horse and tugged a bit on his saddle blanket to adjust it.

"Thing is… I can’t right now."

He was playing "hard to get"! Vivian would’ve almost laughed at that. Not that she found it ridiculous or anything, on the contrary; it was nice, and unexpected!

Looking away towards a rider passing in the street near the awning, she nodded slowly, not repressing a smirk, and sliding her thumbs in her belt.

"Alright," she simply said. "Thanks anyway…"

Vivian waited for a second to pass in silence. None of them broke it until she added:

"Evenin’, gents…"

She tipped her hat; one of the men nodded as an answer and Vivian was already leaving the stables when she heard another swear a bunch, on a quiet tone. She was still repressing her smile when she reached the cantina to sit back at the same table, still available. This time again, she was more than happy to sit down.

Vivian threw a quick glance at the stables and snorted, amused. She easily guessed that he wasn’t engaged on any other narrative than his own for now but… she wouldn’t insist anyway. Maybe later? Or maybe she’d follow him and pretend to come across him somewhere along the way… Vivian had nothing outlined, really, and she didn’t want to outline anything. She, too, would improvise!

The barkeep finished to fill a glass at the nearest table and walked to Vivian’s to whom he asked:

"Something to drink, after all?"

He shook the brownish alcohol bottle he had in his hand.

"Cider, you have that?" she asked.

"Yeah, sure! I-I’ll get it now…"

And without waiting for any approval or comments, he left for the inside of the cantina. Vivian let out a long sigh; every intentions put aside, it was a nice moment to spend in the coolness and the calm of this small town between the hills. At the southern gate, the entrance of a cart pulled by a prancing donkey caught Vivian’s attention but she turned away from it as the barkeep was coming back already, holding a clay bottle and one small glass, same as for the other patrons, barely bigger than a shot.

"Did… did you find what you were looking for?" he asked, opening the bottle.

"You can say that…"

The barkeep didn’t comment and poured a glassful of dark cider, generous enough to spill all over the table — she guessed that it was a dry one but she hoped it would also be a good one. She nodded, thanking him silently, and the barkeep went back inside. A second had barely passed and a man stood up from his table to come and sit in front of Vivian who was trying her best to raise her glass without spilling more; she only acknowledged him with a curious eye while working on the careful rise of her almost-a-shot of cider.

"Heard ye're lookin’ for someone to get ya to Pariah, over there?" he jabbered with a thick accent.

Vivian didn’t answer, watching him above the back of her own hand as she was swigging a good half of her drink; his skin was tanned under his salt-and-pepper beard, his eyelids heavy and his eyes yellowish.

"Ah can take ya there,” he continued under Vivian’s scrutiny. “Less than three days!"

He nodded vigorously.

"Truth be told, ah did it on the way in awright," he completed, without taking note of Vivian’s stubborn silence. "Gimme first half now and the rest as soon as—"

He never finished his sentence, pulled out of his chair by the grip of another man who tossed him aside without a word; he almost fell over but didn’t complain, and on the now available seat settled Lawrence. The expression on his face was a subtle mix between annoyance and remorse and Vivian only raised an eyebrow while putting her glass down on the table.

"My apologies for my bad manners, before," he said, not looking her in the eye for too long. "My cousins and I… we didn’t agree on somethin’."

Vivian didn’t reply and leaned back in her chair… now that she could take her glass without spilling it everywhere.

"I take it you want to go to Pariah?"

It wasn’t really a question, and Vivian didn’t reply to it either, holding his stare. The barkeep was coming back to their table anyway, a bottle and a glass in his hands. However, he didn’t say anything as he poured the whisky in the glass he had put in front of Lawrence who asked again:

"Why is it you want to go there?"

This time, it was a real question. The barkeep had a knowing grin for Vivian before walking away; he was so proud of himself, that one!

"I… I’m supposed to meet someone," she answered, looking back at Lawrence. "Someone who… who owes me."

Vivian clenched her teeth, and her fingers on her glass; it was only half a lie, as she’d find an outpost somewhere around the town but still, she lied. And, herself, she wasn’t proud of that.

The truth was that she had planned her starting point, but not her arrival.

But the answer seemed to convince Lawrence — at least, enough for him to recline in his chair, an arm resting on the table. Without taking his eyes off Vivian, he was tapping with his fingers on the scratched, stained table, next to his glass he still hadn’t touched yet. Vivian enjoyed that detail in his bearing; she could guess that he was thinking. About what, she wasn’t sure, but she was eager to hear what he’d chose to answer.

"If I may," he started with caution. "I don’t think this is a good place for someone… someone like you…"

He waved towards her in a lazy move, still close to his glass. And Vivian wasn’t expecting such a comment. She even doubted that it was part of his standard library; so, her surprised was perfectly honest.

"I can take care of myself!" she bristled.

Again, Lawrence shook his hand and smiled a little, nodding.

"Don’t get me wrong," he tempered. "It’s just that… you might be too polite for a lot like these ones."

Vivian’s puzzlement was unending. Frowning, she heard him adding:

"I only hope you know what to expect over there. But, then again… ain’t my business! I’m goin’ there today."

He picked his glass and took it to his lips.

"And I wouldn’t mind havin’ some company, after all."

Then, he emptied his whole drink in one go. Vivian nodded, tapping with her fingers on the base of here own glass; she displayed some sort of disinterest, like she was totally not impressed while, in fact, her nervousness was starting to take over. It was so different than being in analysis, in the controlled environment of her lab, she realised that too — she was the one in his world, now…

And things wouldn’t be as easy as they looked like. Not for her, anyway. However, she managed to let no more than a few seconds pass before recovering her ability to speak:

"Perfect."

Finishing what cider remained in her glass, Vivian thought how much her own improvisations were about to be wicked awful. She put her glass back down, without a sound.

"The question is," she continued carefully. "How much do you want?"

This elicited a genuine but quiet laugh from Lawrence; he watched her for a second, still smiling. But as much as his sudden cheerful mood was catching, Vivian was wondering what was so funny in what she said.

"A whisky before we leave and somethin’ of the kind when we’re there sounds fair to me," he declared, with a look around the boardwalk of the cantina and the surroundings of the fountain behind Vivian. "It will at least take us two days to get there."

He nodded towards someone out of Vivian’s sight before adding:

"If you need supplies, now’s the right time to think about it."

Vivian agreed — aside from a can of water and a travel kit that, in all honesty, was more of a survival kit, she had nothing in her saddlebags.

"Thanks," she said, simply because she had no idea what else to say — and because she was too polite. "Mister… ?"

Lawrence lowered his head and shook his hand, lazily.

"No, no, please…" he replied, a frown on his face but without any real annoyance. "We’re in for quite a trip together, you can call me Lawrence."

Vivian nodded.

"I’m Ivy…"

It was her real nickname — one her few friends had given her and that she adopted fondly. In front of her, Lawrence leaned towards the table to hold out his hand, palm open as though he had a change of heart about payment. But Vivian got it; he was offering her to shake his hand. And a smiled appeared on his lips as she did.

"Nice meetin’ you, Ivy…"

His politeness effort didn’t slip past Vivian who, even though she appreciated it, couldn't ignore a twinging thought; should she come back in the park after this visit, he wouldn’t remember her… and this "first encounter" would become one among many that only she would remember. That, even with the help of her script.

Lawrence let go of her hand before standing up.

"I’ll be at the stables," he said. "Got some stuff to deal with before leavin’, too."

"Very well."

She observed him as he walk towards a young man, hopping up and down with anxiety and he started to talk really fast to Lawrence as he arrived. The boy was radiating so much stress and guilt that Vivian felt nervous just to look at him. She turned away to see the barkeep coming her way. Without even waiting for him to give her the prices of the drinks, Vivian dropped a few coins next to the empty glasses.

"Keep the change," she muttered as she stood up too.

"Oh, thanks!" he replied, visibly pleased, gathering the coins without waiting. "Safe travel and come back soon!"

She replied with a simple, tight smile before walking down the street to the western gate, towards what looked like a grocery store.

#ocs #oc:vivian #my writing #fic:improvisation only #full diagnostic series #westworld fic #westworld fanfic #ch:lawrence

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thepixelmoon · 4 years

Text

Perseus - The beginning of the end

Another Andromeda Six drabble featuring one of my travellers, Perseus Peg’asi, the day everything changed.

Disclaimer: The A6 crew, Vexx, Nerissa and the rest of the Peg’asi royal family all belong to @andromeda-six and Perseus is an original character created by me.

Warning: angst, guns, violence, gunshot wounds (not graphic), mentions of death.

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

With a frown, Perseus looks in the mirror and adjusts his ceremony attire, smoothing down any visible wrinkles in the dark blue fabric. His scarred face stares back at him in silent reproach, and he does his best to ignore it as he steps away.

Sorenn is getting married today. It is supposed to be a day full of happiness and cheer, bright smiles and nice food. Perseus is expected to be there for a change, but he’s decided he has other plans.

Vexx has been gone for a while, and nobody’s bothered to give Perseus a plausible reason for his disappearance. Perhaps he’s been transferred, they said. Maybe he got fired, others commented. But none of that feels right; he’s the closest thing Perseus has to a friend, and he refuses to believe Vexx would just leave without a word. He’s determined to find him, and this is probably the only chance he’s going to get in god knows how long.

As he determinedly makes his way towards one of the many passages that lead out of the palace, he checks that the hallways are empty before venturing further. So far he’s been lucky, but as far as luck is concerned, he knows it isn’t bound to last long.

“Perseus?” Nerissa’s voice snaps him out of his calculations as he’s getting ready to cross the corridor towards the big portrait of one of their ancestors.

He calmly stops in his tracks, his jaw tightening.

“Sister,” he turns to her, offering a small nod.

“What are you doing over here? The ceremony is about to start,” she asks, then glances over at the portrait painting. “Oh.”

She knows.

He follows her glance, then looks back at her to hold her gaze.

“I have to find him.” He straightens up, squaring his shoulders. “He can’t have just vanished. He has to be somewhere.”

Nerissa’s frown softens into a sad smile that almost makes Perseus recoil in anger.

It’s full of pity.

“Does it have to be today?” she simply asks, making no attempt at stopping him. “Sorenn is excited to have you there. You’re his little brother.”

“Funny how I’m his little brother today, and not for the past twenty-three years of my life.” He gives a bitter laugh, the repressed anger slowly bubbling up inside him. “Where was he the day our dearest father almost cut my bloody face in half? Where were Auberon and Ecko, Noa, or Elettra? Apart from you, where was everybody?” his voice keeps rising with each question, echoing off the walls.

Nerissa doesn’t flinch, though. She’s practically raised Perseus, since their parents seemed to often forget he even existed, as did most of their siblings. She knows him too well to be scared in the face of one of his outbursts, and it’s also because of it that she knows it’s pointless to try to convince him to stay.

“Perseus, I—”

“Save it. Don’t try to excuse them. Don’t excuse him,” he snarls through clenched teeth. It’s pretty obvious who he’s referring to.

With a tentative hand, Nerissa reaches into her pocket and produces a small, shiny silver ball that she places on Perseus’ hand before he has a chance to withdraw it. He eyes it with a frown.

“Why are you giving me the music box?”

“I know it was my gift for your eighteenth birthday, but if you’re doing to leave, I want you to have it. I want you to remember this, remember me, in case something happens.”

Perseus’ frown deepens.

“Why would anything happen? I’m just going to find Vexx, and then I’ll return.”

Nerissa smiles and shakes her head, closing his hand around the kitalphanite music box.

“Just keep it, will you?” she insists. “Please.”

There’s something in her eyes he cannot quite place, something that hadn’t been there before. A shadow, a sort of dread and sadness that make his skin crawl. Unwilling to give it any more thought, he slips the music box into his pocket and gives his sister a firm nod.

“I’ll… see you soon.” His voice almost breaks. Almost. “Don’t tell anyone about this.”

She just nods in reply and places her hand on his cheek, gently swiping her thumb across it. The touch is gone in an instant, though, as Perseus quickly steps away and covers his head with a hood. He disappears into the shadows of the passage behind the portrait without a last glance or word, his scar throbbing with pain.

He’s about to reach the bridge that separates the Gold and Silver Districts when it happens.

The ground shakes and rumbles beneath his feet, the sudden echo of an explosion resounding through the city. When Perseus whips around to locate the source of the noise, his breath dies in his throat.

Half of the palace has been blown up and the other half is almost completely engulfed in flames; the windows shattered, the walls collapsed, the trees in the gardens uprooted.

A string of ear-splitting screams reaches Perseus’ ears as the people around him realise what just happened. Some run past screaming, dragging little children behind them, while others stand and stare in horror at the enormous chaos unfurling before their very eyes.

The sound of gunshots is what snaps Perseus out of his shocked trance. Masked strangers in all-black uniforms are opening fire against all the Orsanna Guard officers they come across, as well as any civilians nearby. Bodies fall limp to the ground and Perseus doesn’t think twice before making a run for it—he can’t go back to the palace, so he rushes to the bridge, dodging a few bullets as he goes.

Grenades fly into the buildings and houses, many of them blowing up at the same time. Perseus’ ears are ringing heavily as he tries to find some cover to avoid getting crushed by the debris. He jumps over a fallen tree trunk and sprints towards the bridge, breath coming out in short gasps, until something makes him stop.

In the midst of all the chaos, a child is crying helplessly, clutching her mother’s dead body. She can’t be older than four or five.

“Mum! Mummy, wake up!” she calls, gently shaking her mother.

Those who are still alive or not badly injured are heading for the bridge, paying no mind to the poor child. Perseus’ heart seizes in his chest as he spots one of the masked attackers pointing their gun at the little girl from the other side of the street, and before he knows it he’s grabbing a brick and tossing it at their head. It smacks them right in the face and they fall backwards, their gun slipping from their hands.

Perseus wastes no time. He crosses the street, scoops the little girl up into his arms and takes the attacker’s gun.

“No! No! Mummy!” she screams, tears sliding down her face as they leave the body behind. “Let me go!”

“We have to go!” Perseus replies, running as fast as his legs can manage.

He doesn’t recognise his own voice. He hasn’t sounded so terrified before.

The bridge eventually comes into view. By the time they reach it, the little girl is clinging to his neck like a lifeline, but Perseus manages to set her down on the ground.

“You have to run now, as fast as you can, and don’t look back,” he tells her, breathless. “No matter what, don’t look back, understood? Go somewhere safe, and—agh!”

A searing pain cuts through his left calf, the sound of a gunshot echoing around them. Some stray bullet must have finally hit him. Groaning, he’s forced onto his hands and knees as little spots of light dance in the corners of his eyes.

“Go now!” he screams, reaching out and pushing the little girl into the crowd. “GO!”

Sobbing, the little girl hesitates for a moment, but later does as told and takes off, disappearing into the mass of people crossing the bridge. Perseus focuses on breathing deeply through clenched teeth, gripping the gun tightly in his left hand. If only he could lean on something to get back on his feet…

His vision is starting to become blurry as he drags himself towards the bridge, the concrete burning hot under his fingertips and the smell of dust and gunpowder flooding his senses.

His whole family is dead. Nerissa, his brothers and sisters, the King and Queens. All the officers in Orsanna’s Guard. Vexx, too, probably, if he was still in Silta Vie.

He has nothing left. Literally everything and everyone he thought he had is gone, and he’s lying face down in the concrete with a (probably nasty) bullet wound in his leg.

He’d laugh at the irony of it if he had the strength to do so.

He cries instead. The pain, the loss, the loneliness suddenly weighing down on him are unbearable.

He can’t move; the pain running up his leg is too much. It’s starting to become limp, so he refuses to take a look at it because he knows it’s not looking good.

He remembers the sorrow in Nerissa’s eyes just a few moments prior, the warmth of her hand against his cheek when she stroked it. The fact that that’s the last memory he’ll ever have of his sister is enough to make him scream in agony.

There’s another explosion, a much bigger one, and a lot closer to him. Perseus’ ears start ringing again as pieces of concrete and rubble fly in every direction, barely missing him. The shock wave that comes after is huge, so much that he has to cover his head with his arms to prevent any further damage as his body is rolled backwards against the ruins of a nearby building.

Still unable to hear a thing, Perseus forces his eyes open to see what’s going on.

The bridge has collapsed. The explosion must have been what destroyed it.

Smoke and dust fill his lungs as Perseus tries to draw a breath, causing him to cough and retch. Black spots start to dance in his vision as he leans back against the concrete, his body going limp.

Who would do this?

It’s suddenly really hard to keep his eyes open.

Who would think they have the right to decide who lives and dies?

Darkness envelops him. He feels like he’s a sinking ship in the middle of the sea. He wants to speak, scream, yell. But nothing comes out.

Is this how I’m going to die?

I don’t want to die.

A beat.

“Here! There’s someone here!” a voice calls, far away. “He’s alive!”

#andromeda six #a6 #vexx serif #nerissa peg'asi #perseus peg'asi #fanfic #fanfiction #fic #angst #my writing

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fandomsumthing · 4 years

Text

Spidey Sister Snapped pt. 2

This is a joint writing piece with @im-a-star-girl and check them out for part 1

Summary: Peter gets hurt and he can’t handle all the hatred being pointed at him any more.

Enjoy!

Peter groaned as he was thrown into a wall for the third time that night. He stumbled to his feet, before the thug with absolutely MASSIVE gauntlets was upon him again, throwing blind punches. He flipped out of the way, stumbling as his twisted ankle flared in pain once again.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m not feeling so good.” Peter said, struggling to his feet only to be decked again. Once he finally managed to stand and not be hit, he got behind the thug.

He webbed the thug, who punched at the webs, only to tangle his gauntlets. An alarmed look crossed his face when he realized that he wasn't getting anywhere. Peter leapt into the air, and wrapped the webs around the thugs neck, startling the man, and throwing him off his balance. He released the webs, before kicking the thug in the face. As he landed, he toppled for a moment, his sprained ankle throbbing. The thugs' gauntlet fell off of his hand, clearly not fastened on well as the man fell over, and landed on Peter's leg. Peter let out a cry of alarm and pain, shoving the heavy steel gauntlet off, seeing his disfigured knee, and realized it was fractured.

Peter looked around for any straight object that he could use as makeshift splint. His attention turned to the gauntlet on the ground, seeing two small metal poles on the inside. They would be able to hold until he got to a first aid kit. Peter took the gauntlet and smashed it against the ground, getting the poles lose. He took the poles and put them on both sides of his knee and web it in place. He stood up from the ground, his leg still hurt like hell but at least he knew that he wouldn’t cause any more severe injury to his knee cap. The thug groaned and Peter quickly webbed him up, not up to face the menace again. He shot his web and swung himself to a higher building to contact Ock to call the police and let him take care of it from there.

"Parker? Do you know what time it is?"

"Y-yeah uhh, I need a bit of help." Peter whimpered, sitting down with a heavy grunt.

“With what?” Ock’s voice had become concerned hearing Peter so winded.

“There was this thug, I handled him but I was wondering if you could send out one of those drone spiders to stay with him while I go home?” Peter asked.

“Are you injured? You sound injured." Peter could hear the clicking of Ock’s keyboard.

“Just a sprain, I’ll be fine.” Peter said as he stood.

“You're lying, aren’t you?”

“I’m fine Otto, I just need rest.”

“If you say so.” Otto then went silent, having ended the call with Peter.

Peter waited uncomfortably, before seeing the Spider-Drones arrive. One of the drones turned to him, before chittering in alarm. Peter began swinging away, ignoring the numerous incoming calls from Otto. He staggered while climbing into his room. He sat on the floor for a moment, touching his swelling knee lightly, before pulling his hands away with a pained whimper. He reached over for a towel, and shoved it into his mouth. He pressed his hands to his knee, biting down on the towel, before pushing hard, resetting his leg. He let out a pained cry, muffled by the towel, and pulled his hands away. He forced himself up, and undressed to take a shower. After a hot shower wiping away any blood that had dried on his bruised knuckles, he put on a t-shirt and pants before collapsing onto his bed, still writhing in pain.

When morning came, he immediately knew something else was wrong. He couldn’t be having an asthma attack, could he? It felt like a small one, but it hurt much worse. No, he couldn’t think about that now. He had school to attend. His alarm read 5:30. Did it really take that long for him to get dressed? Nevermind that. He had to get to school. He grabbed his book bag and carefully made his way downstairs to the kitchen to grab a quick breakfast. On the fridge he found a note from May.

‘Peter,

We’re out of fruit and milk. On your way home from school could you pick up some more please? Thank you and have a good day!

-Love May’

Peter took the note and put it in his backpack pocket for safe keeping.

Normally at this time he would've gone out for patrol but with his unbearably tight chest, throbbing knee, and sore arm, there was no way he'd be of any help. Not this morning. He barely held back tears as he slowly ate leftover eggs May had made for dinner the night before. He felt like he was going to puke. He forced on his shoes and sat down, watching TV until 7 came around. When it finally arrived, he staggered to the train station, and arrived to Midtown.

As the day progressed, his pain only increased, and by lunch, he could barely breathe. Flash seemed to notice and was sticking a bit closer than usual. As he walked through the hallways, Flash was nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with him. When Thomas, a boy who was a grade above both Peter and Flash, had bumped into Peter, he practically had to restrain Flash from punching him. Flash is a lot more protective than I remember… guess that's how I know we're friends. Sort of…

When the bell finally rang Peter was thankful. If the day had lasted any longer he probably would have ended up going to the nurses office. Lucky for him, his homework was so light that he was able to finish it before the school day’s end. All he needed to do now was get the groceries and then he could go home and rest. The closest store to Midtown was a 3 minute walk and then another 10 to the subway station. Peter knew that it would be hard getting home with milk and fruit even without his injuries, but he could make it. Flash and him had parted at the school doors and Peter began walking to the store. About thirty seconds in he felt a slight tingle go off in his head. Not like a threat was approaching, but someone that he knew. Actually plural, two people that he knew. He could see them in the store windows that lead to the door. Gwen and Anya.

He groaned internally. I really don't want to deal with them right now… As he began walking through the isles, picking out what brand of apples and grapes to choose, he noticed Gwen and Anya following him. He internally cringed as he realized it was because they still didn't trust him. He huffed, regretting it almost immediately as his chest throbbed. He brought a hand to it, and straighten his back, taking a breath. He wheezed uncomfortably, before resuming. He picked out grapes, bananas, apples, and tangerines, before grabbing the skim milk they drink now. He mentally cursed Otto, before huffing as he realized silently that Skim Milk wasn't that bad. As he paid for the food and left the store, he could still see Gwen and Anya following him out of the corner of his eye. He mentally debated calling Harry, before deciding it would be a bad idea. Harry would be able to tell how much pain he was in, even if it was just his voice. He merely took another breath, and kept limping to the subway station. I just wanna go home man…

He hugged the bag of groceries to his chest as a crowd passed him, the skim milk’s cold surface slightly numbing the pain in his chest. It distracted him ever so slightly that he ended up bumping into someone. His chest being pushed and the pain coming back through the numbing cold. Peter looked up to apologize to the person he had ran into only to have his mood dampen. He had just bumped into his former teacher, Max Modell. He was glaring down at Peter. Really? I just want to be in bed and not be reminded of the people who hate me… “Sorry.” Peter wheezed slightly then quickly moved pass Max and into a seat.

Max made a face at Peter as he nearly collapsed into a seat, as far away from Max as he could get. He watched silently as Anya and Gwen stepped in, sitting near Max and whispering silently to them. He felt a stray tear drip from his face. He wiped it furiously, knowing it was just from how much pain he was in. He wheezed, laying back and praying silently the pain would go away if he just sat still enough. He felt the subway jolt, shattering any peace he had felt for those few moments. The car didn’t get very far, before he heard a loud explosion. He threw his hands over his ears and yelped in alarm. His arm screamed in pain as he moved too fast. He gasped, as the lights began flickering and the train car shook. He heard Gwen and Anya scream as Max shouted in alarm. When the shaking stopped, he heard a loud announcement over the intercom. "All passengers please remain seated, help will soon arrive. This is not a drill." The phrase began repeating, occasionally distorting, and Peter let out a pained whimper. He looked out the doors to see concrete was blocking the exit. This wouldn't be a problem if his entire body was screaming with pain, and if Gwen, Anya, and Max weren't there…

Another explosion caused the train car to shake violently. So much so that it caused Peter to fall out of his seat, landing square on his chest. He began to gasp for air. The pain was unbearable but now layered on top of that was that he couldn’t breathe. He pushed himself up with his arms but stayed kneeling on the ground. He tried catching his breath but he couldn’t focus, His spider senses were bouncing off the walls and the pain in his leg and arm had decided that it was a perfect time to flare up. He needed something to ground him, but that was the one thing he didn’t have at the moment.

He felt a hand grab his throbbing arm. He let out a cry of pain, shoving whoever's grabbed him away, and falling back onto his butt. He leaned on the back of the subway car and stared ahead blankly, before realizing it was Gwen. After a few moments, he realized she was talking to him. "Peter? Peter what's wrong?"

He took a deep breath. "I'm fine I'm-" he coughed violently. "I'm fine" He hissed when Gwen reached forward again to help him.

Her eyes narrowed as an angry look crossed her face. "What is your problem?! I'm trying to help you and you slap me away!" Peter stared at her, seeing Anya step beside her. Max didn't move from his seat, but Peter could see he was watching the encounter carefully, and was hanging onto every word. "Look, a lot has happened. I'm just tired and not in the right mindset to be talking right now- can we please continue this later?" He begged weakly.

"No Peter. We've given you your space that you so desperately wanted. Now it's time you answer our questions." Anya demanded.

“I can’t, okay? Even if I did tell would you believe me? And who said I wanted space?” Peter asked looking up.

“Well that whole week that you were being a bitch and quit Horizon was enough to tell us that you did!” Gwen yelled.

“I’m sorry, I was stressed!” Peter’s voice began to shake, signaling that he was lying. Anya’s face now showed the same amount of anger.

“Enough with the lies Parker! Tell us the truth!” Anya pushed Peter lightly. Peter didn’t reply. “I thought Harry didn’t have a thing for liars. I guess he still doesn’t know what happened-”

“ENOUGH! You want the truth? I’ll give you the truth!” Peter yelled, anger that out beating Gwen and Anya’. “I don’t know what happened that week because it wasn’t me!”

Gwen stumbled back, seeming alarmed. Anya's jaw dropped. She'd heard of Peter snapping… but she never imagined that she'd be on the receiving end of it. Max finally stepped in. "I think that's enough, Peter."

Peter bristled and stood up. "Oh fuck off you don't know shit about what happened. Three weeks ago Doctor Octopus invaded my mind and COMPLETELY fucked up my life! And now I'm suffering because of it!" Peter's voice broke as he ranted. He could feel his eyes water. "None of you have a fucking clue what I've been through this past month. I've just been trying to help the city out as Spider-Man and my life has completely gone to shit and all of you are being ASSHOLES and you won’t listen to me! I tried talking to you! I tried to explain myself! I tried cleaning up this fucking mess that Ock created! But none of you will listen! I just wanted to fix what I lost and now you all are being fucking assholes! I tried to tell you to let me put this off until later! But NO! YOU GUYS HAD TO BE IMPATIENT! I HAVE BROKEN FUCKING RIBS! I CAN'T BREATHE! I’M IN PAIN AND YOU JUST HAVE TO FUCKING SCORN ME BECAUSE OF IT!" Peter's breath grew heavier.

At some point during his tangent, he began crying and now… he couldn't stop. Tears spilled down his face. "I tried talking to you guys but you wouldn't listen. None of this would've happened if you had just listened to me! Do you realize how fucking hurt I am? I Get it. I hurt your feelings. And for that, I am sorry. But even when I tried to make amends you just… you brushed me off. I was stuck in some… fucking digital dimension for days! I was there for god knows how long! I had to fight against your damn antivirus'! Max nearly killed me when he did the damn factory reset! I come back to find out Ock is in my body claiming to be some 'superior spiderman' and everyone just seems to… everyone just likes him better. I nearly died saving him and getting my body back and people either hate my guts or wish I hadn't switched back! Then you two accuse me of being the goblin king! What the actual fuck! You said it straight to my face that you thought the new goblins was Peter Parker! Why? Because I’m dating Harry Osborn or because of Ock having a bad attitude towards you? For science majors you sure don’t hypothesize before your conclusions! Since I've come back everything's gone to SHIT and I just-" He couldn’t stop the tears anymore. "I just want to go to sleep. I just want rest."

“That can’t be true. The whole digital dimension had been debunked by me two years ago.” Max said, standing up to get closer to the group.

“You debunked it because it sounded fake!” Peter’s voice was shaking with emotions, but it still conveyed his anger well. “That’s what you do Modell! You do what will make you look better! You said that the V-252 was fine and looked what happened! Then instead of looking at a virus, aka ME, you tried to kill me! If all it takes is an insult to upset you, then no wonder Ock quit! How the fuck did you even get your teaching degree? You told me to give up! WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?” Peter’s breath became rugged and uneven, but he continued. “I tried really hard to look past all the shit you’ve done, Modell. I really did! But now that I’m no longer a student, I can see how horrible of a person you can be. You’re not an evil man, but you’re not a good person either. I told you the first day that I couldn’t pay tuition, and you gave me the study tuition, I can appreciate that. But you could have also told me that it only lasted one year! Maybe then I would have been able to get a job and would of been able to meet the pay this year! Then you call me poor, which was a great help with my self-esteem! Not to mention how you put up the Spider-Man statue with the schools' fucking tuition money! I didn’t even want it put up! I don’t need people to like me as a hero! I’m still going to save them even if they hate me! If you think I’d make all this up just to get back into Horizon, you’re deadass wrong. If I had done all those rude things to all of you, I would have made it my duty to stay out of your lives! I wouldn’t be trying to get back in Horizon! I wouldn't be making an effort! But here I am."

Max stood quietly, his face showing a wide range of emotions. This wasn’t like how he yelled at him that night at Horizon. This admittedly frightening and concerning.

"Peter I-"

"I know you all don't understand. You never will. I don't expect you to understand. But I'd hope you'd at least make an effort. I thought we were friends… weren't we friends?" Peter wiped away his tears. "If you don't want me around then fine. If you don't like me, then fine. But never bring Harry into this again, you hear me?"

Despite Peter's stoic facade, he could feel himself crumbling under the weight of the world. "Peter. We need to know the whole, true story." Max sighed.

"Hah… you still don't believe me. Typical, you know what Modell? You can go fuck off because I'm fucking sick of you. I don't even want to go to Horizon anymore! It's just bad fucking memories there now!" Peter's voice began to rise as he was once again filled with anger. "I tried my goddamn best to meet your fucking standards and this is the thanks I get! I tried to stay there, but fuck that. I've chosen my side. And it's AGAINST YOU!" He snarled.

Gwen reached out and grabbed Peter's shoulder. "Are… are you telling the truth?"

Peter smacked her away, giving her an angry look. "What do you think? Do you want more proof? Ask Miles!” He spat.

Peter began to tremble with anger, his pain disappeared for a moment, and he couldn't control his movements. He punched the window behind him. He heard the glass shatter, and hot pain ran up his arm as glass shards embedded themselves into his fist. "Peter!" Anya shouted in alarm.

Peter grabbed his wrist. "I'm fine."

“That was bulletproof glass! You can’t break bulletproof and be fine unless-“

“Unless you’re Spider-Man.” Peter huffed, taking off his jacket and seeing a bruise forming. He glided his fingers crossed and hissed as well as cringed feeling the bump of a bone. It wasn’t breaking the skin, which was lucky, but his arm was definitely broken. He looked up at the other people in the train cart, seeing that they were staring at his arm in horror.

“You have a broken arm? How the-“ Anya levered his arm so that it was resting on his bag.

“A thug. Can one of you rip one of my jacket sleeves off? I need to make a sling.” Peter answered simply. It was different from how he usually asked questions. He sounded like he was talking to Ock right after he appeared back at Horizon or when he woke up from his coma.

Gwen shifted as Anya helped. Peter made the sling quickly, and saw their uncomfortable faces. "I'm sorry I'm being short with you. I'm short on sleep and in pain, and I know that isn't an excuse, sorry." He huffed, as he wrapped his arm as best as he could.

"We need to get you to the hospital." Max stated firmly.

Peter scoffed. "If I go to the hospital they'll do blood tests, and my Spider DNA isn't that hard to miss. It's just not safe for me…" He sighed.

"Then we'll take you to the infirmary at Horizon." Max finalized.

Peter snorted. "You really don't understand the concept of a secret identity, do you?"

“Peter, please-“ Max began.

“No, trust me. Half of the students would be reluctant to work on me. I saw how they looked at me when I walked in. Plus I’ve come to school with my other arm popped out of its socket before. I had to pop it back in before classes started, but I made it through the whole day without anyone picking up on it. I’ll be fine.” Peter said, pushing himself up with his good arm. “I know someone who will help me. I’ll bust him and see what he thinks about my injuries.” Peter sat down into the seat he fell out of, lifting his backpack to keep his arm on.

“Can we at least help you there?” Anya asked.

“Sorry, but no. He doesn’t like people that he doesn’t know well coming into his place.” Peter looked away from them.

Peter leaned on the door of the train cae in silence, and the others knew his word was finalized, and nothing they could say would change his mind. They settled in an uneasy silence. Peter hadn't stopped crying. The tears had slowed, but they hadn't stopped. The only sound was rumbling outside and the occasional drip of Peter's tears. Finally, light burst through the windows, catching them all off guard. Kid Arachnid forced the doors open. "Are you all okay?!" He froze when he saw the collection of people who were stuck together.

Peter turned and grabbed his groceries. "Oh- Pe- uh, random citizen- are you okay?"

Peter gave Miles a look. "They know, Kid." He sighed.

Miles looked between the group, before Peter limped out. "I'll call Otto, he'll give you a ride." Miles murmured to Peter as he limped past.

Peter nodded thankfully, and exited the abandoned subway car, avoiding fallen rubble. Miles watched until Peter was out of sight. Harry was at the subway entrance blocking other people from coming in so there was no doubt that Harry would see Peter like that.

Miles turned his attention to the other’s, a knee question popping into his mind. “What happened and why was he crying?” He didn’t receive an answer, but he got awkward glances from his friends. Since he knew that that wouldn’t get answered quickly he changed it.

“Did he tell you about the body swapping with Ock?” He asked, which got everyone to look up at him.

“He was telling the truth?” Max gasped.

“Yeah, I was the first person he contacted. If he hadn’t typed out that it was him I would have punted him.” Miles said laughing at the end. He then realized that Gwen and Anya’s faces reflected guilt.

“What did you guys say to him?” Miles asked sternly.

“We sorta… yelled at him?” Anya said rubbing her arm awkwardly. “And we sorta forced the truth out of him and he just broke down.”

There was a silence that was even more uncomfortable with Miles there. Miles let out an irritated sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“He apologized right after I’m guessing?” The others nodded. “Did you?” More silence and Miles nodded, even through his mask, they were able to see that he was biting his check.

Miles shook his head. "Do you guys realize how much pain he was in? I saw the scans Otto made last night. He crushed most of his ribs, he had a sprained ankle, a broken arm, fractured knee, and too many bruises to count. He also might have internal bleeding but he's stubborn and refuses to get help so Harry's gonna end up forcing his hand on him. But what I mean is that he's in pain. Today was not the day to try to force him to talk. Especially since you didn't apologize, even after finding out what happened." Miles lectured.

"It's- it's a lot to absorb!" Anya defended.

"And it doesn't take much to apologize. Even if it is, you should've been able to tell that you were in the wrong. You HAVE to apologize." Miles scolded.

Gwen shifted, keeping her eyes to the floor. "Anya.. Arachnid is right…" She murmured.

"Damn straight I am." He snorted, crossing his arms and tapping his foot.

Max began walking towards the exit, an emotionless look on his face.

“That also goes for you. It’s your decision to let him go back to Horizon or not, but you still have to apologize.” Miles said, placing a hand on Max’s shoulder. “Don’t tell him that I said this, but you are one of his inspirations in life. Of course you’re behind Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, but you’re definitely in his top 5. Also don’t call him poor again or I will bitch slap you to the moon.” Miles whispered the last part. He was so glad that Max didn’t know it was him under the mask.

“Alright, this is your stop so I’ll direct you back to the surface world. I also better hear from Peter that he got an apology from all three of you.” Miles said, his joking demeanor returning.

The group followed Miles out, feeling increasingly anxious as they reached the station. Police officers and witnesses took up the area and rubble was scattered everywhere. "What happened?" Gwen asked, looking alarmed.

"The subway wasn't structurally sound and collapsed. It doesn't look like a villain plotted this, just bad timing." Miles sighed, looking around at the chaos.

Miles turned to them once more. "Harry Osborn is at the exit making sure nobody enters with a couple other officers. I'm not sure if he's still there, considering he must've seen Peter by now. But listen, I'm going to stay down here and help cleanup. I'll check in with Peter in a few days, and I better hear that you all apologized. In person." Miles finalized with crossed arms.

"Alright…" Gwen murmured.

"It's the least we can do." Anya said, looking guilty as she rubbed her arm.

Max didn't reply, but nodded quietly. Miles gave a firm nod, before turning and running to the tracks again, calling to the other officers.

The group moved to the exit, and left the subway with an uneasy feeling in their gut. Harry wasn’t there, just like Miles had said.

The sun shined through Peter’s room window, causing him to throw a pillow over his head. Harry and Ock got him to go and see an actual doctor after reviewing his injuries. No internal bleeding, but he did have broken bones.

Two broken ribs, fractured knee, and a broken arm. They gave him crutches for his knee that was in cast. His arm was also in a cast that looked like a box. He also had bandages wrapped around his chest for his ribs.

May had refused to let him go to school in this condition. “You need rest. The last thing you need to worry about right now is school.” She had said to him. Luckily Flash came to his house with his school work so that when he got back he’d be caught up. He’d do his best to help Peter understand the material, but Peter would end up helping him with it as well.

Flash wouldn’t be coming today because it was Saturday. May had left for work before he had woken up, he knew because when he finally pulled the blanket off of his head he could see that there was a plate of fruit and eggs with a glass of water on the coffee table.

He smiled gently at the gesture and reached over to take the water. In truth, by now he didn't need the casts. His accelerated healing had taken care of all his injuries. At this point, the casts were just a nuisance, but he'd have to keep them on for another week or two. He sipped the water, and looked down at his arm, a smile crossing his face. Harry, Flash, Miles, Otto, Anna Maria, and a number of other students had happily signed his cast, under the ruse that he'd been injured when the subway collapsed. He ate the fruit and eggs, and sipped the water, before checking his phone, to see a few texts from Flash telling him about something someone had done after school. He shot back a quick reply, before hearing a knock at the door. He looked up curiously, before shambling to his crutches, and fumbling carefully down the stairs to the living room. He opened the door, and felt his stomach sink when he saw Max standing at the entryway. "Umm… hi…" Peter murmured, looking embarrassed.

He moved out of the doorway, inviting him in. Even worse then, after he entered Gwen and Anya followed shortly after. "Make yourselves at home. Do you uhh… do you.. want anything..?" He offered weakly.

Max sat down, Gwen and Anya sitting beside him. "No. Just to talk." They never saw Peter look so much of a wreck, well other than in the subway. His hair was flat, it looked like it had been brushed, but it didn’t look how it usually did. He looked tired even though he didn’t act it. Add in the casts and the bandages that covered his chest and he looked like he needed to be laying down in a hospital bed.

“Okay.” Peter made his way to the couch and sat down, motioning the others to follow. They just stayed like that for a while, no one knowing what to say or how to say it. The only noise in the room was the clock on the wall.

Peter felt his chest tighten slightly, not because of his ribs but because of not knowing what they wanted to say. He didn’t want to push them into telling him because he could see that they were in the same position as him and he didn’t want this to end up as a yelling match again.

Not knowing what else to do, and hating the silence, he took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped like that, and I-"

"Peter stop." Gwen cut in. "We didn't come looking for an apology. We came looking for forgiveness. You were right. We shouldn't've brushed you off like that when you were trying to make amends. It wasn't fair and we were just too upset to look at it logically. So for that, I am sorry, Peter. You didn't deserve what we put you through."

"Gwen's right, I was just… upset. I didn't want to make amends, I just wanted to be mad at you. And that's not fair. I'm sorry Peter." Anya agreed.

Peter felt his eyes begin to water, but he refused to cry. He kept a brave face, and gave Max a hesitant look. Max sighed heavily. "These two are right. I haven't exactly been fair to you, Harry, or this school. And it hurts that it takes one of my students breaking down for me to realize that." Max admitted. "And… I'm sorry."

Peter stared at the man. He could see he felt guilty, but his apology didn't feel very.. authentic. Like he had been planning it and thinking it over. Nonetheless he would accept it.

But a part of the sentence had stuck with him. Don’t get your hopes up Peter….. just correct him.

“Don’t you mean former student?” Peter asked, feeling his heart hammering in his chest from the slight suspense. He didn’t let any hope into words or spread across his face.

Max smiled slightly. “That’s up to you. I’m offering to let you back in to Horizon Peter.”

Peter felt a small grin force its way onto his face. "I… yeah. I'd love to go. I just… can you give me a week or two to find a job again? And to tell Midtown that I'm transferring back?" He asked.

Peter was doing his damndest to keep his excitement from blowing up from him, and by his fidgeting, he could tell he was failing. "Of course." Max agreed.

"And we can let the others at school know that something was going on, hard week or something, so they won't hate you as soon as you get back." Anya reassured.

Peter smiled thankfully at her. "Thanks, Anya. I appreciate it. I really do." He said, a joyful smile on his face.

Gwen smiled. "It's the least we could do after what we put you through."

"Guys, it's more than enough." He promised

#msm 2017 #marvel spiderman 2017 #parksborn #peter parker #harry osborn #gwen stacy #anya corazon #miles molares #max modell #marvel’s spiderman 2017 #fanfic

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sirjustice1046 · 3 years

Photo

petrol made when few liters placed in containers placed in heap of hoho down the clear river with seats on the river cemented pavements or heap of all fruits and veggies in sacks then u chop cooked kale or ice cabbage or kunde sticks or camara sticks dude and with many made such down the road, planted trees in a linear way either place the sacks half way hidden in sand and even with bicycles and tires can do dude under bulb light with petrol or the same bottle next to pumpkin then chop kale or camara leaves in sloping lands towards the road with camera or brown river water with the above or still same bottle placed in grass then u hurl with cooked hoho in sloping lands towards a road with a traffic snarl up during the day dude

With the place gunia on white sand on sloping lands towards cemented roads while the heap like grass above in flattened land portion, when u place hoho in such gunia while heap planted grass gives ya guns when normal grass or sewer water in container or tea leaves when u place hoho gives ya gold bars and even if u place potato, when u place yam gives ya copper wires while white raw guava aluminum while ripe gives u soap, i mean the outer peel while the inner inside gives you soap and the seed gives ya cooking utensils dude, when u place hoho, heap soap gives ya jets, when heap tangerine choppers, when heap carrot or bottles as glass or plastic gives ya choppers and big planes, while if heap tomato gives ya submarines, if onion gives ya sufuria, if garlic gives ya drones dude, if ripe paw paw gives ya light rail, if paw paw seeds gives ya train, if heap kale gives ya speed boat, if heap corpse gives ya boats, if fish the same, if Nile perch gives ya yacht while if dry grass gives ya cruise sheep, when heap avocado gives ya inverters and all, when the heap avocado seed gives ya bulbs, when camara stick soaps, when camara leaves gives ya steel wool, when camara seed gives ya inverters dude and try with any veggie and fruits at dawn or dusk, when it shines or rains bro and u can change the hoho by placing another like boiled eggs when heap grass gives ya yacht and so on so forth

When u place few KG of tea leaves next to boiled maize then drop hay bars on sloping lands towards the sea it gives u much or hurl iced hoho or chop kunde leaves or place few kg next to cooked cassava then hurl raw banana unto deep hole unto the same basement directed via a pipe and boom ya much tea leaves under dim sunlight now

In USA no food wasted, don't waste food and even discarded foods sold to Canada to make metallic ware and gadgets, another area they get money and even on their own nation as much waste food used to make bridges, building and roads in the boom process dude. Used to make hidden parts that u see once dude

fall carrots unto heap of brown grass makes jets in slanting lands towards the sea, while on flowers makes fighter crafts, while on passion fruit makes fighter choppers, on mango seed makes missiles on slanting lands towards the river and if u change the slanting lands as mentioned earlier makes another thing like on passion makes big airplane towards plated trees, carrot fall on hoho in a triangle cut land with slope to the river makes big military jets of 2 propeller above, on millet makes tanks to the sea, on paw paw makes surface to air missile on lands towards a stream but in dug holes, in kale sticks makes cruise ship on sloping lands towards the sea and on corpse of different people of different characters makes jets and much heaping much and few changing the slanting too dude. Give it a try bro

Kisii even in America wants to attack the land as obvious USA Rich than Kenya, liaising with likes of Middle east like UAE whom have know how to make the missiles cause they are poor if fuel can be made much artificial as above dude. And its crystal clear even the USA dignitaries not 4 the nation but advocating, kinda, the retirement package be hiked, cause left frustrated afterwards. This to show Africans that INNOVATION more than presidency African champion in, so unless they do as them to move the country forward and those championing in such post are Kisii blooded as Jamaica people good with little but not much the reverse with kisii and Arabs though all Arab blooded dude, a bad people should be eliminated, try to enter nation like France into the deal, japan and Netherlands and Even SA, nations with now nuclear bombs and jet making technology where they recruit people to steal petty things to raise cash to bride those in such positions in such nations.

When u hurl corpse from above unto grass heap from a drone blinking lights on of different people makes different vessels and even water airplane, speed boats, yacht and ships and even train on land when heap guava or avocado seed u hurl some infants.

The factory house with high walls where the hurling done can be round or of any triangle shape as some products forms in round walled 1 and others in square or rectangle or in other triangle shapes. Give it a try dude

Leave kids alone, too much wanting to place kids a head brings a fall and even the soil produce less and sign of deaf in ya plans and claiming other peoples lands cause they acted the same in the soaps opera to get you. Now that u get it that oil and gass and even flowers and soda USA make can be made by you to give them a new brand, makes u wanna forfeit the same but in pretense dude. Stop, once your kid can eat 3 meal, get to school and no 1 ambush them stop disturbing them with another person who wants to live their lives in their decision. Dont go past the law, let the authorities investigate 1 or 1 report to not you, you hungry bastard and lazy wanting others food in pretense of being a gay.

Golden bells made much when sample placed next to normal grass then from above u hurl grown grass under bulb light in sloping lands towards the sea without white sand, locate such lands or hide ripe paw paw among melons as in the link below or hide spinach in kale

https://www.worldbooksandrecords.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=52

With bible as in the link below place 1 sample close to heap of kale then from above drop cabbage on concrete floor next to the heap on the upper floor on sloping lands towards the river or break camara sticks or hide cabbage in red building bricks or in eggs, the back 1 in the link below made when placed in melon heap then u chop cooked kale in sloping lands to the sea in the dug hole within the white sand or u drop paw paw in fanta soda or hide hay within grown grass

https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/products/9780564091348/

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/holy-bible-royalty-free-image/186819743?adppopup=true

https://www.jumia.co.ke/festive-christmas-5meters-led-snake-lights-for-decoration-generic-mpg146455.html

https://www.jumia.co.ke/6ft-christmas-tree-luxurious-encryption-christmas-tree-generic-mpg126359.html

Xmas lights in the link below made when placed in sewer water in a container within factory house building land slanting towards the road then u drop mango juice unto the container or hide guava amidst planted grass same to balloons but make sure down the road has left corpse of people and different animals with blood

Balloons placed next to like heap of planted grass then from above hurl/drop paw paw on the adjacent floor or chop kale stick or coconut husks dude while Xmas tree made when 1 sample placed in sewer water in a container in the basement of such factory house sloping to the red river water and u drop ripe mango unto the tank or paw paw seeds or passion fruit (dry) to hit the floor or hide guava in cooked kale dude in the dark or dim bulb light dude

The USA dignitaries frustrated as broke and not considered after their leadership, as what they stole in houses using courier in times of placing the parcel using one who transfigure as spoons and utensils and mats, towels, socks, clothes and shoes and jackets left in churches can be made locally or being monitored to thwart their ambition of being Mr big man cause they get money in such and even u can see with trump moves and bidden, kinda, looking 4 to help them out if they leave office, the USA want them to die fast as they are identified in such dude and much more their character in frustration with good things near known. To make matters worse we got drones with guns where they will not shoot u when firing them, u just send the same and if not so, the sensor lights and alarms that can siren up or call ya phones harbors such theft in big houses where they even kill to get monies stored in those houses and even liquid cash being eliminated soon cause much of their associates have learnt to make the same and hard drugs like cocaine they championed in now easy to make as above in the boom process to alter their moves altogether and making of artificial flowers, tea and wood pulp as timber dude, fab houses and caskets to champion much deaths. So should be owned by govt and made cheap to discourage killings to sell such dude and even artificial fuels of jets and machines to kill their pursuits a big time dude

Tissue rolls made when on factory house slanting to the road u place such roll in the link below in heap of ripe paw paw on the basement in dim light them from above drop passion or its juice on the adjacent floor or on heap of mango then drop ripe paw or juice unto the heap with such sample as above or hide avocado in heap of flowers in the dark or in heap of kale or chop white sand heap dude down the road harbor sitting stand or corpse buried inside such tarmacked roads or in the river bed or graveyard next or within the river or place such photos in semi big glass bottles

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk02WWQOlfAkKHGaIivSu4qSvdf9UCg:1604736562965&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=bus+stops+images&client=firefox-b-d&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjEmqzG_e_sAhWDYsAKHcQjDxUQjJkEegQIChAB&biw=1024&bih=654

https://www.jumia.co.ke/dawn-pekee-unwrapped-toilet-paper-10-x-4packs-32551250.html

See how Mexico export in the USA they did not know how to make can be made and even much in the boom process to alter those sales to the USA to make Mexico u wanna go poor only if they take part of Texas they claim to be their which got oil and has been overtaken, the only thing remaining is corn 4 oil and cereals and as much can be made much in the boom process and even Arizona they claim made much with military ware which now every state knows how to make the same. Think twice dude and live as yesterday, don't bother ya kids with others cause you aint next to North America but miles a way dude and u aint special to other races

https://www.inside-mexico.com/what-does-mexico-export-to-the-us/

http://www.worldstopexports.com/arizonas-top-10-exports/

http://www.worldstopexports.com/top-10-exports-from-texas/

http://www.worldstopexports.com/new-mexicos-top-10-exports/

On sloping lands towards the road or raised roads build with artificial cement, as with cat family feces, the one that grabs ya eye attention, then on few yards to the road lies placed carpet or concrete slap or metallic slab that u place the boom heap, just few meters like 1 or 2 from the slap when all around the placed is cement with grown grass, then place eggs on sand heap somewhere around, but b4 place cement bag on the sand as gunia b4 placing the eggs or any other as veggies, fruits, berries or leaves whether roasted, boiled, cooked, raw, ripe or both iced when heap is grass on the slab in moonlight or bulb light makes another set of machines all together dude. U can change the grass heap with any as above, then on the cement bag where u placed egg place another something and gives u another gadgets dude, but u can maintain with grass and changing the one placed on gunia dude, like brooding chicken bro.

And u can fall any as above on water even on gadgets like yacht formed on the sea. U can placed the water in a cemented pool to fall one veggie or fruit after another until u make something but 1st u fall 1 like balls fall on a pool table unto the hole like from a crane or folk lift or the moving finished products in assembly line as in the link below

https://mylottokenya.co.ke/how-to-play

https://bulkinside.com/food-processing/

Leaving food on ya plates means a lot with every size left, when u leave very small u consider infants, much big people, relatively less above teenagers and so forth and so on, so detectives investigating ya

They want people to be this blood cause this blood bad, so after long time when they have succeeded they can champion in their killings as now they say the truth of their character, to take their land if got much when they don't know how to make artificial counterpart which if they know the activity reduces cause amounts to absolute nothing.

Yam made in the company basement with long walls to the roof when 1 piece placed next to like waru then like with company line as above drop cabbage unto wheat grain or placed next to melons and drop cassava peel unto used cotton clothes or paw paw trunk or hide cabbage unto sewer water or dark beans or passion fruit while groundnuts place close to tamarind then drop paw paw unto old clothes or hide onion in brown grass when the groundnut got outer peel or trample guava both in the dark, boiled maize and much fruits placed in boxes or hidden under soil

Car engines made in Uganda images

https://nilepost.co.ug/2018/08/09/museveni-says-uganda-will-soon-start-manufacturing-car-engines/

Kenya can never be compared to the USA as outlined earlier lest u ambush it in military ways which u can not, stop ya shit and u have stopped it dude, compare yourself with nations as Tanzania or it will be insane mind which will lead to annihilation or want to sat 1 is your Moses, then he tells every nation what u ought to be in 1st place with and Moses did the reverse, so how comes dude? The sad thing or the beauty, dignitaries be warned and even Germany and Russia facilitating the issue dude

Sometimes when the heap passion fruit or grass mixed with water in bulb light if u deep ya feet on cold water makes train on terrain towards the lake while if its hot makes and heap iced avocado or lick ya lips still makes the same dude or sewer water place mango inside then chop kale in such land as above in moonlight makes trains while roads made when sewer water placed hay inside then under bulb light chop softwood or hide brown cake inside cut melons or drop paw paw unto the road from up high in the dark maize cob all along that section u wanna make in boxes or covered with sand and 4 the other above hide as well all veggies and fruits in the same sand or Xmas lights on both side of the road. Dig like the road trench up-to like 1 meter then pour sewer water to like 30 CM and place hay rolls at intervals b4 the above dude and boom ya road bro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LtWKmeNx4E&app=desktop

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stakehammer · 4 years

Text

resurrection

previously: martyr

WARNING!! dismemberment! explicit violence and death

It has never been this quiet in your head before.

As people before you have found out, and as people in the future will find out, if you are destined to play The Game, your aspect will influence your life even prior to it. As an Heir, you never had much trouble with it. You were a strangely lucky child, and you had an easy time stumbling upon knowledge, always the right book or website on hand for your increasingly obscure interests.

Your entire life, you have known things. You didn’t always understand them, which you have learned is an important distinction to make. But you have always known. It even went as far as to give you metanarrative awareness, although, luckily for all of us, you have not yet figured out how to take over this text and hopefully never will.

You didn’t forget the things you already knew, of course. But there is no new influx of information, and you could really use some, right now.

It must have been two or three days by now, you would estimate. You’re not sure, though. You don’t know what time it is. You don’t know where you are. You only ever see the one guy, and you still don’t know who he is. Yeah, you know who he works for, you know this is because you fucked over Jim Walton, but you know nothing about him. You can’t manipulate your way out of this because you can barely get a read on him, and you’re starting to feel tired and spent from sitting on this goddamn chair for who knows how long.

You’ve gotten water and gross liquid food you’re pretty sure was initially meant for hospital patients and counts as some sort of torture. He goes out of his way to keep your hands tied up, and all you can do to keep them from going completely numb is occasionally roll your shoulders and wiggle your fingers. You just wish you had a plan. You wish you knew how to make plans on your own.

“The man I sent to your place never came back,” he says, after closing the door behind him. He’s not here all day. Most of the time, you just sit around on your own, feeling your own pulse in the bruises on your face. There’s nothing here to help you escape. Just you and a table. You really need to start keeping knives in your sylladex.

“Mm,” you hum, and tilt your head back toward him from where you were staring at the ceiling. “I’d wager he met the vampire I’m dating who currently lives there, then.”

You only get an irritated look for that. You do know that much about him: he is tired of you. That’s probably not good.

What’s also probably not good is the butcher knife he’s holding in one hand when he approaches your chair. “I want names,” he says. “Obviously you’re not doing this alone, so give me names.”

“What for?” you say, shifting just enough to roll your shoulders. It’s pride alone that makes you focus on his face instead of the knife, even though you feel hyper aware of its presence. “So you can tie them to chairs, too? We both know you don’t plan to let me out of this room unless it’s chopped into little pieces, so what motivation do I have to tell you anything?”

You catch him smiling before he walks behind you. Yeah, this is all not great. He says, “That depends on whether you wanna be dead or still alive for the chopping part.”

Your scoff gets lost in the noise of the chair scraping against the floor when he drags you over toward the table, your right side facing it. All you’ve gotten so far is a split lip and eyebrow and a bruise on your cheekbone -- not even a black eye, not one cracked rib. He’s not one for battery, you think, he was just trying to be imposing, and he’s learned that it didn’t work by now. Part of you wants to find it hard to believe that he’s suddenly going to be mangling you with a knife when he wouldn’t even punch you in the stomach a little, but he seems practiced in how fast he unties your hands and then re-ties your left to the chair. Like he’s done this one before.

Hammer, you think, my hand is free, I can deploy my hammer from my specibus and kill this guy. It wasn’t an option before, with how your hands were bound there would have been no point to it. He presses your right down on the table now, with only his human strength pushing it down, and you’re sure you could make it, but all you feel from your shoulder to your fingertips is the numb buzz of a limb that’s fallen asleep. You can’t focus enough to procure your hammer, as much as you try with your useless mind.

“You know,” you tell him, “whatever you’re doing won’t even hurt me with how numb my hands are from being tied back there all the time. We should really update our bondage contract, you and I.”

“Oh, it’ll hurt,” he says with an unaffected satisfaction in his voice that disturbs you. With the broad side of the blade, he pushes your pinky finger away from the others, like he’s separating it from the herd before hovering his knife above it and throwing you a glance. You’re watching your hand, thinking that you can definitely still move your fingers, but before you get to do that he uses his other hand to push them firmly down against the table. “Names, John.”

Whatever. It’s a pinky finger. You’ll survive without it, you won’t even bleed out from the wound. Right? You’re pretty sure you won’t. You’re not selling out Karkat or Sollux -- you barely think anyone could even do anything to them, with both flying under the radar pretty well, this is just a matter of principle. You’re not giving this asshole shit.

You look up at him, and say, pleasantly, “Fuck you.”

“Okay,” he says, and cuts off your finger.

It’s not the worst pain you’ve ever experienced. You think that might just say more about the sort of life you’ve led than about the pain of losing a finger. What you immediately suspect will haunt you much more is the sound of the knife going through your skin, and the bone cracking. You yourself also make a noise, the suppressed version of a scream, the clatter of your teeth when you attempt to grit them. Your arm flinches under his grasp, the rest of your extremities pull at their restraints, put you keep your lips pressed firmly together, breathing loudly through your nose. When he lifts the knife, the limp finger lying on the table, half an inch away from your hand, doesn’t look real.

“Was that worth it?” he says.

And you realize that it was. The pain surging from your hand all the way up to your shoulder is sharp and clear, exquisite and focused, the polar opposite to the grainy static you felt in it before. You barely even think about it when you will your five foot tentacled stakehammer from your strife specibus, and close your remaining fingers around it.

The impact of it appearing in your hand bounces his grip off of you, and he flinches back like he’s already been hit. “What the f--” he starts saying, but before he can even finish swearing, you’ve already hurled your arm back and struck forward, the metal front of the hammer colliding square with his face and caving his skull in. Blood gurgles in his throat when he crumbles to the floor with a loud thud.

Well, that’s dealt with. You put your hammer down on the table and look for the knife he must have had. By now, your hand exists only in a cloud of burning pain, blood spurting from the stump of your finger, but your mind is clear and focused on the task before you. He let go of the knife when he fell, but it didn’t land on the table where you could reach it, it’s on the ground about a foot away from him. You take a breath, and throw your weight forward.

Your chair clatters to the floor, you land heavily on your bound left side, your hurt right hand only able to do so much to break your fall. This time, now that nobody else is here, you let out a strained noise, stuttering in your chest. You reach out, your palm slippery with blood, your four-fingered hand looking strange to your own eyes, and grab the knife.

Cutting the ziptie that’s holding your other hand while effectively lying on it is another task that takes you some wiggling, some undignified grunting, and spills blood all over your shirt and pants leg. As soon as both of your hands are free, though, you make quick work of the rest. You cut your legs free and plop off the chair, landing on your knees and your good hand, still holding the knife in your right. For a few seconds, you just kneel and stare at the man with the caved in face lying on the floor. He doesn’t look alive, but your luck has been shit lately. You raise his knife and bury it in his chest, just for good measure.

It comes back out with a squelch because you decide to cut off part of the jacket he’s wearing so you can roll it up and press it to your hand. Then you drop it, and wrangle yourself to your feet, stumbling almost all the way to the other end to the room in your attempt to balance yourself after being tied to a chair for days and also just having your finger cut off and killing someone. You make it back to the table and grab your wallet and phone from the far end of it, then shove your severed finger into your pants pocket without so much as looking at it. You’re getting the fuck out of here.

With your left pressing the fabric to your right, and your right clutching your hammer, you shoulder open the door, and find yourself in a deserted, basement looking corridor. There are few other doors, all closed, and an obvious exit at the end of an elevated hallway that seems to lead directly outside. You jog there, every impact of your feet on the ground reverberating through your injured hand, and when you shoulder open that door as well, you half expect an alarm to sound.

But your recent bad luck doesn’t seem to want to extend that far. When you enter a concrete backyard, there are no noises other than the door falling shut behind you, and faint street sounds. You turn around to stare up at the building you just emerged from, and find it to be a regular looking office building, high-rise, in what you immediately know to still be New York City.

“Jesus Christ,” you mutter. Using your thumb to continue pressing your makeshift bandage to your hand, you grab your phone with your other and power it back up. You need to… well. You want to be texting Karkat, but you need to be texting Dirk.

Immediately after entering your PIN, your phone vibrates in your hand so insistently that you almost drop it, flooding you with text messages and several calls you have missed in your absence. It pulls a wonky smile from you -- that’s nice to know, at least.

Karkat was very clearly worried about you, Dave wants to meet up for his birthday, and -- you check the date, and nearly yell out loud. It’s April 13. Holy fuck, it’s your best friend’s birthday, and instead of celebrating with him you just killed a guy who cut off your finger.

“Shit,” you breathe, and then you frown, because Dirk has also texted you. A single line, about the NYPD having found bodily remains.

Looks like your bad luck still extends well and far enough.

You text Karkat back first, trying to be reassuring but ultimately waving him off, then wish Dave a happy birthday, and then open your conversation with Dirk again to tell him that you need a paid off doctor that won’t ask you what the fuck just happened. Then you take several deep breaths, close your eyes, and swallow down the scream that has been stuck in your throat ever since that knife came down on you.

You can’t have anyone on the street hear.

#posted ooc #action post #dismemberment -#blood -#:^)#mentioned:#g4lanthus #agrypnotics #emacularius #graphyca #everyone .#SORRY MOBILE USERS

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cutwhipburn · 4 years

Text

Scent Of Blood Chapter Three: Burns, Breakfast, and Bindi

Warnings: Nightmares, drug use, cigarette burns, burns from boiling tea, slight nudity, being in a cage, forced cuddling, starvation, collaring, forced to wear a leash, tied down, stress positions, and casual insults.

Jack blinked sleepily, slowly waking from the small noises in the room.

Amara whined in her sleep, squirming around in her sleep and occasionally mumbling a soft 'no'.

Screaming, she jolts up in bed, making Jack flinch, accidentally slamming his head back into the cage.

Amara breathes heavily as she swings her legs out over the side of the bed. Opening the top drawer of her pink bedside table, Amara pulls out a small white object.

Jack squints, trying to see what it is.

Amara's fingers shook as she flicked the lighter on, lighting the weed and taking a few quick puffs. Sniffling, she takes in a deep breath and dabs at her tears.

"Are you...alright m-my love?" Jack looks up from where he was curled into a ball in the dog crate, watching the soft red glow of the joint.

Amara jumps. "O-Oh...Umm, Jack. I didn't think you were awake."

"You were screaming," Jack says truthfully, leaving out the fact he'd barely been getting any sleep anyway. "May I...May I get out please, my love?"

Amara takes another slow inhale of the blunt, looking over at the clock before she blew out.

Baby pink letters barely illuminated the space in front of the clock. 2:44 a.m.

"Sure." Amara slowly got out of bed, quietly padding over to Jack's cage, and unlocking the door.

Jack unfurls himself from the balled up position in the cage, stretching with a groan of relief as his bones cracked.

Amara grabs his wrist and leads a slightly confused Jack over to the bed. Practically forcing him down onto the bed, Amara gets into her side and snuggles down in her blankets, until only her eyes were seen.

Shifting around so her face pops out, Amara takes a few more puffs of weed, holding each breath in slightly longer than the last.

A long uncomfortable silence passes as Jack tries to enjoy the fact that its been so long since he last slept in a bed, instead of on a hard concrete floor, or a slightly cushioned cage.

Eventually, Amara's fingers burn when she attempts to take another inhale from the joint.

Sighing in resignation, Amara puts the joint out against Jack's arm, who muffles a yelp as she tosses it into the garbage.

Amara shushes him, wrapping her arms around his skinny waist and hiding her face on his chest as she quickly fell back asleep.

Jack laid completely still, barely even daring to breathe as to not risk waking her back up.

Time passes slowly, and Jack watches each minute pass on the clock. Eventually he drifted off once more.

"Jack? Time to wake up my drowned boy."

Jack blinks tiredly, looking up as Amara slowly comes into focus.

"Morning sleepyhead!" Amara beams, pulling Jack up. The look in her eyes made it clear to Jack not to bring up last night.

"Uhm...What are we going to be doing today, m-my love?" Jack asks, not really wanting to know the answer. The Owner had said Amara liked consent, but Jack didn't believe he was that trustworthy.

"Idra made us breakfast today! I think Saoirse has something special planned! Since you're so brand new!" Amara playfully pinched Jack's cheek, who had to fight a sigh at being called 'brand new'.

What was he, a car?

Jack follows Amara over to the other door in her room, painted an almost white pink, with silver swirls. It opened into a huge walk in closet, decorated with fake roses.

Almost all the clothes inside were pink.

Amara browses through her clothing almost boredly, humming or sighing softly every now and then. Eventually, she grabs rose pink overalls, and a short sleeved lemonade pink shirt with slight frills at the end of the sleeves and a square neckline.

Grabbing the bottom of her shirt, Amara pulls it off and tosses it into her laundry basket. Jack's face turns scarlet and he hurriedly turns around.

"Ohh please, I've seen you without a shirt on." Amara says teasingly as she pulls off her pants.

Jack hides his face in his hand, flinching when his shoulders are grabbed and he forcefully turned around.

Fortunately, Amara was once more dressed, and she giggled at his nervous looks. "C'mon. I bet you're hungry, aren't you?"

Jack nods slightly, allowing Amara to drag him out of the bedroom and back into her hallway. They exit through the bookshelf entrance, moving into a grand dining room where Saoirse and Idra already sat.

"Amara, how pleasant of you to finally join us." Saoirse says, a sarcastic tone in her voice, her face not showing any emotion.

"Good morning Saoirse." Amara beams, sitting down to the right of the older woman and pulling Jack to sit down on the chair next to her. "Eat whatever you want, Jack, else you hurt Idra's feelings."

Idra looks down at her plate respectfully, not daring to make eye contact with anyone.

Jack looks over the table, his stomach growling hungrily.

It had been so long since he'd eaten a real meal...

Grabbing the large serving fork, he moves two pieces of ham onto his plate, grabbing everything Amara did.

Pilling his plate full of breakfast potatoes, Jack tops his dish with a single fried egg.

Grabbing the fork by the side of the plate, Jack pauses, and watches to see what Saoirse and Amara would do first, noticing Saoirse's harsh glare.

Idra grabs the teapot that sat in the middle of the table and stood, moving around the table and pouring everyone a cup silently.

When she reaches Jack, her hands shake slightly, making some of the tea drip onto the pristine white tablecloth.

Idra winces, her eyes widening as she looks up at Saoirse. "I-I'm so sorry Madame!"

"Spilling tea. And speaking out of turn." Saoirse speaks calmly, in a way that made Jack's heart stop in his chest. "Come here Idra. Now."

Still holding the teapot, Idra hurries as fast as she dared over to Saoirse, standing straight and staring down at the floor.

"When I first welcomed you into this home, I laid out some very simple rules for you to follow." Saoirse grabs the pot and begins to circle around Idra like a shark.

Idra tenses up, and Amara looks over at them, her face amused.

"Never look people above you in the eye, never spill anything especially not on my expensive tablecloths, and to never speak out of turn. Today, you broke all three of those rules." Saoirse takes the top off of the teapot, and dumps it over Idra's head.

The boiling hot tea burns Idra's face and warms her clothes as it rushes down her back and onto the floor. Idra shrieks in pain, her hands moving up to protect her face, and getting burnt in the process. Her head felt like it was on fire.

"Don't move!" Saoirse orders. "Stand there and let it soak into you."

Idra whimpers, doing her best to stay rooted in place, biting her lip to stop any pleads.

"Now you've made a mess on my carpet, and on your clothes as well!" Saoirse reprimands. "Go and clean yourself off, and then I expect you to clean your clothes, my carpet, and my tablecloth. You will not eat today, and if you don't clean them to my expectations, you will be punished more. Now go."

Idra scurries off, and Jack stares a hole into his plate.

"Now," Saoirse adjusts her skirts and sits back down. "Everyone may eat."

Amara happily begins to eat, and Saoirse eats stiffly, cutting her food neatly. Eventually Jack forces himself to start eating, mentally reminding himself that he truly didn't know when he'd eat again, especially not after what he'd seen happen to Idra.

Breakfast finished soon enough, and Jack felt like he'd burst with how much he'd eaten. Amara had quietly told him afterward that it was common in Victorian culture, especially for the wealthy, that breakfast and lunch were big events, and people would often nap after lunch while they digested.

Saoirse retired to the sitting room as soon as she'd finished eating, leaving Amara and Jack alone. When Amara wasn't looking, an almost rare occasion as she seemed to love staring at him, Jack slipped two pieces of bread into his pocket.

"C'mon." Amara stands, leaving her plate at the table. Jack mimics her, feeling bad once Amara pulled him away from the table and he realized it would most likely be Idra cleaning up after him.

"Where...Where are we going?" Jack asks nervously, not wanting to upset Amara by speaking out of turn.

"Out, to walk around. Maybe shopping." Amara says offhandedly, grabbing the pink purse that stood out in the old-fashioned hallway.

Jack felt his heart lift. Were they really going out? Normally people like Amara kept to the shadows, kept people like Jack locked away in their houses or kept in a shady looking bar.

His heart sank when he sees Amara grab the pink leash and collar he had the unfortune of wearing yesterday.

"Come on Jack." Amara coos condescendingly as she fastens the collar around Jack's neck to tight, clipping the leash on.

Jack blushes madly as he's lead out the door and into the passenger seat of Amara's car, hoping madly that none of Amara's neighbors were nosy.

Amara starts the car with a rev of the engine, speeding out of the driveway. Jack rushes to buckle his seatbelt as Amara almost runs a red light, slamming on the brakes.

"Sorry love." Amara laughs as she drives with one hand, putting her seatbelt on with the other.

At multiple points during the drive, Jack notices police cars in the rearview mirror, but none pull Amara over.

"Hey look, there's where you used to live!" Amara giggles as they pass the bar and pull into a small parking lot. "Let's go, puppy."

Jack scowls at the nickname, looking up at the large neon sign at the front of the building.

Pink Cloud.

Jack gags as his leash is impatiently pulled by Amara, as he scrambles to get out. Amara kisses him, pulling Jack's leash over her shoulder like a handbag and forcing Jack to stumble behind her, wearily trying to step on her heels or choke himself.

"Why hello Amara!" A kind voice greets them as they step inside.

Amara squeals, rushing over to the girl standing behind the counter. Jack almost falls trying to keep up with her.

"Look at you!" Amara squishes the clerks face, dropping Jack's leash as she pulls her into a bone crushing hug. "You're so big!"

Jack stares at the two for a second, before turning and attempting to bolt for the door.

Jack's legs are pulled out from under him, and he falls to the hard floor with a yelp, his chin slamming into the hard floor.

"I want one!" Amara says excitedly.

"Why did he have bread in his pants?" The girl asks, crouching down by Jack and looking at him weirdly.

"Poor baby, he was probably storing it for later." Amara giggles, the two girls hauling Jack to his feet. Amara daintily grabs the rolls off the ground and throws them into the baby blue trashcan by the restroom.

"Silly." The girl ruffles Jack's hair, grabbing his leash and tying it to a hook on a nearby table.

Holding back a groan of frustration, Jack moves to untie the leash, only for the clerk to handcuff his hands together behind his back. Jack struggles with his cuffs, banging his head down onto the table when he couldn't get loose.

"Why's this one so jumpy?" The girl asks.

"I only just got him yesterday." Amara explains calmly, carding her fingers through Jack's short hair. "He's still getting acquainted with being out in public instead the back room of the Push And Shove."

Jack rolls his eyes, turning his head to the side to study the clerk more. Her hair was more strawberry blonde then Amara's pure blonde, and the bottom half was dyed a faint red. She had freckles dotting over the bridge of her nose, and squinting green eyes.

"Ohh, I almost forgot introductions!" Amara wraps the girl into a side hug, smiling down at Jack. "Jack, this is my little sister, Bindi! Bindi, this is my drowned boy Jack."

God's fuck there were more of them.

"He is just so cute, you're so lucky A!" Bindi gushes.

"How-" Jack croaks, licking his lips and clearing his throat. "How old are you?"

"Nineteen!" Bindi chirps, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a pair of round glasses, which she peered through briefly. "Ohh, he's even more precious un-blurry!"

"Bindi put those away, you look god awful in glasses." Amara's nose wrinkles judgmentally and Bindi hurriedly shoves the glasses back into her pocket.

"Now, how about we take a look around for some fun new stuff?" Bindi suggests. Amara agrees eagerly, the two girls chatting rapidly as they left Jack tied to the table.

Jack sighs, his eyes closing tiredly as he tried to dream himself somewhere else.

Words: 2,270

#Scent Of Blood #tw burns #tw collar #tw tied #tw stress position #whump #captivity whump #whumpee #whumper #female whumper #male whumpee

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devnny · 5 years

Text

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

JTRM — THE “R” STANDS FOR RECOVERING!

PREVIOUSLY.

i like to call this chapter ‘AH, devi’s crazy TOO.’

[additional end-of-chapter drabble here: X ]

Devi watched Johnny brood sourly in the reflection of her rearview mirror, and couldn’t help but smile in amusement. There had been an argument between him and Tenna about who would be sitting in the passenger seat for this particular car ride – an argument that Johnny had bitterly lost.

“Who the fuck cares if you ‘called shotgun’…” She managed to hear him grumble under the thunderously loud music, and she snickered to herself.

Maybe she would pacify him with kindness later, if all went as planned tonight, but for now, Devi needed him to be in as pissy of a mood as possible without him being completely insufferable. She didn’t know the innerworkings of his fucked-up head too well, but she imagined that like anyone other person, he was more likely to get in a fight with someone if he was already in a bad mood.

The yellowed sign of the Camera slid across the windshield of the car as they drove past its front and turned into the small, poorly lit parking lot behind it. Devi had barely turned the engine off when Johnny undid his seatbelt, eager to leave his abhorred spot in the backseat. He got out and took in the familiar scenery of the theater’s dumpy, dark parking lot with a fond smile.

“Hm, I haven’t been here in quite a while.” He commented while Devi stepped out of the driver’s side beside him. She looked to him, then surveyed the area herself.

“Yeah, me either.” She replied, deciding not to mention that it was because of him that she had avoided this place for so long, then took up the leash that dangled loosely from his neck. Johnny’s eyes flickered down a moment at the movement, only to snort in remembrance of his new attachment.

Tenna looped around the trunk to meet them as they began their walk to the building.

“They still haven’t fixed that light by the dumpster?” She complained. “That’s been out for like, a year! Who knows what vile city dwellers could be lurking in the dark, ready to shiv me and steal my monies.”

Devi snorted a laugh.

“Eh. I’ve got the most dangerous thing in this parking lot roped to me, so I’m not too worried.”

Johnny smiled devilishly at that, and Tenna squinted apprehensively in his direction. Devi wasn’t wrong, she guessed, but was that really a good thing? She desperately hoped that whatever Devi was planning didn’t get either of them stabbed in the process.

The trio walked into the dull lighting of the entrance, and Johnny felt his asshat senses heightening by the second. He listened to the small crowd’s murmuring, pessimistically certain that someone would make a comment about either his attire, like usual, or the fact that he was currently adorned with pet equipment. A few people gave them weird stares, but his keenly tuned ears failed to hear if they said anything. Devi tugged him in the direction of the ticket booth, interrupting his paranoid scanning for the time being.

They settled on an old horror film, much to Tenna’s dismay, given the current company. Johnny felt some contentment in leading Devi to his old favored spot in their designated theater – he had a preferred spot in each of the Camera’s handful of theaters, back when he frequented the movies more often. He was also pleased when Devi readily sat beside him instead of putting Tenna between them, though it was most likely because having that damned leash drape over Tenna’s lap while she held it from the other side was impractical. He wanted to believe that she would have sat next to him anyway, even if the situation was different.

Devi only half-minded the movie, instead keeping her focus on Johnny’s behavior, which was more suspensefully entertaining than the cheesy, predictable stalking scenes of a film that she’d seen plenty of times as it was. She watched as covertly as she could at every twitch and look he gave to the people that laughed at inappropriate times, or talked through the ‘boring’ parts, and she felt some God-awful mixture of pride and disappointment that he did little else. Maybe his self-control had improved more than she thought it had.

The closest he got to losing it was when a couple of girls’ talking started getting progressively louder, as if they were unaware that their difficulty in hearing each other was because of the movie that they had paid to see. Devi could see Johnny tense, and could vaguely feel through their conjoined seat the movement of the muscles and tendons in his arm flexing and stretching as he ground his knuckles into a fist over and over. Before he could even yell at them, Tenna lobbed her still half-full box of candy over their row and hit one of the girls in the head with it, sending the shadows of little chocolates across the screen for a second, paired with her target’s aghast gag.

Johnny was surprised at the direct action, then built up a grim laugh into a quick cackle, joined by Tenna, who squealed out her usual high-pitched hyena laugh. Devi sunk back against her seat in defeat, already sensing by the hushed chatter a few seats ahead that the woman her friend had just beaned with a box of Raisinets was too weak-willed to confront their ‘larger’ group about it.

She tried to brush it off. Johnny was fantastic as drawing trouble to himself, and there would surely be another decent opportunity as the evening progressed; people were just too rude and shitty to not give him the desire for violence.

When the movie finished and they began their walk out to the street, Tenna insisted that she knew of an amazing little train of food trucks that parked nearby that they just had to try. It was almost six blocks away, and with the streets mostly dead, Devi would have insisted on any normal night that they drive there – of course, tonight was a little special, so she insisted that they walk.

“Yeah, I could use the exercise. Been cooped up in the apartment with Nny for one day too many.” Devi spoke nonchalantly about her choice, guiding Johnny smoothly away from the direction of the parking lot and toward where these alleged food trucks should be. She hoped along the way that Johnny would try and run from her side, at anything, even to chase a cat or something equally harmless.

Tenna nodded as though that made sense, but still had the gut instinct that Devi was up to something that she wouldn’t admit to. She kept her suspicions to herself while they trekked down the sidewalk, and instead continued talking up their eatery for the night.

Two streets passed, and Devi almost wanted to pout that Johnny had done nothing but walk dutifully by her side. He observed his surroundings with waning interest, unaware of Devi’s scrutiny. The darkened buildings of the already-closed shopping district blended together into one amorphous, black shape in his eyes, with his mind unable to find the square, uniform city architecture interesting for long. He was much happier looking at the starry sky, though it was difficult for many of the stars to appear brightly enough to be seen from a view inside the city. Stupid concrete monster wasn’t good for anything.

Partially coherent jabbering from Tenna failed to distract Devi from her disappointment in what was, so far, the most normal outing that she had had with Johnny since their reunion. She wished it wasn’t disappointing, but the entire purpose of this trip was to ensure that her leash idea would hold up in the face of Johnny’s unpredictable nature. She couldn’t afford to have a false sense of security when walking the streets with him!

The universe had thrown her so many asinine screwballs at this point that she wouldn’t be surprised if Johnny magically slipped his collar despite his big, dumb pumpkin head, or somehow had the unreasonable strength to break the clasp and attack something.

Why did he have to pick tonight to be on his very best behavior?

They reached the gated lot full of assorted food trucks without incident, and Devi’s lips vibrated with an annoyed exhale that sounded more like a disgruntled horse. Tenna assumed it was because of the gross, greasy looking people and food that awaited them, and gave her shoulder a friendly jostle.

“C’mon Devi! Truck food is amazing, you remember the hamburger sushi don’t you?” She asked with a giggly smile. Johnny made a face at the mention of ‘hamburger sushi’.

“Oh, I remember.” Devi eyerolled. It was actually pretty good, if she was being honest, but as of now she was bored with this completely fruitless adventure.

Johnny watched Devi curiously while they followed Tenna around the lot to different van windows, and his lower lip tented up in thought. She seemed unhappier suddenly, and he wondered why. Like Tenna, he speculated that it was because of their current environment, which he would emphatically agree was horrible. The mixing of smells from the numerous different types of frying dishes certainly did nothing for his already small appetite, and the people bumming around eating were all loud and irksome. And smelly.

“Devi, must we eat here?” Johnny whispered to her. Devi turned her head toward him.

“You don’t have to get anything if you’re not hungry.” She told him. “There’s food at home.”

Johnny pouted more.

“That’s not completely what I meant…” He mumbled, looking around. “The people here are wretched. Can’t we go somewhere more… completely absent of life?”

Devi looked at him for a moment before caving into quiet chuckles. Johnny felt his heart swell at the sound of her laugh. He steadied his composure as she moved to speak again, but her response was lost as Tenna called them over to the farthest corner of the lot.

“I FOUND THE HAMBURGER SUSHI TRUCK!” She yelled victoriously. Johnny’s mouth wormed miserably as Devi lead him to his doom of the fast-food version of fusion cuisine.

As they came to a stop beside Tenna, Devi noticed two men leaning up against the side of one of the buildings that walled off the lot, and raised her eyebrows in interest. They were smoking and drinking, and overall looked like the kind of late-night assholes that would loudly criticize others for a laugh. She wasn’t getting her hopes up, but kept their presence in mind as they waited for their food, just in case they were more trouble than she was asking for tonight.

Tenna had ordered them two ‘cheeseburger’ rolls to share, and the concept of splitting two items between three people only vexed Johnny further. Now he would have to make certain – if he even bothered to EAT this disgusting-sounding thing – that whatever he was grabbing hadn’t already been handled by someone else. It was repulsive enough knowing whatever sweaty creature lurked in the van’s ‘kitchen’ was going to create this abomination with, likely, their bare hands.

He shivered in disgust.

The truck was either very popular, or the cook was very slow, because it was taking forever for their order to come out. As time drug on, Johnny began idly picking at his collar while Devi talked to Tenna. He was indifferent to their conversation topic, and his eyes listed over the rooftops of the surrounding structures, again looking for anything to occupy his thoughts while he was unable to have Devi’s undivided attention.

A particularly rude-sounding set of laughs resounded behind him, and his senses were suddenly sharp again. Anyone else wouldn’t have thought twice about it, probably wouldn’t have even heard it amongst the chatter of everyone else nearby, but Johnny was accustomed to being an object of ridicule, and knew the common vocalizations of assholes and bastards.

“Hey!” One of them said. He stopped to laugh again before continuing. “HEY! Dog-guy! Did she get you neutered too??”

Johnny and Devi both straightened at the comment, immediately aware that they were the subject of discussion. Johnny trembled a second as he attempted to swallow his insult, but failed, and turned to face the men that were trying to humiliate them. Devi only turned enough to side-glance at the interaction with a small, apprehensive smile.

“DOES MY SITUATION CONCERN YOU THAT MUCH?” Johnny yelled back at them. He steamed when the pair only ‘OOOH’d back at him in response before breaking into hysterics.

Devi watched as Johnny’s body began to shake more, and held her breath behind her inconspicuous expression as he took a step forward. Tenna eyed her in concern, uncertain why she wasn’t intervening into an exchange that would surely only escalate without her involvement.

“Hey girl, he’s had all his shots right? He looks rabid!” The other called toward Devi, and Johnny took even more offense that they would address her directly with their brainless, monkey-drool humor.

“SHUT YOUR MOUTHS.” He ordered, standing wide-legged and pointing aggressively in their direction. “DON’T SPEAK TO HER, you filthy, bleating, devolutions of humanity! I don’t come outside to be a spectacle for swine like YOU.”

His eye twitched when their response was something about him coming outside to have ‘walkies’, followed by further spittle-inducing laughter. Oh, how he hated people so very much. Just watching how unguarded they were as they hooted and gestured at him made his fingers twinge with the desire for physical mutilations. It would be so hard to laugh without tongues! Or faces! OR A HEARTBEAT!

The grit on the asphalt scuffed with the friction of his boot as he lunged toward his intended victims, and Devi barely had a chance to register he’d moved at all before her arm was outstretched, a continuation of his now taut leash. Within the second, her arm was extended as far as it would go, as was the leash, and Johnny gagged from the speed at which his collar hinged around his neck. His body propelled forward further, twisting him around, and he hit the ground face first with an unceremonious BLAP!

Everyone stared at his limp figure on the floor for a few seconds, and then the men spasmed with a new, uncontrollable fit of laughter. Devi’s eyes were wide as she watched Johnny raise up onto his elbows, and she felt a long-missing energy crackle to life in her stomach.

She bowled over and laughed; laughed with deep, desperately needed triumph beating in her blood.

“IT WORKED!” She yelled at Tenna as she rose. “DID YOU SEE? It worked!!”

Tenna offered her a confused, open-mouth smile, but her eyes only showed her worry and discomfort at Devi’s abnormal change in demeanor. Devi bent back and held her forehead, still laughing.

“Oh my GOD. That was so perfect!” She chuffed. “I… I can’t believe it! Heehee!”

Tenna set a hand on her shoulder.

“I think… all the joy you’ve repressed for like, an entire year, is coming out right now. All at once. About this weird fucking leash thing.” She dropped her hand and pointed to Devi’s wide smile. Devi’s only continued her snickering.

“It worked, it worked, it worked! HAH-HAH-HAH!”

Johnny’s ego couldn’t have been more bruised if he ran it over with his own car in a freak accident. He pushed himself up, using his knee to get back into a standing position. The bastards behind him were still laughing, and Devi was cutting up with Tenna about it too, which stung a lot more than the taunting of some nameless strangers. He tried to breathe between his clenched teeth to calm himself down, but he was so embarrassed and angry – Devi probably just let him make an ass out of himself to teach him a lesson. Why did she always have to make a fool out of him to get her point across? Talking and being gentle was an option too, if she didn’t know!

He couldn’t stop himself from glowering when she turned to face him.

“NNY!” She smiled at him, and Johnny frowned unhappily, believing her smile was part of her mockery. He could guess that Devi was going to reprimand him, again, for trying to attack some ‘innocent’ people – he was getting sick of this. Those morons were not innocent; they instigated this! She saw it!

“What?” He snapped bitterly. Devi only laughed and tugged him closer by his leash.

“That was PERFECT, I’m so happy!” She cheered. “You did just what I wanted you to do!”

The tension in Johnny’s face vanished immediately.

“I…” A weak smile crept over his lips. “I-I did??”

“YES! This night wasn’t a total waste after all!”

Johnny’s previous perception of her smile as cruel and jeering dissipated, and instead he felt himself amazed by the wide grin she wore. He hadn’t seen that particular smile on her in quite a long time, and the inside of his chest was suddenly light and airy. He had absolutely no idea what part of his actions exactly she was talking about, but he had made her so very happy, and that’s all that mattered to him for the moment. Johnny clasped his hands in front of him, admiring her continued giggling until Tenna approached them.

“Um… our food is done.” Tenna spoke while she chewed, still judging the bizarre scene uncertainly.

“Oh, good—” Devi took one of the take-out plates from her, but got distracted when she realized that the two peons she’d used to test Johnny’s apparatus were still guffawing in their direction. Her attention moved back to them, and Johnny followed her stare, scowling in their direction to show his support of her disapproving look. Devi passed him their food casually, and then slipped the handle of his leash off of her wrist.

“Here, hold this a second.” She said with a smile as she dropped it into Tenna’s open palm. Tenna almost gagged on her food when she realized what she had just gripped onto.

Johnny was surprised too – it was unlike Devi to give away control so casually. His wide eyes flicked away from Tenna’s hand and back to Devi, who was walking toward the men standing by the wall. He felt a twinge of worry; not because he thought Devi couldn’t handle these idiots, but rather that said idiots might touch her in some way.

If either of them pushed her or something, he would gut them both with the chopsticks that were so carefully perched on the raised edges of this disposable plate. No way would Tenna’s weak grasp be able to hold him back, he was confident in that.

Devi looked between the men in front of her as she walked, debating from her experience with shitty guys and their unspoken douchebag tier rankings, which of the two was more leader than follower. She thought that the one that first called out to Johnny, the taller one, was likely that man.

“Huh?” The same man said as he saw Devi encroaching on the invisible border of their hangout territory. “Oh, what’s the matter girlie? Did we upset your pet over there?”

He sneered a rude grin at her, and Devi smiled back, certain that she had chosen correctly.

With her last step, she drew her arm back, then hurled it forward as though her knotted fist was a shotput. Her knuckles cracked against the bottom of his jaw at such a speed that it threw him back with a light topspin. His turning body slammed his head into the brick wall behind him, and he bounced off of that like a sad rubber ball, landing at the wedge where the building and ground met in a heap.

Johnny and Tenna opened their mouths in silent gasps, unable to do anything else.

Devi held her fist in front of her a moment, appreciating the dull ache in her digits with a satisfied smirk, then dropped her expression to shoot the remaining man a warning look. He looked terrified, like a sheep separated from the flock, and Devi was content with that. She turned around and regathered her ‘things’ from Johnny and Tenna.

“C’mon, Nny.” Her mouth perked up again. “Let’s go.”

BACK HOME:

Johnny jammed himself further into the nesting spot he had made for himself on Devi’s couch, shuffling his legs to get more comfortable. His head lolled over to watch Devi, as it had many times since the movie started. It was supposed to be thought-provoking, said one of Devi’s film magazines, but by all accounts was dull and droned on aimlessly about the futility of society. It was a totally unbelievable portrayal of a mental downward spiral– and he would know. Where was the frenzied tears? The passion?

But, to be fair, even the most interesting, well-written plot in the history of cinema couldn’t keep his attention right now, with Devi sitting beside him lazily and scorning the images on her TV. His heart fluttered remembering her gleefulness just an hour ago, and how she decked that guy that had been laughing at him. Now that was passion.

A relaxed smile spread across his face, and he sighed contently. It had been such an exhausting night; from venturing into public, to enduring Tenna’s loud nature, to arguing with shitheads, to falling and hitting his head on the floor, to eating hamburger sushi – which was much better than he had imagined, actually – he was exhausted. It didn’t help that this movie was unengaging and badly-written. It would be a better use of his eyeballs to look at the dark inside of his eyelids.

Devi turned to make a sarcastic comment about the film, but lost her air when she saw Johnny asleep with his head tilted back over the couch cushion. She stifled a laugh.

“Wow. This movie must really be a boring piecashit to put you to sleep, Nny.” She said to him.

She pulled a wadded blanket out from her corner of the couch and threw it over him, then settled in to continue watching the rest of this abhorred picture. Maybe the ending would blow her fucking mind, or something.

Half an hour later, Devi’s cheek was stretched against the back of her hand, her head drooping despite her arm’s best efforts to keep it upright. She blamed her outburst of absolute joy tonight for taking so much out of her, and her weary brain decided it would be fine to fall asleep right here, beside Johnny, the man she normally locked her bedroom door to ensure didn’t come in and kill her while she slept. She didn’t even have enough cognitive function to argue how fucking stupid that was.

Devi’s eyelashes flittered closed for a few seconds, but just as she was drifting off to sleep, Johnny screamed at the top of his lungs and jolted her wide awake. Her hands clamped over the arm and top of the couch, and she scrambled back against the corner to stare at him. Johnny’s irises ricocheted around the whites of his eyes madly, before settling on Devi with the look of a frightened animal.

“…YOU GOOD?” Devi asked with concern and restrained fear in her voice.

Johnny looked cautiously around the room, then back to Devi, who was not bleeding or stabbed, as he had dreamed she was. He stared at her torso until he was absolutely positive that the injuries that he’d just seen seconds before were, in fact, figments of his imagination, and then relaxed shakingly against the couch cushion.

“Y… yes.” He choked out, then cleared his throat. “Yes. Just a… bad dream.”

He pulled the blanket on his lap up and around his shoulders, bundling it over his head and huddling up into a paranoid ball on the couch. Devi blinked tiredly, then rubbed her eyes as she mentally chastised herself for bothering to be startled by more of Johnny’s nonsense.

“Okay.” She sighed and stood. “I’m going to bed. That movie sucked, in case you were wondering.”

Johnny smiled fondly at her pessimism.

“Alright. Goodnight, Devi.”

“Night, Nny. Try and… get some rest.” She raised an eyebrow in reference to his previous panic, and left to her room.

Johnny watched her door close, then snatched up the remote and changed the output to cable. He focused on the TV as if his life depended on it, stubbornly refusing to even consider the notion of sleep again. ‘Get some rest’—yeah right! The night terrors were only getting more gruesome and realistic each time he slept, and he was not at all interested in seeing exactly how bad the dreams could get. He decided the best way to avoid that was to not sleep at all again, for as long as he could manage.

NEXT.

#4.1k of devi what the hell are you doing #jtrm #jthm #mine #devnny #chapter

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broken-clover · 5 years

Text

Goretober Day 18- Cannibalism

Hello children it is cannibalism time

Another prompt I’ve been saving, and I’m glad I got to use it. Ultimately, I wish I could have made it longer, but I still think I like how it turned out.

Continuation of Day 16- Strangulation, as I mentioned at the end of that, so using the same characters

“You can’t do this to me! I won’t let you do this!”

The Guild leader sighed, calmly proppeing his chin on his arm as he looked over the ragged man before him. “And what makes you say that, Mr. Daniels?”

Venom watched him squirm with the rope tying his arms back, though the fire in his eyes remained bright. “I know you. I know how this little club of yours works. You’re just a bunch of rats running around the sewers, aren’t you?”

“And what exactly do you mean by that?” He maintained a bored look.

“My guys are real close with the cops.” The man grinned. “If I stay missing for too long, they’re gonna notice. And then they’ll find you and bring the cops so they can tear every single one of you bastards a new one. They’re gonna sniff out you dirty rats and shut you down. You’ll lose everything!”

Despite his triumphant smile, Venom didn’t appear remotely intimidated.

“Dear boy,” he said, with just the slightest hint of glee, “if the police were going to come for you, don’t you think they would have by now?”

He blanched. “I-I-”

“It’s clear they don’t care about you. Or they fear provoking us at all. Either way, you and your organizations are of no importance to the Guild anymore.” Venom made a little dismissive motion. “We don’t need this one. Send him to the doghouse.”

“Wait-!”

But it was too late. Hands gripped his bound arms and began dragging him out of the hall, shouting and cursing.

The guards dragged him over to a squat, stone building surrounded by barbed wire. Without much fanfare, someone unbolted the concrete door and threw him inside, slamming it closed immediately.

“BASTARDS!” Daniels snapped, though who knew if they could hear him. Or if they cared at all.

The room was as dull and dismal as the outside suggested. There wasn’t much light, aside from what streamed in through a few high, barred-over windows. Those seemed like a more plausible route for an escape attempt, though he needed to find some way to cut his arms loose. The place was pretty empty. The only thing he could make out was something metallic glinting in one of the darker corners. It appeared to be attached to something, undefined and half-hidden in the shadows.

He considered crawling over to it, but a thought occurred to him. Why was this place called ‘the doghouse?’ Was that some kind of sleeping animal?

Instead, he opted to stay where he sat, right by the door. The more he stared at the motionless pile, the more his eyes began adjusting to the darkness. With time, he could make out more and more details, until he realized that he’d been staring at a motionless human body, decorated with dirt and wounds.

He eyed them with caution, choosing to keep himself pressed against the door. Before he could think of something to say, he was interrupted by coughing. The stranger uncurled from their tight little ball and fumbled about until they managed to sit up. Their shoulders shook from the effort, and even from a distance he could see that their body was covered in dirt and scratches. How long had they been stuck in here?

“Hey, you. You alive over there?”

They jolted in shock, only to wince and slump against the far wall. “Nghh…”

Daniels tried to take in any more information that he could. They didn’t appear especially threatening. The glinting metal had in fact been some kind of leash, shackled around their throat and chained to the wall. He didn’t know how long the chain was from a glance, but if he could move freely, maybe it didn’t matter. Did they even feed this guy? He looked ready to keel over already.

“How long have you been in here?”

After a minute, dull blue eyes blinked open, settling in his direction. For the lack of light in them they still seemed plenty alert and sharp.

“A-are you…?” They trailed off before finishing. “No. Did they lock you in here too?”

Ah, so he was a prisoner. “Yeah. What’s your name?”

For a moment, they had a blank look on their face, like they didn’t even know. “Zappa. I’m Zappa.”

“Daniels.” He nodded curtly. “Uh...y’know why this thing is called ‘the doghouse?’”

Zappa paled. “S-sometimes I can hear something growling in here, but I’ve never seen it...a couple times I’ve woken up with bites, but I don’t know what they came from.”

He could see the wounds that the man was referring to. From how they were festering, they didn’t look especially fresh. So they really did just leave them in the building to rot?

“Listen, Zappa, I might be able to figure out a way to bust the both of us out of this shithole.” Daniels turned around to reveal the rope still tied around his wrists. “How long’s that chain? Do you think you can help me undo these?”

“Um, lemme see.” Zappa managed to stumble to his feet and limp across the room. The chain extended most of the way, only stopping just short of where Daniels was. “P-pretty far. Let me see the rope, I’ll try and untie you.”

“Oh, thank god-” He scooted closer, until he was within arm’s reach. “Try to go fast, I’m not sure how soon they’ll be coming back.”

“I haven’t seen anyone come in until you.” With trembling fingers, Zappa got to work yanking on the tight knot. “Wasn’t sure if I ever would. Got kinda worried…”

Daniels wasn’t sure if he was supposed to say something when he trailed off. The hands near his back stilled.

Something brushed against the back of his shoulder. That noise...sniffing? Was he being smelled?!

“What the hell are you doing?!”

“Ah-” Zappa snapped out of whatever stupor he had been in, and his hands started moving again. “I’m- I’m really sorry, I just thought I smelled something good.”

“Hurry up!” Daniels snapped. “What did you think it was that would have been that important?”

The man at his back flinched away again, and thankfully, he felt the ropes fall loose. “I th-thought I smelled food. I h-haven’t eaten anything in days, I’m just so hun- hungry- hungry- hun-”

He stiffened up in confusion and turned around. The man was stuttering like a broken record player, body jolting with every skip. Daniels wasn’t sure if he wanted to try and snap him out of it or back away slowly at the sight of it.

Reluctantly, he extended a hand. When it was only a foot away from the other man’s face, Zappa suddenly lunged forward, snapping down on it.

“GYAAAAAH!!”

Daniels reared a leg up and kicked him squarely in the chest. It managed to loosen the grip enough to free his hand, and he immediately threw himself back at the wall, cradling the bleeding limb in his lap and staring in disbelief.

Zappa continued to twitch on the floor, something more like a half-dead insect than a person. It took several tries to get it right, but he moved to stand up again...but instead on all fours, and upside down.

“Kihihi- AHAHAHA-” He could make out Zappa’s voice somewhere within it, but it sounded like a dozen people trying to shout over each other.

“FOOD- Food- HUNGRY FOOD- EAT- HUNGRY- HUNGRY- FOOD-”

Food?! When he realized that Zappa- or whatever the hell he actually was- had begun scuttling in his direction, he pressed back even harder on the wall. Mercifully, the chain went taut, and for all his screeching, Zappa remained just out of arm’s length.

“Ohhh...oh my god…” Daniels let himself relax slightly, still being very sure not to stray too close. When he felt sure of his relative safety, he let himself look at the bite wound. It was still bleeding into his lap, and pretty heavily. He wasn’t too familiar with treating human bites, and he didn’t have much in the way of supplies, so there wasn’t much he could do for treating-

“AAAAAGH!!”

As soon as he’d seemed to have gotten his thoughts back together, another terrible pain suddenly lanced down his leg. He looked down to find some sort of pincers embedded deep in his thigh. He followed the line of twitching eyes and flicking legs, only to find it sprouting directly out of Zappa’s back, along with several others lying in wait.

With the state of shock he was in, Daniels wasn’t able to properly react as he was dragged in closer by the centipede-like creature. The sensation of clawing hands and teeth digging into his body was enough to get his attention, but by that point, all he could do was scream as he felt himself being torn apart.

#cannibalism #blood tw #writing #goretober #goretober 2019 #guilty gear #Zappa #body horror

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toutallyahoe · 5 years

Text

I Am Damaged ~ Midoriya Izuku (BNHA)

Requested By: --

A/N: im dick nice guy so here's a one shot of the sweet boi :)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Izuku sighed as he trudged each step he took along the stairs to go to school's rooftop to meet up with his only friend in Aldera Junior High. '[Name]-san was really mysterious when he asked me to meet him at the rooftop after classes.' The green haired thought as he remembered the other male did not attend classes for the past few days too.

After awhile of walking up the stairs, the green haired saw the familiar metal door that was leading to the rooftop. Izuku quickened his pace a bit, but not that much to cause him to slip.

Well, he almost slipped but he manage to grab the stairs' railing to balance himself. A relieved sigh left his lips as he shuddered the thought of falling down the stairs if he did not managed to catch himself.

'I-I need to be careful...' The green haired male thought as he sweated a bit. His hands was already back to gripping the yellow colored strap of his bag. Getting to the door, Izuku opened it and quickly went outside the school to be at the rooftop. He scanned the area to find the [Hair color] haired male.

His lips formed a large smile to see his friend there in his casual attire. He was about to shout the [Hair color] haired male's name until he found himself he can't. A large lump on his throat blocking the [Hair color] haired male's name from coming out.

Izuku would have been happy to see the other male until his green colored eyes saw where the [Hair color] haired male was. Izuku's eyes stared at the scene in front of him in horror. His iris' shrunk as he looked at the back of the male. [Name] was only gripping the steel bar of the school's railing with both of his hands, body tilting forward that only one slip can make the [Hair color] haired male drop to his impending death.

Izuku's lips quivered as he was frozen. His feet stuck to the floor as he shook in fear. His yellow colored bag was already on the ground, forgotten, as he just stared at the back of the [Hair color] haired male. [Name] seemed to noticed his presence as he tilted his head to the side, giving Izuku a sided glance as he then look back at the scene bellow him again. Not minding his friend shaking in fear for his well being.

"[Na]... [N-Name]-san...?" Izuku managed to stuttered out as he look at the said male. [Name] only look below him, not even responding when Izuku called him out again. Eyes threatening to let the tears fall down as Izuku trembly clutched the material of the front of his black colored uniform. "P-please..."

"Izuku-kun," The said male just looked at his friend. His body still trembling as he did not know why the male would be in a dangerous situation. The green haired male was about to tell [Name] not to do what he think he is doing when [Name] finally said something again. But the male's words did not relieved the green haired boy's scared behavior.

"I am damaged. Far to damaged," The [Hair color] haired muttered but Izuku still managed to hear it. He tried to think this was just a nightmare. His body continue to tremble but he finally found himself moving again. Each step he took, desperate to get closer to his friend until [Name] looked at him again, a narrowed look on his face as he side glace Izuku that made him paused in getting near him. "but you're not beyond repair..."

[Name] shifted his body a bit, carefully putting his foot on the small excess concrete located on the side of the building as he finally faced Izuku's direction. A small smile formed on his face as his gazed soften. "Stick around here," He pause for a bit, until he locked at Izuku's green colored eyes with his [Eye color] colored ones. "make things better..."

"'Cause you've beat me fair and square..." Izuku did not understand what the male was saying but his green eyes widen at that line. "[N-Na--]" The green haired male could not bring himself to call out his friend's name. He saw the familiar blue colored aura surrounding the male's body, indicating he was using his quirk.

"W-what's your quirk, [Last name]-san?" Izuku curiously asked out of a blue. Remembering his manners, the green haired boy stuttered out, "I-if you don't m-me asking, that is!" This cause the other male to chuckle at the green haired teen. "Ah, don't worry about it Midoriya-san!" The [Hair color] haired male said as he picked up the ramen noodles and place it on his mouth. Currently the two were in a small ramen shop to get to know each other.

Finishing chewing his food and swallowing it. [Name] looked at green haired male beside him and grinned. "My quirk is not that special, really. I can produce this blue colored aura out of my body in a fifteen meter radius..." [Name] said as he then remembered. "Oh! It's also super hot." He said as he let out an amused laugh when he saw Izuku took out his notebook and wrote down what he had just said in a blank page.

Hearing the other male's laugh, Izuku could help but heat up as he quickly look at the other male. A smile on his lips as he shyly hid himself on his notebook. "S-sorry. It's m-my hobby to write e-every quirk I see..." Izuku shyly said as he peeked and saw the [Hair color] haired male smiled at him, causing him to hide his face again.

"Hey, I don't mind." [Name] shrugged as he patted the shy teen's back. He gave a thumbs up with his other hand to encourage the male. "If you like, I could tell you more about my "interesting" quirk." The [Hair color] haired suggested as he air quoted the word "interesting", making Izuku brighten up and giggled.

[Name] looked away from his friend's trembling form as he shifted his gaze to the floor, increasing his quirk's power a bit. "Please stand back now..." The [Hair color] haired male said as he heard the patter of Izuku's footsteps. "A little further..." The male muttered. Izuku could only shake, his eyes fixacated on his friend. He flinched a bit when his friend's quirk neared him a bit. "Don't know what this thing will do..."

"[N-Name]-kun..." The green haired muttered to himself as the said male raised his head to look at his. Izuku couldn't help but tear up when he saw the broken expression on his friend's face. "Hope you'll miss me..." Izuku's throat felt dry as he tried to step closer to the male but reeled back because of the heat the blue aura [Name]'s quirk produce.

"Izuku-kun, good morning." Izuku couldn't help but heat up when he heard his first name left the [Hair color] haired male's lips. His body trembling a bit as he slowly faced the other male who greeted him with a smile. "I... I-Izuku?!?" The green haired male questioned as he look at the male, beet red.

"Huh?" The [Hair color] haired male tilted his head a bit to the side as he gave a questioning glance on the shy boy. He pondered a bit on what could cause the green head such a reaction other than his shyness until he finally processed what he called him.

"A-ah! S-sorry, I t-though since we were friends we could call e-each others first names!" The [Hair color] haired male stuttered out as he waved his hands in front of himself. A small pink blush on his cheeks could be seen.

"Wish you'd kiss me..."

"I just don't get this one Izuku-kun!" [Name] frustratedly shouted as he glared at text book on his hand. The other boy let out a small giggle as he tried to explain the problem to his friend. "It's not that hard [Name]-san. You just gotta write the number here since they had the same form then subtract their signs as they showed division." Izuku explained as he look at his friend who groaned.

"No, it's to hard! Who even invented math anyways?!?" Shaking his head, Izuku quickly peck [Name]' cheek. It was no doubt his face was red and looking at the [Hair color] haired male beside him, a pink taint on [Name]'s cheek. Shyly, Izuku smiled at that.

"If you get this problem right, you'll get a kiss again [Name]-san..."

"Then you'd know I worship you..."

"Man, Izuku-kun, I kinda envy you." The [Hair color] haired male nonchalantly said out of a blue as he looked at the blue colored sky with his [Eye color] orbs with utter boredom. His arms crossed on his back head as he lay on the grassy ground.

Hearing what the [Hair color] haired male beside him said, Izuku let out sputters of incoherent words left his mouth as he quickly sat up from his laying position and stared at the male with shock and disbelief.

Briefly looking his friend's shocked form, the male continued on what he was saying. "I mean, you never gave up despite everyone doubting you, ya know?" The male said as his lips formed into a small smile. "Even when everyone is trying to bring you down, you never gave in and continue to press forward..."

[Name] shifted his body a bit to look at the green haired teen. A small grin on his face as he chuckled at the beet red teen. What left his mouth again made Izuku stuttering a lot as he just laughed and patted his friend's back.

"I kinda worship your determination, Izuku-kun!"

"I'll trade my life for yours." Green eyes widen as Izuku tried to go urge himself to run faster. His heart beat was beating quite fast as the adrenaline kicked in his system. His right arm trying to reach his [Hair color] haired friend.

"[Name]-san?" Izuku softly said as he stared at his friend. The [Hair color] haired male looked so utter broken and the bruises on his face made the other flinch at looking at them. Some parts of [Name]'s black uniform had been burnt as a few first and second degree burns on his [Skin color] skin can be seen. "[Name]-san... A-are you okay...?"

"Izuku-kun," The said boy let out a shaky sigh as he tried to get closer from his friend but paused when [Name] sent him a small smile. It wasn't the same smile he had seen in the past. This time, this smile didn't reach his eyes and Izuku didn't like it one bit. Not at all.

"sometimes you're very lucky to not have a quirk at all..." The tone of the male made Izuku flinch. It sound so broken and lifeless. Not at all like the [Name] he used to know. "[N-name]-san..." Izuku muttered as he look at the ground. "Y-you don't mean that..." [Name] let out a dry chuckle escape his lips as he look at his hands. A blue taint glowed as he stared at it with hatred and despair. "Yes, I do... Izuku-kun..."

Silence developed the two as [Name] raised his head and looked at the sky. It was already in a taint off pink and orange glow. The [Hair color] haired student stood up from his sitting position and dusted himself off, minding not to touch his injuries. As he finished, he began walking away.

Passing by his friend, he bid his good bye to the green haired boy. As he finally arrived at the metal door of the rooftop, he paused for a bit and said to Izuku which made the said boy immediately turn around and shouted his [Name].

"Sometimes, I wish I could trade my life for yours..."

"Oh my G-god!"

"And once I disappear..."

"Wait, hold on!" Izuku begged as he came into a full sprint. Each step he took made his legs hurt but he did not care for that. Even when the blue aura was slowly penetrating his clothes and burning it a bit.

Despite the pain he is feeling because of the male's quirk. He ran faster to the male who gripping the railing with just one hand now. "Clean up the mess down there..." [Name] looked at him when he uttered those words. His [Eye color] eyes that once shone with light was filled with sadness and despair. An apologizing smile on his face as look at Izuku.

"Not this way!" Izuku screamed as he was tried to change his friend's mind. Tears cascading down his face as his eyes pleaded for the [Hair color] haired male to not do it. Izuku's body forcefully stopped himself running as he panted, his gaze still not leaving [Name]'s form as the blue colored aura slowly disappeared. Leaving faint traces of it in their surroundings.

"[N-name]-san..." Izuku muttered as he looked at the male in the eyes. "O-our love i-is... God..." Izuku muttered as he gave a quivering smile to his friend. Silently telling that it's alright. "Our l-love is God... [Nick name]-kun..." The said male only gave him a close eyed smile until he look back at the ground. It was quiet for awhile and Izuku thought it was alright. That his friend won't do it.

"O-our love is G-god... Right?"

"Izuku-kun..."

But what he heard next made him scream in horror. He tried to reach the male as fast as he could as he sprinted to him.

This was just a dre-- no, a nightmare.

A horrendous nightmare...

It was not real...

Izuku screamed as he tried to reach out on the smiling male with all his might. His green ords widen in horror as he saw the male let go of the rails.

"I'll say hi to God..."

"Live well..."

"[NAME]!!!"

CRUNCH

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tangentmoth · 4 years

Text

So hurry up then, or you’ll fall behind, and they will take control of you...

Because I figure a week in which I’ve been cheerfully watching some poor schmuck play Call of Pripyat with the Misery mod on is as good a time as any to drop the latest Scorch the Skies installment. Tangentmoth: Bringing You Fanfiction About NPCs Nobody Cares About From Fandoms Nobody Remembers Since 2012.

Chapter I: Sailor Take Warning

Chapeter 2: The Bad Death of General Krylov

Chapter 3.1: Ishmael (Part I)

In Which Nimble’s Terrible Horrible No-Good Very Bad Day Continues Apace. (CW for drug-exacerbated fever dreams, the implied influence of eldritch abominations, and Monolith)

Ishmael (Part II)

He’s nineteen years old, in his dormitory room at the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics in Minsk, nominally studying, really just waiting for the sun to go down so he can meet his friends on the roof. The old soviet-era buildings might be dreary concrete rabbit hutches during the day, but they’re the perfect place to practice parkour with your buddies after dark.

He spins idly in his chair, noting the square of red-orange sunset light on the floor from the window, and grins--but that’s odd, that window faces south, how can the light of sunset be so strong…

Then the shockwave comes, a dull heavy THUD rolling up through the floor and the walls like a wave, and he rushes to the window. The southern sky is on fire, shifting and boiling, lightning crackling outwards across the arc of the sky in all directions.

Nuke, he thinks distantly, unable to take his eyes from the window, from the expanding blaze of light on the horizon. But that’s wrong too. He may be studying at one of the premier technical and engineering universities in Belarus, but you don’t need to be a genius to see this is no nuke. There’s no mushroom cloud, for one, but that’s practically insignificant in the face of that spreading ring of lightning, the shaking that’s still going on when it should have long since faded.

And there are voices.

He can hear them, not with his ears but seemingly from the center of his brain, vibrating the bone of his skull. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Perhaps millions. A hundred languages. So many voices, all of them terrified. Human voices.

And one that isn’t.

It calls out in human words, but the voice itself is so far from human that his mind almost shatters at the sound of it. It calls out to him, Mikalaj Evgenevic Kovalchuk that was, buzzing and echoing and alien and terrifyingly, nightmarishly compelling.

COME TO ME….

He collapses to the floor, screaming, hands over his ears. He can hear, as if through cotton, the sounds of his dorm-mates running in the halls and shouting, and the incessant ring of the fire alarms. Other people. Reality. Safety. He regains his feet, scrambling for the door. If he can just make it to the door…

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

Rough hands, rolling him onto his side. A stabbing pain in his hip, like a wasp sting. And a voice, low and cigarette-roughened but completely human.

“Hey. Gotta wake up for a bit. You need to drink something.”

Nimble groaned, trying to crack open eyelids that seemed glued shut. He saw blurry firelight and shadows moving against a wall. Everything felt slippery, far away. He rolled weakly onto his back and tried to prop himself up onto an elbow to see more, but his body refused. He closed his eyes again, but the hands grabbed him, hauling him up and propping him against what felt like a knee.

“Sorry, my friend, but you can’t go back to sleep yet. You’re dehydrated as fuck, you have to drink or you’re going to die.” A canteen was held to Nimble’s lips. The water was tepid and flat-tasting and swallowing was painful, but he was desperately thirsty. He gulped greedily at the water, choked, and collapsed back, coughing. “Not so fast, you’ll start puking again.”

Where am I, he wanted to ask, but his voice wouldn’t cooperate; it was all he could do just to breathe as the world blurred and spun and swam away again, sinking him back into darkness.

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

He opens the door and he’s home again. Not his old dorm, but his little curtained-off closet of a room in the Clear Sky base. He can hear shouted curses outside, and laughter, and boots splashing through stagnant water, and, far far off, the staccato rattle of a rifle. Staticky music playing over the jury-rigged speaker system. Sunlight falling in thin stripes through the cracks in the old, warped board walls. Home.

He’s twenty-five years old and his name isn’t Mikalaj anymore, hasn’t been for years now, he ignores it, recoils from it any time he hears it. He was Kolya, for a little while, until he came here and got a chance to really show off how good he is at running and climbing and dodging. Now they call him Nimble, and he likes that a lot better. The voice in his head that day hadn’t called him Nimble.

He pushes himself up off the bed, stretching, thinking he’ll go bug Cold for some food and catch up on the latest news, when he realizes he’s wrong, it’s all wrong. The shouts outside are cries of alarm, what he at first thought was laughter is really screams, and the far-away gunfire isn’t far away anymore--it’s right outside. The sunlight shining through the cracks in the wall isn’t sunlight, it’s firelight; the static over the intercom not static at all but the crackle of flames…

He yanks the curtain aside and he’s in the woods, running through the woods, away from the swamps and the fire and the death. It’s dark beneath the trees, but the sun is coming up and the rain has stopped. All he has to do is follow his maps to the road and he’ll be safe.

He stops to rest, leaning with one hand against a tree to catch his breath and get his bearings, only to snatch it away as it begins to tingle and burn. The tree is dead, he realizes, an old dead pine with rust-red needles. This isn’t the Hunter’s Woods, the dense green barrier of oak and birch girding the southern borders of the Zone. Here, all the trees are dead.

Brother, a voice calls from behind him.

He turns around and they’re there, the men who’d been his friends and his comrades in arms. Professor Kalancha is there, who’d recruited him from the University. Ivan Trodnik, the guide, who’d taught him how to navigate the Swamps. Lyonya and Timka, who’d taken him under their wing those first nutty weeks in the Zone and taught him firearms. They stand before him in a rough half-circle, the men of Clear Sky who’d gone off to the center to stop the emissions and save the Zone. Their clothes are all grey, and their faces, but their eyes are alive with some alien light that holds Nimble transfixed despite his terror.

One steps forward, a giant of a man with a hatchet-carved face and glowing eyes peering out from beneath the cowl of the old-fashioned grey traveler’s cloak he wears. Nimble thinks he knows this man too, though he only saw him briefly. He’d been a marvel, after all. The man the Zone couldn’t kill.

Come to us, brother, says the giant, his voice a flat and toneless drone. You are one of us. Come to us. Join us.

COME TO ME….

Nimble’s paralysis breaks. He turns to run, but makes it only a couple of feet before running full-tilt into some structure, a crazy construction made of junk parts and scrap metal, fully ten feet high. Lebedev is bound to the structure with hanks of rusty barbed wire, staring sightless eyes weeping blood.

COME TO ME...

There’s nowhere to run.

Wake up, a voice whispers inside his head.

Dead trees in a dead wood. Insanity behind him. Death ahead of him.

Wake up! the new voice insists.

And Nimble wakes up.

#Fanfic #S.T.A.L.K.E.R.#S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky #S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl #Nimble #Monolith #I Made This!

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