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#<- what i said when amnesty started coming out and never ever finished listening to it
gigginox · 3 years
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ok wait maybe im sorta interested in that new taz season
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thiswasinevitableid · 4 years
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For the Meet Ugly Prompt: #23 Sternclary NSFW if you can :)
23: our mutual friend has been talking us up to the other and when we finally meet, we have to tell them that we’ve been in a feud for the last six years (and I can’t stop thinking of all the nice things our friend has said about you). NSWF
“EeEEH, I’m so excited for you to finally meet him.” Aubrey tugs her uncle down the hall, “he’s practically like another uncle to me, and he’s really such a fucking amazing cook--he made all the stuff tonight--so he’ll go with your whole foodie thing-”
“Critic, firebug, food critic” Stern smiles at her.
“Right, right, and he’s got the hunky lumberjack thing going that you know you love.”
“Geez, you buy one calendar-” he elbows her, chuckling. Then the world screeches to a halt. 
“Mr. Cobb.” He nods, polite as he can manage with rage-horns blaring in his head. 
“Stern.” The bearded man nods back, pushing off of the counter where he’s leaning, glass in hand, talking to Dani.
“Why do I have the bad feeling you two know each other.” Dani looks at her uncle nervously.
“You remember when Amnesty was first getting off the ground and we were struggling to get anyone to take us seriously? This” he points to Stern, no anger or ice in his voice but plenty in his eyes, “is the fucker who gave us the bad review that set us back months.”
“I was doing my job, I’ve told you that a dozen times since then, it was nothing personal. Unlike what you did afterwards.” He replies coolly. 
“Oh for fucks sake, I apologized for that.”
“Yes, two years after the fact, which hardly makes up for arguing with every review I wrote so forcefully that Hayes pulled me from the review circuit for months and made me do cookbook reviews instead.”
“Poor Stern, had to do a slightly different desk job while I was terrified the restaurant would go under.”
“You ended up fine, and if the food at Hornet is any indication, you improved.”
“Lucky me, getting such kind words from the illustrious Joseph Stern.”
“I was trying to-”
“Nevermind. I gotta go check the stuff on the grill.” He reaches the screen door to the back yard, then turns, “and I appreciate the thought, kid, but he’s just not my type.”
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The problem is, of course, that Stern is exactly Barclay’s type. Or maybe he’s everyone’s type, all nice suits and handsome face and perfectly slicked down black hair. They’ve run across each other at plenty of food functions in the city over the last six years, and Barclay always feels like a scraggy mountain man standing near him. It doesn’t help that Stern talks about food the way other people talk about fine art, and Barclay could listen to him do it all day. 
He also tells really, really corny jokes when he thinks no one is listening, and Barclay hates his mouth for how many times it’s laughed at them. 
Making amends is the right thing to do, but every time he considered it his whole being--piloted by his ego-- recoils. 
But they’re going to be family soon. And his niece doesn’t deserve to deal with their feud. He picks up his phone, Stern’s number on his desk thanks to Dani’s wedding planning list. 
Me: This is Barclay. If you’re still reading, I think we should meet and talk things over. For real, not in the way we keep fucking up.
Stern: Why?
Me: Because your niece and my niece are getting married and I don’t want us bickering like jerks at the wedding.
Stern:Good point.
Me: Meet me at the Arch? Bar there is good.
Stern: Ok. 8 tomorrow work?
Me: See you then.
---------------------------------------------
Stern fights the urge to shred his napkin as he waits at the bar. Maybe this is a set up, or a trap, or-
“Hey.” Barclay announces himself with a tap on the shoulder. His auburn hair is hanging loose, and the blue shirt he’s chosen brings out the brown of his eyes and the copper in his beard.
Stern should stop staring. 
He picks up the drink menu as Barclay sits down next to him, “Um, the, um, I can buy. Consider it another apology. What do you get?”
Barclay gives him a mild smile, “How about you pick for both of us?”
It’s an olive branch wrapped in a challenge, and so Stern studies the menu carefully. Chooses the Bigfoot, a mixture of bourbon, chocolate bitters, with a splash of cherry soda, for Barclay and and the Roswell (smoked prickly pear juice and tequila) for himself. 
“Good choice.” Barclay smiles at him over the rim of his glass, the first genuine smile he’s ever sent his way, and he straightens proudly at the praise. 
“I remember the drink menu at Hornet was bourbon heavy.”
“Goes with the food, but yeah, it’s my booze of choice.”
“So…” Stern swirls the toothpick in his drink, “how do you suggest we go forward?”
Barclay sighs, “Was kinda hoping you had some ideas.”
“Look, how about we agree that when we’re together for wedding planning stuff, we don’t talk about our history, restaurants or food that isn’t specifically related to the wedding menu?”
“Deal.” Barclay finishes his drink, “what do we talk about instead?”
“Books?” Stern signals the bartender, orders them both another round.
“Works for me. Hmm, lemme guess, you read those big-ass historical ones.”
Stern snickers, “I prefer mysteries, or well done travelogue.”
“You’ve read Bourdain, I’m guessing?”
“Of course. He put me on to a cooking memoir by, by, oh damn it all, he wrote that Madeline series.”
“Bemelmans! Shit, I love his memoirs. They’re my comfort reads along with My Life in France.”
“Classic.” 
Before Stern even knows it, an hour has gone by, they’re three drinks in, and he has a new reading list. He also sees now why Aubrey thought to set him up with the cook; Barclay is easy-going and friendly, even stopping their conversation to exchange hellos with several staff that recognize him, a needed counterpoint to his own professional demeanor. That soft, deep voice slips under his skin, sets his nerves humming, and Stern wants to move closer, let those capable hands do whatever they wished to him if it meant Barclay would keep stealing appreciative glances at him. 
Then he puts his foot in it.
“....food was just a little heavy, like how it is at Amnesty.”
Barclay frowns, “have you even been back there lately?”
“No, I assumed I’d be forcibly shown the door.”
“I would’ve been tempted, but I’m a fucking professional, thank you very much.”
“Besides, it wouldn’t prove your point; I know you’re the exec, but you don’t cook there anymore.”
“Hold the fuck up, it’s my cooking you think was the issue?”
“I didn’t mean that, just that...no, actually, I did mean it. That menu never played to your strengths.”
“That so.” Barclay slams his glass down, the dram undercut when he flashes an apologetic look at the waitstaff before standing in Stern’s space and looming over him, “my house, Tuesday at seven. I’ll show you exactly how good that menu can be in my hands.”
“I look forward to it.”
Barclay leans closer and whispers “bring an appetite” in his ear, voice just shy of a growl. 
Somehow, Stern doesn’t think he’ll have trouble doing so.
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Stern knocks on the door of the modest house. He knows Barclay is now worth quite a bit of money, so the fact he’s chosen an A-frame that looks like it belongs in Tahoe is charming. As was the afternoon they spent with their (clearly relieved) nieces testing out wedding cake ideas. Barclay even laughed at his corny puns and complimented his flavor choice (and how the suit he’s having fitted for the ceremony fit him).
“Come in.” 
He steps into the house, finds the kitchen off to the right, just beyond the dining room. There’s only one place set at the table, and when Barclay comes into view he sees why. The taller man is in his chefs whites, hair tied back, making Stern relieved he’s wearing a suit. 
“Should I…”
“Take a seat, first course is gonna be out shortly.”
“Right, of course--what’s that sound?” Something is whining behind a door down the hall.
“Hmm? Oh, just Sass, he heard someone come in and wants to be the welcoming committee. He’ll chill out in a sec, he has a dog puzzle there to keep him occupied.” Barclay turns back into the kitchen as Stern sits down. Thanks to the pass through, he can watch as he pulls down a plate and sets three parcels of dough on it. 
“You’re getting tasting portions” he sets the plate down, “I’m not blowing through a bunch of ingredients just to prove a point. Smoked salmon pierogies to start.”
Stern takes one bite and knows he’s beaten. The filling is perfectly seasoned, feels like butter in his mouth, and the dough is impeccably made. Maybe it’s a fluke, but all three are gone before Barclay sets the next plate in front of him.
“Bacon, arugula, goat cheese, and blueberry jam on sourdough.” The aroma from the sandwich is intoxicating. 
The first course was not a fluke, and he moans after taking a bite. Barclay chuckles, turning back to the kitchen. 
“So, Aubrey told me something interesting.” Barclay says casually as he slices what looks like lamb, “she said you don’t only write about food.”
“Oh lord.” Embarrassment creeps up his back, so he focus on his meal.
“Weekly World News is almost as good a byline as the Times.”
“Please don’t say more.”
“Bigfoot is my boyfriend’ was especially good.”
“Oh lord, you looked them up?”
“Yep, Aubrey gave me your pen name. I had a blast reading them, you should, uh, let that funny side out more.” The oven shuts and he returns to the table leaning against the counter of the pass through, “gonna be a minute more on the third course. How is it so far?”
“Incredible.”
“Glad to hear it.” Barclay wipes his hands on his apron and Stern has a moment of clarity; the cook is nervous.
“Can I tell you something nobody else knows? I, um, I’m working on a pitch that combines the two. I want to travel to famous paranormal locations and write about local food at the same time.”
“That sounds amazing.” Barclay pulls out a chair, “do you know if anyone’ll take it?”
“I’m trying some magazines and websites first, to see if they’ll pick it up as a series, which’d make it easier to jump to a book later on.”
A timer dings and Barclay stands, returning with a lamb pot pie for one that Stern eats without concern for how conspicuous his sounds of delight are getting. 
Dessert arrives on a small, round plate. Stern tucks into the airy chocolate strawberry cake with raspberry sauce on the side, notice Barclay already washing up. Pity, he was hoping he could stay and talk awhile. There’s only a bite or two left when he decides to admit defeat.
“This is one of the best meals I’ve ever had, Barclay. Whatever you were trying to prove, you proved.”
“Good.” Is all he gets in reply. 
“Barclay, I have to know: I wasn’t the only critic to give a less than stellar review of Amnesty when it opened. We both know that. So...why me? Why act as if I was the one who wronged you.”
Barclay turns, wiping his hands on his apron before hanging it up as he sighs, “yeah, you weren’t the only bad one, but the Times held more weight than any other food section in the city. When you reviewed us we were floundering, and when I saw it I just, I almost gave up; I’d put everything, my heart, my soul, my last dime, into Amnesty. And here was some critic basically dooming us. But once I was done being upset, I got pissed, threw myself into proving the bad reviews wrong and you, uh, you became the avatar for every critic who wrote us off as not being fancy enough to compete in the food scene here.”
“Are, did you make me your  fucking mental punching bag?” Stern stands just as Barclay leaves the kitchen.
“Yeah, and I’m not fucking sorry. That spite was the kick I needed.”
“And it nearly cost me my job, and my reputation!”
“Maybe you should have lost both, given that you helped Hayes shoot down anyone who threatened the old guard.”
“No I fucking didn’t! I fought him time and again to let me review new chefs, feature them, praise them. Lord almighty Barclay, I’m not some soulless fucking machine who just does as I’m told. In fact-” they’re toe to toe, his lower back to the table, as he pulls out his phone and searches, “even in my review, the one you hated, I was defending you, telling people to give you a chance.”
“Like hell you were.” Barclay snorts. 
“I’ll prove it, here” he clears his throat, reads off an excerpt, “Chef Cobb is clearly talented, with a sense of flavor that’s at once exciting and comforting. It is my hope that as Amnesty leaves it’s growing pains behind, we will see incredible offerings from him. There.” He tosses his phone on the table, “see?”
Barclay stutters once, twice, then mutters, “finish your meal, Stern.”
“No, not until you apologize.”
“Jesus christ, just eat the fucking cake!”
“Make me!”
Barclay inhales, long and measured, as he reaches around Stern and picks up the bite of cake. When he holds it to Stern’s lips, he keeps them in a firm line. 
“Open. your fucking. Mouth.”
“Fuck youOghm” he flails backwards, hand landing on his plate as Barclay shoves the cake into his mouth. He’s never had sweetness applied so forcefully, and the part of him that isn’t annoyed is screaming with arousal. 
He swallows, feels something sticky on his fingertips. 
Barclay leers, rumbles, “that’s bet-”
Stern smears his hand across his face, streaking raspberry sauce on his cheeks and mouth. 
Barclay licks his lips, growls, and lunges forward at the same moment Stern grabs his shoulders and pulls. Teeth connect first with his neck, then his lower lip before Barclay shoves their mouths together, moaning when Stern tugs their hips flush. Grinds against him so hard the table digs into his back as they yank ineffectively at each other’s clothes. 
“Tell me, Stern, four courses enough for you?”
“I’m satisfied. Barely.” He bites Barclay’s ear, making him grunt. 
“Barely? Barely? Fine, think I got one more you. On your fucking knees.” Strong hands shove him down by his shoulders, or they try to; he’s already dropping, panting in anticipation as he fumbles with Barclay’s pants. When he finally gets a look at his cock he groans hungrily at the size, lips staying parted as Barclay guides it between them with one hand and yanks his hair with another. 
He’s craving, praying for, and expecting roughness. Even so, he gags when Barclay thrusts as far as he can, toes curling and eyes watering as he bumps the top of his throat again and again.
“Fuck, fuck, there we go” he tugs his hair, wonderful pain prickling his neck and making him moan, “oh fuck yeah, every time I do that you tighten, so good, so fucking good.” He tightens his hold, fucking his mouth harder as Stern brings a hand up to stroke the base of his cock, “nmm, yeah, that’s it, show me what those hands are good for, god, fuck, Joe.” 
Stern whimpers, delighted at how his name sounds in that rough, demanding baritone. 
“Shit, fuck, you want something else to swallow tonight?”
He nods, paws at Barclays thigh. 
“Then you, fuck, you got it, fuckfuck Joe, baby, that’s it ohfuck.” Cum spurts down his throat and he swallows like he’s starving, licks and sucks when Barclay orders him to finish it all. 
As soon as the cook releases him, he drops to his knees on the hardwood next to Stern. Stern, for his part, is wondering if Barclay will at least let him hide in his bathroom a few minutes so he doesn’t have to drive home hard and soaking wet. 
Then his back hits the floor, one calloused hand cupping his face and the other yanking his pants open so messily a button goes flying. 
“I, you, you don’t have to-”
“Do you want me to?” Barclay pauses, meeting his eyes with such genuine, tender concern that he melts like butter in a pan. 
“Lord yes.”
Barclay’s hand slips beneath his boxer-briefs, three fingers sliding into him when he spreads his legs.
“Fuck, fuck, ohlord, Barclay, just a little shallowerAHfuck, yesright, right there.” He cranes his neck and Barclay gets the hint,dipping down to kiss him to the slick sound of his fingers fucking into him. 
Jerking his hips, he can’t find the friction he needs, so he reaches between them and tilts Barclay’s hand so his dick can drag across his palm. His vocabulary has diminished to affirmation laced profanity (or profanity laced affirmatives) and Barclay is faring the same, growling praise in his ear as he gives him more pressure to rut against. 
“Lookit you, god, shoulda known you’d look as good fucking as you do eating. Take me so well, gonna find every way to fill you.”
“Please.” He whispers, eyes squeezing shut in concentration.
“Gonna spread you out on a table and eat you like a fucking gourmet meal, gonna fuck that perfect mouth til your so full of cum you can’t swallow any more.”
“Lord, Bar, Barclay, please don’t stop, don’t tease.”
“Who said anything about teasing?” A tender kiss to the corner of his mouth even as the hand fucks him hard enough to make him cry out, “you’re my new favorite taste, babe, and I got so many fucking plans for you.”
Stern cums so abruptly his leg kicks out and bangs his heel on a table leg, but he doesn’t feel it. His would is the pleasure speeding through him, the repetition of Barclay’s name, the affection that overwhelms him and the fear nipping at it’s heels. 
He comes back to himself on his side, face nestled against Barclay’s chest. 
“Christ, think we both needed that.” The cook sighs, content, and pets his hair. 
“I, um, I certainly no longer feel the need to argue with you over things from six years ago.”
“Me neither. And, uh, I’m sorry for being a dick for so long.”
“And I’m sorry for the spot my review put you in.” 
Barclay laughs, shaking his head, “only took six years and some killer sex to get us there, huh?”
“It is pretty silly, in retrospect.”
“Your foot okay?”
“Uh huh. I, um, I can be out of your hair in a moment.”
Barclay raises an eyebrow, “because you want to be or because you think you should be?”
“The second one.” 
“Don’t gotta leave on my account. In fact, uh, I, uh, I was hoping maybe you’d stay. I want to test out some breakfast ideas on you. Also I like cuddling you and don’t want to stop.”
“A compelling argument. Though we should move to the bed.”
“On it.” Barclay stands, scoops him up with some effort, and carries him precariously to the still-shut bedroom door.
“Damn it.”
“On it.” Stern reaches out and turns the knob, whereupon Barclay barely gets him to the bed without dropping him, as Sass is boinging about their feet.  
“What kind-”
“Rottweiler, corgi, spaniel. I think. Not sure where the huge feet came from.” Barclay cuddles up next to him as he strips off his clothes. As he rolls under the covers, Barclay nuzzles his cheek.
“Would, um, would you like to try having a, um, a different kind of relationship? Like a dating one?”
“I’d love it.” 
Barclay’s smile is pure bliss, and when he kisses him, it’s the best taste in the world 
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crypteddy · 5 years
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Controversial Thoughts On (thoughts on) TAZ: Amnesty Finale
Hey y’all. I know this is coming out of left field because I post original content approximately never? But here's the thing. I am Heated about this. So sit down and listen for a hot minute, will you? 
The epilogue got a little... controversial, shall we say? And I just want to take a moment to share my very passionate and very heated take on the whole thing.
Of course, TAZ Amnesty finale spoilers below, so don’t read if you haven’t finished the episode yet (or do I’m not your mom but I did warn you).
Y’all already know what this is gonna be about, but I’m gonna say it anyways: Duck and Minerva, dating, as a concept. There are a lot of people who like it. There are a lot of people who really don’t like it. There are a lot of people who are just kinda stuck in the middle along for the ride (hi that’s me).
But Jay, you might say, if you don’t have a strong opinion on it, how are you going to write an entire text post about it.
Welcome To My Essay, Kids. Buckle The Fuck Up Yo.
I think most of us can agree that Duck’s relationship with Minerva came out of left field. When it happened, I kinda had a “what the fuck??” moment, but then Justin gave his lil speech and the boys agreed with it, so I went with it. And then I started thinking. Minerva appeared to Duck when he was 18 years old, right? But we don’t know how old Minerva is. She could be around Duck’s age. But here's the thing: she was appearing to Leo long before that. Therefore, she’s significantly older than Duck is. Red flag, right? Maybe not. She is an alien, after all. We don’t know how ages work on her home planet, how that correlates to aging on Earth. For all we know, relative to their lifespans, they could be at around the same place in their life. Does that make their relationship okay? I’m not going to draw conclusions on that one, because honestly I don’t know. The people who ship them are valid, and the people who are a lil uncomfy about them being shipped are also valid.
I’ve seen someone (maybe a few people? I’m not sure) say that this relationship between Duck and Minerva really made them remember that the show is run by 4 cis, straight, white guys because Justin forced a romantic relationship between Duck and Minerva. Let’s take a hot minute to unpack that, shall we? First off, the show is run by 4 cis, straight, white men. That can mean everything in this day and age, but here in the space of The Adventure Zone, it means NOTHING. In this arc alone, we have a cannon gay pairing with one person being bisexual, a notoriously underrepresented and often incorrectly represented minority, a noon-binary character who didn’t die or face discrimination for who they are and instead absolutely thrived in the atmosphere, people of all different ages and skin colors... The representation in this show is AMAZING y’all, not only for a group of cis heterosexual men. Back to Duck and Minerva, though. I feel like saying that Justing forced a relationship in between Minerva and Duck, especially with the add-on that the show was cis and heterosexual, makes it seem like Duck HAD TO BE GAY. Controversial opinion: no gender or sexuality should ever be forced onto someone by someone else. Straight people should not force gay people to be straight. Reversely, it is JUST AS SHITTY for gay people to force straight people to be gay. Now, Duck’s sexuality was never explicitly talked about. I’m not saying this means that we should’ve assumed straight OR that we should’ve assumed gay. He is a fictional character. All ships are open and good as far as I’m concerned. But at the end of the day, I don’t think it’s cool to say “I hated the epilogue because Duck and Minerva were forced into a relationship that I as a listener did not see.” Justin outlined his thoughts on why it made sense to him. Griffin, the GM, agreed. It was added to the story. The end. Do not pass go. Do not collect $100. It isn’t our story, it’s theirs. In my opinion, you have No Right to be pissed off that Duck and Minerva became a thing. Uncomfy? Not quite into it? Lost entirely? That’s fine my dude go ham. But saying that it ruined the finale is a bit much.
Another thing that I’ve seen is that some people think making Minerva Duck’s girlfriend turned her from a Funky Fun Fresh Cool Fuck U Up Hero to just Heroes Girlfriend. I cannot stress this enough, I WILDLY DISAGREE WITH THIS. First of all, no relationship is gonna strip Minerva of her Funky Fun Freshness, and it’s also not going to strip her of being a warrior. Do I think over time she will become less of a warrior? Yes, absolutely. But not because of her relationship with Duck (this is a totally different and much shorter essay please feel free to DM me if you want to hear about it). The epilogue made it explicitly clear that she was still just as much of a kick-ass warrior. She wouldn’t be making battle plans with Leo and Dr. Sarah Drake if she weren’t. The only people stripping Minerva of her Minerva-ness and turning her solely into Duck’s GirlfriendTM are the fans.
Let’s move on to something else people disliked for a hot minute: the very ending, where the gang got back together again. I’ve seen some salty people say that, although they realize that Amnesty and Balance are wildly different stories, in Balance we got the wedding where everyone was together and happy and it was really cool and fun and that they were salty that didn't happen in Amnesty and that the reunion was only a few minutes long. Here’s the hot take, folks: it was not needed, nor was it required, to wrap the story in a nice little bow. Thacker got his epilogue. Aubrey got her epilogue. Duck, however controversial, got his epilogue. You know who didn’t get an epilogue? Ned Fucking Chicane. He was a major character that we as fans loved and lost, but you have to remember that the characters are well-rounded three-dimensional entities inside of the story of The Adventure Zone. They never got a chance to mourn Ned’s passing. It happened, and they fought a battle, and then the mountain was split, and then the FBI came, and then it was Finale Time Babey. This was the time for them to celebrate and mourn Ned for everything he did for Kepler and everything he did for Sylvain. The reunion was a nice touch, but it was never about the other characters. At the end of the day, that bit was about and will always be about Ned. 
Let me take a second to wrap things up. I may have said some things you agree with. I may have said some things you don’t agree with. That’s fine. But remember a few things: A) The boys are human beings who are not perfect and who never will be perfect. If you think that they made a mistake in the epilogue, that’s your opinion. Don’t let it sully your overall views of Amnesty’s story or of the boys as people, because that would be shitty. B) This is THEIR story that THEY’RE sharing and we’re just listening to it. Headcannon things all you want, but at the end of the day, they have the final say. They have insight into the characters that we will never have. Also, it’s plain and simple just not our story. I mean, to some extent it has been given to us, but it is and will always be Their Story.  C) This is it folks. My final say. To let your whole opinion of the episode or the story or just the epilogue be spoiled by things that happened in the epilogue? I find to be. Ridiculous. The things that happened in the episode happened. Now they’re cannon. That’s it. End of story. Again, you can disagree with them, you can say “I didn’t ship that,” you can be a little uncomfortable with the age gap. But you cannot say “the boys didn’t write a good story and here’s why.” You cannot say “my ship is better and more accurate and here’s why.” Most importantly, you cannot negate all of the other good that the McElroy brothers have done in their podcast because of one relationship that you didn't agree with.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. If you made it to the end I love each and every one of you. I love you even if you didn’t make it to the end of this, but you’ll never know, and that’s on you my dude.
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Shattered Glass Animated Season 1 Episode 1 - Transform and Rise Up!, Part 1
Stellar-cycles after the Great War has ended, a group of Decepticon - explorers encounter an artifact believed to be long lost. But they aren’t the only ones who desire it’s power...
“Many millions of years ago, war raged between the forces of the heroic Autobots and the brutal Decepticons for the control of the planet Cybertron. The Autobots battled valiantly in the name of honor, their courageous exploits bringing hop and glory to a beleaguered, war – torn planet and inspiring countless generations of young robots yet to come online.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of listening to that slag, oh great and glorious leader?”
Megatron, leader of the great Decepticon armies (or what remained of them these days) turned around in his seat to face the mech currently leaning on his door-frame, servos crossed and a smirk on his face plate.
Megatron couldn’t help but smile at the sight of his loyal second-in-command and friend. “Do you not find it interesting what they have to say about us, now that the Great War is over and they’ve driven us into exile, where we will never be able to object to this re-telling of events?”
“Honestly? No. Not one bit.”
Megatron chuckled, a sad gleam in his blue optics. “I suppose I shouldn’t either. Perhaps this is just my way of punishing myself, for having failed you all.”
A servo clasped his shoulder, making him look up. Starscream was looking at him, expression a lot softer now.
“You did not fail us. You led us to freedom from the Autobot tyranny. And in time you will lead us to greatness. I know you will.”
“You are too kind to me, Starscream,” Megatron responded, smiling softly. “But I know cheering me up would not be your only reason for coming here.”
“And you would be right. I am here to inform you that we are getting close to the coordinates. I figured you would like to be on the bridge, to see for yourself.”
Megatron nodded, turning his seat to switch off the monitor. “I will be there shortly. Go on ahead.” ___________________________________________________________
Starscream stepped onto the bridge, thoughts still on Megatron. His leader’s apparent lethargy worried him. He had always known that Megatron took their defeat rather close to spark and with how many sacrifices and losses they had suffered, Starscream certainly couldn’t blame him.
Still, it disturbed him to see how bad Megatron’s mental condition actually seemed to have become over the last decacycles. Sure, their quest for the ancient artifact called the Allspark had been fruitless up until now, but they had managed to get at least a little grasp on the new empire and one could even say the Decepticons at large were slowly recovering.
Starscream had felt a kind of...tired, but steady hopefulness going around when they had last been on New Kaon that only seemed to increase the closer the date of their next expedition came. Whether it was the Decepticons finding strength in their leader still not giving up his search for a new future and a second chance or if the ever-present routine of finding what scarce resources the new colonies provided had given them something to hold onto, Starscream couldn’t say.
Perhaps it was a combination of the two.
The Decepticons had been defeated, but not broken.
They would return home someday. Real home. And Megatron would lead them there, Starscream knew it in his spark.
Pulling himself out of his daze, he crossed his servos and steered his attention to the Nemesis’ large front monitor. According to it, they were only a few cycles away from their destination, an asteroid field. Starscream didn’t like to admit it, but he was feeling uneasy.
He had no doubt the ‘Nemesis’ would be able to pull through without problems, she was one of their finest ships after all, but the area was Autobot - territory. And although their data stated it had been long abandoned, with only a few repair-bots being send to check up on a nearby space bridge from time to time, due to it being on the farthest outskirts of the Autobot-Empire, there was still the risk of them being spotted.
They had barely managed to get away from the Autobots at the end of the war. Drawing their attention as a Decepticon was a guarantee for going off-line these solar cycles. The Empire was determined to see them extinct, even more than they had been all these stellar cycles ago, when Megazarak had founded the Decepticons. Amnesty and exile hardly mattered, when a ‘bot could always claim that it had been the Decepticon who had attacked first and that the ensuing gruesome slaughter of said Decepticon was entirely justified and in self-defense.
“We are flying into our death,” a deep voice growled behind him. Starscream didn’t need to turn around to see who it was. His claws started digging themselves into his lower arms.
“Megatron wouldn’t lead us anywhere he knew our sparks would be in danger, Lugnut,” he replied coldly.
With a derisive huff, a giant Decepticon with a single blue optic, currently narrowed with doubt, stepped up next to him.
“Is that not what he has been doing for the last 4 million solar-cycles? Spending precious time and resources on a futile search across the galaxy, promising our people hope in form of a long-lost relic. Perhaps it would be better for us all if-”
“’If another stepped forward to lead the Decepticon-cause into a glorious new age away from the Autobot - Empire.’, yeah, yeah. We all remember that little speech from the last hundred times you gave it, Lugnut,” another voice, this time female cut in.
The door to the bridge had opened to admit two more Decepticons, one a small femme with arachnid-like features and two stingers that seemed to be slightly bent out of shape protruding from her shoulders, the other a mech about Starscream’s height, wearing a soft, only slightly nervous smile. “Now, now Blackarachnia, I believe we are all a little on edge,” he said, in a thick accent Starscream had never quite been able to place. “Turning on one another will not help us. We should work together in these trying times.”
“Tell that to Doombot over here,” Blackarachnia snarled, jabbing her thumb at Lugnut and stomping right over to one of the ships’ control panels. Lugnut huffed. “You were not there, insect! You did not experience the horrors and tragedies the Great War has heaped upon us. If you did, you would not speak out of turn so easily. Mark my words, Megatron’s delusions will doom us all!” Starscream whirled around at that, glaring furiously up at him. “How dare you-!” Before he could finish, the doors swooped open again, revealing Megatron on the other side. The sadness and insecurity had left his face plate to be replaced by a neutral but steady expression. One of his optical sensors extended a bit, upon seeing how tense his fellow Decepticons were. Feeling a sense of shame rise up in their chest-plates, all of them quickly stood at attention to both sides of the bridge’s main platform. Megatron, being roughly able to imagine just what had taken place before he entered the room, sighed sadly and made his way over to the command chair, nodding to each of them as he passed them by. He knew he couldn’t exactly expect them to stay perfectly calm under these circumstances, but it still pained him to see them that nervous and on edge. “Starscream. How long until we arrive at our destination?” he asked, taking a seat. “Not much longer,”his second-in-command replied, positioning himself to the chair’s right. “We should reach the coordinates at any-” An alarm flared up on one of the monitors, making their heads turn. Blackarachnia hurried over to the console and typed in a few commands. The monitor displayed a graph in response, detailing recent energy readings. Her optical sensors widened. “Unbelievable...these readings...Megatron, they’re off the scale!” A stunned silence fell upon the room as every bot slowly realized what this discovery could mean. “Let us not rush ahead,” Megatron said finally, fighting to keep his voice calm. “Are the sensors properly adjusted? Did you scan at the right coordinates?” “Yes and yes. And that means...” “We found it,” Starscream finished quietly, lip plates slowly stretching into a wide smile. “After so many stellar-cycles,” Blitzwing muttered, staring at the screen in awe. Lugnut said nothing, his single optic tightening the only indicator that this discovery had affected him at all. “Blackarachnia,” Megatron said, servos tightening on the command chair’s armrest. “Can you pinpoint its exact location?” The techno-organic seemed to be in a  bit of a stupor. Hearing his voice, she jumped a bit, but then quickly composed herself and tapped something into the keyboard. “It’s pretty strong,” she said. “But I managed to at least narrow its location down to somewhere around the asteroid field.” Megatron gave her an approving nod and stood up. “Good work. Blitzwing, Lugnut, Starscream. Come with me. Blackarachnia, continue to monitor us from the bridge. Contact us, should anything change or if another vessel approaches.“ Blackarachnia nodded and turned back to the monitors. The other Decepticons made their way down to the airlock. Once the hatch opened, Megatron signaled them to follow. “Decepticons, transform and rise up!” The mechanical whirring and clicking of four bots changing their forms from robots to flying machines filled the tunnel, followed by the roar of jet propulsion as they took off, flying into the dark emptiness. The asteroid field was hard to miss. It filled a large chunk of their view, with rocks of all sizes floating this way and that, as they had done for presumably millennia. Nothing about it served to tell it apart from the million other ones of its kind, nothing apart from the steadily stronger energy reading emanating from it. The Decepticons flew in, careful to dodge the occasional stray asteroid as they did so. “We will break into two groups. Blitzwing, Lugnut, search the upper right part. Starscream and I will take the left. Contact us as soon as you find something,” Megatron ordered, already changing course. As soon as they had gotten a few miles into the field, both Megatron and Starscream changed back into robot-mode, activating their scanners. “Who would have thought?” Megatron mused, a lopsided smile on his faceplate. “50 billion stellar-cycles of searching and the place where we finally find the AllSpark might turn out to be a rock on an outskirt of the empire.” “Better than a rock floating in the inner circle of the empire,” Starscream replied, grinning and moving the scanner on his left servo up and down one of the asteroids. “I suppose you are right.” For a while both of them said nothing as they scanned each of the rocks carefully. ”Starscream,” Megatron said suddenly. “If this expedition, too, proves fruitless, should I resign?” The other Decepticon turned to stare at him. “What makes you say that?” Megatron shrugged, smiling sadly. “I am merely thinking about our future. What kind of a leader am I to be, when all I have to show for my leadership are a lost war and the chase for a ghost?” He felt servos clasping his shoulders and all of a sudden he was abruptly turned around, face to face with a very angered Starscream. ”Do not say that! You have given Decepticon-kind so much. It is because of you that we’re here, that we’re free! Megatron, I-,” Starscream clenched his denta and looked downward, faceplate flushing as if he was ashamed of what he was about to say. “You are our leader. Megazarak chose you. And no matter what anyone might say, I will remain by your side. Always.” Megatron stared at him, baffled and awed by his words. Slowly, he lifted a servo to his friends’ faceplate. “Starscream...” Before he could say anything more, both of their scanners piped up at the same time. The two of them moved apart immediately turning their helms into the direction indicated to them. A small asteroid floated alongside them. It was entirely unremarkable and if not for their scans, they would have not doubt missed it completely. Except for one thing: a tiny glimmer shining through a thin crack on its surface. Optics never leaving the light, Megatron raised a servo to his audial to activate his comlink. “Lugnut, Blitzwing. Come to Starscream’s and my position.” ”Have you found it?” Blitzwing’s voice sounded over the frequency, a silver of excitement in it. ”We might have,” Megatron answered. A few seconds later, all four Decepticons were gathered around the rock. ”Should we blast it out?” Starscream asked, cocking his helm. ”No. It might be damaged,” Megatron answered. He crossed his servos and tapped his chin thoughtfully. Finally, he turned to Blitzwing. “Use your ice canons to freeze the area around it. Take care not to hit it directly.” Blitzwing nodded, looking slightly nervous. Lowering his canons, he fired two concentrated blast of ice around the crack. Once he was finished, Megatron gave him an approving pat on the shoulder and turned to Lugnut. ”Shatter it. But do not use your explosives.” Lugnut inclined his head towards him, then floated over to the asteroid, as the rest of the team took cover. He raised his right servo and brought it down on the asteroid’s surface. The stone shattered with a loud crack, ice and rock shards flying and stopping to float. The light, once dimmed by its coarse prison, now shone unimpeded, a warm, stark white-blue glow that engulfed everything around it. Now that the asteroid’s surface no longer covered it, the Decepticons could see it was some sort of hexagonal container, iron handles all round it. The four of them stared at it in awe. Megatron was the first of them to regain his senses. ”We must get it back on to the ship,” he said, already activating his thrusters to move towards the artifact. The others quickly followed him, still to dazzled to speak. Unbeknownst to them, a small ship, hidden a few yards away behind some asteroids was watching their every move. _____________________________________________________________ Onboard the Autobot ship, a young Autobot named Optimus Prime narrowed his bright red optics at his scanner. The black markings on his face-plate, evoking the image of a black beard shifted as he twisted his lip plates into a snarl. It had detected four signatures near the enormous energy reading he and his underlings had been following. And that was unacceptable for two reasons: One was that the Decepticons had been crushed by the Autobot empire stellar-cycles ago. Ultra Magnus, in an unusual moment of mercy (and senility, if you asked Optimus) had granted them the chance to drag their miserable chassis out of the Autbots’ territory. Yet here these four were, prancing around in it as if they had every right to. It was an insult. Second was that they were entirely too close to the energy reading for his liking. If any bot was to get their servos on the AllSpark, the artifact of legends from which all sparks had been formed it would be him. It was his destiny, Optimus knew, just like it was his destiny to lead. When he had dragged this crew of insubordinate malfunctions together, he’d sworn to himself to make their oh-so-esteemed Magnus pay for exiling him and he fully intended to fulfill that vow. But to do that, he needed power. And a lot of it. His dark green servos tightened into fists as he glared at the offending four little red dots on his display. “Well, here’s a surprise,” an older bot mused, lazily leaning back in his console chair, green and black colored armorplating creaking in protest. “And here I thought we were the only bots crazy enough to enter this spark-forsaken sector.” Optimus raised his helm to give the old bot a seething look. A renowned field medibot Ratchet may be, but Optimus held no love for the older bots’ attitude. There seemed to be nothing he truly took seriously and his lack of respect often drove Optimus to reconsider just how much he needed this old rust-bucket. However he was still a lot less irritating than... “Well? Are we going to interfere, or are you going to just watch and let them get away?” ...Prowl. The meager alleged Ninjabot, who’s armorplating’s stark wide coloration had always struck Optimus to be more than a bit contradictory to his profession had turned around to give him his usual condescending look, somehow even visible underneath the red visor covering up his optics. An oil-curdling giggle rose from the left-most panel, but it immediately subsided once Optimus turned his attention to the offender, a small bot with white and black armorplating and slightly riffled lip plates. Optimus sneered. Bumblebee was a no-good coward and a sadist, but at least he knew when to mute it. Perhaps that was why he seemed to get along with Bulkhead so well. The big, purple, hulking giant of a bot seemingly had nothing to say to this matter. Then again, that would have required for anything to go on in that thick processor of his, Optimus thought. Turning his attention back to Prowl he said: “We’ll act as soon as I say so, Prowl. I haven’t spend the better part of my life-cycle searching for the AllSpark so you no-good malfunctions could let it slip through your digits through ineptitude.” “No-good malfunctions, huh?” Prowl chuckled. “Do remind me again, who of us it was that got dishonorably discharged from the Elite Guard?” The other Autobots tensed up at that, optics automatically flickering to Optimus, who had gone deadly silent. Then, all of a sudden, he lifted his right servo and before Prowl could react, a grappling hook shot out of an appendage and wrapped itself around his throat tightly. Prowls gasped, grabbing at the wire to no avail as Optimus coldly looked down on him from the elevated platform. “Perhaps I was being unclear when I picked you off of that dirty little rock in the middle of nowhere,” he said quietly, raising his upper servo and tightening the wire even more in the process. “But I intend to change this empire from the ground up. And once I finally have the power to do so, its old, antiquated institution, the Elite Guard,” he spat the last two words out as if they were poisoned oil, “will be crushed. Along with the high council, the Decepticons and any other bot who believes he can oppose me and stay online. Now tell me Prowl....” Optimus slowly retreated the wire back into its slot, forcing Prowl to stagger along until Optimus glowered right over him and the smaller bot was practically dangling before the control panel, desperately trying to free himself and reactivate the energon-flow through his intake. The remaining Autobots just sat by and watched, Bumblebee especially fascinated. “Are you such a bot?” Prowl opened his intake to say something, but only managed a few puny squeaks. Optimus smirked. “Good. I’m glad we agree.” He abruptly retrieved the rest of his grappling hook, harshly dumping Prowl on the floor and watching with satisfaction as he struggled to his feet, coughing and rubbing his throat. He re-directed his gaze to the monitor, optics narrowing. “Follow them, but don’t let them detect us. I want to know just who we’re dealing with.” Ratchet chuckled. “You’re the boss.” Engines set low, the ship slowly drifted after the small group of Decepticons, using the occasional asteroid as a cover. It didn’t take long for the giant red ship to be detected. Optimus leaned forward, optics widening at the sight. He had never seen it prior to this encounter, but in his academy days he had heard plenty of stories about the Nemesis. One of the finest ships in the Decepticon fleet, she eclipsed their own vessel with her size. The Decepticon emblem on her hull seemed to mock them as their ship floated towards it. But it wasn’t just her size that made Optimus think. The Nemesis had been and presumably still was a command ship. And if she still held that title, then the Decepticon who commanded her had to be- “Megatron,” he heard Ratchet whisper from his seat. “Well I’ll be.” “The leader of the Decepticon rebellion?” Prowl asked skeptically. “What would he be doing in the outskirts of the empire?” “Most likely the same thing we’re doing,” Ratchet answered bluntly. “Our ships are not the only ones that can track energy signals.” Optimus tuned them out to think. A direct confrontation was out of the question. Their ship was equipped with some weaponry but not enough by far to challenge a Decepticon warship. Ambushing the group of Decepticons they had detected while they were still outside the ship was also not an option. Autobots generally didn’t fare well in aerial battles. But just remaining where he was and watching Decepticon - scum take off with the artifact he had been searching for for so long? Never. Optimus cursed in his mind and glared at the ship still taking up most of the view outside. He wished he could just reach out and somehow crush its core from the inside- the inside? Optimus grinned. Here was an idea. An idea that would not only get him the AllSpark, but also rid the Empire of its biggest menace. He would go down in history as the Autobot who finally defeated Megatron! He looked up. “Contact the Elite Guard on Cybertron.” Prowl turned to look at him, raising the upper left edge of his visor. “That old, antiquated institution you intend to crush?” Optimus’ optics narrowed. “Precisely.” “Hah!” Ratchet guffawed. “This oughtta be good.” Optimus ignored him and kept his eyes trained on the monitor. An image of another Autobot flared up. He seemed to be roughly the same age as Optimus, with a garish orange-green color scheme. The bot nodded in greeting. “Optimus. I hadn’t heard from you in quite a while. It’s good to see you’re still online, old friend.” “Likewise. Unfortunately I have no time to chat, Sentinel. I have just discovered two things that might be of great interest to us.” “What would that be?” Optimus smirked. “The AllSpark. And Megatron.” Sentinel’s optics widened. “Are you certain? On both?” “Positive,” Optimus nodded. “But in order for everything to go smoothly, I need you to deactivate and intercept any warp frequency in wide-mile radius of these coordinates. You still hold the title of Ultra Magnus’ second-in-command, don’t you? It should be easy for you to get access to the corresponding space bridges.” “I do,” Sentinel answered, though there was some hesitation in his voice. “But our esteemed Magnus has grown suspicious of me lately, Optimus. I don’t know for how long I’ll be able to keep this a secret with him shadowing me.” “It won’t take too long. A solar-cycle should be enough. And when its over, we’ll have the most powerful energy source in the universe and Cybertron’s most wanted war criminal to present.” Sentinel thought about this for a moment. Then he nodded. “One solar-cycle. That’s all I can do.” “It’s more than enough. Thank you Sentinel.” “Optimus.” Optimus looked up to meet his old squadmates’ stern optics. “Bring him in alive. His capture will be more effective, if he is brought before a court and executed on Cybertron before the masses.” Optimus grinned. “If there’s anything left of him by the time I’m done, I’ll deliver it to you gift-wrapped.” The monitor went dark, ending the transmission. Optimus turned to Ratchet. “Bring us as close to the ship as possible without them detecting us. You three!” He pointed at Bumblebee, Prowl and Bulkhead. “Come with me.” “Where to? Out there?” Prowl sneered, jabbing his digit at the void, though he got up when both Bumblebee and Bulkhead did. “Later,” Optimus told him, already heading for the door. A menacing smile spread across his face-plate. “First we’re going to get a little something from the cargo hold. And then we will pay this ship of theirs a visit.”
______________________________________________________________ The control room of the Nemesis was filled with a soft white glow, as the Decepticons entered it. Megatron carried the container to the middle of the bridge, putting it down as softly as if it were a newly formed sparkling - or a ticking time-bomb. For a while, none of them spoke a single word. The only sound was the faint pulsing of the AllSpark. “Huh,” Blackarachnia said eventually. “I thought it would be bigger.” Blitzwing turned his head to her, smiling. “Well to be fair, it is still about a fourth your size.” Blackrachnia grinned and punched his servo lightly. “Blow it out your actuator, three-face.” “We should get it to New Kaon as fast as possible,” Starscream said, looking at Megatron. “We are still in Autobot territory. The longer we stay, the higher the risk of us being detected.” Megatron nodded, though his optics remained on the AllSpark at first. “You are right as usual, Starscream. We cannot let felicity paralyze us. It is time to return home and think about our next step.” Lugnut’s optic narrowed. “What is there to think? We have the AllSpark. Now is the time to gather our forces and strike!” “Attacking the Autobot Empire blindly in our current state would lead to more harm than good,” Megatron replied, calmly meeting Lugnut’s optic. “The AllSpark is certainly a welcome find, but we should not rely on it completely in the battles to come. We need coordination and a well thought-out strategy.” Lugnut huffed. “And how long will it take you to think up such a strategy? Long enough for our supplies to finally run out? Long enough for our people to rust away on the miserably spark-forsaken rocks we call our colonies? The Decepticons are tired of waiting, Megatron! You might shut off your optics to it, but I’ve seen the desperation in the cities. Already splinter groups are forming. If you truly wish to save us, then act instead of placating us with empty speeches!” Megatron opened his intake to answer, but Starscream beat him to it. “You are out of line, Lugnut!” he snarled, stepping forward and glaring up at the bigger Decepticon. “Unlike you, Megatron is not willing to sacrifice dozens of our already decimated numbers to the empire’s armies.” “You are just as blind as he is!” Lugnut shouted. “If it were up to the two of you, we would remain huddled on New Kaon for all eternity!” Blackarachnia and Blitzwing who had stopped half-way to their control panels, seemed slightly lost now, their optics flittering nervously between Starscream and Lugnut. “Isn’t that just so like you, Lugnut!” Starscream spat. “All brawns and no processor!” “Enough!” Megatron roared, making both Starscream and Lugnut jump and turn to him. He sighed deeply,folding his servos and gave them both a look that was equal parts sad, tired and disappointed. “Please, this in-fighting has to stop. Can’t you see we are closer than ever to-” An ear-shattering  crash filled the air, followed by a tremor that rattled the ship in its entirety and send the Decepticons flailing. Alarms blared all over the room, deafening and anxious. Megatron, who had been thrown onto his knees by the sudden turbulence, groaned and raised his head. Automatically his optics sought Starscream and lit up a bit in relief when he spotted him struggling to his feet a few meters away, clearly rattled, but none the worse for wear. “Is everyone alright?” Megatron called, propping himself up on one knee and laying his servo onto the nearest rail for support. Affirmative groaning and the sound of shifting armorplating settled the last of his worries. A quick look around revealed Blackarachnia as the one closest to a control panel. “Blackarachnia, report! What happened?” Grabbing for hold, Blackarachnia dragged herself to her feet and jammed a few orders into the keyboard, cursing quietly and rubbing her posterior. The monitor flickered, but activated. “Well, good news is we haven’t been shot,” she stated sarcastically. “Bad news is, someone used explosives to blow a massive hole into the engine room’s hull and enter it from there. I can’t identify their energy signature, the equipment took some damage from the blast just now, but it’s definitely Cybertronian and more than one.” “Autobots!” Lugnut snapped. “We cannot be sure of that, Lugnut,” Megatron replied, standing up to his full height. “Nonetheless we should take care of these unexpected guests. Starscream, Blitzwing, come with me. Lugnut, Blackarachnia, guard the AllSpark and the bridge.” Megatron, Blitzwing and Starscream hurried down the ship’s corridors. The Nemesis’ overall condition did nothing to lift their moods: Wires and cables were hanging out of cracked walls, sparks flew at them from every corner and some of the doors seemed to be malfunctioning. Blackrachnia confirmed their fears when she piped up over their comlinks: “Boys, sorry to say but there’s more bad news: That explosive didn’t just damage the hull! We’re offline in the void!” “Of course, why not?” Starscream muttered. “Do what you can to get us mobile again and fast,” Megatron snapped. “If this was an attack by the Autobots it is more than likely it won’t be the only one today.” “I’m a medic, not a miracle worker!” Blackarchnia protested. “I’ll see what I can do, but it’ll take time!” “Which we are in relatively short supply of at the moment,” Bltzwing added nervously. The three of them rounded a corner. The engine room’s door loomed before them, smoke billowing out through its open doors. Megatron signaled Starscream and Blitzwing to stop, optics narrowing. Slowly the three of them activated their weaponry, Megatron reaching behind him and pulling out a big silver sword. “Stay behind me,” he ordered silently. “Be on guard. We do not know if they are still-” A large blunt round object shot forward from the darkness behind them, aiming directly at Megatron. It hit him in the back before he could react, throwing him into the engine room, with the doors switching shut behind him. “Megatron!” Starscream shouted, him and Blitzwing already gunning for the now sealed doors. White-hot lightning struck the ceiling, from the same direction the round object had been coming from Rubble rained down and buried the remaining two Decepticons underneath it. _____________________________________________________________ Megatron groaned, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees. The impact had knocked the sword out of his hand, though thankfully it didn’t seem to have injured him. “Well, well well,” a voice rang through the darkness, echoing from the walls. “Look what the capacitor dragged in.” Megatron looked up, squinting into the smoke before him. Two piercing red lights shone through the veil, along with a looming shadow. The shadow walked forward to reveal an Autobot Megatron had never seen before, sneering and shouldering a battleaxe. “The famous leader of the Decepticons, Megatron. Truth be told, I thought you would be much harder to take down.” Megatron frowned, moving to get up, when he felt his leg hit something. His sword. Without breaking optic-contact, Megatron slowly reached out to where he’d felt its shape. “I have no memory of you from the Great War,” he said. “Who are you?” The Autobots optics flared up at that. “The name is Optimus Prime. Not that that’ll help you much. Just know that that’s the name of the Autobot who finished you.” Optimus raised the axe over his head and brought it down in a swift strike. At the same time, Megatron’s fist closed around his sword’s handle and his arm shot up. The clang of metal on metal filled the room as their blades met and interlocked. “You will find that finishing me will take  a lot more than this,” Megatron said through gritted denta, slowly pushing himself upwards against his adversary. Optimus smiled maniacally. “Good! The harder you fight, the sweeter my victory will be!” In one fluid movement, he relinquished pressure on Megatron’s blade and dodged underneath it, slicing his axe along the others arm and leaving a deep gash. Megatron cried out, sword falling out of his hand. He dodged another strike from Optimus’ axe, bringing more distance between them and raising his arm cannon. Optimus dodged the first shot, but the second hit him straight in the back, throwing him towards the destroyed engines. Megatron ran after him, cannon still raised and fired again. A grappling hook shot from the smoke, wrapping around the cannon and yanking it up towards the ceiling, just as the plasma-blast fired. Megatron jumped aside as the rubble fell, though he couldn’t avoid a particularly big piece striking his injured arm. He vented sharply, gripping the damaged limb and raising his helm, trying to locate his opponent. Optimus was walking out of the smoke, calmly shifting aside the rubble with his pede. “Don’t worry. The pain will stop soon,” he said, grinning. “And then you’ll accompany me to Cybertron, along with the AllSpark.” Megatron’s optics widened. Blackarachnia and Lugnut! He tried to reach up and activate his comlink, but Optimus zipped forward, axe raised, forcing him to parry with his bare servo. The axe cut into his plating and Megatron had to clench his denta to not give his enemy the satisfaction of hearing him cry out in pain again. “Now, now,” Optimus cooed mockingly. “Wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise for them, would you?” ______________________________________________________________ “They are taking too long,” Lugnut said, optic trained on the door. “I should have gone with them.” “And leave me here to defend the universes’ biggest battery all by myself? Yeah, no chance big guy,” Blackarachnia replied from her console. “You are more than capable or defending yourself.” “Myself, sure, but myself and the AllSpark against multiple opponents who would love nothing more than to rip me servo from servo, that’s a tiny bit trickier.” Lugnut huffed. “Point taken.” Both of them perked up, when a light scratching noise sounded from the entrance. They exchanged a look and nodded.Blackarachnia came up to position herself in front of the AllSpark, while Lugnut placed himself in front of the door, one servo raised and ready to strike. The scratching had stopped by now and the sudden silence did nothing to calm their nerves. Then it happened. An explosion tore through the door. Lugnut jumped to shield Blackarachnia with his heavily armored body, getting rained with dust and gravel in the process. When the two of them looked up again, an Autobot was standing in the doorway, an arrogant smirk on his faceplate. Lugnut growled at the sight, bringing himself up to his full height and activating the explosive on his right servo. “You will regret ever setting a pede on this ship, Autobot!” he shouted, charging and raising his arm to strike. Blackarachnia struggled to her feet, raising her stingers, but then stopped mid-motion. In a split-second she could have sworn the Autobot was---flickering? Her optics widened and she reached for Lugnut. “Lugnut wait, don’t! It’s a -” Before she could finish, Lugnut’s punch connected - or it would have, had his opponent been real. Instead his explosive hit the floor, making him stumble forward and right into it. Fire engulfed him and he staggered from the impact. Two white streaks dropped down from the ceiling, both grabbing on to one of Lugnuts arm, attaching something to his wrists that had the faint outline of an armband with a dangling ornament, which the two proceeded to connect. Lugnut reared up but then halted mid-movement, electric currents travelling all over his body and the next moment, he was lying there, completely still. “Take a break, you big bag of bolts,” the one in who’s image the decoy had been sneered. “Stasis cuffs do wonders for restlessness.” The other Autobot cackled, jumping off of Lugnut’s limp body as his hands slowly transformed into electric stingers. Blackarachnia clenched her denta. Two against one. Not exactly ideal, but she could manage. If she was quick enough, she might be able to distract them and free Lugnut to even the odds. And then a third Autobot stepped out of the dark corridor, this one much bigger than the other two, though not quite as large as her downed Decepticon friend. When he saw her, his jaw shifted to give him an expression of disgust. “The scanners only showed four. What is that thing?”he rumbled in a deep voice that didn’t exactly raise Blackarachnia’s expectation for victory. “I’m kind of complicated,” she answered, grinning sardonically. “What you might or might not be is of no importance to us,” the bot with the visor said airily, stepping forward. “You have something that we want. Surrender it now and maybe we’ll put you off-line painlessly.” He smirked. “Though I’m sure I’d speak for all of us if I say we’d prefer if you struggled.” “Is that right?” Blackarachnia said, returning their menacing grins with one of her own. “Then come and get me boys.” They all lunged at her at once, just like she’d hoped. She jumped up, landing on the big bot’s back and pressed her palms onto it. She felt her download absorbing his data and when he swatted at her she was already in the air again, landing on the ground a few feet away from Lugnut. The big Autobot roared, his hand transforming into a wrecking ball. He flailed it through the air and right at her. She nonchalantly raised a hand and caught it in her grip. “For me? Aw, you shouldn’t have,” she smirked, taking in the shocked looks on their faceplates. “Let me give you something back in turn!” Using all of her newly acquired strength, she launched the wrecking ball back at them, hitting the big Autobot right in the chest plate and making him fall over with a grunt. The bot with the visor snarled and charged at her, one hand pulling out a round object and throwing it. The round projectile transformed into a star-shaped blade and Blackarachnia dodged it barely. She picked up a flicker of movement just outside her vision and the next moment a bolt of lightning struck the ground right behind her, as she jumped away again. She cursed silently. Their attacks had driven her away from Lugnut and right into the middle of the bridge again.  A loud rustling sound behind her told her that the big guy had recovered. And if his heavy grunts were any indication, he was not happy. This was not looking good. She was surrounded on three sides and her download wouldn’t last that much longer. “Last chance to give up, boys,” Blackarachnia quipped, hoping the nervousness wasn’t creeping into her voice. “And you’d be well-advised to take it, Autbot-scum,” a voice shouted from the entrance. All four turned their heads in surprise and then all of a sudden, red blasts of energy fired into the room and at the Autobots, all of them just narrowly avoiding being hit. Blackarachnia found herself smiling. Usually she’d sigh at his need to be dramatic, but this time it gave the whole situation a special touch, she had to admit. Blitzwing stomped into the room, cannons lowered. When Blackarachnia saw his faceplate, she felt her spark sink a little. It was no longer lean with a special monocular-covering for one of his optics, but broad, with a wide, blue visor covering up both of them. He had shifted. “Thanks for the help,” she said, walking over to him with a servo on her hip. “Is Blitzwing alright, Hothead?” He huffed. “He is well enough, considering the circumstances. Though I would be lying if I said he is sparking with joy.” He grinned and cracked his knuckles, stepping forward. “He’ll cheer up fast enough once I’ve crushed those Autobots into pieces!” And with that he lunged at the mortified looking intruders, cannons raised. Blackarachnia sighed, then made her way over to Lugnut, ignoring the explosions and panicked screams that began to fill the background. She didn’t envy Blitzwing one bit. If she’d had to deal with a split-personality this easily riled up, she’d lose her mind on the second solar-cycle. The price of being a Triple Changer. And it was entirely her fault he had to pay it... Mood thoroughly ruined, she knelt down next to Lugnut and went to work on his stasis cuffs. Just then, she heard a surprised shout that made her turnher helm back to the fight.
The AllSpark was blazing. ______________________________________________________________ Megatron wrenched his arm away with a grunt, throwing Optimus backwards and struggled to his feet, clutching his injured limb. Optimus slithered to a stop across from him, smiling triumphant. “How long do you think you can keep this up, Megatron?” “As long as I have to,” Megatron answered, shakily raising his cannon again and firing. Optimus rolled to the side and dodged it. He raised his arm and released his grappling hook again, wrapping it around the hilt of Megatron’s abandoned sword and swinging it at him. Megatron caught it in his servo, flinching as the blade cut into his palm. Taking advantage of this distraction, Optimus retreated the wire, dashing forward with it and brought his axe down on the sword, hard, pushing Megatron onto his back. Megatron groaned and tried to get up, only to find Optimus’ axe blade at his neck. The Autobot smiled down at him triumphantly. “I wonder, will they elect a new leader after you’re gone? Or will they just give up?” Megatron returned his smile with a steady glare. He was not going to show this Autobot fear, not even in what could be his final moments. An ear-shattering crash sounded from the door and the next second, a sonic pulse blast hit Optimus square in the chest, throwing him across the room. “You will not lay a digit on our leader as long as I am online!” Starscream shouted, storming into the room, sonic pulse cannon still raised. Megatron couldn’t help but smile as he propped himself up on his good elbow. “Excellent timing, Starscream.” His second-in-command knelt down beside him, worry in his optics. “Megatron, you are hurt! This is my fault, I should have seen this coming, I should have-” “Starscream,” Megatron interrupted him, clasping his shoulder. “The Autobots attacked us from behind and without warning. There was nothing any one of us could have done. You saved my life. I will never be able to repay you for that.” Starscream’s faceplate flushed a little. The moment was interrupted by another loud noise, followed by a tremor. “What the spark was that?” Starscream asked, frowning. Megatron narrowed his optics, looking out of the door. “I do not know, but I believe it would be best if we regrouped with the others.The Autobot seemed keen on getting his servos on the AllSpark and I doubt his followers will be any less eager.” Starscream steadied Megatron as he  got up and they made their way towards the bridge. None of them noticed the much smaller body pulling itself out of the rubble. ______________________________________________________________ “What in the well of AllSparks-?” Megatron and Starscream stoo in the doorway to the bridge, optics wide as the AllSpark’s light grew brighter and brighter, already filling up the room. A loud humming was emanating from it, getting louder and louder with every second. “What is going on here?” Megatron shouted over the noise to Blackarachnia, who was desperately trying and failing to free Lugnut from his stasis cuffs. “Pit if I know,” she yelled back. “Those Auto-bastards attacked us and it just went off!” The AllSpark’s hum suddenly spiked,  growing so intense, everyone in the room dropped what they had been doing to clamp their hands over their audials. The light retreated into its source, only to explode out of it the very next moment. For a second it was quiet again. Then a loud electric screeching filled the room - and the ship moved. And not only the ship. Outside, asteroids and rocks of all sizes suddenly started to rapidly move in the same direction as if pulled by an unseen force. A picture of their surroundings surfaced in Starscream’s processor. “The Spacebridge,” he gasped. “It activated the Spacebridge!” “With that burst of energy just now?” Blackarachnia’s optics widened. “It will overload!” Apparently the Autobots had heard her. “Frag this nonsense!” the one with the red visor snapped. “I’m not going off-line here!” Before anyone could stop him, he activated a pair of jets on his back and propelled himself right out the doorway and into the corridor. The other two seemingly shared this sentiment and followed suit, narrowly dodging Hothead’s energy blasts as they did so. “That’s right you cowards, run!” he hollered, settling down beside the rest of the Decepticons. “And if you ever show your face again, I’ll...I’ll-!” His furious faceplate suddenly twisted around and switched to reveal Blitzwing’s exhausted one. He swayed and would have nearly toppled over if Blackarachnia hadn’t  been there to support him. “W-What happened?”he murmured, putting a hand to his forehead. “I remember me and Starscream getting buried...and then Hothead-” His head snapped up, optics fearful. “Oh dear! Did I hurt someone?” “Only bots who deserved to get hurt, three-face,” Blackarachnia smiled up at him. “Touching as this is,” Lugnut snapped from his position on the floor. “I believe there is a bigger issue at hand now!” Megatron nodded. “He is right. Blackarachnia, how long until we reach that Spacebridge?” Blackarachnia went over to her panel, then shook her helm. “Not long enough. With all the damage from the fight, there’s no way I can get us up and moving again before we get transported who knows where.” “Then we have to evacuate. And fast! Everyone to the escape pods!” Megatron shouted, drawing his sword and cutting through Lugnut’s stasis cuffs. “Help me carry the AllSpark!” Together they carried the AllSpark hurriedly to the pod section. Megatron grimaced when he saw three of the pods were missing. “It seems our visitors have already helped themselves.” “There are still enough pods for us,” Blitzwing pointed out, relieved. Megatron nodded. “Good. Each of you, get a pod and evacuate as soon as you’re inside.” The Decepticons entered the pods, closing the hatches as they did so and blasting off. Starscream was about to close his, when he heard Megatron call for him. “Take this,” Megatron said, placing the AllSpark in his baffled second-in-command’s hands. “Me? But surely you-” “I can think of no bot it would be safer with,” Megatron said, a warm smile on his faceplate. Starscream hesitated for a moment, then he nodded, slowly returning the smile. “I will guard it with my spark.” “I know you will.” The hatch closed and the pod took off. After a while, Megatron’s pod followed suit. The space bridge’s drawing power was growing stronger. Already the Nemesis was pulled into it’s vortex, folding in on itself and disappearing in a blink. With a feeling of panic, the Decepticons noticed their pods were being drawn in too. “We’re not going to make it!” Blackarachnia shouted over the comlink. Finally, the space bridge collapsed, unleashing a gigantic burst of warp-energy. It engulfed the asteroid and the pods, as well as a small Autobot ship, pulling all of it inside itself. And spitting it out in a galaxy far, far away. Megatron struggled to stay online, raising his helm and trying to make out the other pods in the darkness. There they wear, floating in his near vicinity, heavily damaged. He raised his servo to activate his comlink. “Can anyone hear me? Are you still online?” A static noise piqued up and Megatron was starting to fear the worst, but then he heard affirmative voices, hard to hear but still there. The relief didn’t last long as he noticed they had not stopped moving. Neither had he. And as his pod turned with the fall, a blue planet came into view, pulling all of them into its gravity. Megatron’s optics widened. “Steer your pods to roughly the same area,” he shouted into the comlink, gripping the steering wheel of his own. “But take care not to hit inhabited lands! Then activate stasis mode, until you’ve landed safely!” He could hear them answering something, voices panicked, but before he could say anything else, a horrifying screech sounded from behind him. Megatron whirled around, already drawing his sword. The ceiling of his pod had been cut open and a green, heavily cracked servo pulled it apart, allowing a small form to drop inside. Optimus Prime glared up at Megatron, his red optics full of hatred. His armorplating was cracked and breaking and a gaping hole where Starscream’s attack had hit him revealed his still beating spark. “Megatrooon!” he roared in a glitching voice, raising his axe and charging at the Decepticon. Without thinking, Megatron slammed his hand on the button to open the hatch. Optimus screamed in rage as he and Megatron both were pulled toward the open vastness of space. His body caught fire as he hurled towards the earth. Megatron watched him fall until he was out of sight. ______________________________________________________________ A fireball sailed through the night sky over the lonesome fields of PawPaw and hit the earth with a resounding crack. In a small wooden house nearby, a young, pudgy human man with dark skin and black hair jumped at the noise, looking up from the robotic arm he had been working on. Grabbing a flashlight, he ran out into the field, following the trail of scorched earth until he found its source. A giant robotic head was lying in an even bigger crater, sparking and dripping oil. The man gasped, stumbling backwards. After recovering from the first shock, he stepped closer to get a a better look. Ever so slowly, a malicious grin spread out across his face as he extended a hand towards it. So caught up was he in his discovery, he failed to notice the five flaming ships entering the atmosphere behind him. ______________________________________________________________ Grunting, Megatron rammed his sword into the pod’s floor, pulling himself back up to the control panel and closing the hatch again. With slightly shaky servos, he gripped the steering wheel. The pods entered the atmosphere, trailing fire in their wake. They sailed high above a city and towards  a wooded area. Megatron could feel the heat biting through the pods hull. Quickly, he typed in the commands for stasis lock. Coldness surrounded him, shutting down his functions one by one. By the time his pod finally collided with earth’s surface, he was no longer online. ______________________________________________________________
50 Years later
In the earliest 20th century, Detroit had been known as “The Motor City”, the automobile manufacturing capital of the world. In present day it had long eclipsed it’s old fame, though not in a good way. Today, it was known as the capital of Sumdac Industries. Isaac Sumdac, founder and CEO of the company had started out small. No one knew where he had come from (though some speculated from somewhere below) but eh had made a name for himself practically overnight with his radical inventions and advancements in robo-technology. Sponsors and investors had been positively tripping over themselves to fund him and learn the secret of his engineering and programming successes. Issac Sumdac gladly accepted their money and praise - then used the latter to fund his true passion: war-bots. With his intellect, reputation and an army of highly advanced mechanic fighters by his side, he had soon spread his influence over all of Detroit. Local law enforcement, as well as the military were helpless against the onslaught and so Detroit was left to his devices. The surviving civilians huddled together in their houses in fear. Sumdac proceeded to rebuild Detroit in his image: statues, monitors, billboards; there was no escaping Isaac Sumdac. Strict laws and regulations were set in place, curfews were enforced and if anyone tried to resist, the newly-build police drones dealt with them accordingly. And so Sumdac’s city had remained for fifty years. From the Sumdac Tower, a tall, looming building in the cities’ center bursting with tech and serving as his main research facility and home, he continued to watch it grow everyday. Isaac Sumdac himself was having a pretty good morning by his assessment. The taxes were flowing, his factories were working better than ever, the research facilities had reported no incidents so far and the coffee he had ordered before starting his daily inspection of the Sumdac Tower,had been just right. No wonder, it had been made by his robot assistant. It had been a good decision to fire and throw the old one into one of the factories. He had gotten tired of her constant shaking and stammering whenever she gave him the daily reports. That was the problems with humans. Always so emotional, so unreliable. And so fragile. A machine never complained, it never tired and no job was too below it to be done. Which was something that really came in handy when you needed an army to do the...dirty work for you, without some nasty conscience getting in the way. “Assistant, tell me the morning news.” ”Yes, Professor Sumdac,” the assistant-bot replied. “Expansion is going well. The new drones will be released on time. But there has been another uprising in Detroit’s downtown. Several drones damaged, one destroyed. The approach suggests the same culprits as last time. Identities remain unknown.” Sumdac frowned. The rebels, as he called them mockingly, had started out as a minor nuisance at first, but had proven to be quite a thorn in his side later on. He didn’t know what or where, but there base of operations was clearly somehwere in Downtown and someone was supplying them with advanced weaponry that allowed them to go toe to toe with his drones. Something that should have been impossible. Searches and threats against the residents were fruitless. they loved their “heroes” and no amount of property damage they suffered would make them cave and give away their names. One day, Sumdac promised them in his head. One day you won’t be so lucky and then you will submit to me, as all of Detroit has. ”What progress has been made on projects T-1973 and C-1600?,” He ordered, taking a sip from his cup and absentmindedly stroking his bald crown. “C-1600: Nanotechnology Development. Current objective: design and development of  nano-bots to be used in biological warfare.  No incidents reported. Test subject scheduled to be injected with latest model of self-replicating, sub-microscopic, bio-diagnostic nano-bots today,” the robot rattled down, steadily marching behind its creator. “T-1973: ‘Sari’. Minor breach of containment. Registered casualties: 2. Subject has been returned to containment one minute ago.” Sumdac chuckled. “Ah, that’s my little girl. She probably misses her father. Shall we pay her a visit, yes?” Without waiting for an answer, Sumdac turned a corner and ambled down a vast hallway to an elevator that only he and a few chosen scientists, researchers and security personnel had clearance to. As the elevator descended, Sumdac found himself lost in thought. His empty right eye-socket started to itch under its eye-patch, as it always did when he came near her. Some upstart psychologist would surely be able to identify it as some sort or primal fear, but Sumdac knew better. It was not fear that made him fidget as the elevator drew closer and closer to its destination. It was excitement, anticipation for what he would see. He was curious how she had managed to escape this time. Had she used her inherent technopathy to hack the locks? His fire-walls would have to be improved then! Or had she simply used her innocent appearance to sweet-talk some poor fool into letting her out? Oh how it frustrated him he had to place humans as her caretakers, but with her abilities, using a drone or a robot was out of the question. The elevator opened to reveal a colossal laboratory, filled with control panels on both sides of the walls, giant monitors and a myriad of people running around and shouting. And at the center of the room, in a small pool, stood a giant, glass test tube. Cables and panels seemed to protrude from all around it. If one looked really close, there was the faint outline of a hole, roughly half of Sumdac’s size carved into one of its sides. Sumdac noted with no small amount of satisfaction that the repair gel mechanism seemed to fulfill its purpose. A stressed looking man with half-long blonde hair, a long lab-coat and a ridiculously outdated pair of sunglasses came towards Sumdac. “P-Professor Sumdac! We’ve already dealt with her, no need for you to concern yourself.” Sumdac lazily regarded the man with his one eye. He knew he was one of the top scientists working in the lab, but he could not for the life of him recall the man’s name. “I’ll take a look either way, if its all the same to you,” he said, making his way towards the test tube. A small huddled figure was lying in the tube’s middle, curled in on itself like a cat. Sumdac sneered. She was mocking him. She knew he was here, no doubt she’d know since he exited the elevator. He stepped towards one of the panels, shooing the scientist currently seated there aside with a dismissive gesture and pressed a button. A loud buzzing sound signaled the activation of the intercom. “Good morning, Sari,” Sumdac called, smiling. “I heard you caused quite the ruckus down here. Surely you must know that you will be punished harshly for this, yes?” The figure lazily un-curled itself, as if Sumdac had just woken it from a particularly deep slumber, revealing itself to be a small girl with the same dark skin as Sumdac’s once had been before chemicals of all kinds had colored it a sickly gray, and purple hair, tied into two pigtails. The ‘girl’ yawned heartily, stretching her arms. “I was bored old man. In fact, I’m bored most of the time I’m down here. When are you gonna let me out to do some real damage?” She smiled, a chilling expression that always made Sumdac shiver, no matter how many times he saw it. Pushing down the feeling of dread forming in his stomach, Sumdac attempted an amused chuckle. “And what makes you think I would ever let you out, Sari? I heard you have been very bad today. Two very nice men-” “Oh, shut it,” she cut him off. “You don’t care a thing for those ‘very nice men’ and you know it. In fact,” her grin widened as she leaned forward, catching his eyes with hers. “I bet you spend the whole ride down here fantasizing how they kicked the bucket. I know you’re into that stuff, you sicko!” She threw her head back and laughed, as if she had just told some sort of amazing joke. Sumdac clenched his fists. What was it that always enabled her to see right through him? Still giggling a little, Sari sat back upright again. “Oh and another thing, old man. Don’t act like I’m your kid. I’m not. I’d rather die then be your kid.  And once I’m outta here?” She lunged forwards, hands banging against the glass, making Sumdac shriek, jerk backwards and fall off his chair onto his backside, coffee spilling all over his gloves and coat. Sari looked down at him, baring her teeth in a manical grin, eyes glowing red. “I’ll finish what I started with your eye-hye.” The last word was spoken in a mocking sing-song voice, entirely too adorable to belong to this monster. Sumdac huffed and got up, pushing away the arms of the dozen security guards that had rushed to his side and stomped back towards the elevator. Sari’s demented giggle followed him all the way up to the base research center. Sumdac clenched his teeth, thinking about how that little brat, that demon had humiliated him, in front of his underlings no less! She would pay, oh yes she would. He’d double the volt on the shock tests! He’d request even more relaxants and chemicals to be injected into her bloodstream! He’d- “Professor Sumdac, I am receiving a call from project C-1600,” the assistant-bot piped up. “Not now,” Sumdac snapped, storming down the hallway towards his private laboratory. “It is urgent.” Sumdac stopped and gave an annoyed grunt, then turned around. “Answer call.”
The face that appeared on the assistant-bot’s headscreen was hidden by the hazmat suit the owner was wearing, but the ID on his suit gave him away as the head of project C-1600. Alarms were blaring inthe background, lab equipment strewn about everyhwere in sight, either destroyed or knocked over. Sumdac grimaced, thinking of how much money and time it would cost to replace it all. “Sir,” the man on the monitor shouted over the sirens in the background. “There’s been a major error in the replication process! The subjects cells have grown out of control, leading to an increase in growth! We managed to contain it for now, but-” Sumdac’s curiosity  was raised. “How big is it?” he interrupted the man, eyes shining eagerly. “Huh? U-um, about a hundred times it’s original size at the time, sir.” “Do you have any way to control it?” Sumdac asked, rubbing his hand together. “N-No, and I don’t think we ever will, sir! It’s a fusion of technology and organic matter, any measures we take to control the one side is automatically cancelled out by the other! It absorbs any machinery it can find and has no interest in organics.” Sumdac’s face fell. Techno-organic beings. Always such disappointments. “Label it as a failure and get rid of it. I do not care how.” He turned around to enter his lab, but then stopped. A smile began to form on his face. “On the other hand, this might be a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.” He turned back to the monitor. “Transport it downtown and release it there.” “B-But sir! The area is marked as inhabited.” “I am aware. And you will do as you’re told. You cannot afford to upset me after this latest failure of yours.” The man looked as if he was about to object for a second. Then his shoulders slumped. “Yes, professor Sumdac.” The screen shut off. Professor Sumdac entered his lab, whistling to himself as he did so. It was a shame he would not be there to witness, he thought, but that was a minor nitpick to an otherwise brilliant and permanent solution to a nasty little problem.
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scotianostra · 4 years
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On December 16th 2001 singer/songwriter Stuart Adamson took his own life.......
Stuart's parents, expats, lived in Manchester when their boy was born and moved home to Fife when he was just four, don't anyone fuckin dare tell me he wasn't Scottish!  The family settled in Crossgate on the outskirts of Dunfermline.
Adamson's father was in the fishing industry and travelled the world. He encouraged Stuart to read literature, and both parents shared an interest in folk music, Fife born author Ian Rankin attended Beath High School, two years beneath Adamson, and would later become a big fan.
Stuart founded his first band, Tattoo, in 1976 after seeing The Damned in Edinburgh, a year later he formed Skids and recruited Crosshill lad Ian Jobson, The legendary John Peel plugged them on his Radio 1 show which led them to playing support to the likes of the Clash and The Stranglers and a record deal with Virgin. Stuart walked out on the group just as they were about to make it big, for a time he rejoined the band for a tour to promote their album Scared to Dance.
Hooking up with guitarist and long-time friend Bruce Watson, Adamson formed Big Country, the line-up also featured, on keyboards, Peter Wishart, later of Gaelic rockers Runrig, and now a polititian. Originally they experimented with the synthiser sounds that were all the rage then, The Human League were riding high in the charts, but Adamson wanted something more traditional and the synth sounds made way for the guitar sound that was a unique sound for the band and that became their trademark sound. Adamson said later....“Music used to be a thing where working people got together on a Saturday night and played some songs. Someone’d play the guitar or the fiddle or an accordion. No bastard’d played the synthesiser.”
They roped in Jam drummer Rick Buckler on some demos which were hawked around a number of recording labels unsuccessfully, a support slot with Alice Cooper went disastrously too, the band’s half-baked sound grating on an audience looking for glam-metal thrills. By the second night of the tour they were sacked.
Their manager Grant Scott called in Adamson and convinced him the band needed a shake up, out went Wishart, in came in came bassist Tony Butler and drummer Mark Brzezinski, who had just finished an album with Pete Townsend of The Who. Butler, a much respected bass player had also played with Townsend, Roger Daltry and The Pretenders. The final link in the chain that brought them success was when they were signed by Phonogram records, who appointed Steve Lillywhite to produce them, Lillyywhite had just finished work on U2's breakthrough album War and had previously worked with Siouxsie And The Banshees, the Psychedelic Furs and XTC. 
Initially contracted to just do a single, the sessions for Fields Of Fire produced not only that classic song, but gave birth to the Big Country sound and inspired a new bout of songwriting from Adamson, the band had it all in front of them. At the heart of it all was Adamson, the punk rocker with the virtuoso talent. He used to say, ‘Don’t call me a musician. I’m a songwriter, guitarist, singer, but muso – I don’t like that tag’,” but musician he was. 
The music of their album The Crossing was epic and inspirational, as big as the glens and as loud as a cavalry charge, this was rock music yes, but not the type played by the likes of Led Zeppelin or AC/DC, this had a Scottish spin. The crowd-friendly skirling guitars, big beats and uplifting calls to arms were all great, but The Crossing also tone the sound down with the, in my own humble opinion, brilliant Chance, which Lillywhite describes as a “a beautiful, depressive song,” Released in July 1983, The Crossing went on to sell over two million copies worldwide.
Their follow up album Steeltown hit number one in the UK and hit gold status in sales, another two top ten albums followed, but all the time Stuart Adamson was fighting his demons.Although sales were good the music press started to turn on them, Steeltown was collection of songs born out of the political landscape of the 80's - the Falklands war, unemployment, tales of people trapped by circumstance and crushed by forces outside their control, it wasn’t what the press wanted to hear, the dour Scotsman. In the eyes of the music press, the band were pompous and dreary and so not cool, the dour Scotsman, in the eyes of the music press, were a pompous band and dreary and so not cool.
1985 took the pressure of Stuart a little, they were signed to score the film, The Scottish classic, Restless Natives,  the instrumental score freeing him from that "dour Scotsman" tag. The bands manager Grant tells of Stuart leaving the band, but not, relentlessly on the road, doing press, radio, TV and in the studio and not at home as much as he would have liked.He was also hitting the booze big time.Unable, at the time to get a definitive answer from Stuart on the bands future they missed out on a spot at Live Aid, having previously featured on the single Do they know it's Christmas.
Come 1988 they recorded Peace In Our Time, a more mellow Middle of the Road album, which was an attempt at cracking the US market, it bombed there and the band looked east, playing  Russia’s first international rock festival in August ’88 (Grant: “My pitch to him was: Bono – Amnesty International. It only added to the music press attitude that they had lost their way and were "self-important, pompous do-gooders."
After Russia, Stuart Adamson decided to split the band.They reformed in 91, recording No Place Like Home, it was the first of their albums that failed to reach the UK top 20. The music of the 90's didn't have a place for Big Country, the ensuing albums didn't dent the top 40, it felt like they were just going through the motions.
There was a small glimmer of hope when their single Fragile Thing looked like hitting the top 40, but some bizarre wrangle with the chart compilers about the CD singles cover having "too many folds in it"  meant it was disqualified and languished at 69, it  would have given them a springboard to punt their new album....... Stuart had by then moved to Nashville and the songs he was crafting reflected the country music scene that immerse the place. He had kicked the drink for a while  but reckoned he was happy in Nashville and could start boozing again. In October 2000 Big Country played their last gig in Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia. Adamson almost missed it when, drunk, he got on the wrong plane.The gig was a disaster. Butler later said “We were a karaoke version of what we were,” Butler told the band they should take a break for a couple of years, he didn't think it was helping Adamson's drink problem carrying on. Various people spoke  about the next two years, phone calls from concerned friends, Adamson said in one call from Steve Lillywhite that..."I’ve worked it out, I really can’t drink, I mustn’t drink, I’m happy now not drinking…’” There was talk of a collaboration, with amongst other the subject of Saturday's post, Mike Scott and other singers a sort of British Crosby Stills and Nash. On November 15, 2001, Adamson left a bar in Atlanta, Georgia. His marriage to his second wife falling apart, he was also facing a drink-driving charge that could have led to jail time. He fell off the wagon, hard. He flew back to Nashville where, instead of going home, he stayed in various hotels. Grant hired a private detective to find him – to no avail. “He drunk solidly for eight weeks in hotels,” says the manager, “and every time we found out where he was he’d just checked out for another one.” On December 4, he flew to Hawaii and checked into a hotel near Honolulu Airport where he requested the delivery of three bottles of wine to his room each day. He never left the room. On December 16, he was found by security hanging from a clothes rail. No suicide note was ever found. He was 43. Putting this post together has been difficult for me, I fight my own demons every day, and could easily fall into a life of constant boozing, I do however manage just to hold things together. Adamson's music was a big part of my formative years and I still listen to his songs regularly, some with tears in my eyes, like this one, the aforementioned Fragile Thing, the lyric tells a story much like my own and I can empathise with him through this tune......... Thank you ma'am for asking Yes I'm on my own I guess it's kind of obvious I'm eating here aloneI'm grateful for the company Tired of talking to myself Don't you look into my eyes You might see someone else
If you decide to watch/listen to the track, you might recognise a certain Scottish female singer adding her vocals to the song......
If I have made any mistakes of mispelled anything here please don't tell me know, leave it be, like Stuart Adamson and myself, it is flawed.
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unsuccesscr · 4 years
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here it is , the All Might death fic, roughly 4k words of pain ft; Izuku being a mess, Melissa deserving the world, and Bakugo starting a fistfight (for the greater good)
warning; major character death. no gore or graphic depictions but a lot about the grieving process.
blame @eighthilles
“Sir? Sir, you can’t go back there--” A nurse pleads after Izuku as he follows the stretcher through the expansive hallways of the hospital. Towards one of their surgical rooms. He can’t quite see, over the seeming ocean of hospital staff. Doctors and nurses dressed in crisp, clean clothing, and masks on their faces.
A bit of blond hair, one hazy, blue eye, the tips of bony fingers. And then someone’s holding him back as their wheeling the only father he’s ever known beyond huge, unyielding, double doors.
“No, no,” He protests, plaintively, but not truly putting up enough of a fight to potentially hurt the one restraining him. “I have to see him, I have to…”
I have so much I need to say. 
I’m sorry
Thank you
I love you
Please don’t go
Seeming to sense his escalation in panic, the nurse gently guides him back to the waiting area. For some reason the touch is calming, and he can feel his adrenaline draining away slowly. A result of her quirk, in all likelihood, but even calmed he’s in no state to analyze it properly.
“I understand how you feel,” The woman attempts to soothe “But the sooner Mr. Yagi gets into surgery, the better his chances are.”
“Chances?” Izuku parrots, unintelligently, throat closing. “He’s going to be fine, right? He’s going to be ok?”
The nurse looks at him sadly, but doesn’t say yes. Instead she hands him a clipboard, asks him to fill it out; and tells him that she will let him know when they know something.
Izuku takes the forms and nods numbly. Spends a long time staring at the page without really seeing the question. Pen in hand and pressed against the paper but not writing a word. 
How many of these questions can he actually answer? He doesn’t know any of this. Not Medical History or Family History or Medications. Even at their closest the retired pro had a habit of hiding his ailments in a ridiculous attempt to not become a ‘burden’ like he could ever be that after everything he’d done for Izuku, for the world.
The young hero begins to fill out what little information he does know. Name, age, occupation. Details the injury that All Might received from All For One nearly two decades prior. Tries not to think about how he’s the least qualified person in the world to be doing this. 
And yet, somehow, he’d been All Might’s emergency contact.
He’d almost ignored the incoming call from an unknown number, deeply entrenched in getting the paperwork for the still fledgling agency sorted. No sidekicks meant that each hero had to pull their weight with police reports, incident reports, press releases. Not to mention the reassignment applications, recommendation letters, and other legal documents pertaining to the people who entered their doors looking for help. It added up, quickly, and it needed to be done.
That, in the end, was why he’d ended up relenting and answering his insistently ringing cell phone. After all, it could be an emergency. 
It was an emergency.
“...ku?” 
Izuku’s head snapped to attention at the sound of someone speaking directly to him, looking up at what he assumed was another doctor. Dressed in a white coat over formal attire. The older man looked familiar, somehow, but he couldn’t exactly place it. But he was smiling at Izuku with a nervous warmth.
“Deku,” the doctor starts again, and the hero’s name causes some heads to turn. Izuku isn’t shocked he wasn’t recognized earlier, he rarely is; out of costume. He didn’t have the remarkable stature of some of his colleagues and he wasn’t exactly exuding his normal levels of confidence.
“You saved my family, three years ago,” he prompts, as if sensing that Izuku has no recollection. Ah, now he remembers. This man and two young girls trapped beneath a collapsed building, fires from a barely over villain fight still raging. Of course, there were plenty of other heroes on the scene as well, all performing similar rescues. It wasn’t exactly an extraordinary achievement. 
“I’m glad everyone was ok,” Izuku says, somewhat mechanically, still unable to quite function under the circumstances. “My fa...All Migh...Yagi Toshinori, do you know what happened? Will he be ok?”
The doctor’s expression shifts, closely mirroring the look of pained empathy the nurse had given Izuku before.
“Mr. Yagi suffered from acute heart failure, seemingly caused by stress. A neighbor found him outside his apartment and made the call to have him brought in. His condition is very unstable, and we won’t know until we’ve cleared the blockage if there’s been any permanent damage…”
Somewhere along the way Izuku stops listening to the explanation. Alone, he’d been all alone. Did he see? Did he hear? Did he know Izuku was here, before they took him away? Even if he didn’t….he had to know he was loved, right?
“...let you know when I know more,” The doctor concludes and Izuku nods to indicate he’d heard at least that much.
______________________
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” The doctor says, not even an hour later. And he does, truly, seem sincere. But Izuku cannot comprehend it. Dead. All Might was…
Gone.
It didn’t make any sense. Of course no one is immortal, of course All Might had that old injury to contend with. But he was always ok. Even after his retirement, he was always ok. Until he wasn’t.
The doctor is explaining, now, what went wrong during surgery. How they’d lost him on the table. How he was under anesthetic at the time, asleep. Hadn’t felt a thing.
Good, that’s good. He deserved to go peaceful.
Izuku abruptly stands up, hands the doctor the partially filled out forms, and fishes out his phone.
“Calls,” He mumbles to himself in a tone of voice so robotic even he doesn’t recognize himself. “I need to...call people. Let them know. Make arrangements.”
The doctor seems puzzled by his reaction, but gives him his space as he paces their waiting room making call after call.
“Mom? It’s Izuku,”
“Melissa? This is Midoriya Izuku,”
“Lemillion? It’s Deku,”
Over and over, repeating the news. Apologizing. Listening to the immediate, intense, feelings of grief and wondering what is wrong with him to just feel...hollow.
“Hello? Iida, it’s me, I’m at the hospital and…”
_______________________
The calls continue, well into the night and now into the next day. Izuku’s in his office once more, dressed in the same clothes as the day prior. Looking disheveled and focused. A ghost of his high-school years. 
The other heroes working at the agency move around him nervously. Looking at him, then whispering to each other. He ignores it, there’s too much to do. The funeral service, friends and family. Then, of course, the public memorial. There’s the matter of what to do with possessions in All Might’s now vacant apartment, plus his remaining assets.
He’s muttering to himself now he’s aware, because more heads are turning towards him. More concerned expressions.
“Dekukun,” It’s Uraraka who seems to be feeling brave, approaching the manic hero directly “You should go home and rest, you look like you haven’t slept at all,”
“I can’t, I have to stay. I have to get things ready. The casket and flowers and...shit, I almost forgot, Katsuki and Melissa are stateside, I’ll have to book a flight--” He reaches for the phone but Uraraka puts her hand over that.
“We’ll handle that,” She says with a look that says even more pointedly that this isn’t up for debate. “That’s the point isn’t it? For us all to work as equals,”
And she’s right. That is the point of the agency. But this isn’t agency work.
“This is different, it has to be me,” Izuku shakes his head.
“Why?” Todoroki asks, not bothering to hide that he was eavesdropping on their conversation; his stare piercing through Izuku’s entire being.
“Because…” Because he owes it to All Might. Because he hadn’t been there, let him die alone. Because he’d never done what he was supposed to, never made things right. Never said all those things on the tip of his tongue. Had let his fear swallow him whole and now there was nothing left to do except arrange All Might’s funeral.
“It’s my responsibility,” Izuku says, simply. Firmly. Gathering his notes and list of numbers and cell phone. “I’ll go home, do the rest of this there. I shouldn’t be disturbing your work. I’ll be back after the memorial has finished.”
No one stops him from making his exit.
______________________________
“Izuku!” Melissa calls out the moment she sees him by the baggage claim. Katsuki stays a distance a way, watching as the young engineer rushes to hug the haggard looking hero.
Startled, just for a moment, he stumbles a foot back. Melissa, seeming to have predicted this, keeps him up right as she buries her face in his shoulder. “I can’t believe Uncle Might is gone,”
Slowly, he wraps his arms around her as well, holding her close and letting her tears wet the fabric of his shirt. He has no idea what to say, no words of comfort, so he just holds her while she collects herself. Ignores Katsuki glaring daggers at him over her shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Melissa says, finally, after coming up for air “I’m sorry, you must be more upset than anyone and here I am carrying on--”
“I’m fine,” Izuku replies with a tilted smile, squeezing her hand. “It’s good to see you.”
She pulls away, brushing off her clothes and sniffling a bit; clearly on the verge of even more tears. “My dad wanted to be here, too, but…”
“I know. I tried to pull some strings, get him amnesty so that he could attend but…” he trails off, shaking his head. The authorities had been clear, they consider David Shield to be too dangerous for such a journey. It was unfair, after just one incident all those years ago. It left Melissa alone, too.
“I booked you guys rooms at a hotel not far from where the service will be held, I’ll take you over so you can get some rest,” He changes the subject to one that is slightly less awkward. Katsuki continues to not say anything as he follows Izuku and Melissa out of the airport.
________________________
There isn’t much time left before the funeral service, and a lot of things to get done before hand. At least, that’s what Izuku tells himself in order to keep busy after all the invitations had been passed out and the funeral arrangements made. 
He’d found a lovely funeral home to plan everything, they handled a lot of heroes. Izuku was asked to make a few decisions. Flowers, venue. What All Might was to wear when he was buried. He had suits, more fitted to his form after his retirement, but there were his hero costumes as well. Of every era. That could be refitted if needed.
Izuku thought it would be unfair, after all All Might had done for this world, to have to remain the Symbol of Peace even after being buried. And, selfishly, he wanted to say goodbye not to his childhood hero but to the man who raised him. So he’d decided on a suit.
But using the funeral home meant that there wasn’t much of an active role in the planning process. Which means large blocks of time which Izuku had requested off of work to do nothing but sit and stare at the wall. Or worse, be passed from person to person as they all expressed their condolences.
The brief stints on which he paid visits to his own apartment he’d been handed enough home made meals to feed the entirety of Japan. He’d brought them to the agency, so they could be passed out to anyone who was currently using it as refuge. It wasn’t as if he’d eat all that regardless.
That had killed an hour or so, but had come with the extra painful process of each one of his friends telling him to ‘take it easy’ and then having to persuade them that he was fine, really.
And he was. He was fine. Oddly fine. Exhausted, sure, but he’d been busy. He keeps waiting to not be fine. For it to finally hit him that All Might had died, was gone, that he’d never see him again. To cry his eyes out like Melissa did at the airport.
To cry at all.
While he waits, he finds things to do. Like pack up All Might’s old apartment. Sort his belongings into boxes so they can be stored somewhere and then auctioned off for charity. It’s what the former number one would want, Izuku is sure of it.
The man hadn’t owned much, most of it was keepsakes. Some from his years as a pro, but most from his time as a teacher at UA. Handmade trophies and cards from students. Pictures in frames and in albums. Izuku tries not to think too hard about how many of them feature himself. Pointedly avoids looking directly at a framed photo of his mom, All Might, and himself at his high school graduation ceremony.
“I can’t believe it, my little Izuku is so grown up,” Inko Midoriya wailed, holding a squirming eighteen year old Izuku in her arms as he whined in embarrassment. Still, it had felt nice. To have accomplished what no one thought he could.
Well almost no one.
All Might, the first person to ever tell him he could ever be a hero, strode right up to the small Midoriya family with a big smile. “Midoriya my boy! You really have come far, you should be proud.”
“Thanks dad,” Izuku said, the relief of finally being able to escape his mother’s grip preventing him from thinking about what he was saying. The realization hit him a moment later, a moment too late. He looked up at his teacher with a red face, sputtering. “I’m sorry--I didn’t--”
All Might looked stunned for a moment, before pulling the boy into a hug of his own. “I’m proud of you, my boy.”
That was, of course, was all it took for Izuku to start bawling. Which was exactly what he was doing when the picture had been snapped.
Now, a decade later, he stares at the photograph for just a moment, mouth dry, before gently placing it face down on the side table. There wasn’t time for reminiscing. He had to pack these things up.
________________________
As more and more people file into the room and take their seats, Izuku wonders if he should have looked for a bigger venue. He’d had the list of attendees before hand, had invited them himself, but somehow the crowd seems bigger within these solemn walls. Suffocating, even.
The air is thick, causing his brain to go hazy as he greets people as they walk in. Some shaking his hand, giving condolences; others daring to pull him into a hug. Mostly those were the people he knew well. Mirio, Iida, Uraraka, his mom. And Melissa again, as she ushered in a disgruntled Katsuki.
“Katsuki,” Izuku greets, unsure of what to say. There are so many years between them. The extended silence the most amicable their relationship has ever been. Apparently the explosive man feels less so now, keeping his hands firmly in the pockets of his dark colored suit until Izuku takes the hint and retracts his own hand. “It’s good of you to come.”
“You too,” The blonde speaks for the first time (at least to Izuku) since his plane landed. “Surprised you weren’t too busy to show up.”
Sharp red eyes wander around the room, landing on the sunflowers next to the portrait of their deceased teacher. Not exactly traditional, but Izuku had spent hours staring at, frankly, depressing flower arrangements before coming to the conclusion that All Might would have hated all of them. 
Katsuki seems to agree because he actually smiles slightly. That is, until Izuku returns it with an awkward smile of his own; causing the other hero to click his tongue and frown irritably, rushing off to find his seat.
“Bakugo!” Melissa calls after him, distressed by his behavior “I don’t know what’s up with his attitude, I swear.”
“That’s just...Katsuki,” Izuku replies. Although that wasn’t entirely fair. He hadn’t been this volatile in years. But there were other people to greet and Izuku really didn’t care to spend any more time analyzing Katsuki’s sour mood.
Melissa looked hesitant, but eventually turned to find her own seat. “I’ll talk to you when it’s over, good luck, Izuku.”
______________
It’s not until the service is over that Izuku registers that he won’t remember any of it. It was as if he’d been asleep. All of it, the crying, the speeches, even his own. If he hadn’t written it down he would have no idea what he’d even said. Did it go well? He had no idea. It had all faded into the background, keeping him in a stupor.
He’s snapped to attention by a hand on his shoulder. Aizawa looks almost the same, somehow, even after all these years. His eyes say that he’s on the verge of giving Izuku a lecture, but he decides better of it as he sizes the young hero up.
“Midoriya,” He says, eventually. “It was a nice service. Go home, get some rest.”
Maybe it was force of habit but Izuku almost immediately says ‘yes Mr. Aizawa’ before he remembers he’s not 16 and a student in Eraser Head’s class anymore. So instead he forces a smile, and says “Thank you, I will. As soon as I take care of everything here.”
Aizawa pauses, opens his mouth to argue, then closes it again. He opts instead to nod and give Izuku another pat on the shoulder, before leaving with the now nearly grown Eri in tow.
Things continue in this fashion. People tell him it was a nice service, express their condolences, insist he get some rest, then go home. Until almost everyone is gone. Melissa and Katsuki are waiting, hanging in the back so that Izuku can give them a ride back to their hotel. 
Maybe he should have made arrangements for someone else to take them, he would probably be held up for a while. He walks over to them to suggest just that but Melissa cuts him off before he can start.
“We’re fine waiting.” She insists on Katsuki’s behalf. “It was a lovely service, Izuku, Uncle Might would have thought so too.”
“Yeah, real fuckin’ nice” Katsuki spits, having reached his limit of polite conversation. “It was real fuckin’ nice how you didn’t let anyone help, like you’re the only one affected by all this. It was real fuckin’ nice that you disappeared, didn’t say a word to him for years and now show up like the prodigal son after the fact and pretend like nothing happened. It was especially nice when you stood up there and talked about All Might, the hero, the Symbol of Peace. Like he was a fuckin’ stranger. Like you didn’t even know him.”
Izuku flinches with each pointed, and frankly, true, accusation. Backing up almost subconsciously. Scared of Katsuki in a way he hadn’t been since high-school. Or, more accurately, scared of his words, scared of what he may say next.
“Do you even care? Do you give even a single shit that All Might is dead? Because you’re acting like you couldn’t care less. Did he really mean that little to you? You, the favorite, the golden child. Oh we’re so proud of Deku who can’t be fucked to pick up the fucking phone” Katsuki growls, following Izuku as he stumbles back.
“You know, I get it. Why you never talk to me. I was a jerk, the biggest asswipe on the face of the fucking planet. I made your life hell and you hate me and I deserve it. I deserve for you to pretend I don’t exist. But what I can’t fuckin’ figure out is what the hell All Might did to earn the same treatment! Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you treated him like shit when all he ever did was support you!”
“Even now you’re just staring at me with those fuckin’ zombie eyes, say something! Say something you piece of shit! Show any emotion, if you even fuckin’ still have ‘em!”
Katsuki’s impromptu speech is interrupted by Izuku’s fist connecting with his jaw.
The blonde looks stunned, holding his jaw where there’s now a large blossoming bruise. For a split second it seems like that will be the end of it before he lets out a guttural yell and tackles Izuku to the ground.
Izuku retaliates by slamming his knee, sharply, into Katsuki’s gut. Causing the taller man to cough and roll off him, briefly. They get a few more kicks and punches in before they’re separated. Izuku being lifted off of Katsuki by a not at all amused Tetsutetsu while Ashido hooks her arms under Katsuki’s shoulders to keep him from lunging again.
“Get off of me,” he hisses, shoving her away enough to stand up and straighten his suit. He glares at Izuku but makes no moves to lunge at him once more. Tetsutetsu, in turn, sets Izuku back down.
The moment his feet connect with the floor, a hand smacks him across the cheek. Before he can question it, or even comprehend what had just happened; Melissa has turned around to do the same to Katsuki.
“I can’t believe you! Both of you! Acting this way at Uncle Might’s funeral!” She scolds, potentially the angriest Izuku has ever seen the American. “What would he think, if he saw this? What would he say?”
“It doesn’t matter,” to the surprise of everyone, the sullen, bitter, words come from Izuku and not Katsuki. They turn and look at him, expecting him to apologize or give any indication that he was joking. 
“It doesn’t matter!” He asserts again, wiping blood from his nose. “He’s gone! It doesn’t matter what he’d say or what he’d think because he’s gone!”
His voice cracks on the last word. Because it’s true, All Might is gone. He’d died without Izuku even getting to say goodbye; let alone all the other things. 
I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch, I was scared. Terrified, that you’d hate me.
I admire you, more than anyone else. And I appreciate everything you’ve done, for the world, for me. I wouldn’t be who I am without you, I wouldn’t be alive.
Because of you I had a safe childhood. Because of you one of the biggest threats to man kind is rotting in prison. Because of you people had hope. I never meant to tarnish your legacy, you’re the entire reason I wanted to be a hero in the first place.
I know it doesn’t seem like it, that it looks like i’m tearing down everything you worked for. That’s why I've been avoiding this, because I didn’t want to hurt you. Because I want you to be proud of me. But this is what needs to be done it’s the right thing to do. Just like what you did was right then.
You were there for me when no one else was, when my biological father couldn’t care less. You took me in, you raised me. I shouldn’t have shut you out, I shouldn’t have avoided this. I wasted precious time.
I’m sorry, thank you. I love you.
“It doesn’t matter, whatever I say, or do; it won’t reach him anymore,” Finally, the damn breaks. Starting with a gasping, hiccuped breath, silent tears streaming, working its way up to full on sobs, enough to wrack his entire frame.
“It’s about damn time,” Katsuki mutters, although there’s no more malice in his tone. “I’m taking a cab back to the hotel, let me know when the waterworks are over,”
Melissa looks angry once more, like she wants to say something, but Katsuki makes his exit quickly, and chasing after him would leave the trembling Izuku alone. So instead, she holds him like he did for her, letting his tears soak her dress.
“It’s going to be alright, because I am here.”
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jupiterjunebug · 5 years
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@gaytaako It’s been 10000 years but here we are. Me answering your prompt that you requested at the dawn of time.
A lot of men in suits pass through Kepler Airport. When Barclay had first gotten his job at Amnesty Bar and Grill, over by Gate 3, that’d been a bit of a surprise. After all, he hardly ever saw men in suits anywhere else in Kepler.
By the time he’d overheard a few dozen conversations between a group of them – usually only buying one drink, and tipping almost nothing – about the business meetings they were getting to, the future of wall street, how much of a pain layovers were, he’d figured it out. Kepler wasn’t a place where well-off men stuck around, it was a place they stopped while going from one place they actually cared about to another.
There were a few people who almost seemed like exceptions, though. Kepler was still a delay between point A and point B, but it was one they welcomed.
Case in point: the man currently trying his hardest to walk past Amnesty without meeting Barclay’s eyes.
This wasn’t how things usually went, when it came to the two of them. Up until two months ago, their interactions had gone more or less the same. More or less like this:
Every few weeks Barclay would catch sight of him stepping out of the gate, rolling his neck to get tension out of it and holding a briefcase in his hand. He’d drop heavily into one of the uncomfortable chairs nearby, pull out a book, and read for a few hours. Sometimes he’d finish, check his watch, and a panic would break open the pleasantly neutral expression on his face as he strode quickly toward some other gate.
More often, he’d saunter over to the bar, sliding onto one of the stools and ordering something random off the tap. Barclay had no clue why, since half the time it ended with him trying to hide a disgusted frown once he’d taken his first sip. Still, he always finished it. Finished it, then waited a while before ordering another one, or getting something small to eat. It would sometimes be hours before he left, and he’d spend those hours bent over a notebook, twirling his pen in his hand and usually frowning.
He always tipped well, always paid in cash. When he left, he gave Barclay a wave and a smile had something behind it. It might’ve been wishful thinking, Barclay projecting on the polite man with the sharp cheekbones and deep brown eyes. Projecting was dangerous, of course, because flirting with a customer would be a bad idea even aside from the fact that each time he passed through might be the last. Which was why it was six months before Barclay found out who the man actually was.
Agent Stern, of the FBI’s Unexplained Phenomena division.
Well, six months before he’d gotten the name at least. It was the ninth or tenth time Barclay had seen Stern, which was just enough times for Barclay to know Stern was having a bad day. He’d forgone reading a book entirely, trudging directly to the bar and very clearly faking the smile he shot Barclay as he ordered a cider. He barely touched it for the next three hours, scowling down at his notebook and clicking his pen with enough ferocity Barclay worried it might break.
Barclay generally had a rule against initiating small talk with customers, in general. If he got into small talk, he might get attached. That wasn’t just a rule for handsome men who he shouldn’t flirt with because they might suddenly disappear forever, or at the very least might turn out to be assholes when it came to conversations longer than asking how each other’s days had been. Or because if he didn’t turn out to be an asshole then Barclay would have more of a reason to hate the idea of Stern never passing through again. Sure, that rule doubly applied to men like Stern, but he’d be having this crisis about anyone. Definitely.
This is a bad idea, Barclay told himself, then leaned across the bar and said “hey, ignore me if this is weird but. I was just thinking that it’d be nice for us to, uh, stop being strangers?”
He’d realized exactly how weird that was about two seconds after it was too late to take the words back. Barclay froze, trying to remember if there was anyone he could ask to take his shift so he could go hide in the back and maybe never come back to the airport again.
It was a long conversation, one that left Barclay grateful nobody else dropped by. He’d found out plenty about Stern, then. He was born in Montana, but lived in DC. Happy childhood, dead father, a mother he called every other Thursday. He lived in a small apartment because he wasn’t at home enough to justify anything properly homey. He wasn’t a salesman because “God, no, people don’t take me seriously enough for that,” and wasn’t a stock broker or accountant because “numbers aren’t really my strong suit.” It was only after Stern left for his flight that Barclay realized two things: that he’d told Stern even more about himself, maybe more than he should, and that Stern had never told him what his job was.
That he’d found out three months ago, when Stern had dropped by the bar near eleven at night – an hour before it closed. There’d been exactly one other person there, and he’d been one drink away from Barclay cutting him off. Then he’d finished that drink, so Barclay cut him off. He hadn’t been happy.
“Now you listen to me, Mr. Bartender,” the man had started, one finger jabbing the air just far enough away that Barclay wouldn’t be able to claim self-defense if he did anything. It was close enough, though, that Barclay found himself applying half his brainpower to deciding exactly what he’d do if the guy got any closer.
“Is everything alright here?”
Applying half his brainpower to deciding exactly what he’d do unfortunately meant he found himself startled by Stern’s voice. Both Barclay and the drunk man turned toward where he leaned against the bar, one hand on his hip pulling his jacket back just enough to reveal a shiny gold badge. The smile on his face was just a bit wider than his usual one. Even more polite. Polite enough to set Barclay on edge.
“This guy won’t-“
“I wasn’t asking you, sir.” Stern looked at Barclay, who was only just processing the letters on the badge at Stern’s hip. “Everything alright here, Barclay?”
As soon as Stern said Barclay’s name, said it with a warmth that looked out of place with that false smile on his mouth, the drunkard seemed to realize the situation wasn’t going to go his way. He slapped his hands onto the bar with more force than necessary, dragging himself to his feet and stalking off. As soon as he was out of sight Stern’s smile relaxed, and he slid into the stool behind him.
“Thanks.” Barclay grinned at Stern, pretending that the look Stern had on his face a second before hadn’t reminded him of a few other interactions he’d had with the FBI which were a little less than pleasant. Stern’s smile softened even more.
“My pleasure,” he said, then laughed. “You know, I’m glad just the badge was enough to scare them off.”
Barclay tried to imagine what kind of reasonable person wouldn’t be. Then, he remembered the stock brokers and businessmen that sat at his bar and talked big about how important they were. The ones who demanded to speak to his manager when their cards were declined, and tried to mouth off to Mama when he pulled her from the back. Some of them probably wouldn’t be.
“What do you do when people aren’t? Pull out your gun?”
Stern actually looked offended at that. Then, he seemed to realize Barclay was joking. Or rather trying to sound like he was joking, because he really did want to know the answer. His secret was a little too big for him not to know the answer.
“No, I get out my ID.” Stern reached into a pocket of his jacket and pulled out one of those badge holders FBI agents always had on TV. He flipped it open, expression vaguely embarrassed. “I don’t know why I bother, though. It…usually makes things worse.”
A younger Stern stared out at Barclay, unsmiling and lacking a small scar that curved down the present Stern’s jaw. The card announced him as Lucky Stern, and Barclay wondered for a moment if that’s what Stern meant when he said showing people made things worse, because even with a coworker who he respected and cared for dearly that had the last name Coolice, Barclay had to put effort into not smiling at it.
Then he caught sight of the two words at the bottom and froze. Unexplained Phenomena.
He’d never heard of that division, but it wasn’t hard to guess what that meant. It meant not only was Stern in the same branch of government as the people whose spotlight Barclay had put ten years of time and effort and fear into getting out of, he was one of those people. Barclay was grateful that his hands were hidden behind the bar, because he couldn’t stop them from shaking.
Stern didn’t seem to notice Barclay’s fear, just the fact he was hiding something. He laughed, harsh and self-deprecating, and flipped the badge holder closed.
“I know, I know. It looks ridiculous, doesn’t it? You can make a joke about it, if you want. I’ve gotten to the point I can let people have a free one before it bothers me.”
Barclay blinked.
“What do you mean?”
“Ask me if I’ve seen any aliens. Or whether I know Bigfoot. Or, hm.” Stern leaned back, tapping his chin. “A lot of people ask me how Agent Mulder is doing.”
“I wasn’t going to make a joke,” Barclay managed, and somehow didn’t sound nervous. A traitorous part of his brain kicked in and informed him he can say yes to the first two questions. Barclay quieted it down before the awkward silence went on too long and continued. “I just…didn’t think that the FBI actually had a, you know, division for stuff like that.”
Stern shrugged.
“We barely do, honestly. There’s only six of us, which,” he gestured, “is part of why I’m here all the time. Too many weird things happening, not enough of us to look into them.”
Gate 3 was where the flights from DC always landed. That meant that each time Stern landed, he was about to head off to look into things. Barclay tried his best to hope that those things were dead ends, the sort of shallow hoaxes that all those people who laughed at Stern must have been picturing. It didn’t work. He resisted the urge to toy with the bracelet around his wrist. He resisted the urge to be sick.
A distant voice announced a flight to Houston, and Stern stood. He gave one last smile, and from the tilt of it Barclay could tell that he knew he’d said something wrong. He set money down on the counter, two much for what he’d gotten.
“My coworkers complain about all the flying,” Stern said softly. Barclay somehow managed to meet his eyes. “I don’t mind it. After all, it means I get to come here, right?”
Despite himself, Barclay felt himself relax a little at that.
“Me too,” Barclay said. He stretched a hand out over the bar and Stern took it, the little bit of worry that had settled between his eyebrows smoothing out. Stern let out a relieved breath, and despite the mess of thoughts already in Barclay’s head he realized that Stern had thought that revelation might backfire.
The voice announced the flight again.
“I’ll see you again soon,” Stern said, pulling away.
Once he was out of sight, the little bit of warmth conjured up by Stern’s words disappeared. Barclay squeezed his eyes shut and tried his best to breathe in, breath out. He gave up and fled to the back to ask Mama to finish his shift.
--
The next time Stern came through Kepler, Barclay found himself ducking behind the bar before the other man could spot him. Or, at least, Barclay hoped he avoided being spotted. It occurred to him a few seconds later that he was being an idiot, probably, but he was already kneeling on the cold tile floor. He might as well lean into the whole idiot thing, while he was there.
So, he slipped into the back and asked Dani to cover for him. Not Mama, because she’d ask questions like she had the last time, and when he eventually answered then things would go into crisis mode. Which, sure, Barclay had a thing for a cryptid hunter so maybe they were in crisis mode, actually.
Barclay squeezed himself between the wall and the freezer, and tried to figure out whether they were in crisis mode.
Alright, point for crisis mode: a cryptid hunting FBI unit had apparently decided Kepler was a good spot for a layover.
Point against: it was just for layovers, which meant they didn’t suspect anything was wrong in Kepler.
Point for: even if Amnesty didn’t have to go into general crisis mode, Barclay was hiding in the kitchen like an idiot, despite the fact that the last time they’d seen each other he’d most definitely indicated he was interested. So, sure, their secret might be safe. But Barclay was feeling more and more like an ass with each passing moment.
An hour later, Dani pushed open the door to the kitchen and entered, dishrag over her shoulder and flannel sleeves rolled up in a way Barclay knew she only did to show off her arms to the barista from the Starbucks by Gate 2.
“He’s gone,” she said, and from the hard tone of her voice Barclay could tell the way she must’ve interpreted his request that she cover his shift, just until that guy in the suit leaves. If he asks about me I’m not here.
Really, he couldn’t blame her. But he also couldn’t let her keep hold of that impression because, well. This was still Stern, who once told Barclay that he’d learned all the languages he did because he hated not being able to talk to people, but figured it was unfair to make them learn English just because he was nosy. It wouldn’t be fair to get his coworkers to hate the guy, even if it would make it a lot easier to never process the whole cryptid hunting business.
“Dani, no, he’s not…he wasn’t bothering me.”
Dani leaned against the doorframe, giving him a knowing grin. Given that he’d teased her about her pursuing Starbucks girl four or five times, he couldn’t even bring himself to be annoyed by it.
“Oh? ‘Cuz you booked it back here like he’d either been creeping on you, or like you panicked because of a big stupid crush. And I figured you wouldn’t be one to hide in the back ‘cuz of a big stupid crush, so I thought it must’ve been the first one.”
“Dani.” He tried to inject some authority into his voice. Usually it worked well enough, on account of he was one and a half times her age and technically her supervisor. Apparently he just managed to sound desperate, because she ended up biting her lip to hold back a laugh. She failed.
“Sorry, sorry, I just…Barclay, you should just talk to him next time!” She managed to get her giggling under control. “Honestly, I figured you two were already a thing.”
“Why?”
“It’s been two years?”
Barclay sighed.
“Yeah, yeah it has. But…” He shouldn’t say anything. Ghosting Stern was a dick move, but if he could manage a clean break then there might not be any real drama. If everyone found out about the whole FBI Secret Agent Monster Hunting thing? Or, well, Barclay didn’t know if Unexplained Phenomena meant any actual monster hunting was going on or if it was just dead-end ghost investigations and looking into psychics. But that had been his first reaction, and he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be the worst one out of everybody at Amnesty. Which meant there would be drama. A lot of drama. Maybe drama that involved actual violence, which wouldn’t be great.
“Yeah?” She asked, and Barclay swallowed.
“I just don’t know if I can be into a guy that doesn’t live around here, is all.”
Dani seemed to buy it, which made Barclay feel even worse about the whole thing. But it’d be better this way, better for everyone. And all he had to do was stay away from Stern for a while.
---
Barclay managed to stay away from Stern for two months. That involves five narrowly-avoided incidents, teaching Jake to manage the bar so he had someone to cover him that wouldn’t raise her eyebrows like Dani or offer to murder Stern for Barclay’s honor like Mama, and the realization that somehow Stern only came through Kepler when Barclay was on shift. And the fact that Stern had been through Kepler more often since Barclay started dodging him.
That had Barclay panicking for a solid twenty minutes, because what if this had all been an elaborate ruse to get Amnesty to lower its defenses? Then Barclay realized that was fucking stupid, because every flight from D.C. landed at either eleven am or eight pm on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and that section of time involved pretty much every shift Barclay worked.
That realization led to Barclay relaxing on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Which was, as it turned out, a mistake.
It was a mistake, because it led him to this very moment, a minute after Stern got off a plane from Houston at exactly noon, locked eyes with Barclay, and began speed walking away.
It’s a minute after that, because it took thirty seconds to process the panic in Stern’s expression, and another thirty to process the fact that he wasn’t panicked, actually.
“Hey, Dani, can you cover me?” He calls back, not even waiting for her to say yes or no before he leaves the bar and tries to figure out the best way to intercept Stern. He has to be subtle about this. He can’t go dramatically shouting Stern’s name across the mostly-empty path that ran across the airport; that would just embarrass him both. He can’t chase him down and grab his shoulder, because chasing people down and grabbing them is a dick move. He can’t-
As it turns out, he doesn’t need to plan, because Stern is sitting in a chair next to the Jamba Juice at Terminal 4 with his head in his hands. Barclay takes a deep breath and slides into the chair across from him. He’d hoped to be quiet, but the table shifts ever so slightly as he sets his hand on it and Stern jumps.
“I’ve been an asshole,” Barclay says, before Stern can act on his obvious impulse to flee. “And, uh, you can go to your gate and avoid me forever if you want. But I wanted to say I’m sorry first.”
Stern’s weight settles back into his seat.
“I wasn’t upset,” he says, the pause before that last word indicating that he most definitely was upset at some point. “I, well. At first I assumed I was just missing you, but when I asked the boy covering for you said-“
“I just stepped out?” Barclay guesses, and when Stern nods Barclay tries his best to be annoyed with Jake instead of with himself.
“Yeah. I’m…sure you had your reasons. But you could have told me you didn’t want to see me again, I would have understood.” He almost manages not to seem passive aggressive. Barclay would be impressed, under better circumstances.
“I did. Have my reasons, I mean.” He leans back, the chair creaking under his weight, and wishes that Jamba Juice was being covered by literally anyone other than Keith and Hollis. He doesn’t want to have to deal with the Hornet Gossip Mill on top of everything else. “But I think they might’ve been stupid reasons.” Well, he doesn’t totally believe that. But he can’t think of any partial explanation that doesn’t sound stupid.
“Are you a serial killer?” Stern asks, suddenly. Barclay blinks.
“What?” He’s aware that his voice sounds a little strangled, though not for the reasons Stern thinks. Judging by Stern’s weak smile he’d meant it as a joke, but really it’s closer to the truth than Barclay is comfortable with.
“Thank God. I was wondering if I should be looking into West Virginia’s active warrants.”
Barclay laughs. It’s mostly just to break the tension.
“No, no. None of that, I just, well.” For just a moment, Barclay considers telling Stern. Then he decides no, despite that impulse he doesn’t want to be forgiven enough to risk death. “Some of my people have had a little trouble with…” Barclay gestures to Stern, who frowns just a little. “Not the kind you’ve gotta worry about, it was all false reports and all that, but it made me a little nervous. On account of, well, I’m fond of you. I didn’t want things to go bad between you and me an’ mine.”
“So you were willing to make things go bad between just you and me?”
“Like I said, stupid reasons.”
The look Stern is giving Barclay is unreadable. Well, Barclay can’t tell whether it’s unreadable or if he just doesn’t want to read it. He just stares at Barclay for a second, mouth a thin, straight line. With each passing moment, Barclay feels tension creep up his spine. Then he starts laughing just a little desperately, running a hand through his hair.
“You know, you’re lucky you’re cute,” Stern manages, and Barclay relaxes.
“Yeah,” he replies, taking a deep breath. Stern shoots him a tired little smile. Then he checks his watch.
“I have an hour and a half before my flight,” Stern says. “How about you make all this up to me by showing me what there is to do in this airport aside from read and pine about the bartender.”
“Well, I happen to get an employee discount at the local grill,” Barclay answers, and Stern’s smile gets a little more real.
This can work, Barclay thinks. And sure, maybe he’s just lying to himself. But as they walk back toward Amnesty Stern bumps his shoulder lightly against Barclay’s, and Barclay thinks that the time before things go to hell might make this worth it.
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lakesandquarries · 5 years
Text
from the perfect start (to the finish line)
Aubrey and Ned, from beginning to end.
Massive spoilers for TAZ Amnesty episode 28.
title from “youth” by daughter.
Read on AO3 or under the cut!
The day after Aubrey officially moves in to Amnesty Lodge, Ned shows up. He comes armed with a box of Halloween decorations, a bag of candy, and a wide grin.
“I found some extra decorations lying around,” is what he tells her, but it quickly becomes clear these were carefully chosen for her.
Most people might have found the red lace curtains and pumpkin string lights and light up ghost tacky, but it makes her room feel more like home. He helps her unpack, too, something she hasn’t bothered to do in years. Staying still feels unreal, almost unnatural. Even now, some small part of her is ready to leave any second.
Ned seems to recognize the impulse. “So, how is it, living here? You’ve been on the move for the last few years, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, been doing shows all over. I like moving around. It’s cool, to get to see new places.”
“I understand the feeling. I’ve done my fair share of traveling too. But there is something to be said for a more….sedentary lifestyle.”
“Yeah. It’ll take some getting used to, though.”
The last thing she puts up is a photo in a relatively plain frame, of a woman with dark brown hair and bright brown eyes, her dark skin a perfect match to Aubrey’s.
“Family member?” Ned asks, nodding at the photo.
“My mom. She’s gone, now,” Aubrey explains. “Don’t have much family left anymore.” Ned looks a little pale, awkward with the sudden change of topic, and Aubrey nearly laughs at him. He’s quiet for a while, working out what to say.
“You have family here,” is what he settles on.
---
Painting Ned’s face is not how Aubrey expected to spend her Saturday night, but she doesn’t have much of a desire to complain. As the only person Ned knew with experience wearing makeup, he’d enlisted her to try and do his. This episode of Saturday Night Dead is a old vampire movie, so she’s trying to make him look pale and eerie.
“You know, vampires don’t really look like this,” she says as she covers his face with more white Snazaroo.
“Well, we know that. But the general populace does not.”
“True. But shouldn’t we trying to fix those kinds of stereotypes?”
Ned shrugs. “I think our job is just to kill the bad guys.”
Aubrey huffs. “Well, excuse me for thinking proactively.”
Ned chuckles. “C’mon, we don’t need to worry about anything like that for a while. Right now, our job is to relax and have fun.”
“And paint your face white.”
“Is that not the epitome of fun?” Ned smiles at her, an odd look with the paint. “That being said, you may need to hurry this up. We go live in….about 20 minutes.”
“Beauty takes time,” Aubrey says, but she decides to stop fussing with the paint and move on. It’s a shame it’s such a simple look; Ned is a wonderful canvas. He doesn’t squirm or complain, simply sits quietly and lets Aubrey do her work. “You should let me do real makeup on you sometime.”
“Is this not real makeup?” Ned asks, opening one eye.
“I mean like, let me do some kind of Look. Eyeshadow, highlighter, lipstick, the whole nine yards. I think you could rock it.”
Ned smiles at her. “Well, if you think I could pull it off...I trust your judgement. We’ll have to do that sometime.”
---
Aubrey’s the first one to catch Ned limping. Duck doesn’t have the best grasp of what normal human abilities are, but Aubrey is very familiar with the limitations of the human body.
It’s not until she finds a cane in the back of the newly painted Crytonomica van that she realizes what’s up.
“Hey Ned, this yours?” she asks, pulling it out. She was supposed to just be helping with Saturday Night Dead, as she does whenever she can, but this requires further investigation.
Ned looks at the cane disdainfully. “The doctors gave it to me, after the….incident at Leo’s.”
“You can talk about it, Ned.” She knows everyone’s been avoiding talking about the Pizza Hut Incident around her, too worried for her fragile emotional state to dare mention it. “I can handle it.”
Ned chuckles awkwardly. “It’s not that, it’s... I’m the one who can’t handle it, really.”
“Are you supposed to be using this cane, Ned?”
“Well the doctor told me to, but, what does he know? I’m fine, friend Aubrey, just dandy. Nothing wrong at all!”
“You sound like Duck right now,” she says, folding her arms.
“Is that your way of calling me a bad liar?”
“Yes. Now tell me the truth.”
Ned sighs. “It’s embarrassing, having to use a cane like that. I’m not old enough to be needing one yet.”
“There’s nothing embarrassing about using aids like that. I’m on medication, is that embarrassing?”
“Well...no...but-“
“You could have died, doing what you did. You saved people’s lives. There’s nothing embarrassing about getting hurt saving lives, or about needing help.”
Ned huffs. “When you put it like that I sound completely ridiculous.”
“That’s because you are. But I think I know of a way to make the cane at least a little more fun to use.”
She insists he meet her at Amnesty Lodge tomorrow, and the next morning she presents her gift - his cane, painted with bright flames creeping up it.
“Now it looks cool, and you have to use it or I’ll be sad.”
“Well, we can’t have that, can we,” Ned says.
He presents it flamboyantly on Saturday Night Dead, a gift from the Lady Flame herself, a powerful artifact imbued with magical properties.
The letter is singed where she touches it, bad enough that she’s tempted to ask someone to read it to her, but she decides against it. This is between her and Ned.
Dear Aubrey, she reads, and bursts into tears.
Duck finds her sobbing on the floor twenty minutes later, the letter a safe distance away from her. Her hands are balled into fists, steam rising off them as she tries to keep her entire body from igniting. Duck makes the mistake of placing a hand on her shoulder and pulls away burnt.
“Aubrey,” he says, kneeling down next to her. “You found your letter?”
“Mhm,” she says, wiping at her eyes frantically. Duck sighs.
“He called me a hero in mine. Said he didn’t have what it takes to be a real hero.”
“He was a hero,” Aubrey says hoarsely.
“Yeah.”
“He - he wrote his real name,” Aubrey says, trying to swallow the tears that threaten to cut off her words. “He told me to hate him. Duck, he died -” she chokes on the word, hiccuping halfway through it - “he died thinking I hated him. He died wanting me to hate him. And now - I can never -” her words dissolve.
Duck scoots closer to her, placing a hand on her shoulder, which luckily has cooled by now. “He knew you cared. He probably wrote that in there ‘cause he knew you’d forgive him.”
“He’s more of a hero than anyone I’ve ever met,” Aubrey says, then bites her lip. “I mean - not that you’re not, I just -”
“Nah, you’re right. I didn’t take a bullet for anyone. But look, Aubrey, you can’t blame yourself. That’s not what he’d want.”
“But -”
“Nope, no buts. C’mon, he wouldn’t want you beating yourself up like this.”
“Yeah, well, I want him back, but we can’t always get what we want, can we?”
“This ain’t your fault. He knew you cared about him. You should’ve seen how he talked about you.”
Aubrey lifts her head slightly, looking at Duck. He gives her a tired, worn smile.
“He bragged 'bout you like you were his kid, practically.”
“I felt like I was, sometimes.” Duck leans his head against the wall, thoughtfully, then looks back at Aubrey.
“We gotta….preserve his memory, in some way. Kirby’s cool and all, but….well, he’s not much of a showman.”
Aubrey smiles, a little broken but better than nothing. “What are you suggesting?”
“I’m saying….well, I’ve been thinking, and Ned wouldn’t want us wallowing around, right? I say we do a special episode of Saturday Night Dead. Saturday Night Ned, if you will.”
“I think I’d like that.” She’s never been to a funeral, but Aubrey has helped with nearly every episode of Saturday Night Dead. This, at least, she can do.
It feels wrong, being at the Cryptonomica without Ned, but Aubrey pushes through the grief and puts on a show. There’s no movie, this time. Instead, she and Kirby and Duck and any other people they can get tell stories about the enigmatic figure that was Ned “Insert Name Here” Chicane.
Aubrey digs up videos she took, the time she secretly filmed Ned practicing a monologue and a really stupid argument he had with Duck about whether pineapple goes on pizza and a short video of him passed out in the lobby of Amnesty Lodge, a blanket draped around his shoulders and Dr Harris Bonkers PhD in his lap. Kirby shares some of his own, videos of Ned singing show tunes while assembling the newest Cryptonomica exhibit, glaring at the camera when he realizes it’s filming. Duck has no footage, but he does have some copies of tickets he gave Ned for increasingly bizarre antics over the years. Aubrey’s favourite is his 12 tickets for illegally feeding animals - apparently Ned made friends with a raccoon at one point.
The ache in her chest never goes away completely, but it softens. It starts to become something she can live with.
The show wraps up after two hours, but Aubrey has one last speech.
“To everyone who tuned in today, who came by to share their own stories, thank you. I know not everyone liked the Cryptonomica, or even Ned himself, but the outpouring of love has been beautiful to witness. Thank you, Kepler.” She grabs Ned’s cane, smiling despite everything. “Let’s give it up for Ned “Brave” Chicane.”
If she listens carefully, she can almost hear the applause.
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peach-punch-satan · 6 years
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AFTER SO LONG I FINALLY FINISHED UP WHAT I NEEDED TO DO FOR MY TAZ AMNESTY MOODBOARDS AND PLAYLIST! 
To be honest I had everything done except I just got lazy with uploading lmao. Now wait as I take forever to finish my TAZ Dust playlist! (Moodboards are done though)
As always here’s the link to the playlist and under the cut is the tracklist with 9 songs for each member of the trio and 5 songs each for Barclay, Mama, and Dani (Danny?) as well as a lyric to each song that I felt fit each character in some way!
Tracklist is written in order of the moodboards above so it should go: Aubrey, Duck, Ned, Barclay, Mama, and Dani (Danny?)
Please enjoy!
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDQk0bABGzY7uCZPnDYY5tBYBvGGtcbty
Aubrey:
She’s A Rebel by Green Day
- She’s a rebel
She’s a saint
She’s the salt of the earth
And she’s dangerous
She’s a rebel
Vigilante
Missing link on the brink
Of destruction
From Chicago to Toronto
She’s the one that they
Call old ‘whatsername’
She’s the symbol
Of resistance
And she’s holding on my heart
Like a hand grenade
Is she dreaming
what I’m thinking?
Is she the mother of all bombs?
Gonna detonate
Youngblood by Green Day
- I want to hold you like a gun
We’ll shoot the moon into the sun
Alright, alright
Are you stranded, like I’m stranded?
Do you want to watch the world fall to pieces?
Are you broken, like I’m broken?
Are you restless she said: “fuck you, I’m from Oakland!”
She’s my little youngblood
(Youngblood)
Punch-drunken youngblood
Make Me Feel by Janelle Monaé
- It’s like I’m powerful with a little bit of tender
An emotional, sexual bender
Mess me up, yeah, but no one does it better
There’s nothin’ better
That’s just the way you make me feel
That’s just the way you make me feel
So real, so good, so fuckin’ real
That’s just the way you make me feel
That’s just the way you make me feel
You know I love it, so please don’t stop it
You got me right here in your jean pocket (right now)
Laying your body on a shag carpet (oh)
You know I love it so please don’t stop it
The Phoenix by Fall Out Boy
- Strike a match and I’ll burn you to the ground
We are the jack-o-lanterns in July
Setting fire to the sky
Here, here comes this rising tide so come on
Put on your war paint
Cross walks and crossed hearts and hope to die
Seal the clouds with grey lining
So we can take the world back from the heart-attacked
One maniac at a time we will take it back
You know time crawls on when you’re waiting for the song to start
So dance along to the beat of your heart
Hey Youngblood doesn’t it feel like our time is running out
I’m going to change you like a remix
Then I’ll raise you like a phoenix
Wearing all vintage misery
No I think it looked a little better on me
Young and Menance by Fall Out Boy
- Woke up on the wrong side of reality
And there’s a madness that’s just coursing right through me
And as far as the time, far as the time
Not sure I’m there yet but I’m certain I’ve arrived
Oops I, did it again, I
Forgot what I was losing my mind about
I only wrote this down to make you press rewind
And send a message, “I was young and a menace”
Cherry Bomb by The Runaways
- Stone age love and strange sounds too.
Come on, baby, let me get to you.
Bad nights causing teenage blues.
Get down ladies, you’ve got nothin’ to lose.
Hello, daddy. Hello, mom.
I’m your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!
Hello world! I’m your wild girl.
I’m your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!
Caffiene by Jeff Williams (Feat. Casey Lee Williams and Lamar Hall)
- I’m a cheetah on the plains, I’m a highway star
A supersonic princess in a million dollar car
Blood on fire pumping through my veins
Weaving in and out while I’m bolting through the lanes
I’m hyperdrive, overdrive, hit the gas at fifty-five
Break neck, trainwreck, in my presence genuflect
Track-roundin’, speed-a-soundin’, electrifyin’, pulse-poundin’
Heart-pumpin’, brain-thumpin’, watch me get the party jumpin’
Caffeine
I’m Caffeine (Caffeine)
Caffeine
I’m Caffeine (Caffeine)
I’m a bad dream
I’m a rad scene
I’m a tad mean
But I’m not afraid to take you out (afraid to take you out)
I Burn by Jeff Williams (Feat. Casey Lee Williams and Lamar Hall)
- You’re standing too close to a flame that’s burning Hotter than the sun in the middle of July
Sending out your army, but you still can’t win Listen up, silly boy, ‘cuz I’m gonna tell you why
I burn! Can’t hold me now You got nothing that can stop me
I burn! Swing all you want Like a fever, I will take you down!
Take Your Time (Do It Right) by S.O.S. Band
- You know you ought to slow down
You been working too hard and that’s a fact
Sit back and relax a while
Take some time to laugh and smile
Lay your heavy load down
So we can stop and kick back
It seems we never take the time to do
All the things we want to, yeah
Now, baby we can do it
Take the time, do it right
We can do it, baby
Do it tonight 
Duck:
Wake Me Up by Avicci
- I tried carrying the weight of the world
But I only have two hands
Hope I get the chance to travel the world
But I don’t have any plans
Wish that I could stay forever this young
Not afraid to close my eyes
Life’s a game made for everyone
And love is a prize
So wake me up when it’s all over
When I’m wiser and I’m older
All this time I was finding myself, and I
Didn’t know I was lost
The Moss by Cosmo Sheldrake
- But have you heard the story of the rabbit in the moon?
Or the cow that hopped the planets while straddling a spoon
Or she, who leapt up mountains, while whistling up a tune
And swapped her songs with swallows while riding on a broom
Well, we can all learn things, both many and a-few
From that old hunched-up woman who lived inside a shoe
Or the girl that sang by day and by night she ate tear soup
Or the man who drank too much and he got the brewers’ droop
Legend has it that the moss grows on
The north side of the trees
Well, legend has it that when the rain comes down
All the worms come up to breathe
Well, legend has it when the sunbeams come
All the plants, they eat them with their leaves
Well, legend has it that the world spins round
On an axis of 23 degrees
Alien Days by MGMT
- Must’ve skipped the ship and joined the team
For a ride
A couple hours to learn the controls
And commandeer both my eyes
Hey!
Be quick dear, times are uncertain
One month crawling, next year blurring
Decades in the drain
Monograms on the brain
Decide what’s working and what’s moved on
To the last phase
The floodgate alien days
I love those alien days
Mmm… the alien days
When the peels are down, it feels like traveling in style
You don’t need wings to hover forty ton stones for a mile
And in the summer, virgin visions
Mindless humming
Numbers can’t decide if the day’s supposed to smile
Today find infinite ways it could be
Plenty worse
It’s a blessing but it’s also a curse
Those days taught me everything I know
How to catch a feeling
And when to let it go
How all the scheming, soulless creatures
Can’t find dreamer’s honey in the hive
If it’s right beneath the nose
Lake Shore Drive by Aliotta Haynes
- And there ain’t no road just like it
Anywhere I found
Running south on Lake Shore Drive heading into town
Just slippin’ on by on LSD, Friday night trouble bound
And it starts up north from Hollywood, water on the driving side
Concrete mountains rearing up, throwing shadows just about five
Sometimes you can smell the green if your mind is feeling fine
There ain’t no finer place to be, than running Lake Shore Drive
And there’s no peace of mind, or place you see, than riding on Lake Shore Drive
Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd
- If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be traveling on, now
Cause there’s too many places I’ve got to see
But, if I stayed here with you, girl
Things just couldn’t be the same
Cause I’m as free as a bird now
And this bird you can not change
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
And this bird you can not change
And this bird you can not change
Lord knows, I can’t change
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye (Feat. Tammi Terrell)
- Listen baby, ain’t no mountain high
Ain’t no valley low, ain’t no river wide enough baby
If you need me call me no matter where you are
No matter how far don’t worry baby
Just call my name I’ll be there in a hurry
You don’t have to worry
'Cause baby there ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough
Ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you babe
Remember the day I set you free
I told you you could always count on me darling
From that day on, I made a vow
I’ll be there when you want me
Some way, some how
'Cause baby there ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough
Ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you babe
Believer by Imagine Dragons
- I was choking in the crowd
Building my rain up in the cloud
Falling like ashes to the ground
Hoping my feelings, they would drown
But they never did, ever lived, ebbing and flowing
Inhibited, limited
'Til it broke up and it rained down
It rained down, like
You made me a, you made me a believer, believer
(Pain, pain)
You break me down, you built me up, believer, believer
(Pain)
I let the bullets fly, oh let them rain
My life, my love, my drive, it came from
(Pain)
You made me a, you made me a believer, believer
Fallout by Catfish And The Bottlemen
- So I spent my yesterday
Ducking your calls
And in fear that things would change
So I tidied up my place
'Cause you always told me
It got me thinking straight
Oh, but no, you still had to call
Oh, but no, you still had to come
But we just always
Seem to just fallout
When I’m most in need of it
And you just always
Seem to just call out
When I’m up for leaving it
You see now
I’m sorry if I drove, your matches to my clothes
But you know how I can get sometimes
Save Rock ‘n’ Roll by Fall Out Boy (Feat. Elton John)
- Whoa
How’d it get to be only me?
Like I’m the last damn kid still kicking
That still believes
I will defend the faith
Going down swinging
I will save the songs
That we can’t stop singing
No, No
Wherever I go, go
Trouble seems to follow
I only plugged in to save rock and roll, rock and roll
No, No
Wherever I go, go
Trouble seems to follow
I only plugged in to save rock and roll 
Ned:
Trouble Comes A Knocking by Timber Timbre
- I want your money
But your money ain’t right
So I’m packing it in
I stay at home every night
And, our place had cleared out
The bad luck had fallen
And no one came knocking
No one came calling
And when things got real bad
Oh, people got scared
Well I got worried
So we took what we could get
And all you fair-weather watchers
Watch out and beware
When your trouble comes knocking
I hope you ain’t there
Troublemaker by Weezer
- I’m such a mystery as anyone can see
There isn’t anybody else exactly quite like me
And when it’s party time, like 1999
I’ll party by myself because I’m such a special guy
I’m a troublemaker, never been a faker
Doing things my own way and never giving up
I’m a troublemaker, not a double-taker
I don’t have the patience to keep it on the up
Movin’ Out by Billy Joel
- Sergeant O'Leary is walkin’ the beat
At night he becomes a bartender
He works at Mister Cacciatore’s down
On Sullivan Street
Across from the medical center
He’s tradin’ in his Chevy for a Cadillac
You oughta know by now
And if he can’t drive
With a broken back
At least he can polish the fenders
It seems such a waste of time
If that’s what it’s all about
Mama if that’s movin’ up
Then I’m movin’ out
I’m movin’ out
You should never argue with a crazy mind (mmm)
You oughta know by now
You can pay Uncle Sam with the overtime
Is that all you get for your money
If that’s what you have in mind
If that’s what you’re all about
Good luck movin’ up
'Cause I’m moving out
I Fought The Law by The Clash
- I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I lost my girl and I lost my fun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I left my baby and it feels so bad
Guess my race is run
She’s the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
Should I Stay (Or Should I Go) by The Clash
- This indecision’s bugging me (esta indecision me molesta)
If you don’t want me, set me free (si no me quieres, librame)
Exactly whom I’m supposed to be (digame que tengo ser)
Don’t you know which clothes even fit me? (no sabes que ropas me queda)
Come on and let me know (me tienes que decir)
Should I cool it or should I blow? (me debo ir o quedarme)
Split
Should I stay or should I go now? (yo me enfrio o lo soplo)
Should I stay or should I go now? (yo me enfrio o lo soplo)
If I go there will be trouble (si me voy va a haber peligro)
And if I stay it will be double (si me quedo sera el doble)
So ya gotta let me know (me tienes que decir)
Should I cool it or should I blow? (me debo ir o quedarme)
Should I stay or should I go now? (tengo frío por los ojos)
If I go there will be touble (tengo frio por los ojos)
And if I stay it wil be double
Feel It Still by Portugal. The Man
- Got another mouth to feed
Leave her with a baby sitter, mama, call the grave digger
Gone with the fallen leaves
Am I coming out of left field?
Ooh woo, I’m a rebel just for kicks, now
I been feeling it since 1966, now
Might’ve had your fill, but you feel it still
Ooh woo, I’m a rebel just for kicks, now
Let me kick it like it’s 1986, now
Might be over now, but I feel it still
We could fight a war for peace
(Ooh woo, I’m a rebel just for kicks, now)
Give in to that easy living
Goodbye to my hopes and dreams
Stop flipping for my enemies
We could wait until the walls come down
(Ooh woo, I’m a rebel just for kicks, now)
It’s time to give a little to the
Kids in the middle, but oh 'til it falls
Won’t bother me
Highway To Hell by AC/DC
- Living easy, living free
Season ticket on a one-way ride
Asking nothing, leave me be
Taking everything in my stride
Don’t need reason, don’t need rhyme
Ain’t nothing I would rather do
Going down, party time
My friends are gonna be there too
I’m on the highway to hell
On the highway to hell
Highway to hell
I’m on the highway to hell
No stop signs, speed limit
Nobody’s gonna slow me down
Like a wheel, gonna spin it
Nobody’s gonna mess me around
Hey Satan, paid my dues
Gold On The Ceiling by The Black Keys
- Clouds covered love’s
Barb-wired snare
Strung up, strung out
I just can’t go without
I could never drown in
They wanna get my
They wanna get my
Gold on the ceiling
I ain’t blind
Just a matter of time
Before you steal it
It’s alright
Ain’t no guard in my house
The Ballad of Bull Ramos by The Mountain Goats
- Drive a great big truck When I’m old, when I’m old Haul the wrecks down to the wreck yard Help the boys unload
Keep my hair nice and long Because I can, because I can
Any of my old friends who have no place to turn to They know to call me any time they come through
Never die, never die
Stand with a bullwhip in my hand
And rise, rise
In the desert sand
Barclay:
The Chain by Fleetwood Mac
- Listen to the wind blow down comes the night
Running in the shadows damn your love, damn your lies
Break the silence, damn the dark, damn the light
And if, you don’t love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
You would never break the chain (Never break the chain)
Float On by Modest Mouse
- I backed my car into a cop car the other day
Well, he just drove off - sometimes life’s okay
I ran my mouth off a bit too much, ah what did I say?
Well, you just laughed it off and it was all okay
And we’ll all float on okay
And we’ll all float on okay
And we’ll all float on okay
And we’ll all float on anyway, well
A fake Jamaican took every last dime with that scam
It was worth it just to learn some sleight of hand
Bad news comes, don’t you worry even when it lands
Good news will work it way to all them plans
We both got fired on, exactly, the same day
Well, we’ll float on, good news is on the way
Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra
- Hey you with the pretty face
Welcome to the human race
A celebration, mister blue sky’s up there waitin’
And today is the day we’ve waited for
Oh mister blue sky please tell us why
You had to hide away for so long (so long)
Where did we go wrong?
Hey there mister blue
We’re so pleased to be with you
Look around see what you do
Everybody smiles at you
Come A Little Bit Closer by Jay and The Americans
- Then I heard the guitar player say
“Vamos, Jose’s on his way”
Then I knew, yes I knew I should run
But then I heard her say, yeah
“Come a little bit closer
You’re my kind of man
So big and so strong
Come a little bit closer
I’m all alone and the night is so long”
Then the music stopped
When I looked the cafe was empty
Then I heard Jose say
“Man, you know you’re in trouble plenty”
So I dropped my drink from my hand
And out through the window I ran
And as I rode away
I could hear her say to Jose, yeah
“Come a little bit closer
You’re my kind of man
So big and so strong
Come a little bit closer
I’m all alone and the night is so long”
Black Water by Timber Timbre
- You’ve fallen barefoot past the treeline
Peeping boned-eyed, birches sway
And a thousand whitefish floating belly up
In the spirit that I crave
And we threw ourselves right into it
Where lay the bodies had been claimed
We dove a third, a fourth, a fifth
Banned to the spirit that I crave
All I need is some sunshine
All I need
All I need is some sunshine
All I need
I found empathy from madness
Deliverance from malaise
My heart is filled with gladness
And you’re the only spirit that I crave
All I need is some sunshine
All I need
All I need is some sunshine
All I need
Black Water (pull me down)
Black Water (pull me down)
Mama:
Come to Mama by Lady Gaga
- Dude in a lab coat and a man of God
(Come onto mama, come on, mama)
Fought over prisms and a forty-day flood
(Come onto mama, come on, mama)
Well, I say rainbows did more than they’ve ever done
So why do we gotta fight over ideas?
We’re talkin’ the same old shit after all of these years
Come to mama
Tell me who hurt ya
There’s gonna be no future
If we don’t figure this out
Oh, come tomorrow
Who are you gonna follow?
There’s gonna be no future
If we don’t figure this out
Psychic guru catches minnows in the harbor
(Come onto mama, come on, mama)
Everyone tells him he should work a little harder (hey man get to work, catch up)
(Come onto mama, come on, mama)
They all tell you that freedom must be bought
But, baby, he’s already caught them
So why do we gotta tell each other how to live?
The only prisons that exist are ones we put each other in
Similau by Peggy Lee
- Spirit in the wood beat the hollow cane
Spirit in the wood take away the pain
Make the body ripe and alive again
I Similau (I Similau, I Similau)
Spirit in the heart make the blood flow fast
Spirit in the heart make the beauty last
Keep the hope alive when the youth go past
I Similau (I Similau, I Similau)
When my lover comes upon the scene
Drop a petal from the tree
Fling the mountain up into the sky
Fill the river with the sea
Spirit in the wood let the hollow cane
Echo in the afterglow
Waiting for the flame to burn again
I Similau (I Similau I Similau)
On Your Way by Alabama Shakes
- On your way to God,
Did you think of me?
On your way to heaven,
Did you say “I’ll see you again”?
It wasn’t me, why wasn’t it me?
On your way to to the promised land, did you say
“Oh, she was such a friend”?
Then they took you higher and
I don’t know if I can follow…
It wasn’t me, why wasn’t it me?
On your way, I said to the air,
I don’t know if I am strong.
So I climbed to the mountain
And I don’t know what I did wrong
And it was just me, just little ole me…
Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand
- So if you’re lonely
You know I’m here waiting for you
I’m just a cross hair
I’m just a shot away from you
And if you leave here
You leave me broken, shattered, I lie
I’m just a cross hair
I’m just a shot, then we can die
I know I won’t be leaving here with you
I say don’t you know
You say you don’t know
I say, take me out!
I say you don’t show
Don’t move, tide is low
I say, take me out!
I say you don’t know
You say you don’t know
I say, take me out!
If I move this could die
Eyes move this can die
I want you to take me out
I know I won’t be leaving here (with you)
I know I won’t be leaving here
Jackie and Wilson by Hozier
- She blows out of nowhere, roman candle of the wild
Laughing away through my feeble disguise
No other version of me I would rather to be tonight
Lord she found me just in time
'Cause with my mid-youth crisis all said and done
I need to be youthfully felt, 'cause God I never felt young
She’s gonna save me call me baby run her hands through my hair
She’ll know me crazy, soothe me daily, but yet she wouldn’t care
We’ll steal her Lexus, be detectives, ride round pickin’ up clues
We’ll name our children Jackie and Wilson, 'raise em on rhythm and blues
Dani (Danny?):
Dance Apocolyptic by Janelle Monaé
- You’re going crazy, the hitmen always finds you
Do that dance, smoking in the girls room
Kissin’ French, it’s over like a comic book
Exploding in a bathroom stall (AH!)
She’s so freaked out, worrying about the bomb threat
You bought a house, but I’m allergic to the house pets
Credit cards
They bought a new wife for shiny little lonely men
But I really, really want to thank you for dancing 'til the end
You found a way to break out
You’re not afraid to break out
But I need to know if the world says it’s time to go Tell me, will you freak out? Smash, smash, bang, bang Don’t stop Chalang-alang-alang
But I need to know if the world says its time to go
Tell me, will you break out?
Smash, smash, bang, bang
Don’t stop, chalangalangalang
Smash, smash, bang, bang
Don’t stop, chalang-alang-alang)
Stand By Me by Ben E. King (Florence + The Machine cover)
- If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
And the mountain should crumble to the sea
I won’t cry, I won’t cry
No I won’t shed a tear
Just as long as you stand, stand by me
And darling, darling stand by me
Oh, stand by me
Stand by me, stand by me, stand by me
Whenever you’re in trouble won’t you stand by me
Oh, now, now, stand by me
Oh, stand by me, stand by me, stand by me
Bmblb by Jeff Williams (Feat. Casey Lee Williams)
- We’ll sit for a while
As I drink in your smile
It feels like a dream that’s come true
My head starts to buzz
And my heart fills with love over you
Baby can’t you see?
You could be with me
We could live inside a garden of ecstasy
You could be my queen
I could be your dream
Life’s like a fantasy
Maybe set me free
Let me be your bumblebee
Now the flowers are in bloom
And you’ve chased away my darkness and gloom
When the wind blows through the trees
And your voice is like a song in the breeze
My doubts disappear every time that you’re near
Clouds seem to run from the sky
The thought of your kiss sends my soul into bliss
I get high
Take Me To Church by Hozier (Neon Jungle Cover)
- If I’m a pagan of the good times
My lover’s the sunlight
To keep the Goddess on my side
She demands a sacrifice
To drain the whole sea
Get something shiny
Something meaty for the main course
That’s a fine looking high horse
What you got in the stable?
We’ve a lot of starving faithful
That looks tasty
That looks plenty
This is hungry work
Take me to church
I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life
Angel of The Morning by Juice Newton
- Maybe the sun’s light will be dim
And it won’t matter anyhow
If morning’s echo says we’ve sinned
It was what I wanted now
And if we’re victims of the night
I won’t be blinded by the light
Just call me angel of the morning, (angel)
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby
Just call me angel of the morning, (angel)
Then slowly turn away
I won’t beg you to stay with me
Through the tears of the day, of the years
Baby, baby, baby
176 notes · View notes
traincat · 6 years
Note
If you're still taking word meme requests, how about the spirit of the internet: cat/camera?
I’m not, but since you picked ‘cat’, I’m going to take the opportunity to fic amnesty this accidental kitten acquisition Spideytorch WIP. This was originally supposed to be the sequel to New York Minute, which I wrote after CACW came out to play around with what we knew of MCU Peter at that time, hence the appearance of Claire Temple in this fic. I told myself I should finish it before Homecoming came out, which I obviously didn’t, and then that all happened, so I’ve kind of lost the taste for finishing it now, but a pretty big chunk of it is written. I was going to turn it into an established Spideytorch version of The Coming of Galactus, so I cut those parts in case I want to use them in a separate fic later. What’s left is fluff:
Itwas raining when Peter found the kitten. Three pounds of soaked fluff, it was staggeringaround down in the gutter on Mott Street, so light in Peter’s hand when hescooped it up that it seemed to weigh less than nothing, at once the lightestand heaviest thing he’d ever held.
“Heythere, buddy,” he said to it. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Thenoise it made was tiny and pitiable, a squeak instead of a meow.
“Iknow that feeling,” he said, fumbling a one-handed swing up off the street andonto the nearest fire escape, out of the rain where it was dry, if stillmiserably cold. Peter’s breath ghosted up through his mask like fog. “Alright,let’s figure out where the nearest place I can get you dropped off is…”
Awarenessprickled across his neck as people down below gasped. His head snapped up justin time to see the final letters form fiery in the sky: WE NEED TOTALK.
“Seriously?”Peter said, squinting up at the bright flickering letters. “Right now? He’sgonna do this to me right now?”
Thekitten squirmed in his grasp, tiny little needle teeth and claws sinking intothe heel of his palm. Peter shushed it, wincing when it just earned him more ofa struggle.
Asecond message appeared under the first, a bad side effect of having beentangled up in each other for almost two years: RIGHT NOW.
The‘idiot’ was unwritten, but read all the same. Peter cringed.
“Man,the media’s going to have a field day with this one,” he told the kitten,bringing it up to his face. It squirmed in displeasure. “Okay, emergencyboyfriend detour. At least he’ll warm you up while he’s biting my head off.”
 They’dtalked about it early on and agreed that theirs was a relationship best kept secret,at least from the public and at least for now.
Itwas on both of them, really. Peter, obviously, had his dual identity – wouldJohnny date Peter Parker, or would he date Spider-Man? They went back and forthon it, unhappy with either option -- and his ten-ton bag of neuroses related toit – would someone try to hurt Johnny, if he was with Spider-Man? Johnny alwayssniped back that he could take care of himself, like Peter had never had tofree him from a glass cage and a team of supervillains before.
Wouldsomeone try to hurt Peter’s aunt, if they knew Johnny was dating Peter? Thatone made even Johnny fall silent.
AndJohnny had his life – his very, very public life, and the dozens of maniacalweirdos who regularly tried to blast him and his family into space or trap themin an underground kingdom. Spider-Man had enough enemies; Peter Parker didn’tneed to be a target on top of that. So that was that. Table the discussion,revisit at a later date, and keep Peter’s face out of any and all Snapchatstories
Johnnywasn’t built for secret-keeping, though. It weighed on him, made him squirmwhen interviews asked about his love life, if there was anyone special. Madehim angry when people accused him of making his mystery boy up. Made him twisthis fingers in Peter’s hair, head thrown back, begging him to bite instead ofkiss, leave a string of marks up his neck, proof of their time together that hecould see and touch and feel even when they weren’t together, to grip histhighs harder when he spread him out.
And,okay, Peter got a little jealous sometimes – Johnny, just turned nineteen andgorgeous, had celebrities and billionaires and other, mask-less superheroeslined up around the block to date him. How could Peter compete? Peter, who,when he was lucky, had enough money to bring snacks to movie night?
Movienight, which was always at the Baxter Building. Because Peter had a secretidentity.
Okay,so it was mostly on Peter. What else was new.
Andthen there was college.
“What’sso wrong with a gap year?” Johnny had asked, straddling Peter’s lap andplastering roughly three bandaids too many across a fresh scrape on hisforehead. Peter healed too fast for minor injuries to need patching up, butJohnny didn’t seem to care. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
Peterhad a handful of college acceptances; Johnny had a reluctance Peter didn’tunderstand and Johnny wouldn’t explain. With the Fantastic Four’s money, hecould have gone anywhere he wanted, done anything he wanted, and instead he’ddecided to stay home and help his sister pick invitations and tableclothcolors.
“You’vealready had a gap year,” Peter had pointed out, perhaps unwisely. Johnnyhuffed, dramatic. Peter squeezed his waist, apologetic.
“Butnot with you,” Johnny said, sliding out of Peter’s lap to put the first aid kitaway. “We could do Europe! The whole backpacking thing, it’d be fun.”
“Yeah,I, um, I’m picturing you in a crappy hostel and it’s…” Peter trailed off,laughing helplessly. Johnny smacked him over the head. “Ow!”
“Baby.You didn’t even feel that.” Johnny yawned, settling back down next to Peter onthe bed. He grabbed Peter’s hand, twining their fingers together. He droppedhis head to Peter’s shoulder. “I could totally do the hostel thing.”
“I’dget stuck carrying both our improbably giant backpacks,” Peter said, smirkingand abandoning Johnny’s hand in favor of his hair, curling sweetly across hisforehead. He tugged gently, forcing Johnny to look up just enough so Petercould kiss him. “We’d – we’d die on Everest, probably.”
Johnnylaughed. “That’s not even in Europe.”
“We’ddie on some big mountain in Europe,” Peter amended, just to keep Johnnylaughing. “Very tragic. Floundering around in the snow…” He tossed an armdramatically over his eyes. “Go on without me, Johnny!”
“Iwouldn’t,” Johnny promised, all sincerity. “I’d keep you warm.”
“Iknow,” Peter said, kissing him softly. “You gotta go to college.”
“Nextsemester, maybe,” Johnny huffed. Peter stroked his jaw with the back of hisknuckles and hummed disapprovingly, a poor copy of May’s signature tone. “I’mhelping Sue with the wedding. You know I’m helping Sue with the wedding.”
Becausepicking flowers really takes up all of your free time, Peter wantedto say, but it seemed unimportant in the face of Johnny swinging himself up andinto Peter’s lap, straddling him and running his hands down Peter’s chest, hismouth hot over Peter’s.
Peterslipped a hand up the back of Johnny’s shirt and decided to postpone the argument.
Whichjust meant that when they had the argument, it went much, much worse.
(blah blah blah)
 “Right,”Johnny said, voice tight and eyes damp, angry flushed all over, “because it’s reallymy brains you date me for.”
Itfelt like Peter had been sucker punched. It hurt a whole lot worse than that.
“Johnny,”he said, not fast enough. He reached for him, not fast enough.
“Getout,” Johnny said. When Peter didn’t move, he repeated it, hotter in more waysthan one. “Get out!”
“We’reat the Statue of Liberty, where am I supposed to go?” Peter demanded.
“Fine!”Johnny shouted. He lit himself all the way up and took off, an angry trail offire in the sky.
Peterknew he should have followed him. He still didn’t.
 Johnnywas loitering out on the rooftop, the heat shimmer around him keeping the worstof the drizzle away. He jumped a little when Peter landed behind him, spinningaround. It wasn’t fair how the first sight of him after any time apart, be itminutes or days, took Peter’s breath away.
“Hi,”he said. He wanted to rip off the mask and kiss Johnny in the rain, like ascene out of a movie, but he didn’t know if he was allowed. People touchedJohnny without his permission all the time, like being famous meant they wereallowed, like his celebrity meant they owned him. Peter hadsworn he was never going to be like that, so his hands stayed at his sides.
Correction:one hand stayed at his side. The other one stayed on the cat.
“Hi,”Johnny echoed, sounding miserable. Then his gaze dropped to the tiny bundleheld in Peter’s hand. “Is that a kitten?”
Hisvoice had risen sharply. Peter blinked.
“Uh,pretty sure,” Peter said. “But did you ever hear the one about the little oldlady and the Chihuahua?”
Johnnywasn’t listening, though – he scooped the cat up out of Peter’s hold and, toPeter’s alarm, started cooing at it.
“It’sso little!” he said. The kitten didn’t try to bite Johnny at all, which Peterfelt was unfair. “Where’d you find it? Are you keeping it? It’s all cold! Weshould take it to Sue.”
“Uh,”Peter said, but Johnny was already headed for the rooftop elevator. Peter hadthe speed advantage when Johnny was flamed off, but he still had to scramble tokeep up.
  (blah blah blah)
 “Ifsomething’s not on fire, I’m going to –” Sue went slightly cross-eyed as Johnnyshoved the cat in her face. “Where did that come from?”
“Peterbrought it,” Johnny said, handing his sister the kitten.
“Oh,of course,” Sue said, rolling her eyes a little.
“Hey,”Peter protested, futilely.
Suetook the cat gingerly from Johnny’s hands and carefully turned it over. Itdidn’t yowl for her either; Peter couldn’t exactly blame it for being weak forthe Storm siblings.
“She,”Sue said. “It’s a she.”
  (blah blah blah)
 “Iwas going to apologize,” Johnny said. “I know I kind of blew up on you theother day. I was just being dumb.”
“No,”Peter said. “It’s my fault. I was – I was being my aunt.” He inhaled sharplythrough his nose. “I didn’t mean to be like that. I just – I worry about you.”
“Don’t?”Johnny implored, leaning into Peter. He tilted his head; Peter read the silentcue and kissed him. It was soft and sweet, an apology pressed to Johnny’s lips.
“Youknow, right?” Peter said. “That I don’t think you’re dumb?”
Johnnyshrugged, gaze fixed on the cat, eyes shadowed by long lashes.
“Idon’t think you’re dumb,” Peter said.
“Okay,”Johnny said. Peter waited, but he didn’t continue. 
Aftera moment, though, he reached out and took Peter’s hand. Peter rubbed a thumbover his knuckles and tried not to ruin the moment.
“Wehad a cat, before,” Johnny said, out of nowhere. He flipped Peter’s hand over,holding it in both of his. “Back in Glenville. Left her with the neighbors whenSue and I went out to California for Reed’s big project.” He was quiet for along moment, idly drawing patterns on Peter’s palm. He always got quiet when hetalked about life before the crash, like he didn’t really want to think aboutit. “They left the door open one day and she ran out. Didn’t bother to tell usuntil Sue and I went to get her, after the accident.”
Peterturned his head and kissed Johnny on the temple.
“M’sorry,”he said. “World sucks, sometimes.”
“Yeah,”Johnny agreed. “But you don’t.”
“Yeah?”Peter said.
“Yougot me a kitten,” Johnny said, settling his head down on Peter’s shoulder andlacing their fingers together. “Best boyfriend ever.”
Peterbit his tongue before he said anything to the contrary.
 Thecat didn’t love Peter.
Thecat kind of hated him, actually.
“Whoa,hey!” Peter said, spider-sense tingling. He jumped back when the cat, ears allpulled back, took a swing at his hand and only his ability to stick to wallsand spider-given grace kept him from toppling right back out of Johnny’swindow.
“Louis!”Johnny scolded, scooping the cat off the windowsill. Instantly the cat wentboneless and starry-eyed, letting Johnny skritch it under the chin.
Okay,Peter thought, shaking out his hand even though the cat had barely madecontact, he knew that feeling all too well. “Louis?”
“Vuitton,”Johnny said, putting the cat down on the bed. It purred at Johnny, and thenturned those eyes on Peter like it knew exactly what his evening plans hadbeen. “I’m doing an ad campaign.”
“Ofcourse you are,” Peter said, rolling his eyes under the mask a little. Not thathe cared what Johnny called the cat – Monster would’ve beenPeter’s choice. Louis Vuitton eyed him from Johnny’s bed like she knew as shedisdainfully washed herself.
Heswung a leg over the sill and Johnny met him halfway, sliding Peter’s mask upover his nose so he could kiss him. “Hi.”
“Hi,”Peter replied, sealing his lips over Johnny’s.
Therewas a crash. Johnny startled; Peter grabbed at him out of instinct, mostly,spinning them around so whatever Dragon Man or the weirdo with a sound hand orwhoever it was this day would have to go through him, first.
Thenhe realized his spider-sense was silent.
Hejust stood there, stunned at the lack of any explosion or ensuingultraviolence, while Johnny burst out laughing.
  (blah blah blah)
 “Sowe meet again, Spider-Boy,” Claire Temple said when he limped his way into herclinic on a Thursday night, blood dripping down his arm and making a mess outof her floors.
“Spider-Man,”he corrected. It was their usual greeting exchange. No hi, how are yous, savedany good cities lately for Peter, no, it was always with the name mockery.
“Upon the table,” she said. “Let me see what I’m working with here.”
  (blah blah blah)
 Petersighed, long and low, and rolled his masked head in Claire’s direction. “I’mMystery Boy.”
“Yousure are,” Claire said, still stitching up his arm.
“Imean, I’m that Mystery Boy,” Peter said. Claire’s faceremained blank of recognition, her gaze steady on her work. “The Human Torch’s?You know, Johnny Storm?”
“I’veheard of him,” Claire said mildly.
Petersquinted at her from behind the mask. “Do you like, not have the internet?”
Sheglanced up. “Don’t make the nice lady with the needle hurt you.”
“Hey,just asking,” he said, holding up the hand belonging to the arm not currentlybeing stitched.
“I’mfamiliar with his sister’s work,” Claire said after a beat. “And it’s hard toavoid his face when you’re in the supermarket checkout. Cute, if I were ten years younger.”
“TheHuman Torch has a boyfriend,” Peter said. “His face isn’t in anything buty’know, you can see parts of him in photos.” Claire quirked an eyebrow. Peterfelt his face heat up. “Not that kind of parts.”
“Good,”Claire said, returning to his arm. “Not that I can tell with the full bodycostume and the lack of ID, but you do seem on the young side.”
“Justlike. A hand, a knee. But there’s definitely a guy, um, a boyfriend,” Petersaid. “And that’s me. I’m Mystery Boy.”
Clairewhistled.
“MysteryBoy, Spider-Man… you lead a complicated life, kid,” she said.
“Tellme about it,” Peter sighed. “I got him a cat.”
“Acat?” Claire repeated.
“Ididn’t mean to!” Peter said. “We were having an argument, and I showed up withthe cat, and then he had to go and fall in love with it!”
“Whydid you show up to an argument with a cat?” Claire said.
“Lady,look at what I’m wearing,” Peter said. “My life is just weird.”
“Noarguments there. Alright, we’re about done here. You love him?” she asked,looking him straight in the mask.
“I– yeah,” Peter said, sitting up and ducking his head. “Yeah, I love him. A lot.”
“Alright.”Claire smiled, pressing a cell phone into Peter’s hand. “Then call him to comeget you, because there’s no way you’re swinging anywhere on that arm tonight.”
Petergroaned. “He’s gonna yell at me.”
“Good.Someone should, and I have enough vigilantes to yell at as it is,” Claire said,cleaning up.
  (blah blah blah)
 “Nope,”Johnny said, kissing Peter square on the lips, short and sweet. “Bed now.Stupid argument later.”
Heshoved and Peter let himself be shoved, down onto Johnny’s plush mattress. Hesighed and pressed his face into the pillow, wiggling under the covers. After asecond Johnny joined him, knees knocking, warm toes against Peter’s cold feet.
“Hey,”Peter said without opening his eyes. He buzzed with awareness – not quitespider-sense, but a pleasant alternative, the electric tingle of Johnny in bednext to him, the soft sound of his breath and the bonfire-faded cologne scentof him. “You know I love you, right?”
Johnnybreathed out, slow, and settled his head on Peter’s shoulder. “I love you.”
“Nice,”Peter said, smiling.
Johnnyflung an arm over Peter’s chest and Peter hummed sleepily, relaxing into hishold.
Hewoke up around sunrise to the pad of paws on the pillow, a two second warningbefore five pounds of fluff settled on top of his head and immediately startedpurring. A tail swished in his eye.
“Ihate this,” Peter said without conviction.
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netgirl-y2k · 6 years
Text
wip amnesty day
fics that I’m never going to finish - one (1) Pitch, one (1) PoI, both femslash, both stop mid-sentence.
Pitch, Ginny/Amelia, fake dating 
Ginny found out she was dating Amelia the same way she found out pretty much everything about her life these days: from baseball gossip blogs.
"We're dating?" she hissed into the phone.
"There's a picture of us, from that night outside your hotel room..?" Amelia said it almost like Ginny might not remember.
And as much as Ginny might like to forget that she had called a woman who wasn't her agent, in floods of tears, to fly from New York to Arizona, and then later, out of her mind on painkillers and despair, had tried to kiss her outside her hotel room... Well, it was pretty hard to forget.
Ginny made a noncommittal noise and Amelia said, "The blogmaster called for a comment--" Ginny could almost hear Amelia's inaudible, put-upon sigh "--and Eliot answered."
"Amelia, we're not--?"
"Ginny," Amelia interrupted smoothly. "This isn't going to be like the time you believed Yardbarker that you were going to need tommy john surgery even after the Padres own doctors had said you wouldn't, is it?"
"...No."
*
Ginny was in an empty hotel meeting room with Amelia and Eliot.
"Okay," said Amelia, shaking out her blonde hair. "This is fixable."
"Why did you tell that blogger I was dating Amelia?" asked Ginny, and she actually felt a little bit sorry for Eliot, who looked like he wanted to crawl inside his tablet and die.
"I panicked, okay? They sent me that photo of the two of you, um--" Eliot choked a little "--and I didn't know what to say. I didn't even know that you liked girls, Ginny!" He shot a panicked look at Amelia. "Women. Like women, I mean."
Ginny stared at her sneakers and wanted to fall through the floor. "It's not something I've ever really explored."
"Why not?" Amelia asked gently, and something in Ginny's chest clenched.
"For the same reason I don't sleep with my teammates," said Ginny. "I get enough crap as it is without inviting any additional bullshit."
"This is how we'll handle it," said Amelia, all business again. "The photograph is already out there, and there's nothing we can do about that now. But on the bride side, we're in Arizona--" Ginny had come down to Arizona early to recuperate out of the limelight before spring training, and as far as Amelia was concerned they might as well be on Mars. "So this is our story: Ginny, you and I have been dating on and off for a few months--"
"Why on and off?" Eliot asked, tapping notes into his tablet.
"Because we don't want Ginny's legions of fans to think she's been cheating on her girlfriend with a tech billionaire."
Ginny groaned. The thing with Noah had sort of fizzled out; a bit because watching your MLB playing girlfriend train in Arizona sounded much sexier than watching your sort of girlfriend sulk and bitch about her physical therapy in Arizona, and partly because his advice that there should only be one voice on the mound had turned out to be crap; they had stats geeks in baseball for a reason.
"I've come to Arizona to help Ginny through her injury and work on our relationship. Before spring training starts we'll pretend to break up for good. The media can spin its wheels while you're out of the limelight, and it'll make it easier for you later if a relationship with a woman is something you do want to explore for real."
Amelia looked questioningly at Ginny, and because it sounded better to her than admitting that she'd overdone the painkillers and decided to add a sexuality crisis to her ongoing career crisis, Ginny nodded.
*
Mike had come to Arizona early too; his knees demanded that he spend some time with the physios.
"Mike, hold up!" Ginny called after him.
"What's up, rookie?"
"Um. So. You might hear a rumour that I'm dating Amelia."
Mike blinked; he blinked again, and said, "I'm getting back together with Rachel."
"Okay."
"Okay, then."
*
The picture was everywhere online; Ginny's hand curled around Amelia's bicep, her head tilted to one side and leaning close to kiss Amelia. The picture didn't show what had happened next; Amelia pushing Ginny away by the shoulders, her soft, admonishing Ginny; in the picture it looked like Amelia was about to kiss back.
GINNY BAKER LESBIAN??? was the title of the online gossip piece the picture was attached to; Amelia had rolled her eyes and said that more than one question mark was redundant when Eliot had first shown them the blog.
Back in her hotel room Ginny couldn't help but click back to the blog, although she hadn't been able to bring herself to read more than the first paragraph. She slammed her laptop closed and picked up the remote control.
"...So it doesn't matter if Ginny Baker is gay, bi, or just has damn good taste in women; her girlfriend is hotter than any of the neckbeards complaining online could ever dream of catching."
There was a knock at the door, and Ginny let it swing open allowing Amelia in.
"Katie Nolan thinks you're hot." Ginny gestured towards the television before clicking it off.
"I just came to see how you're coping with all this."
Ginny shrugged. "Okay. I was actually thinking that maybe we should be seen together more, seeing as we're supposed to be a couple."
Amelia's mouth quirked up. "Like a date?"
"Just dinner, here at the hotel."
"You really know how to show a girl a good time, Baker."
"I--"
"No, it's a good idea." Amelia grinned. "I'll tell you what though, fake date or not, I'm not picking out your outfit for you. You'll have to dress yourself."
"I think I can manage that."
*
Ginny hadn't felt bad about losing touch with Tommy after he'd been traded to Chicago, at least she hadn't until she'd realised that she didn't even have his number and had to ask Blip for it.
She'd had to listen to a ridiculous amount of bragging about how he had a world series ring now, but Tommy had spent the first few months of Ginny's rookie season out with a broken hand, so he could kind of understand what she was growing through.
She wasn't sure how helpful his advice that she should "be a total bitch to whoever they bring in to pitch your spot", but it did make her laugh.
After the story about her and Amelia broke he texted her a series of emojis that Ginny had to turn her phone on its side and squint to understand, and when she did she stuffed her phone down the side of the couch cushions with a , "Jesus, Tommy."
*
Dressing for dinner with Amelia was trickier than Ginny had expected; it wasn't a date, but it had to look like a date to onlookers. Plus, it had to be something she could get into by herself with her arm still immobilized and in a sling.
She wrestled herself into a black dress missing Evelyn the whole time; she left her hair down because she couldn't put it up one handed, and kept her makeup to lip gloss and mascara, things she couldn't mess up with her off hand.
Evelyn
PoI, Root/Shaw, the never to be continued continuation of this
Shaw walked down the New York City street, Bear's leash in her hand and the sun at her back. She felt... okay.
A payphone started ringing as she walked past, she stopped, and picked up the receiver.
"Sameen." The rebooted Machine was still using Root's voice. Shaw looked up and found a security camera blinking at her; she smiled. "Can you hear me?"
The camera blinked again. Shaw's vision whited-out, and she could feel Bear's leash dissolving in her hand; the simulation was resetting.
No.
Shaw couldn't see properly; removing the VR goggles and the hospital strip-lighting had been what caused her vision to white-out. There was a blurry figure hovering over her, and she struck out at where she guessed the Samaritan goon's throat was.
The flunky fell back with an audible ack. Shaw rolled to her feet, blinked, and the figure sprawled on her floor and clutching at her throat resolved into...
"...Root?"
"Hey, sweetie." Root croaked. "Miss me?"
Root was dead; she'd taken six millimeters of lead to the chest and died alone. Shaw wanted to kiss her; Shaw wanted her gone.
"Do you have a gun?" she asked instead. Sometimes there was an axe in the simulations, sometimes not; a gun would be better.
Root looked long and painful at Shaw, forced the puppyish expression from her face, nodded briskly once, and said, "I know where to get one."
She scrambled to her feet and pulled open the door. Stewart the creepy medtech was out cold in the hallway, his face an unhealthy shade of blue. Root grabbed one of his ankles and began tugging him through the doorway by inches.
During one of the first simulations, somewhere in the early hundreds, Samaritan, or Shaw's subconscious or whatever, had forgotten that Root had all the upper body strength of wet spaghetti, and she'd been able to lift Shaw clear off her feet during foreplay.
Shaw pressed down hard on the skin behind her ear, grabbed Stewart's other ankle and hauled him into the room. Root found a Glock 26 in his ankle holster, which was apparently the only gun he carried.
Shaw held out her hand for the gun.
"Sameen..." Root began. She dropped the hand holding the gun to her side, but stopped short of hiding it behind her back.
"Root."
"Look, the only reason we're not swarming in Samaritan agents is that She's interfering with their surveillance somehow. I don't know how long we've got."
"Then you'd better hand over that gun."
Root sighed audibly, and offered Shaw the gun butt first. Shaw took it and said, "Can your Computer Overlord find us a way out of here?"
Root hummed and pushed her hair back over her shoulder, tilting her head to show off the line of stitches running down from behind her ear where her cochlear implant had been removed. The stitches looked more or less professional; they'd probably scar, though they didn't look infected.
Shaw wanted to touch Root's neck; she wanted to scratch through the skin behind her own ear until she hit bone and sinew.
"Right," she said, briskly checking that the Glock was loaded and ready to fire. "We play on the highest difficulty setting this time, then."
*
Even without the Machine's help they managed to find their way to a stairwell without cameras, and overwhelm two Samarian agents netting them two more guns and a white lab coat that Root had thrown on over her hospital gown.
"Can't say I love the outfit."
"No?" said Root, coming dangerously close to striking a pose.
"Psych ward chic isn't really my thing," said Shaw. "So if you playing dress up is part of Samaritan's latest recruitment pitch then it's off to a bad start."
"Shaw..." Root began, and Shaw slammed her up against the wall as two Samaritan agents passed the door to the stairwell reporting that they'd cleared this floor into their earwigs.
Shaw was pressed up against Root, her face pressed against Root's shoulder; Root felt warm and solid and real... but then, she always did.
"Shaw..." Root began again, this time with a tremor in her voice; her hands were in fists against Shaw's shirt like she was trying really hard not to clutch at her.
"I swear to god, Root, if you're about to smell my hair..." Shaw pushed herself off the wall and away from Root. "If they've finished searching this floor we
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thegirlwholied · 6 years
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fic you’ve never seen before because it’s not finished and who knows when it will be!: a RebelCaptain AU Assortment (2/3)
Rebelcaptain AU no.2: Sense8. May be total nonsense without knowing Sense8's s2 worldbuilding (or even then) but hey:
There’s no way to get blockers in prison. That’s the worst bit of it, for Jyn-  there’s no way to keep other sensates out of her head.
Lucky for her, most sensates she’s met before are dead.
She doesn’t make eye contact in the mess, in the rec yard, not even during the one fight she can’t help but get in-  she reads her opponents by their feet. People lie better from their hips on up – it’s the feet, anyway, that are the most honest part of the body. The start of any fight, flight, or freeze.  
(Jyn always picks the first. Running, she’s fine at. Keeping her head down while doing it, not so much.)  
She’s two months in, when her boots hit the ground one morning, and a dirty pair of workboots land next to them.  
The man suddenly next to her, in soldier’s gear and a boonie hat, gives her an astonished look. His face is no more memorable than most men’s- bit of a beard, bit more of a mustache, tension in his jaw and dark eyes. It’s the surprise on his face that makes Jyn remember him.  
He’d looked equally astonished, when she’d knocked him out with a shovel.  
“Liana Hallik?” he says with an accent. Scottish.  
He’d said the same thing, her false name, last time, when he’d approached her leaving a bar- and she hadn’t given him time to say anything else, though she thought he’d been vaguely shouting about trying to rescue her when chasing her through the parking lot.  
She’d been a little busy grabbing the shovel handle conveniently jutting out the back of a pickup truck and readying her swing.  
This time, she ignores him. Or tries to.  
The visit goes both ways – and it’s been so long since she’s seen outside prison walls, it’s impossible to resist sliding into the space where the Scottish soldier’s sitting. See what he's seeing, feel what he's feeling. He’s outdoors, under light so bright there might as well be two suns beating down, sitting on the open back of a Jeep facing desert. The daily scramble of a military base thrums around him, Union Jack flying over it.  
The damp and cold of her cell doesn’t go away, but the arid warmth she’s breathing in is just as real.  
“Andor,” the soldier says, looking away, into the air. There’s nothing more solid than the heat present, but he nods at the empty space. He’s not bothering to disguise another visitation, another presence touching his mind.
“You’re in prison,” the soldier says, his gaze snapping back to her. There’s something in his voice that tells Jyn he’s repeating someone else’s words, being coached. “Where?”
In her cell, a drop of water falls onto Jyn’s face. She brushes it away, silent and fuming at her inability to fight someone in her head.
The soldier repeats himself, and she says, “Figure it out.”
This is another mistake.  
The soldier doesn’t leave her, for hours to come, describing aloud to someone Jyn can’t see, every detail of what little there is to see, answering questions she can’t hear.
“Russia?” the soldier says questioningly, at last. He nods. “Russia.”
Where he is – Jordan, for Jyn has spotted and recognized that flag, over the hours of his presence in her life, and hers in his – he pulls out familiar little black pills. He's gone as soon as he takes the blockers, taking all the warmth with him.  
#
It’s not a real extradition team that comes for Jyn. The woman in the white pantsuit, with short auburn hair and empathetic blue eyes, seems to actually be a lawyer. The woman flashes all kinds of credentials, rattles off phrases like international amnesty this and that, as Jyn is escorted out of her cell, out of the prison, but it’s clear enough to Jyn a deal has been struck – the warden has the sycophantic glow of someone recently bribed or promised a promotion.
It’s not the kind of rescue Saw Gererra would send. It’s more regimented than that, better connected.
“We’re not BPO, Jyn Erso,” the woman assures her, as she’s escorted into a helicopter. “You can trust us.”
Jyn tries not to show that she’s rattled they have her real name. Her parents’ name.  
The woman is about the age her mother would be, if she’d lived.
“Trust?” Jyn says, with scorn.
Her hands are still bound. The woman’s escort team secures Jyn’s ankles, too, as if expecting her to jump out somewhere over Siberia.
“Trust goes both ways,” Jyn says, lifting her hands and letting the metal make noise.
The helicopter co-pilot, nimbly hopping into his seat and adjusting his headset, glances back at either her words or the clink of metal. His dark hair’s a little longer than the cuts sported by the handful of soldiers comprising the escort team.  
She’s not sure, exactly, what about his face catches and holds her attention- his taste in facial hair’s almost the same as the Scotsman’s. His eyes, too, are brown, if maybe, like his complexion, a shade darker than the other man’s. She only meets his gaze for a moment, stubbornly, and he’s the one who looks away, going about his business as if the prisoner in the back was worth no more than a moment’s idle interest.
Suspicious, she reaches out with her feelings but doesn’t find any sense of him. If he’s one of them, then, same as the auburn-haired woman, he’s on blockers.  
The woman does not take off the cuffs. But she does seat herself right next to Jyn, and raises an eyebrow, a little daringly.
The helicopter takes her to a plane. Another man, with his own escort of soldiers, meets them there. Jyn takes one look at his expression of mingled flatness and sourness and decides he’s an asshole on sight. The dark-haired copilot goes to confer with him, while the pilot comes to unlock her ankles himself.
“Not sure if you’ve noticed, but the seventies ended before I was born,” Jyn says to the pilot, nodding at his blue flightsuit and Tom Selleck moustache.  
The pilot in blue only grins at her, a surprising amount of kindness in his eyes, and after helping her up, lets her march on her own to board the plane.  He and the new asshole-on-sight are both about the age her father would be; both give the woman a nod of deference.    
On the flight, she’s seated so she can’t see out any windows, with none of the soldiers present.  
She expected an interrogation, but all she gets is the lady in white.
“Do you know who we are?” the woman asks her, as crisp as her pantsuit.
“Resistance,” Jyn says. “But not fighting BPO. Not really. You’re just a – network.”
“Alliance, Jyn,” the woman corrects. “We’re an Alliance – of people just like you.”
“Not just like me,” Jyn says, rattling her cuffs again and glaring straight into the woman’s bright eyes. The woman’s either homo sapiens, not homo sensorium, or she’s on blockers. Jyn would bet the latter. “I noticed you haven’t introduced yourself.”
“Call me M,” the woman says, and Jyn freezes momentarily, before barking out a laugh. It’s been a while since she’s laughed, and it’s a rusty sound, but getting a James Bond reference delivered with full sincerity in real life does the trick – her laugh is real.
“Saw Gererra was in your mother’s cluster,” M says, and Jyn’s laugh dies as abruptly as it began. “Saw Gererra is the father of your own cluster.”
“I don’t have a cluster,” Jyn says sharply. “I never really did, and anyways, they’re dead.”  
She stills sees Maia and Codo sometimes, the only two who’d shared a first breath with her that she’d ever met. Still lives their memories in her dreams. And though she’d spent more time on blockers than off, though they never really were to her all the things she’d heard real clusters could be, though…
She feels, again, sitting in her seat, the moment of living Maia’s death with her, the moment of finding out Codo put a bullet in his brain so BPO couldn’t use him to track her and the gaping loss of coming off blockers to find there was nobody there, anymore.  
“You live, though, Jyn. As Saw still lives.” M pauses. “As Galen Erso still lives.”
Jyn’s father was not a sensate. Just a scientist- a very, very talented scientist, who had worked for BPO, back when the organization claimed to have another purpose. When it was helping sensates, like the woman he married, rather than hunting them. 
In all these years, Jun has not known if he is alive or dead, and it is with effort, and probably in vain, she tries to cover her reaction.
Her father is alive, M tells her, and working on something unknown and terrible, the destruction of all their kind, and they know this, because Galen Erso has sent a messenger to Saw Gererra.
“A sensate?” Jyn asks.
“No,” M says. “We have either a trap, or a very brave man risking his life to save a part of the human race that is not even his own.” She pauses, again. Jyn really hates the pause. “Which do you think Saw Gererra is likely to believe he is?”  
Jyn looks away. The young copilot from earlier is standing in the cabin door, arms folded, listening. She doesn’t know for how long.
“Even if I wanted to do something,” Jyn says, “I couldn’t find Saw. He hasn’t spent a single second off of blockers since I was eight years old.”  
(Since Lyra died, she doesn’t say.)
“We know where he is,” the dark-haired copilot says, watching her. “We just need you to get through the door.”
“Or we can put you back where we found you, girl." The new voice is sharp and flat at once – it's the man who'd headed an escort of soldiers, coming up from behind the younger man. He sounds as much of an asshole as he looked. "If you're not a help, I intend to keep you from becoming a hindrance."
Jyn takes that in for a moment, aware the full company is watching her every movement. Deliberately, she crosses her legs. The unlocked ankle cuffs rattle with a clang against the helicopter floor.
"Shouldn't be a problem, then," she says, her voice tight even as she aims to feign casual. "Getting through doors is what I do."
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aristotleblinked · 6 years
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self insert snippet
@balloonarcade​ I had some very awesome and exciting news today!! So I celebrated by writing. This is based off of a meme I did last month. It made me interested in what kind of person would have the relationships I got, so here you go!
I was young when the Decepticons were formed. I used to walk the dusty streets of Kaon after class to listen to the speeches. I didn’t have any legitimate gripe with the system. I was high caste. A born medic, but change was an attractive notion. I stood out in the crowds, bright white with red tipped wings. There would be hushed whispers, and fevered glances gathered around me. I ignored them. I kept my eyes on the mech who would eventually destroy everything, Megatron. He was charismatic even then when he had few followers, or deeds to his name. I still get breathless thinking about his sermons. They were electrifying.
He promised he would tear down the system, and build anew. In Megatron’s defense he did complete half his goal.
I went there for months just to eddy in the growing waves until Megatron singled me out one day, and said, “Do you see this? One of noble lineage here by their own volition. The words we speak are a universal truth that has reached even the most obstinate ear.” The crowd was deafening, chanting “Freedom, Freedom.” I chanted with them over the moon.
I can’t claim amnesty in ignorance. I was no easily led astray youngling. I danced with Overlord, and kissed Starscream. I would have gladly taken the Decepticon brand later that year. It was with great regret I had to pick a side when Orion Pax and Megatron split over irreconcilable differences. I went with the Autobots. My best friend and my future Conjunx had fell in with them.
It was the least I could do.
Pharma, Ratchet, and I were an unlikely group of friends. All different ages, Ratchet being the oldest, and I was the youngest. I volunteered at Ratchet’s clinic. The first time I met him he was bent over a half gone mech. He worked with blinding speed to save this life. It humbled me the gaps in our skill. When the overdose was under control he brought me back into his cramped office. I had to stand. Even the chairs were overflowing with records.
“I am bored of the way instructors dole out information. They go too slow. Hands on experience can only help me improve.” I told him.
Ratchet was flatly unimpressed, “You won’t last a week”
I lasted 3 years. It was hard I nearly gave up several times. Catching the odd hour of recharge where I could. I studied at Ratchet’s clinic in the quiet hours. I got slept on, puked on, and hit on. It was unforgiving and unrewarding work. You see the same patients again and again. A revolving door clinic. The day Ratchet put a blanket on me when I fell asleep cleaning the floor was the day I knew it would be worth it.
Ratchet started taking me out for drinks around the 1st year mark. I guess he felt bad for that barf thing. I’m not much for drinking, but the company was enjoyable. Ratchet knows how to party.  That’s how I met Pharma, perched on the back of a chair to hold Ratchet’s legs steady for a keg stand.
Pharma smiled and said, “Ratchet! I was wondering where you had gotten off to, and you must be the eager intern he’s been gushing about. I’m Pharma, Ratchet’s collegue. We should have have met sooner, but Ratchet loves to hoard all the talented young mechs for himself.” He mock scowled, and extended a hand. He caught the light. Gleaming, stunning. I fell off the chair and onto Ratchet. Not my finest moment.
It took me ages to untangle myself from Ratchet, he wasn’t much help, and Pharma laughed at us instead of being a gentlemech.
We kept in contact afterwords. It wasn’t often. We were both very busy people with different schedules, but when we could we would met for brief moments brushing wings over a shared glass of energon. It couldn’t last. We were doing these dalliances upon a backdrop of an ever worsening war. Medics were being overrun. Something was going to break.
I was diligently finishing up a report curled on my berth, we were all working late back then, when Pharma still covered in today’s gore turned to me and said, “Bond with me.”
My wings twitched. “I’m not in the mood for jokes.”
He put a leg on the bed so he could tower over me, hand braced on the wall by my face. “Good, because I wasn’t joking. Bond with me.” He was dead serious.
I put the report down. I wasn’t going to be able to avoid this conversation by ignoring him long enough unfortunately. “Make your case then.”
“It’s not going to stop. All of us thrown into the smelter for the sake of Megatron’s and Optimus’s pride.” He put his hand over my spark. “I would know if anything happened. They would have to inform me— I can’t live with the unknown. I’m not built for it.” He dropped his hand back to his side to await my judgment.
It didn’t take me long to come to a decision. I told him yes. Not right away, and I wanted Ratchet to be informed. He is my best friend. He was quite sour about that last requirement, but I remained firm. I like Ratchet, I really do. He’s sweet.
Ratchet had been startled, but congratulated us on the worst timing ever.
It happened perfunctorily in the dark. Instead of lingering in the morning he rushed over to the registrars office to make it official. I knew going in that it wouldn’t be a loving relationship, but I still found time to be disappointed. He came back with a cup of warm energon in hand and a certificate that said Conjunx Endura: Pharma of Tetrahax. He must have hidden his away already.
We didn’t get much time to celebrate. The war had pushed on to other planets, and medics were needed at the front lines. There was no sympathy for anyone, not even newly bonded Conjunxes. We were split 5 million light years apart.
The day before we were set to leave I interrupted Ratchet’s attempts to pack, so I could hug him. Neither of us tried to say anything, and he did hug me back, eventually. I spent the day with Ratchet and the night with Pharma. We tried to press the memory of each other into our hands, so we would have something solid to take with us.
In retrospect getting out of the shadows of those medical giants was what finally let me come into my own. It was nothing less than what I needed. It didn’t feel that way at the time.
I was bitter and angry. I threw myself into my work. It was all I had.
There was a lull in the fighting that let us come limping into the same base. It had been millions of years since we have been in the same room together. Pharma and Ratchet were strangers to me. They fought over the stupidest stuff, and I took on hours I didn’t have to just for the quiet. It took a while, but it did simmer down. We had to relearn how to be friends, too much had changed. I was now lingering in their rooms to reaffirm our relationships. I had lost too much to give up on them.
It couldn’t last. Any peace in this world was fragile. A brittle shell that only needed a light touch to shatter.
We get offered Messatine. You won’t be separated, the missive assures, as Conjunx Endura you are afforded certain privileges. Pharma would be the head as he is the senior medic between you. It would be challenging, but rewarding. Only a medic of your skills could manage it.
Pharma in some misguided display of affection threaded his fingers with mine, “I won’t go without you.”  
He thought he was being romantic, but it sounded like a threat. He has never had a problem leaving me in his flight trails before. I wasn’t as eager to head back into the fray. I had gotten a taste for the calm and was starved for more. It would be a good opportunity to show off the skills he earned. Ratchet was making noises about retiring, and Pharma was ready to fill the gap. A test for the new CMO. Can you turn this dismal situation around? Of course we can. I smiled at him. “Let’s inform Ratchet our plans have changed.”
Ratchet took the goodbye with all of his usual grace, and by that I mean avoidance. I found him watching the clouds skim the horizon. We swapped stories about the old clinic until it was time to leave again.
I never did get around to actually saying the words ‘Good bye.’ Ratchet probably preferred it that way.
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got some positive response so I’m doing Fic Amnesty and posting all the things in my drafts that won’t get properly finished probably ever. 
this was my attempt at a one-shot. content warnings for ghosts and violence. it’s a little long. 
Cassie was sketching idly when the man in the hospital gown walked into her office. When the living walk into Cassie's office, they wince or cough, assaulted by the smells of sandalwood, anise, wormwood, and lavender. For ghosts, who can't ask directions in the maze of the police station, the smell is a signpost. Also, he's wandering around barefoot in a hospital gown, which would have gotten him flagged on the way in here if anyone else could see him.
"Hey, mister sir, how are you doing today?" Cassie asks. The man gives her a despairing look and makes a weak gesture with one of his arms. 
"Not so great. Okay, well, why don't you have a seat, I'll fix you up something warm to drink, and we can talk when you're ready to talk."
The ghost slumps into one of Cassie's chairs. Cassie pours him a saucer of milk, heats it on the hot plate, and stabs herself in the finger with her pocket knife. She lets a generous few drops of blood land on the milk and sets it on the little table beside Mr. Ghost's chair. He lets his hand fall into the dish and a little color starts to come back to his skin. 
"You just say hey when you're ready to talk," Cassie says. The ghost nods a fraction. He must be really and properly tired out, Cassie thinks. At least a few days dead.
"We got one for you, Lieutenant," says Charlie, standing awkwardly in the door of her office, handkerchief over his face. The rest of Tau Ceti's police department treats the resident ghost talker with unnerved respect to her face and it doesn't matter what behind her back. 
"He beat you here," Cassie says.
"He? No, we found a woman's body, still warm. Red dress, dark hair. Strangled. Pretty sure it was the boyfriend. Captain said to call you in, just in case."
"All right," Cassie says. "Mister sir, you stay right where you are please, and I'll come back and get you as soon as I can. I can't help you if you wander off." She squeezes a little more blood into the saucer and Charlie looks away. 
The ghost shrugs minutely, holds one palm slightly up. Where else would he go? She leaves him, follows Charlie back to the crime scene.
The ghost of Lena Pavel is vibrant and kicking. "Hey! Those are my computers, don't you touch them. I didn't give nobody permission to cart off all my stuff. What is this?"
"Hi there, lady ma'am. My name is Cassie and I'm a witness liaison. Can you tell me what's happening here?" Cassie asks. The trick is not to let them know they're dead until you've got as much as you can out of them. 
"I woke up on the ground with cops crawling all over my apartment. Cops who don't listen!"
"They're astonishingly bad listeners," Cassie agrees, ignoring the snorts in response. "My job is to listen. Can you tell me what happened before you wound up on the floor?"
"Some guy was mad as hell. I know him. I know his face, but I can't remember his name. Must have clocked my head. Maybe I ought to go to the hospital.I knew exactly who he was. I said, hey, it's not your business what I do for a living."
Names are the first thing ghosts lose, their own, other's. Faces last longer. "Could you sit with me and help me get a sketch of the man's face?" Cassie asks.
"I can do you better. The webcam was on, three-sixty degrees. He'll be on there. If you can get that sweaty cop away from my expensive camera set, I can show you;"
"What's your password?" Cassie asks, a second before Lena Pavel reaches for her laptop and her hand moves through the screen. 
She stares."I'm not... " she says.
"You're very recently deceased, which means you're going to have some trouble with your motor skills for a little while until we can get that taken care of." Cassie says. "I can input your password for you, you just have to give it to me." The trick is to talk faster than your ghost can think, when they're teetering on the edge of realization. Don't lie, just keep it moving. 
"M0xie?719?" says Lena. She spells it out. Cassie types it in. The camera has been running all this time. By the time the tech has rewound the video, done facial recognition and announced that, in fact, the murderer was not the boyfriend, but the victim's uncle, irate to have found his niece on a camming site, Cassie is sitting with Lena and a cup of bloody tea, because there's no milk in the apartment. Lena bends down to sip thirstily from the edge of the glass as Cassie walks her through Sorry You're Deceased 101. No, there's no coming back. No, Cassie doesn't know what happens once you pass. Yes, Cassie can call someone of Lena's choice to handle the funeral arrangements. Yes, Cassie will attend Lena's funeral. Cassie attends a lot of funerals. 
Lena winks into nothing as soon as Cassie helps her write a letter to her mom. Some cases are simple like that. Get the nice lady to solve her own murder and that pretty much takes care of unfinished business. 
Cassie heads back to her office to deal with Mister Ghost.He's still there. The milk has turned a kind of greyish color and she dumps it down the drain, refills it, pricks her finger again. She does not bother asking the ghost his name, or how long he's been dead. It just upsets them when they can't remember.
"Did you come from City Hospital?" she asks. The hospital has its own ghost-talker who should have caught him then, but stranger things have happened. He shakes his head.
"Do you feel up to talking?"He opens and closes his mouth mutely."All right then. I'm gonna do some paperwork and make some calls.".
She watches him out of the corner of her eye while she files the Lena Pavel paperwork and logs his arrival, a form mostly full of question marks underneath a drawing of him. Bare feet, thin face, underweight, hospital gown with a pattern of blue stripes. He glances around occasionally, but doesn’t move much. She calls Mina on her personal phone.
“Hey, babe, I’m going to have to sleep here tonight, I’ve got a guest. No, not that girl who got murdered on the news, she passed on. We’ve got to do a night interview.”
Mina sighs. She doesn’t rehash the old argument, but she lets the sigh do it for her. “If you’ve got to,” she says. Mina runs an apothecary and keeps strict nine-to-fives. Sure, there’s work for the civic-minded witch that doesn’t require regular overnights, but Cassie’s always been good with ghosts.
“All my love,” Cassie says.
“Love,” Mina says, and hangs up.
All right. Cassie tugs her cot out of her closet and puts do-not-disturb on her door. She makes herself a little dinner on the hot plate and watches a grainy holoprogram until she feels sleepy. She pops a pill to make sleep stick and then conks out on the cot. 
She wakes up in her dreamscape, an eclectic museum. A few standard exhibits, some dinosaur bones and old tech. Paintings of everyone she’s invited here. Miscellaneous scenes behind glass. She finds Mr. Ghost staring at the lake in its exhibit case. 
“Hey there,” she says. No need for the fast talk. This is a man who knows he’s dead.
He gestures at the lake. “How does this work?” he asks. “It doesn’t look like a scale model. The perspective’s wrong.”
It’s a small lake, a muddy pathway around it, two rickety docks, an adrift canoe. Grampa left it here when he came to say goodbye. Cassie has never actually seen a lake. She’s never been out of Pollux, Tau Ceti’s big, hot, dry city. 
‘We’re in a dream, sir. Things don’t have to work quite right.” 
“I don’t like magic. Bunch of egos swanning around taking shortcuts,” he says.
For a living normal, Cassie would have a rebuttal to that. Cassie does not bother with the dead.
“Well, here you are, sir,” she says instead. “Now what can I do for you?”
“I came to report a crime. I came to the police station to report a crime,” he says.
“What crime, sir?”
“Unlawful working conditions leading to my death.” He says.
“Where do you work?”
“I was a driver. I drove a... big bus. But that’s not how I died. I came to report a crime.”
“All right, sir. Let’s see if we can establish some identity. Were you married, or did you have kiddos?” She does not ask him his name.
“I had a daughter. She had leukemia. Her name was. Fuck.”
“It’s normal, sir.”
“She had brown hair. She had leukemia. She was... she loved pickles. She loved lemon pickles. Her mother named her after her grandmother. I don’t. She could read early for her age. Why can’t I remember her name?”
“It’s very normal sir, you’re doing great. Look at the clothes you’re wearing, please.”
He looks down. “I wasn’t in the hospital. They had a private hospital under the complex. I was there. They treated my burns there but I must have died. There was a bad lab accident. A chemical spill. There are regulations. We didn’t have protective gear. I thought if I lived I was going to report it. And then I was up and moving around again, so I thought I’d report it. I figured out I was dead when I had to deal with the elevators, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do so I came to report it. It’s against the law not to provide employees with adequate protective gear, isn’t it?”
Damn. “It usually is, sir. I’ll look into it, all right? Do I have permission to contact your family?”
“Sure. Yes.”
She walks him down to the museum cafe, sets him up with a chicken sandwich and some pickle chips. He looks just like a man here, underweight, barely dressed, but as solid as she is. 
“Any questions?” she asks.
“When do I go somewhere else?”
“I don’t know, sir. You did a very good thing, reporting the crime. You did all you can do for now. If there’s anything else, I’ll let you know, but you did plenty. It’s commendable what you did, sir.”
“Do some of them leave when you tell them that?”
“More than a few. Look, sir, I can transfer you to a postmortem therapist if you want, or you can stay here while I pursue your case.”
“Here,” he says, and eats a pickle chip. Damn. She doesn’t mind when they stay, but Mina does. She’s starting to mind that Mina minds so much. It’s not like they bother, or snoop, or peep. They stay inside Cassie’s dreams when she’s not in the station. 
She wakes up. The candle tree has gone out. She walks over, lights them, washes up in a just-cleaned public restroom, swallows a plate of canteen scrambled eggs, and goes back to her office. There’s a note on her door about a body in the morgue making paper clips twitch, so she meanders down there and finds the ghost of a teenage boy loitering by his own corpse, trying to flick scraps of paper at the coroner. As Cassie approaches the boy manages a slightly more robust throw and a shred of yellow paper hits Dr. Lai square in the nose.  
“Ugh. I told them we had a lively one down here. What took you so long?”
“Witness interview. You got a name for our friend here?”
“You were sleeping.” Dr Lai hands over a file. 
“Yeah, witness interview. Hey, Harry. How’s it going tonight?”
“I’m fucking dead,” the kid grumbles. 
“That’s right. Did you see the car that hit you?”
”I don’t want to talk to the fucking police. Do I get a lawyer?”
“You’re not in any trouble with us, Harry.”
“I ought to get a lawyer. I’ve still got rights.”
“You were hit by a car, Harry. You’re not being accused of anything. I can help take a message to your mom or your girlfriend if you need.”
Harry tells her to fuck herself so she leaves him down there. He’ll come up when he wants to talk. He’ll follow the smell. Meanwhile, she has an interview to document and log. 
She searches the last week’s obits for men with young daughters, searches the daughters for current and former cancer patients, finds John Snyder, survived by his daughter Emily, age eleven, who beat leukemia last year, with a little help from, damn, a NemoCorps employment-collateral loan. 
Four years ago, NemoCorps moved their headquarters to Tau Ceti, chased out of New York by the lawsuits. They’re a pharmaceutical company and most of their employees are also their debtors. If you owe them enough money they’ll hire you on the spot and take it out of your wages every month. Snyder died nonspecifically of “an illness.” She combs through the past month and finds four more people in their thirties and forties who died of “an illness” with outstanding medical debt.  Everyone knows about the fierce pneumonias that sweep through the Nemo employee dorms every few months. People who get out come home with skin conditions and wracking coughs, chronic fatigue, vision and hearing loss, cancer. John Snyder came to her to report a familiar crime. But Nemo is a multi-trillion dollar company, providing jobs out here in the boondocks, Nemo is a generous pillar of the community. Nemo is a machine guarded by its own vast output.
“I’ve got to talk to your family. You coming?” she asks. Snyder shakes his head. She doesn’t understand that, ghosts who don’t say goodbye. Still, she goes out without him to visit Mrs. Snyder, who is polite but terse. No, she doesn’t think a crime was committed here. His body was donated to science, with her permission, so no autopsy can be performed. She is transparently afraid and Cassie cannot bring herself to press the issue. 
“Give him our love,” she says. People are like that with ghosts sometimes, distant, like the ghost isn’t family. Once they’ve been buried or cremated or donated or “donated,” whatever’s left is maybe an acquaintance, if that. People who can’t speak directly to ghosts are sometimes desperately keen to talk to a ghost-talker and sometimes... not.  
Cassie goes back to the precinct. She calls up Nemo. A ghost’s testimony, legally, is supplemental, not enough on its own to warrant an investigation. People say ghosts get confused, and that’s true, but misleading. Cassie has never known a ghost to lie. They’re too disoriented to make anything up. What they bring to you is true as rocks. She gets a copy of his medical records, from the on-site medical bay where he was treated and died. Pneumonia. Yeah. The debts will be transferred back onto Mrs. Snyder, who has six weeks to demonstrate ability to pay or show up at NemoCorps for her brand new job. 
Cassie comes home at the end of the day and Mina makes her sleep in the guest room  because the ghost occupying the inside of her head is a man. In dreamtime, she sits in the grim little museum cafe and explains to Snyder that there’s not a whole lot she can do, at this point.
“You expect me to go now?” he asks.
“You’ve done all you can do. If there’s anything else I can do, let me know.”
“I came to report a crime!”
“And I logged it, sir, and if a living survivor ever comes by and sues, they’ll be able to use it as supplemental evidence, but there’s not a whole lot you can do on your own. I recommend you let me refer you to a postmortem counselor.” 
“No. There’s someone else I want to talk to. Bobby Stokes. You said a living survivor. Well I’ve got one.”
It rarely ends well when the dead crusade, but she has an obligation to try. 
The next morning, Harry has gotten bored of the morgue and saunters up to her office to describe an orange Ford Gravity, license plate number he didn’t fucking see it, he was too busy dying and all. She passes this tidbit onto Traffic and carts two ghosts with her out to see Bobby Stokes, a wheezing man who wears heavy gloves. 
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offansandflames · 7 years
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So this month is apparently my month. May is both Medical Health Awareness Month and Brain Tumor Awareness Month.
Look everyone, I’ve made a thing!
To be honest, I hesitated before posting this, especially since I’m getting to know people much better. I had some shit to deal with, and I was pretty graceless about it at points. I only hope that my sharing this both encourages understanding for people who’ve gone down my path and also brings you all some happiness. Seriously it breaks my heart to hear what some of my loved ones are going through, and I want them to know that even if your world feels like it’s ending, there’s hope.
I thought I had everything planned out at the age of 15. I was going to go to Stanford and become a pediatrician, my life calling. Through high school, I worked roughly 90 hours a week, between school, homework, and my extracurriculars (co-captain of the tennis team, swim, cross-country, National Honors Society, weekly volunteer work at the hospital, and Amnesty International). I even made it on the news, with the title “Future Doctor” under my name. I had a 4.7 GPA and the burning passion of a million suns.
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I was literally EN FUEGO. But
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Headaches. Horrible headaches. I gained 30 pounds (that’s 14 kg) in a single month, while eating very healthily and exercising vigorously. Then deep as hell depression. And daily hallucinations. I literally felt like I was losing my mind. My blood chemistry levels were swinging around like they were on crack, but no one could figure out what was going on.
My mom (dad was gone) told me I was being melodramatic and looked fat and disgusting as hell. She’d roll her eyes when I’d react to my hallucinations. I went to doctors who reassured me “Puberty is difficult for everyone.”
At the very least, she continued to send me to hospitals throughout the Los Angeles area. Finally, they decide to scan my head to “rule it out.” I lay there with a cage on my face and was serenaded for 40 minutes by what sounded like the mating call of a dozen fax machines.
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ADVENTURE TIME ! ! !
I was called back into the hospital (UCLA) in a matter of days, which is strange on account of the fact that most people have to wait months. When I see my doctor there, suddenly a neurosurgeon walks into the room. “Okay, that’s weird.”
He slaps an image of my brain up on the wall, points to it, and says, “You’ve got something there.”
He said it kinda like he was telling me I had spinach in my team.
“What?”
“A brain tumor.”
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For a few months, peoples’ attitudes changed. My mom told me about a dozen times a day that I was going to be okay. I think she was reassuring herself more than me. I was a little worried, but more than that, I was happy. It was proof that I wasn’t crazy. And most importantly, there was something in my brain that could be removed. I could actually be normal again! No one understood how much I’d been suffering all along.
By the way, the niceness lasted for a few months. Went away after that, then back into the abuse.
I’m going to take a minute out and say something. I’m sure tons of people reading this have gone through hard times, especially around that age, and were not taken seriously. Listen, I had a fucking brain tumor and was still dismissed. I took it personally and felt like a piece of crap, though now I look back and see how wrong it was. I’m really sorry for those of you in a similar situation. All I can do is advise you not to let that guilt you into thinking your struggles are inconsequential, though I did a shit job of that myself. I love you all.
-ahem- Back into it then…
The physical pain stayed constant, but the psychological issues exploded. I always remember that I’d be standing in a room, then everything in my field of vision became neon. The room would stretch out for what seemed like miles, and my ears would ring so loudly it hurt. Then random shit (looked like humanoid figures) would come out at me. Terrifying.
My mom again insisted I was being dramatic. It was a house of cards, and as it was bound to, it fell. I injured myself pretty badly and was sent to a psych ward (at UCLA) for a week. I was still holding on to that dream of becoming a pediatrician, but in all honesty, I didn’t know if I’d be alive that far into the future.
No one close in my life was supportive. They viewed this as me just being “dramatic.” They diagnosed me with Bipolar Disorder in the ward.
My psych state continued to deteriorate to the point that I lost touch with reality. The depression was as crushing as death, and I saw no reason why anyone would want to live. Life was just a pointless dream. I took a bunch of pills one night and was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. I was in a coma for about 3 days and nearly died.
I woke up in the Intensive Care Unit, confused as to how I’d gotten there (I had no memory) but also not really caring. My family was screaming at me about how close I’d come to death, but the most they’d get out of me was a shrug. They sent me back to the UCLA psych ward, and literally, I was sent back to the very same room.
I don’t know how, but through all of that shit, I kept my grades up. I still had a 4.7 GPA when I got out of high school. I scored a free ride to UCLA, the same place where I’d found out about my brain tumor, and the place where I’d been kept in a psych ward twice. Crazy. Meanwhile, the tumor grew and bled into my surrounding brain tissue.
But the depression just kept getting worse, and so did the hypomania that accompanies Bipolar. I kept having blank periods and would wake up in the ICU, again with screaming and crying family members. I didn’t want to die anymore, so I was very upset by this. I wouldn’t even remember trying to take my life, so it literally felt like I just went to bed and woke up in the hospital. That happened at least three times, maybe more.
I got into the drugs (literally the worst ones) and became addicted to them. Bipolar is tricky, and my mood would swing. At some points, I was so depressed and disillusioned. I would often say, “I’m not making it to my 30’s.” I accepted that as a fact. So who cares if I’m addicted to shit? Becoming a pediatrician was a pipe dream. Something’s going to knock me out, either the drugs, my psych issues, or the brain tumor. Whatever.
Then I’d come out of that depressed stupor and realize, “Holy FUCK, what am I doing with my life?!”
Sober up. Then relapse. Then sober up. Eventually, I got so sick physically that I could hardly leave my house. That ended the drug use.
My treatment team was fairly large, and all of them were well renowned. I’d been told by different ones that I was risking going blind by not having surgery. Others said that the surgery was just too dangerous and would itself risk my vision, could lead me to have a stroke, or could, ya know, kill me. One doctor thought I needed my hypothalamus removed, which I previously didn’t even realize was a thing.
I started having something called cluster headaches. These are informally called “suicide headaches,” and are debated to be the most painful medical condition in existence, worse even than childbirth. I spent about 70% of my waking hours having those for months. I thought I’d known pain before. I didn’t know jack shit, but I sure learned fast.
I was then too sick to go to school. It was obvious, but the final straw was when I went to take my finals and passed out on the lawn for several hours. When I came to, my head was screaming, and my vision was blocked by large neon splotches. I told my mom thought I couldn’t go to school the next quarter. She said that if I didn’t work or go to school, I had no place to stay.
Enter: Homelessness!
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At that point, I was beyond fucked. I had nowhere to go. For about a week, I stayed on my best friend’s couch. His house was literally a drug den, and basically shit was never farther than a few feet from my head. I started using again, and that was probably the darkest point.
I had no home, was critically ill, had no money or food, and was on drugs. I’d had to drop out of college, and my goal of becoming a pediatrician was laughably far away. Looked like the end of the road.
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The homeless shelters were full, and I was totally prepared to get a sleeping bag and camp out under a bridge. Possibly just die there. Thank the lord, my fiance’s family decided to take me in. I lived there for months, not leaving the house even once, not even a mailbox trip. I was in excruciating pain every single day. Ironically, even though I was at my sickest physically, I was recovering psychologically. I wrote stories and loved to play Guitar Hero during what few comfortable hours I had.
I’ll still remember that early 2009, the headaches became drastically rarer. The tumor was growing slightly but no longer bleeding into my brain tissue. I thought, “Oh my god, what if I can finish college after all?”
It was a huge risk, but I flew out to California to finish up at UCLA. I was in horrible pain. I’d study over a puke bucket and with 2 pairs of shades on in the dark, with the text the size of my palm. I was seeing double. It didn’t matter to me that I had a sad story, or if it was “understandable” if I gave up. No one could save me from the consequences of that, so I pushed through.
Every day I walked to class, I passed by the old psych ward I’d stayed at. It just loomed there, monolithic and so tall. It felt like at any moment I’d be sucked back into its gravitational pull. Like being the slightest bit functional was just a brief gift, and I’d soon go back to where I belonged.
I finished my first quarter. Straight A’s.
I was so fucking proud of myself.
Another quarter came and went, and despite all the pain, I got 3 A’s and one A-. Passing by the ward one day, I took the elevator up to the ward’s floor. I wanted to face the past. The thought occurred to me that this time, I was coming here on my own free will. I was here to get an education and improve my life. Ever since that day, when I passed that building, I felt a swelling sense of pride and victory. I was on the right track again. Totally taking life by the huevos.
That quarter they found another tumor on me, in my adrenals. I didn’t let it throw me off much, because seriously nothing could rattle me at this point. I did admit to myself that becoming a pediatrician was not a wise path for me anymore. My health and immune system were too poor to make it through medical school, let alone residency. And even after that, I’d constantly be exposed to pathogens from my patients. Even now, I’m nowhere near healthy enough for that.
So it was time for Plan B. I studied economics, which I didn’t realize until later interested me like crazy.
I graduated from UCLA with a 3.4. It was nothing fancy, but it was by far the greatest accomplishment I’ve ever had in my life. To this day, I am so incredibly proud of myself for that. I know that I can take whatever life dishes out and throw it right back in that bitch’s face.
The recession was deep when I graduated, so I decided to go to grad school. I passed with a 3.7 GPA, and the brain tumor stopped growing. We don’t even know why.
Flash forward to now.
I’m still mentally ill. I take about 7 medications a day. Sometimes I’ll still have hallucinations and cluster headaches. This shit doesn’t just disappear.
My family likes to pretend that they’d been so supportive about the horrible things I’d had to go through.
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But the fact is that I’m working a relatively high paying job and am engaged to a wonderful person whom I’ve been with for 11 years. I’ve traveled to twenty different countries (and counting) since I graduated from grad school, one of my greatest life goals. I lost all those excess pounds and am training now to run a half marathon. I’m passionate about life and like to think that I’ve helped some people in life-changing ways. I look back and can’t believe that I made it, but I did.
I went from homeless, penniless, and critically ill to being comfortable, having a healthy relationship, and traveling the world.
What freaks me out is how damned close I’d come to ending it. People tell you “It gets better” all the time. I know it sounds like trite bullshit, but it’s true. You have to be strong and adaptable, but I truly do believe in resiliency of the human spirit.
Nobody asked for my advice, but I went through hell to learn it, so I’m sharing. Never let life take more from you than it absolutely must. If you’ve never been truly tested, you would be shocked at how adaptable and resilient people can be. Don’t give up; as they say, this too shall pass. It’s okay if you don’t have your shit figured out yet, I promise you.
Please don’t compare yourself to others who might have had a “more difficult” life and chide yourself for hurting. You have every right to feel as you do and do not deserve to be dismissed. If you beat yourself up for feeling the way you do, you’ll only be weaker in the end.
Oh yeah, and also...
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And for those who need help, I am here.
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radialarch · 7 years
Note
I WANT COP AU honestly it's probably gonna be sad BUT ALL THE OTHER ONES SEEM SAD TOO SO WHATEVER
oh my god. so cop au is the no-powers modern au where steve still fights everyone & bucky still gets amnesia & loses an arm. yeah, i’m a little baffled about why i ever started writing it myself.
HOWEVER. look. it’s time to admit i am never gonna finish this fic, it has been actual years since i last worked on it. so look, i’m gonna amnesty it here, all 3k of it + the absolutely unhelpful outlining i’ve done. farewell, ridiculous au. i loved you once.
——
Steve wakes up to his phone nearly buzzing off his dresser. The caller ID doesn’t have a name but the number’s vaguely familiar.
“Yeah,” Steve says, trying to swallow down a yawn.
“Get down to the hospital,” Natasha says, in a voice that makes him sit up straight. “It’s Bucky.”
——
He throws some bills at the cab driver and doesn’t bother waiting for change, just runs into the hospital. Natasha’s easy to spot, dressed in her usual black. Steve’s not superstitious but a part of him’s saying hysterically, “Dead, Bucky’s dead.”
“Where is he?”
“Operating room,” she says. “I’m not gonna lie, it doesn’t look good.”
“Operating–jesus.” Steve drops into a chair. The adrenaline’s wearing off and his hands, his legs are shaking. “What the hell happened? He was off tonight.”
“I don’t know, he wasn’t in uniform.” Natasha bites her lip. “I found him in an alley, by one of those garages – you know, the ones with the metal doors?”
“Oh god,” Steve hears himself say.
“Nearly took off his left arm,” she says. “And he lost a lot of blood.”
“His arm,” Steve repeats. He thinks he might throw up.
There’s a touch to his shoulder. He looks up uncomprehendingly into Natasha’s face. “Docs said they might be able to save it,” she tells him. “You gotta pull yourself together.”
Steve takes a breath. Curls his hands into fists. “Yeah,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady. “I’m – yeah, okay.”
“Listen, I can’t stay,” Natasha says. She looks sincerely sorry about that.
He’s surprised she’s even stayed this long. Neither hospitals nor cops – even ones out of uniform – are good for her cover. “I’ll be fine.” He waves her off. “Thank you. Really.”
“I like Barnes,” she says. “Hope he makes it.” Then she’s gone, with a last squeeze of his shoulder.
Steve presses his fists into his thighs and settles down to wait.
——
It’s nearly dawn when someone comes out of the double doors and says, “Someone here for James Barnes?”
Steve stands up at once and almost topples over. His legs are numb. “Yes,” he says. “How is he?”
“He’s stable now,” the doctor says.
Steve lets out a breath; he can feel the tension seeping out of his shoulders. “Oh, thank you,” he murmurs. “Thank you, thank you.”
“We couldn’t save the arm,” the doctor continues. “I’m sorry.”
Steve just nods.
“The main concern now is brain activity,” she says. “With the amount of blood he lost, combined with some head trauma, it’s possible that he might’ve lost some brain function.”
“Oh,” Steve says. He tries to stop himself from imagining worst case scenarios. “When will you know?”
“We won’t know for sure until he wakes up and we can run some tests.”
Steve looks at his feet. The tiled floor seems to blur under his gaze. “Can I see him?”
“Well, as I said, he’s not awake,” she says gently. “But if you’d like to wait in his room?”
“Yes,” Steve says at once.
“Okay, I’ll get someone to take you to him.”
Steve uncurls his stiff fingers, and breathes, and thinks, Bucky.
——
Bucky’s face is nearly white, his lashes very dark against his cheek. His torso’s swathed in bandages, but Steve can still see the stutter of his chest with each breath. He pulls up a plastic chair and sits by Bucky’s bed, taking hold of Bucky’s right hand. It feels cold under his palm; he rubs it, a little worried.
His phone buzzes in his pocket. Steve blinks a little, aware of the world outside the hospital for the first time since Nat called.
“Peggy,” he says, wedging his phone between ear and shoulder so he doesn’t have to let go of Bucky’s hand. “God, I’m so sorry.”
“You’re late,” she says sternly. “What’s going on?”
“Bucky’s in the hospital,” he says. “There was some kind of accident last night – he lost an arm.”
“Oh, god,” she says, softer. “Will he be all right?”
“I don’t know,” Steve says, trying to keep his voice steady. “They said we won’t know for sure until he wakes up.”
“Right,” she says, crisp. “Don’t worry about work, I’ll get someone to cover for you.”
“Thank you,” he says, closing his eyes. “I owe you.”
“Not a problem,” she tells him. “Let me know when Barnes wakes up, all right?”
Steve hangs up. Looks at the angles of Bucky’s face, made harsher by the lights.
Wake up, he thinks. Please.
——
When Bucky moves, it’s a sudden jerk of his hand that has Steve’s head snapping up. “Bucky?” he asks, watching Bucky’s face.
He doesn’t respond, but his mouth looks slacker, softer. His eyelids flutter, briefly. Then he’s mumbling something unintelligible, head shaking.
Bucky opens his eyes.
“Bucky,” Steve says again. He’s not sure what he’s feeling – he swallows and feels almost like he might burst into tears. “God, don’t ever do that to me again.”
Bucky struggles to rise up, but it’s too much for him. He falls back down on his pillow and turns his head to look at Steve.
He says, toneless, “Who the hell is Bucky?”
Steve freezes. That’s a terrible joke, he wants to say, except there’s no trace of a laugh on Bucky’s face. “You are,” he says carefully. “You…don’t remember?”
Bucky shakes his head. Winces.
Steve looks down at where he’s clutching Bucky’s hand. “You…don’t recognize me either, do you?” he says, slowly untangling their fingers.
Bucky looks at him. His eyebrows are drawn together in concentration and his mouth is pressed into a thin line. “Sorry,” he says, slow.
“It’s okay,” Steve says. “I’m gonna call a nurse, and then I’m gonna stay here, if that’s okay with you?”
“All right,” Bucky says in a rasp.
Steve jabs at the call button. His hands are shaking. He presses them under his thighs and tries not to think about the fact that Bucky’s turned his head away.
——
[optional: some medical exposition]
——
When they come home, Bucky stops in front of the stairs and tries to take a step up. He’s got his right hand gripping the railing – Steve can see the play of muscles in his forearm – but he’s still not used to the weight of the prosthetic and it’s throwing him off balance.
“Here,” Steve offers. “Let me help.”
Bucky looks up, hunched in tightly on himself. He doesn’t say a word as he throws his right arm around Steve’s shoulders, when Steve wraps his own arm around Bucky’s waist. It still takes them a long time to get to their apartment, and when they reach the landing Bucky nearly falls as he tries to untangle himself from Steve.
“Thanks,” he says, shortly.
“It’s–” That brings Steve up short. This distance between him and Bucky is suffocating – before, Bucky would have leaned against Steve without question, wouldn’t have needed these formalities. “Not a problem,” he says, finally, weakly. “Let’s get inside.”
——
When Steve gets into the station, Captain Fury calls him into the office.
“I’m sorry to hear about Barnes,” he says without preamble.
“Thank you, sir,” Steve says. “I’d like to know how the investigation’s been going – if there’sanything I can do–”
“It’s over and done with,” Fury says, shutting a folder with a snap. “Accident.”
“What do you mean, done with? We don’t know what happened!”
“What happened, Rogers, is that a metal garage door slipped.” Fury stares at him with his good eye. “Unfortunate, but there’s nothing more we can do.”
“But–”
“I understand you’re upset,” Fury says, ignoring Steve’s open mouth, “but I suggest you get back to work.”
Steve stands there, trying to understand. Fury’s been a good captain – he’s always cared about his officers –
“I’m not going to say it again,” Fury says. “Get back to work, Rogers.”
Steve bites his lip. “Yes, sir.”
——
“How can he say it’s done with?” Steve asks. “We don’t know what Bucky was doing, we don’t know what made the door go off, we don’t know anything!” He swallows a mouthful of beer and breathes. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” Peggy tells him. “As it happens, I’ve been wondering some of the same things myself.”
“So you do think it’s weird, right? It’s not just me?”
Peggy takes a slow sip of her drink. She’s staring down at the bar when she says, “No, it’s not.” Then she makes a thoughtful noise. “Perhaps this wasn’t an accident at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Listen.” She leans forward, suddenly, her head very close to his. “I’ve been looking into the precinct’s patrol schedules. The alley where Barnes was found? That area never seems to be staffed properly.”
“Okay,” Steve says. He glances around, but nobody’s looking at them. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t know for sure.” Peggy looks troubled. “It might be a coincidence. Or maybe Barnes noticed the same thing I did, and went looking.”
“And he found it,” Steve finishes for her, frowning. “If you’re right…”
“And that’s a big if.”
Steve shakes off the objection. “You’re gonna need someone looking outside the station.” He tips his chin up a fraction.
“Be careful, Steve,” Peggy says quietly. “I don’t have to remind you what happened to Barnes.”
“That’s why I’ve gotta look,” he tells her. “Because I know.”
——
Steve opens the door and blinks at the stranger on his doorstep.
“Sam Wilson,” the man says crisply, putting a hand out. “I’m the physical therapist.”
“Oh, right,” Steve says, taking a step back. “Come on in.”
When he’s stepped inside, Sam looks Steve over with a friendly grin. “So, you’re not the guy I’m here for.” He nods at Steve’s shoulder. “Unless prosthetics have gotten really good recently.”
Steve lets out a short laugh. “No, it’s Bucky.” He looks over at Bucky’s door, which is closed. “Sorry, he’s been a little–”
“Yeah, I get you.” Sam nods. “Can’t really blame him.”
Sam makes his way to Bucky’s room to knock at the door. “Bucky?” he calls. “It’s your physical therapist. Time to get to work, man.”
It takes a moment for Bucky to open the door. “Hey,” he says, subdued.
“There we go,” Sam says easily. “C’mon. We can work in your room.”
Bucky’s door swings closed again, and Steve tries not to stare too much at it. He wants the door open; closed, it keeps reminding Steve that he and Bucky are now strangers.
He’s being ridiculous. He goes back to his newspaper.
——
When Sam comes out of Bucky’s room, he doesn’t leave right away. Instead, he takes a seat next to Steve on the sofa and asks, “So how are you doing?”
The question is so unexpected that Steve nearly laughs. “Me?” He says. “I’m fine. Bucky’s the one with ten kinds of problems.”
Sam looks at him with a knowing expression. “Just ‘cause someone else is hurting, doesn’t mean you can’t, too,” he says. “If you ever wanna talk.”
“Thanks,” Steve says. “Really.”
“Good to meet you, Steve,” Sam says, standing up. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“All right,” Steve says. He watches Sam go, shakes his head.
——
Bucky shuffles out of his room while Steve’s making dinner. He’s got pajama pants on and a sweatshirt with its left sleeve pulled over his hand.
“Hey,” he says, voice scratchy with sleep.
“Hi.” Steve waves his stirring spoon. “Making spaghetti.”
Bucky looks more alert than he’d had in days, which makes Steve smile. He’s looking around, hand shoved into his sweatshirt pocket. “So,” he says slowly. “We live together.”
“Yeah,” Steve nods. Anything to get Bucky talking more cheerfully.
“How long have we lived together?”
Steve scratches the back of his neck. “Well, we’ve lived here four years, but we were sharing an apartment during school, too–”
“We’ve lived together four years and I haven’t jumped you yet?”
Steve blinks. “I–” He looks down. Gives the spaghetti sauce another stir. “I don’t think I’m your type, Buck.”
Bucky laughs. It’s not a mean laugh but a real one, like the laughs they used to share. “Oh, you’re definitely my type.”
Steve doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he doesn’t. He focuses on draining the noodles, trying not to think about what Bucky’s saying.
He hears Bucky stepping closer. “But maybe I’m not your type,” Bucky says quietly. Giving him an out.
Steve was never much of a liar. He looks at Bucky, the way he can see a bit of his collarbone under the neck of his sweatshirt. The way his face looks, open.
He mutters, “That’s never been the problem.”
Bucky slide a hand around Steve’s waist. His chin comes to rest on Steve’s left shoulder. “So…why didn’t we?”
When Steve turns his head, Bucky slides his mouth over Steve’s own.
The kiss is soft and gentle, just a press of lips. Steve’s mouth is parted open a little and he can feel Bucky breathing.
Steve closes his eyes and pulls away, very slowly. “I can’t do this,” he says. “You don’t even remember me.” He sighs. “I don’t want a one-night stand with a stranger, Bucky. You’re my best friend.”
When he looks up, Bucky’s mouth is tilted in regret. “Sorry.”
He doesn’t want Bucky to be sorry for kissing him. “Don’t worry about it,” Steve says. He takes the saucepan off the stove and reaches for plates. “Let’s just eat.”
——
He has to text Natasha three times to get the location of the alley where she found Bucky. He has to text Natasha because records has somehow misplaced the file of the investigation, and he’s starting to doubt if they would have interviewed her anyway.
Someone’s cleaned it up – or, at least, the metal of the garage door is shiny, no sign of blood. The ground’s too dirty to tell what’s blood and what’s not. Steve lets out an impatient sigh. He’s not sure what he was expecting to find but it hurts as the faint hope leaves him anyway.
He examines the door more carefully. It doesn’t move when he tugs at it. Locked – that would make sense.
Except then how did Bucky get in its way?
Steve frowns. There’s a shiny spot near the top and he stands on his toes to get a better look at it. There are scratches on the metal, almost gouges that look like they were made with a knife.
“What were you doing, Bucky?” he mutters under his breath. Trying to break in?
Steve doesn’t want to do that just yet. He files away seek warrant in the back of his brain, to pick up if he’s running low on leads. Probably the first thing he should do is check who owns this place. He’ll ask Rollins to look it up – he owes Steve afavor.
Something clinks on the ground as he steps back. Steve looks under his shoe to find a small pin: a skull adorned with snakes.
“Huh,” Steve says out loud. “What do you have to do with this, then?”
——
Bucky’s door is half-open today. Steve knocks and waits for Bucky’s careless, “Yeah?” before going inside anyway.
Bucky’s sitting on his bed, flexing the fingers of his left hand with his right. It’s supposed to get the brain used to moving the prosthetic, Steve remembers.
He sits cross-legged on the floor because it feels a little too familiar to sit on his bed. “I went to the scene of the accident,” he says, clearing his throat. “I know you still don’t remember much–”
Bucky barks out a laugh.
“–but I was wondering if maybe talking about it might help bring anything back?”
“Yeah, all right.” Bucky waves his right hand. “Ask. Whatever.”
“Okay.” Steve lays out pictures of the scene onto the floor. “Any of this look familiar?”
Bucky frowns at them. He picks one up – the one of the door – and stares at it for a long time. “Is this–” He tilts his head toward his left shoulder.
“Yeah,” Steve says awkwardly. “Sorry.“
Bucky shrugs off the apology. He puts the picture down and looks over the rest, a slight frown between his eyebrows. Then he sighs. “Sorry,” he says. “Nothing.”
“No, it’s fine.” Steve sweeps up the pictures into a pile. “Don’t worry about it.”
He hesitates before showing Bucky the pin. “What about this?” he asks.
Bucky’s yawning when he looks at it, and his expression doesn’t change. “Is that mine?” he asks. “Did I have terrible taste, or what?”
“Naw, I don’t think so, just found it at the scene.” Steve puts the pin away. He’s grinning at Bucky, for the first time in what feels like weeks. “Although now that you mention it, you do have that one pair of jeans–”
“Wait, what’s wrong with ‘em?”
——
[trail on garage leads to nick]
——
Steve’s watching [something ridiculous] on the TV. It’s been a long day and he doesn’t really want to think.
He hears Bucky’s door open and forces himself not to look around. It won’t help Bucky to feel like he’s under scrutiny all the time.
Bucky comes nearer anyway, settling down on the arm of the sofa. “What’s up?” he asks, waving at the screen.
“Nothing much,” Steve says. “[something just happened.]”
“I can’t believe you watch this stuff,” Bucky says. “I can’t believe I’m friends with someone who watches this stuff.” But he stays, and he slowly slides down to take a seat properly. His thigh is nearly pressing against Steve’s own, and when [something funny happens?] he laughs, loud and clear, his hand coming up to clap Steve on the back.
It’s like they’ve crossed a line, after that. Bucky touches him more, comfortably moving Steve when he’s in Bucky’s way, lightly shoving Steve on the shoulder when he’s teasing him. It’s everything Steve could’ve wanted: Bucky’s hand on his when he’s about to take the last pretzel, Bucky’s arm around his shoulder when they’re squashed in a booth in [food place].
But sometimes Bucky still stops in confusion in the middle of a conversation, when a reference he should know flies over his head, and Steve wants to take Bucky’s face in his hands, smooth all the worry and frustration away.
They’re not quite there yet.
——
[nick fury’s arrest, nick says something to steve/peggy – maybe an address?]
[peggy keeps up on paper trail, starts to suspect pierce + sitwell]
[steve gets shot at while investigating]
[bucky starts to remember. he withdraws a bit. sam.]
[something something pierce implicated]
[steve & peggy go to confront & land in hydra meeting]
[shoot out + bucky coming by with half-recovered memories]
[the fbi. nat + clint]
[these two cannot communicate when nobody has amnesia. v uncomfortable]
[“how do we keep ending up like this”]
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