#a poor blighty boy

[aliveria]

blighted solas :D

#dragon age #solas #my art #a poor blighty boy #if this is crap don't tell me just give me pity likes ok #i used a couple of screenshot refs but i don't remember where i saved them from #so if you recognise lemme know and i'll credit

[thedreadvampy]

this one IS finished (I wrote it in August 2013) and honestly? holds tf up good job 2013 Ruth

(2013 Ruth was evidently very into a) trauma and b) Bertie not being as dead as initially suspected)

TAKE NO PRISONERS GIVE NO QUARTER

The rage hasn't left him since he heard about Bertie. It's amazing what three simple letters can do to a man whose whole self rests on one person. MIA. Theoretically, that's inconclusive, but in reality, that just means there isn't enough left to find, let alone bury. MIA is a pretty common ending to a young man's story, down here in the tunnels. 

The whole tunnel came down on Bertie and the rest of the scouting party, the cracked walls giving up the ghost under the combined pressure of shellling and laser fire. Crushed Lenny and Tommy alike, erasing their differences in one bloody mess, good old boys from Blighty and moonbleached Lenny bastards all rendered down to crushed mess together, There was only one survivor to report back, and was is the operative term. It's hard to get back into active service when you're jam from the waist down, and the poor blighter never even made it far enough to be invalided out to one of the giant Medsats in orbit up above.

So Bertie's gone, and in fairness, Tim never was very stable when left to his own devices, as strings of explosive accidents and charred lab wreckages can attest.

There was shock, at first. The dull numbness of denial,  no no no NO no NO it can't be he isn't he didn't no body no proof he'll be found he'll be invalided out he'll be fine he is was will be fine he isn't gone because he CAN'T be gone. But denial's hard to cling to when you've seen death like the boys in the tunnels have seen, you know a tunnelfall is not something you walk away from. Or even crawl away from. Nowhere to run, with tonnes upon tonnes of lunar rock crashing down from above, tasting your own fate in the smoke and dust that are the forerunners of the boulders...a hellish death, a messy death, above all a certain death. If you aren't crushed you'll suffocate or die of your wounds, out in the deadland where nobody's going to hear your cries. Hells, Tim and Bertie did it often enough, that grim tunnels game you have to play, sitting by the crackling radio, rustling and banging your things around, talking, singing, anything to block out the hopeless, plaintive calls from the nearest collapsed tunnel, where hidden charges and weakened structures and exposure to fire mean you'll most likely die yourself before you can help any one of the poor bastards.

So Bertie's...

Bertie's...

For hours, days, he couldn't even bear to think the end of that sentence, and he understands now as never before why the tunnels are filled with euphemisms, those coy lies that partially cover this unbearable truths lurking behind them.

Gone.

Bought it.

Kicked the bucket.

Pushing up daisies.

MIA.

Bertie's...Bertie's dead.

His mind revolted, twisted and writhed away from considering the existence of a world with a Bertie-shaped lack, the world he now existed in where days and nights were cold and alone and silent and only filled by his cold hands and his cold eyes and his cold heart and his raging fire thoughts with nobody to guide them. There were, at that point, others around him, comrades, others in his dugout, but they no longer existed to him They meant nothing. They weren't Bertie. They weren't his. They were man-shaped shadows, who drifted in and out of his awareness to offer orders or platitudes. They weren't part of his silent cotton-wool world. Tim was...is...an ice cold, glass-sharp shard in the centre of soft, soundless, excruciating nothing.

He has yet to be aware of crying over Bertie, though sometimes he finds the salt wetness on his face to be tears, not blood, sometimes he realises with a shock that the hopeless sob he hears is his own. But thus far he has never sat down to cry, never let himself mourn. For days after the news came, it wasn't real, nothing was real, he just shut off. He stared, blank-eyed, into the middle distance, and performed his duties with silent, mechanical efficiency. His comrades muttered, as the days spread into weeks, talked about "mental", "headcase", "shell-shock," and though he heard them, they no more penetrated Tim's dead-eyed daze than anything else happening around him. But there was one, a soft-spoken Welshman by the name Griffiths (bought it at Sinus Roris a few days later), who hit the nail on the head. Looking at the detached, unreacting figure of Tim as he sat slowly dissassembling his lasgun, Griffiths said quietly, "I reckon that's what it looks like when a man gets his heart broke beyond repair".

That, Tim heard, and almost, almost cried. Almost let it fall loose, all of it, weeks of pent-up tears, crippling fear, total bereavement. Almost shed every tear he had, for the times that were and the comfort that used to be, for his Bertie and for his own heart, that he'd barely known was there until it shattered, and for the snuffing of the one and only true light in these dank, dismal tunnels. He almost cried, but he didn't. If he let the feelings in, he was sure they would destroy him; comprehension of his loss loomed poised, a tsunami waiting to break over him.

He didn't cry. The emotions stayed safely dammed back. His face stayed empty. His heart stayed closed.

And he could have stayed that way forever, floating through life in the dazed, unfocused stupefaction of unbearable grief, but for one thing. Bertie had...had died pushing the lines forward, and the Moonies were working day and night, it seemed, to push back. And they pushed hard. 

They came in the dead of night, trampling across the fallen rock under which was buried the dead of both sides. Tim was on watch that night, he saw the tiny will-o-the-wisp reflection of lights in their eyes, the firelight gleaming off polished buttons. He saw the soldiers who'd mowed down his Bertie (he wasn't there, didn't see how Bertie died, but in the fevered darkness behind his lids, he sees Bertie dying in that godforsaken tunnel night after night in infinite ways, sees him shot down or crushed or lying moaning in the dark, slowly ebbing away a few pathetic tunnels away from Tim's unknowing form), saw them in the flesh now, saw them coming from the wreckage which still buried the only person who'd been real to him, imagined their boots pounding the rubble above Bertie's ruined body. The tension which had been holding him together for every unimaginably long day since the tunnelfall snapped, and the pain crashed thunderous into his head in a flood of images and memory and raw uncurtailed loss, in curly hair and a dimpled smile and pale grey eyes clouded over lying alone dying alone in a stew of viscera and agony and bone and blood and smoke, mingling contamination, blood mixed with his enemies, crushed into moonwhite corpses, a world apart, a world alone, a world where Tim has no control, where Bertie isn't, where Tim...

And without knowing anything, unexpectedly, Tim found the wave didn't swamp him. Didn't crush him, didn't smash him, didn't destroy him. He rode it. His agony and his loss gave him strength, made him unstoppable. Grief surged in his veins, and he surged with it, eyes alive and merciless. He laid red flowers on Bertie's grave. By the time the rest of the platoon scrambled out of the dugout, sleep-fogged and panicking, the battle was all but over, and Tim was gone in a trail of broken corpses.

He is legend. He is death. The monster of the war. His shadow stalks the tunnels, makes Lenny wake up cold and sweating and reaching for his laser in the dark.

Sometimes he surfaces to find himself slick with gore, panting. Sometimes, the flash and scream of his homemade grenades blast him into a moment's lucidity. Sometimes, surrounded by the dead, he awakes to find himself laughing and crying all at once.  Always, he surveys his work with grim satisfaction, but his work is not done, will never be done. The fury which drives him will not be sated, because no matter how many he kills, how many of Bertie's murderers fall before him, there will still be more of the moonbleached fuckers out there, and there will still be no Bertie. No amount of blood is blood enough to repay the loss of Bertie. The tunnels can drown in blood for all he cares, as long as there's a Lenny left on the moon he cannot rest, will not rest.

Lips drawn back, baring bloody teeth in a deathshead grin, skin afire with reflected explosions, hair in bloody ratstails whipping the air, eyes wide and redrimmed and merciless, face soot-streaked and bloody, he runs and he destroys. You can only ride the wave as long as you keep moving. Stop, and the pain grabs you, breaks you, drowns and dashes you, you'll never catch it again.

You know this part. Tim in the tunnels, dancing to the sonorous song of gunfire and grenades, hauling on the lasgun's trigger, a wild onlaught of blood and fire, laughing a chillingly humourless laugh, shout-singing the words that make the Kaiser's men piss themselves and run, take no prisoners, give no quarter. The lucky shot, the sudden blackness that damps the fire in his burning mind. Tim wakes before the Moon Kaiser, unarmed, pained, held by guards.

He isn't like other men, that's what the Kaiser failed to take into account. He's a machine fuelled by love and blood, he runs on the pain-fire that consumes him, he won't stop, can't stop. He doesn't see the world like men do, not any more. Many men would tremble, many men would abase themselves in fear, but Tim is not many men. Many men would be surprised to see the decapitated head of a comrade come alive and wink at them, but Tim's not lived in the real world since the tunnel fell, why would it surprise him? He can't stop, and what the Kaiser forgets, looking upon the animalistic form of the monster of the tunnels, is that Tim is not stupid. He never was, was always smarter than his peers, but now he runs with the liquid fire of revenge, the fire which burnt away fear and hesitation, the fire which burnt down to its white-hot razor-sharp bones one of the Academy's greatest intellects.

The laser fires.

The moon blows up.

White hot victory sears his eyes to black holes.

Not one Lenny is left on the Moon.

For the first time since the tunnelfall, perhaps the last, Tim wears a true, unmitigated smile. His face bloody and bruised, cheekbone fractured, teeth loose in his salt-tasting mouth, lips and beard streaked with blood, burned-out holes where once he had eyes, body a mass of melting pain, Tim spreads wide hands blistered and nailless and torn, and smiles beautifically, his sacred fiery charge at last fulfilled.

Later, there is more pain, and more blood, and metal screaming and grinding bone and screeching glass and merciless, half-familiar voices around him.

Later still, head screaming from the searing, unwelcome clarity of his new brass-rivet vision, he throws away the tenth cup of tea thrust into his hands by the genially smiling wooden man, and goes walking among the wreckage of the Moon. His unfamiliar optics pick out the scorched shell of a British Medsat, palely lit by Earthlight. It's near death, battered, burned, uprooted from its umbilical attachments to the lunar surface. The airlock judders open to let Tim in, red cross shattered and blackened on the pitted and charred surface of the outer door, inside door's glass spiderwebbed with cracks but still gamely holding out against the vacuum of space.

Tim's footfalls are loud in the echoingly abandoned corridors. He passes the dead, nurses and doctors lying where they fell as the satellite buckled and split, some crushed under their equipment, some lying where they bled out, some left bloody marks as they dragged themselves into wards. Behind the airlocked ward doors, surely the dying still moan, soundproofed out of Tim's life. Emergency lights flicker on and off, alternately bright, antiseptic whiteness and total darkness, casting failing, dancing shadows on the crazed, cracked, bloodied floor. The light hurts Tim's head, and he covers his optics with a bandage to spare his tortured brain, navigating the corridors with cracked fingertips and echoing footsteps. Chooses a door at random, steps into the ward. The room is silent, but for a few gasping, cracked, airless breaths. Tim is reminded of the moanings in the tunnels all those eternal weeks ago, the dead men in tunnelfalls who just won't die. He takes another shuffling step, shuffles around when he encounters an unmoving body with his foot, explores the ward in dazed blindness, smelling sickness and death and blood, hearing hopelessness, seeing nothing.

There's a dry cough to his left, and to his right a rattling, juddering last breath, and Tim stops, drawn up short, because that breath sounds his name in impossible, familiar tones, and then is gone.

His heart stops. He rips the bandage from his eyes, flooding his vision with white flickering emergency lights, with blood and the dying, and with the nightmare.

Tim lets out a howl, wordless and meaningless and bottomless, like a wounded animal, like a dying man, like Lucifer falling. Knees and strength give out all at once. Strings cut, he lands on his knees, sprawled across the bed, rocking and shuddering, fists clenched, the unearthly despair sound still tearing out of him from the bottom of his irreparably stained soul.

Under his desperately shaking body, the fresh corpse cools slowly, bereft of the machines that were holding him together, orphaned of their care by the blast which must have blown out both main and auxiliary life support. The dead man has bandaged stumps where once he had long, strong legs, his broad chest has been crushed and crumpled on one side, his smiling, dimpled face now gaunt and etched with unimaginable pain (and now, oh god, waxy and cold and white and bloody-lipped), there's a gaping absence where once there was a laughing grey eye, blonde curls have been shaved away to allow for the livid line of stitches across his scalp, but there is no mistake, could never be a mistake. And broken as he was, he was alive, was awake, was even speaking, and then Tim took his revenge, and now...

And now the wave has broken over Tim a second time, and this time there's no riding it, no using the anger and hatred which fills his every fibre. Because there's no using that white hot fire of revenge when Bertie's killer still lives, will always live, now cannot die.

And now, now he cries, an explosion of tears and pain and keening, hopeless, echoing up from the bottom of the world, thin body wracked, shaking like every world ending at once as he pulls sobs up through every part of him, breathing raw and short and ragged, nothing left but despair and endless, futile pain and rage. Hands tear at his hair and face as if by sheer effort of will he could tear himself apart, kill himself with as much violence and brutality as he killed the Kaiser and his army, but it's hopeless, he can't be killed, he can't forget, he can't escape, it will never be over, he will live forever and he will live with this forever.

Later, Gunpowder Tim leaves the Medsat in its death throes, mechanical eyes unreadable, walks away from the hospital satellite he crippled, returns to the Aurora and the cold, mechanical distraction of her guns, the crew of once-people as hateful as himself. Leaves what was left of his humanity behind in its charnelhouse corridors with the body of his friend/love/victim. Leaves Tim-That-Was to die next to Bertie's body.

Behind him, the Medsat shudders and flares suddenly white in a soundless, soon-snuffed explosion, a funeral pyre for Tim and Bertie. Gunpowder Tim doesn't look back.

#the Mechanisms #gunpowder tim #gunpowder tim blows up the moon #tim x bertie #mechs fic

[wewerepromisedsomuch]

Album Review: IDLES

Artist:  IDLES

Title:  Ultra Mono

Record Label: Partisan Records

Release Date: 25th September 2020

Rating: 9.0/10

 “Do you hear that thunder? That’s the sound of strength in numbers”

  If ever there was a lyric to typify IDLES, it’s this snippet lifted from ‘Grounds’ the hip-hop indebted second single taken from the Bristol group’s third LP ‘Mono Ultra’. This is a band that champion unity, community, self-belief and acceptance; chuck in embracing vulnerability and you’ve got arguably the most important and vital musical outfit in the UK today. The five piece’s debut album ‘Brutalism’ was a necessary, explosive cathartic release in the wake of vocalist, Joe Talbot’s mother passing, ‘Joy as an Act of Resistance’, the group’s sophomore album, presented itself as their manifesto: one of togetherness, respect and defiance. It maintained the political sneer of their first record but as the record’s moniker indicates, a feeling of joy can be found front and centre. ‘Ultra Mono’ is the next logical sonic evolution; it has the untamed energy of ‘Brutalism’, and the overwhelming positivity and socio-political commentary of ‘Joy as an Act of Resistance’.

IDLES have never been or will ever be a band known for taking their foot off the gas and this is evident through ‘Ultra Mono’ as the record sprints along at a breathless rate. Passion and intensity are key to the album’s propulsion and much like the records that have come before, it perfectly encapsulates the band’s chaotic live performance. As a state of intent, they don’t come much clearer than ‘War’, a frenzied opener anchored by bursts of feral guitar and Jon Beavis’ thunderous drumming. Then plain and simple Talbot can be heard hollering “this means war” while the violence unfolds around him. On paper this may sound like out and out deconstruction but it’s the cathartic sound of celebration that IDLES always manage to channel to perfection that kicks off their new album. Anger doesn’t always have to be interpreted as detrimental, it can be the vehicle for change.

  Spontaneity has been key to the birth of IDLES’ new album, with a good chunk of the song-writing taking place in the recording booth. This is where the restless immediacy comes from, it’s not over thought, it’s impulsive, it’s volatile and it’s from the heart. The sense of community and solidarity comes through on ‘Kill Them with Kindness’, which has Talbot reply to the unasked rhetorical question of “you and whose army?” with “I’m guessing you can’t tell by my tone but I mean business and I ain’t on my own”. IDLES are dab hands at being combative with tongue-in-cheek humour; on the slightly slower, moodier “The Lover”, our chief protagonist can be heard chiming “look mum/I’m a soul singer/singing in the face of the middle finger”, while punctuating the latter part of the song with “I want to cater for the haters/eat shit!”. Joe ain’t nothing but direct hey?! A playfulness gallops through lead single ‘Mr Motivator’, which has Talbot bellow for unity against, well… you’ll see “let’s seize the day/let’s holds hands/chase the pricks away/you can do it/yes you can”.

  Being politicised is nothing new to IDLES and this theme has continued with ‘Ultra Mono’. Like ‘Grounds’, ‘Reigns’ struts with a hip-hop groove (the record was programmed by Kenny Beats, known for his work with JPEGMafia, Gucci Mane and Denzel Curry to name a few), as Talbot grits his teeth and aims his ire at those in charge with blood on their hands “how does it feel to have shagged the working classes into dust?”. ‘Anxiety’ wriggles and writhes with an apt nervous energy, while our IDLES’ man goes for the jugular “our government hates the poor”. ‘Model Village’s rapid fire Bloc Party-esque post punk (but pissed off) casts a disparaging light on middle England and all its rotten to the core hypocrisy “just give them an anthem and they’ll sing it/still they don’t know the meaning in it/just saluting flags ‘cause it’s British”. Lyrically, this track tears in to good ol’ Blighty so much it’s worth its own review alone.  Cut from similar cloth, ‘Carcinogenic’ documents the imbalance between the wealthy and working classes “where were you when the ship sank/probably not queuing for food banks” and “working people down to the bone/on their knees/9-5 every day of the week/is carcinogenic” holds a mirror up to the toxicity of modern life, as the 1% lead an existence of blissful ignorance.

  We can’t believe in our governments and our decision makers, but we can believe in IDLES and IDLES make us believe in ourselves; “Do you hear that thunder? That’s the sound of strength in numbers”, we hear it boys and we’re standing right behind you.

#IDLES #Ultra Mono #Post Punk #Punk #Rock n Roll #Rock Music #Bristol #Hip Hop #Music #Music Review #Album Review #Fontaines DC #The Murder Capital #Shame #METZ #AF Gang #DGG #Joe Talbot

[ziracona]

Just reread Dwight's thought about how scary a killer with needles would be. How would/does he feel about blighty boy? Cause damn did he jinx it, haha

Hajdskkd he’s suffering. Fkn hates Grimes with a passion. It’s up there in his five least favorites and he’s very :’-] every time he realizes he got him. Prayer circle for our son boy ✊😔. Ishtar help him. TuT It’s definitely one of his least favorite moris to suffer or see done to someone, and in any AU where he’s been to the lab/knows who that guy is and what he’s done to people, the hatred fear and disgust all exponentially intensify. My poor son...

#I love him he didn’t deserve to have to deal with fkn Grimes #ask #allexiaah #dead by daylight #Dwight Fairfield #in living memory (fic) #in living memory

[mentalmimosa]

no place in the world left to go

They’re at a flophouse in Rome, a hotel so rundown that no fleas would set down their bags, and Tony’s tired, fuck, is he. The kind of tired that only scotch on the rocks, keep ‘em coming and an icy blonde with a nice rack can fix.

But there’s no blonde here. There’s only Bucky, a roughshod sergeant with dirt from the forests of France under his fingernails, still. They’ve been in Italy almost a week.

Which is why when the sergeant turns from the window and pulls off his shirt, the view is pretty but also rank.

“Need a bath,” Barnes grunts. “I saw taps down the hall.”

Tony waves his hand and doesn’t bother to raise his head from the bed. “Sally forth, then, soldier, and be clean.”

Bucky takes the view with him. But sadly not the smell: sweat and blood and something else, something even more pungent. Tony takes it in, lets it out, sticks it. Ah yes, he thinks, weary. That’s grief.

Steve Rogers, the Allies’ last great hope, had been dead for a fortnight, as the Brits say. 14 days, two weeks--whatever way you slice it, he’s dead and now Hitler’s winning the race. It was a propaganda boon. It still is. Tony’s gut says it might be enough to carry Germany to the finish line. There’s the Manhattan thing back at home, but the boys there have been too goddamn slow, and who’s fault is that, now? Not Tony’s. They’d booted him out of their secret club a few years before.

He isn’t bitter about that anymore. Mostly.

He’d loaned himself out to Churchill’s men and that had been a better fit for a while; they’d seen his value, the British, and given him money to play with and men, so many men eager to do what they could for Old Blighty and for Tony, eventually. They fell easy for him, those Englishmen, happy to spread their cheeks for the cause because they all wanted to be chosen as the world’s first Super Soldier: rich men and poor ones, Scottish and Irish and Welsh, each ready to pay for the privilege if necessary and oh, Tony was damn good at convincing them that it was.

But in the end, it hadn’t been his call after all. No, Winston had phoned his friend Franklin and the president had send his choice across the ocean and delivered him to Tony’s front door.

“Hi,” the kid had said, confident despite the skinny legs and big ears. “I’m Steve Rogers, sir. You must be Mr. Stark.”

“What the fuck,” Tony had said through a head full of hangover. “You’re Steve Rogers?”

That’d only made the guy stand up straighter. “Yep. Mr. Roosevelt sent me, sir. I was told you’d be expecting me.”

“Expecting, yes. You? Pffft.” Tony had turned his back and wandered back into the cool dark of his lab. “Fuck no.”

It had taken a lot of convincing and a flurry of all-caps coded telegraphs, but in the end, Tony had gone with it and strapped the kid into his machine and made--if he did say so himself--a hell of a man with a chip on his shoulder when it came to Tony a fucking mile wide. But Tony liked that about him, liked that he was mouthy when the brass wasn’t around, liked that Steve had a bit of temper that even after the serum a little well-placed whiskey could bring out.

“You,” Steve had hissed in his ear the first time Tony got fucked, bent over a workbench with screwdrivers biting his arms, “you are the bane of my existence, Stark.”

It was hard to sass with that thing in his ass, but he managed. “Then get the hell off me, asshole.”

Steve had laughed then, laughed and pulled Tony closer, squeezed his hips tighter. “No. I like screwing you too much.”

It was fun while it lasted, but then, of course, Steve had a job to do, didn’t he? To go and win a goddamn world war.

“You’ll miss me when I’m gone,” Steve murmured that last night, his mouth pressed to the back of Tony’s neck. “You’re gonna miss me so much.”

They were in Tony’s bed and Steve was fucking him through it and Tony was crazy to come, dying for it, but Steve’s fist around the base of his dick was a bitch .

Which was why he’d lied, whispered “I won’t” even though he knew that shit wouldn’t fly.

Steve nuzzled his throat and Steve slammed into him again and again and Steve didn’t make him take it back, didn’t call him on it, didn’t have to, so bald was the lie. And when Steve had come, he'd bitten the meat of Tony’s shoulder and howled and was still spurting when he'd open his fist and muttered “Come” and Tony'd gone firehose in the sheets and screamed for what felt like a week.

“Yeah,” Steve said when they were face to face again, when he was weaving his fingers through the mess on Tony’s stomach and Tony was panting like he’d just run the three-minute mile. “You will.”

*****

They hadn’t seen each other for years after that, not until 1944 when the Battle of the Bulge went south and with it, everybody knew, the Allies’ advantage. Russia had drained Hitler’s forces but the Bulge fiasco gave the Germans the victory they needed to get the homefront onboard with the war effort again.

Times were bad. Tony’s life, too. He hadn’t been able to get the serum to take in anyone after Steve and the Brits had taken his tech and booted him out. He was one wrong bottle of rum from sleeping on the goddamn street.

But then the telegram had come from a holdout area in France: SR WOUNDED. DOCTORS USELESS. COME. And then a set of coordinates, which he had chosen to ignore, because how the fuck was he going to zip across the channel while dodging Nazi arms? He'd comforted himself with bathtub gin and no ice. It was probably a prank, anyway.

In the morning, though, there’d been a knock--10 minutes worth, actually--delivered by a no-nonsense woman bearing Army boots and flak jacket.

“Put these on,” Captain Carter had said brusquely. “We’re crossing the channel in five hours. Tell me, do you have your own gun?”

“Do I--?” He’d blinked in the dusty sunlight she’d brought into his flat. “No.”

She crossed her arms and pointed at his pants, waited until he’d picked them up. “Well. You do know how to shoot at least, surely.”

“Not really.”

“Christ on a cracker. A word of advice, Mr. Stark: don’t repeat that to anyone. If asked, you’re a crack shot with your daddy’s pistol, which I shall provide, and you shall carry as if you know what the business end is for, hmm?”

It’d taken almost a full day to get from London to the middle of some fairytale forest in France where Steve Rogers, that bastard, was trying his damnedest to die. He was gray when Tony bent over him, gray and without that sharp, fuck you light in his eyes.

“Docs can’t do anything for him,” a dark-haired guy crouched by Steve’s head said. “They got the bullets out ok, but the wounds won’t close, even with real tight stitches.”

“Bucky threatened to nail ‘em shut,” Steve croaked.

“And I would have, too, if somebody hadn’t stolen my hammer.”

“Boys,” Tony’d said, easing back the blood-stained dressings. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Steve thought it might have something to do with the serum,” Captain Carter had said on the way over as the boat skipped silently through the waves. “He’s never been cut so deeply before, so he wasn’t sure if there’d been changes to his blood chemistry that might be interfering with the healing process.”

“Shouldn’t be,” he’d told her, repeated to himself again and again. “Not by design, anyway. But intent only gets you so far, huh?”

Now, staring down at the putrid mess that was Steve Rogers’ chest, all he could think of were the hours he’d spent with his head there after they’d worn each other out, after Steve’s steam had blown off and his own fuzzy, righteous anger at the universe had been temporarily pummeled away. For all the rough of their fucks, what followed was sweeter, more goddamn gentle, than Tony’d ever been with another man. Girls, they liked that sort of thing sometimes, to be coddled and cooed at before you booted them out, but the men in Tony’s life had always been of the fuck-and-run variety, and he’d been just peachy with that.

But Steve was a cuddler, a warm, overheated blanket once his balls were empty that wanted nothing more than for Tony to be tucked up in the lea of his arm, their mouths close. Sometimes, that kind of shit led to more sex, but a lot of times, it didn’t; there was just skin against skin and breath over breath and the soft slide of Tony’s fingers up and down the pretty valleys of Steve’s chest.

None of that was left; it’d all been blown to shit.

“Two bullets,” Barnes told him when they stepped away, leaving Captain Carter and the Commandos behind. “Point blank. Stevie never had a chance.”

“How the fuck did this happen?”

Bucky just blinked at him. “It’s war, Stark. Shit like this happens all the time. He turned his back, he got jumped, and now--”

“Now,” Tony said softly. “He’s dying.”

In the end, he figured it wasn’t the serum that was killing Steve, it was the only thing keeping him from dying, and wasn’t that the cruelest irony of them all, huh? The thing that’d made Steve a weapon in the first place had made him its last victim. It’d have been better if he was just a man, a mortal, whose heart wasn’t fueled to fight, whose body would have reached for peace and just let him die.

“It was a longshot, bringing you out here, Tone.” Steve’s fingers had been stiff and frozen in his. “I’m sorry you risked your life for nothing.”

“Pffft, nothing,” Tony said. He didn’t try to hide that he was crying. They all were. “Got to see your mug again, didn’t I?”

Steve had smiled at him, dry lips stretched. “You’ll miss me when I’m gone, won’t you?”

Tony kissed his forehead. “I have already, asshole. This whole fucking time.”

They’d buried him behind the barn where they’d been hiding. Barnes wouldn’t let them leave a cross, so Dugan and Happy built a bairn.

And then there was nothing left of Steve Rogers, of the Super Soldier Project, and the war was getting closer. Tony could hear the German firing line.

“Well, gentlemen,” Captain Carter had said. “That’s it then, eh? Good luck to you.”

“Yeah,” Falsworth said, repositioning his cap. “Godspeed and all that.”

“Hey,” Barnes had said at Tony’s elbow, his eyes dark and his mouth set. “You’re with me.”

Tony startled. “Why?”

A shrug. “Because. Steve would’ve wanted it that way.”

*****

Two weeks of running later and they're in fascist Italy, of all fucking places. It wasn’t much, but it was damn sure a step up from a country crawling with Nazis. Here, there was only an infestation and these were fat and happy, living it up on Il Duce’s hospitality.

“This is better,” Bucky had muttered as they crept through the night streets. “Believe me.”

“Does that mean you’ll let me sleep? for more than two hours at a stretch?"

Bucky’d chuckled and swept an arm around Tony’s waist, a counterweight to keep him upright. “We find an inn that’ll let us in, Joseph, and sure. Knock yourself out.”

But he isn’t sleeping, is he. He’s lying on a bed for the first time in what feels like a lifetime and he’s not asleep. No, he’s listening to the water run down the hall, the pipes creaking and banging, and imagining what Sergeant Barnes looks like with his clothes all stripped off.

He’s grieving and he’s exhausted and somehow, beyond all that, he can feel himself getting stiff.

He’s feeling too much, that’s all. The world is turning upside down and a man he might have loved, whose life he might have ruined, died right in front of him and there are flames flickering at the foundation of the person he was before and the promise of ashes doesn’t frighten him as much as it should. His body and his brain are just overwhelmed and they’re taking it out on his dick. If he just lies here still for a minute, just lies here and breathes, he won’t think about the fact that Steve’s eyes wouldn’t close or that he was still bleeding even after he stop bleeding or that no one beyond the circle who dug it will ever know the location of his grave. He won’t think about the fact that there’s only one bed in this hotbox, one bed and two bodies and how lovely Sergeant Barnes is, the way his voice sometimes hits the same notes as Steve’s. He won’t think about spreading his fingers over clean skin or about Bucky’s back bowing. He won’t think about how much he needs to be kissed. He won’t--

“Stark.” Bucky’s in the doorway down to his shorts. “Taps are free. You should use them.”

“Yeah?” Tony sits up. Too fast, it turns out. “Do I smell that bad?”

That almost-smile again. “Hell yes.”

He leaves his boots by the bed and strips fast in the bathroom. Bucky’s rinsed out his shirt and pants and hung them crooked on the towel bar. When Tony’s done, shivering in the draining tub, he drapes his over the side. There aren’t any towels. It doesn’t matter. They’re the only ones on the whole top floor.

Which means, he figure as he pads soggy down the hall, that if he can jimmy the lock, there’s no reason for them to share a room. No reason except, when he steps over the door jam, Bucky’s thrown back the sheets and opened the windows and is framed in one by the stars and flickering streetlights.

“Tony,” he says. “You should see this. C’mere.”

Outside, the streets are quiet. A few cars, a couple of horses, but if he looks out beyond, towards the horizon, Rome herself is dressed for high times. Victory. Il Duce can probably smell it. God knows Hitler can. Captain America’s disappeared from the scene and the jackboots are marching, marching, and soon, Britain will be in the Axis’s grip. As for the US, South America, the rest: it’s only a matter of time.

Bucky’s shoulder brushes his. “You think we can still pull this out?”

“No.” Tony tips his body until their skin touches again. “Fuck, no, kid. It’s all over now but the shouting.”

“That’s what I figured. I could see it Captain Carter’s face, you know? She never would have split us up otherwise.”

“You didn’t have to drag me along, you know. I’d, uh--I'd understand if you wanted to go your own way now that we’re out of France.”

Bucky turns his head. “Why would I do that?”

“Come on, Barnes. I have to be slowing you down.”

“You don’t get it, do you?”

“What?”

A hand on his face, worn and gentle. “Steve’s gone. I got no place in the world left to go.”

It’s only when Bucky’s lips meet his that Tony understands, like a kick to the gut: You, he thinks as Bucky’s thumb traces his jaw. You loved him, too.

In bed, Bucky’s slow, the kind of slow that makes Tony want to break apart, the kind that turns his body to sugar melted under the heat of Bucky’s mouth and his hands.

“Wish I could be inside you,” he mumbles as he straddles Tony’s hips and leans down to nuzzle his neck. “Wish I had some slick to get you stretched so I could feel you all around me, huh? I bet you get so tight when you come.”

Bucky's hair isn’t as long as Steve’s was back then. He's a lot skinnier--the war diet; his cock’s fatter and he moans so much sofer when he comes. But in the dark, in the growing chill of the coming dawn, it’s close enough that Tony’s heart blurs and then he opens his eyes and sees Bucky's grin, watches Bucky's eyes flutter when Tony's back arches and he gives it up and up and up and then Bucky's saying his name and kissing his face and it isn't ok that Steve's dead, fuck no, it isn't, but right then, as he kisses Bucky back, for the first time in a long time, it feels ok that he's alive.

“We’ll need to leave in the morning,” Bucky says. He’s strumming the lines of Tony’s ribs. “Not at first light or anything, but one night here is enough.”

Tony kisses the dip in Bucky’s chest. “Where we going? Got some place in mind?”

Dry lips on his cheek, the promise of something--what? “Nah. Some place different, hmm? That’s enough.”

#stony #stucky #winteriron #major character death #wwII AU

[testimoniesofgodsgoodness]

Kenyan Journal

Monday 18th February 2019

This morning the parents of the school came to George’s compound for a meeting with me, the teachers, and the children.

It was a great time as I reiterated the vision given to George and touched on aspects of the school that needed improving. In particular I talked about the classrooms, some of which had not be finished off to a high class. You could probably see what I mean in the videos I’ve shared of the buildings. The toilets are yet to be completed. When you have 515 children you need more toilets. And you need to divide the girls from the boys. This we are doing and currently the school has nine working toilets for the children and three for the teachers. Another three are incomplete and need completing. I touched on the need to complete the staff room to give the teachers the space to mark the children’s work, and have their own meetings, and a place to relax, as well as store space for books. There is also a need for half a dozen more chairs.

Then I covered the future. I explained that the need for a secondary school was less important as it had become clear that the government had provided national secondary schools for the cleverest children in Kenya. And this type of secondary school was free, paid for by the government, because most graduates go on to university and become professionals in commerce, etc. Thus the country benefits greatly. Then there are district secondary schools were bursaries were given to children from poor families. Many children from this level also become professional people. Then there are local secondary schools were children were educated to a high level and went on to fill blue collar type jobs. Results from exams taken by children being educated at West View Academy are showing an usual success rate. We are blessed with excellent teachers who are passionate about the school and it’s rubbing off on to the children. We believe that many graduates from West View Academy May well achieve National Secondary School status, so reducing the need for building our own secondary school.

This will enable us to concentrate on the primary school (age five to sixteen) and gradually we can improve the facilities. There is a need for the children to be educated in computers. Most children at national level will have a basic understanding of how to use a computer. We must prepare our children accordingly. The pre school children (aged 3-5) need a playground providing swings and see saws, and climbing frames. The school also needs a bus of its own to pick up children who live far away, and drop them off at night before it gets dark. School trips to Migori to see how the town functions would be a first for most of the children, who have rarely ventured outside the village. Trips to Lake Victoria would benefit them, and there will be a need to travel to other schools as they become more proficient at various sports.

This last week we put in electricity in three of the classrooms to enable the oldest children to come to the school for prep. At home they are distracted by parents that want them to do chores and work on the farm. These same children are also coming into school early to enable them to study more, and this workload is a strain in them as they walk home late, walk to school very early and get little sleep. These children need, ideally, a dormitory so the can sleep during the week at the school and get more much needed rest. This extra study is desired by the children, and the teachers are fully prepared to work longer hours to ensure that as many children as possible graduate to national secondary school level. This dormitory, I told the parents, could also be used as a dining hall, and as a conference centre during the holidays thus earning the school much needed cash. The kitchen also needs improving.

Finally I handed out prizes for the winners of the single wicket competition. One for the the winner of the boys (Jared) and one for the winner of the girls (Neemah). And then both winners played each other and I gave out an engraved trophy I had bought in West End last year, to Jared. He was grinning from ear to ear.

Kenyans love ceremonies so there were many speakers after me but it was a lovely day, and the children of West View Academy were blessed. I finished the event with prayer and then the children went back to school. It was early afternoon by this time.

The rest of the day was spent talking to parents, teachers, and ministering to the sick. Tomorrow we leave late morning for Migori to catch the bus back to Nairobi for the plane back to Blighty. Time has flown by and God has been true to His Word. It never returns void.

[annamcnuff]

Back On Track: Cycling The Pacific Coast Highway

I did something unthinkable this week. Something so against the fibre of my very being that it makes me shudder to even say it. Come in close, because I’m going to whisper it… I got a bus. In fact, I got two buses. Faced with a choice between a shorter inland route directly to Reno (meh) or getting back on the original planned coastal route via San Francisco (wahoo) - I opted for the latter. And, rather than drill myself with 100 mile days to catch up, I came over all sensible. Fancy that?

THE OREGON COAST, AT LAST

From Portland I threw Boudica on a bus South to Eugene, where it was just 66 miles to the coast, I hopped off and did what the Pet Shop Boys told me to do. I went West. To the coastal town of Florence.

I’d been looking forwards to meeting The Pacific for over a week now, and in my head it was to be a spectacular affair. Dashing ocean views, sunshine, Highway 101 sweeping dramatically close to cliff tops - perhaps even a light spattering of fireworks. Alas, when I found the 101 it was foggy, spitting (not even real rain) and I couldn’t see head nor tail of the ocean. Had I ridden the wrong way?

It had been an early start, and I decided that I at least deserved pancakes and so rolled into a little cafe. There I met Dave and Ron, who, clearly bedazzled by the Pink bike, asked me to pull up a pew. They shouted me brekkie with a side order of conspiracy theory chat and Ron shared his ‘rule of thumb’ (complete with amputated thumb, naturally). “Be patient, or become a patient he said.” With that I was gone. Down highway 101, past the insanely beautiful and quite surreal Oregon Sand dunes and on the 50 miles to catch bus number 2.

THE COASTAL EXPRESS

Bus number 2 'The Coastal Express’ was a bit of a gamble. It was the kind of bus who’s website was in different sized Comic Sans, included a photo gallery of 'Mike at the wheel’ and as you waited in the car park of the local supermarket, you weren’t entirely sure if it was going to turn up at all. But sure enough, a little 12 seater mini van eventually rolled into view. Once aboard, I was catapulted into the slipstream of someone else’s life. It stopped to drop passengers off at their homes, everyone seemed to be called Randy or John, and they all greeted each other with knowing questions: “How’s Linda doing?” “Did your Mom come down to visit in the end?”. It made a fascinating ride. I could see Boudica bobbing safely around on the rack at the front, and I enjoyed listening to the locals patter to while away an hour down the coast.

I got off the bus with just 20 miles to ride, to finally catch up Lydia and a third friend of ours, Laura. It was getting dark, and I was determined to make it. I started down the road with a gritted determination. Suddenly 'booooooofffff!’ - my back tyre exploded, leaving behind a big hole.

OOOO OFFICER

As if by magic (I’m honestly not sure where he came from) a Highway Patrol officer appeared. “You okay there mam?”. I babbled something about the back tyre and a bus and in true McNuff’ll-Fix-it-herself style “Oh I’ll be okay, I have Gaffa tape.” Then I stopped. And thought. Actually, this sort of is his job. And I was losing light. So I accepted his offer to throw my bike in the boot of his patrol car and drive me to town.

The poor bloke. I’m sure he regretted his decision within about 5 seconds. He relayed something rather official into the radio back to base “Um this is 90214, niner, we have an 1148, chaperone to the shoreline RV park for drop off, and return to post, over”. Well. How exciting I thought. And then I noticed all the pretty lights on the dashboard. And it began. The kid in the candy store was unleashed:

“What does this do?” One word answer. “Ooooo. And this?!” Silence. “What’s an 1148? Am I an 1148?” Two word answer. Silence. “So… Are you into sports?” “No, not really mam” “Oh. Well. You must go to he gym or something - you look like you pump iron….” Wow. I actually just said that.

He finally dropped me off 20 miles down the road with a smile and a nervous wave. I’m not entirely sure he thought I hadn’t escaped from the local mental asylum.

CALIFORNIA - NOT WHAT YOU’D EXPECT

The California coast is so very very different from how I imagined it to be. And I love that. I’ve seen nothing of the white sandy beaches, endless sunshine and abundance of beautiful bodies that Arnie likes to tell us about on tourism commercials. I think all of that business happens south of San Francisco. Northern California, is rugged, foggy, damp and windy. For the most part the sands are dark and the currents of the ocean too dangerous to take more than a quick dip. At one point, as the route left the coast and entered farmland, I turned to the girls and said “I love this, it reminds me of home.” I’m not sure if it was the whiff of cow turd in the air, the terrible road surface, the drizzle or the rolling fields, but something just screamed of England. Ah Blighty. How I miss thee so.

REDWOODS AND THE SONOMA COAST

California is nothing if not varied. The Redwood National Parks in the North are mystical places. Even more so when caked in a thick fog. We rode for miles along the 'Avenue of the Giants’, clad in high vis jackets, surrounded by some of the biggest tree-beasts I’ve ever seen. Each one watching over us like old grandfather time himself. I thought about the things they must have seen in the 800 years they’d been standing. If trees could talk…

But the Sonoma coast took the bicycling biscuit for me. Route 1 is one of those car commercial roads - a baby smooth surface that wiggles its way round cliffs, in and out of coves and even takes you up above the cloud line. At one point we were riding with our faces only a few metres from soaring birds of pray. It. Was. Epic.

Finally, slowly but surely we began to see more and more people on the roads. We met the 'weekend warriors’ on their way out from San Francisco as we descended into the city ourselves. Rounding the final bend and seeing the Golden Gate Bridge come into view made my lil heart skip a beat. It’s only a bridge. But when you’ve seen something so many times in pictures, to arrive there having travelled (mostly) under your own steam, makes it just that wee bit more emotional.

We’re exploring the city for a few days now before heading to the desert, and state number 5 - Nevada. It’s going to be hot like the sun out there, and there’s some big passes to climb. I cannie wait.