#but less sticky and not covered in dust and debris the second you take it out of the plastic-

[area51-escapee]

Down an arm and a leg lads

#my right leg is acting up #and then I got my flu shot and the new Covid vaccine today #they really put those things in there 😭 #my right arm is like a silly sticky hand thing #but less sticky and not covered in dust and debris the second you take it out of the plastic-

[aggieharkness]

can you do a hurt/comfort story about agatha finding and adopting wanda after wanda's parents died?

Lily of the Valley (Part 1) (Wanda x Pietro x Agatha)

Summary: Agatha was in Sokovia when the bombings that killed Wanda’s and Pietro’s parents happened, but when she discovered them she knew she had to help them.

a/n: It’s my first ask, so I hope you like it and enjoy it, and if you want more, just... ask. I’ve decided that we all could do with a bit of Aggie being mentor/mum to Wanda and Pietro, so there will be more of this for sure. Also, I’m horrible at summaries, so I apologize in advance.

Warnings: injuries, bombs.

Words: 3k

Lily of the Valley

It was already dark when she started making her way back to her motel. She was trying so hard to blend in, making sure no one had any reason to think she was nothing more than a woman just having a walk from a very dark and dangerous forest all the way back to her very small and damp motel room filled with cockroaches. She was in this little town because she needed a plant that she had run out of after her rabbit had knocked over her cauldron and had caused it to spill her brand-new potion all over the floor. If he weren’t so cute and her familiar, she would have cooked him. Now she had three suitcases worth of this plant in her pocket as she walked through the quiet dark streets. Stupid gardening rules. Her soil back in her little cottage in Salem was far too acid for this plant to grown and even after she had tried spells to make it suitable it just wouldn’t grow. Plants really were weird; she had seen the most complicated flowers blooming in between concrete plates and in her perfect soil they just wouldn’t even get roots. Stupid gardening rules.

There were people running around, shots being fired, but she didn’t bother, she couldn’t get hurt. She wasn’t a baby, she knew perfectly well that in a hostile environment such as this she couldn’t go around without a protection spell around her, it would be suicide. As she turned a corner, she saw a bunch of men building up a barricade, shoots flying over their heads. She didn’t know the city well enough to change her route, so with a spell firm in her mind in case she needed it she walked close to the wall of a building, behind these people. This was one of the things that she sure as hell didn’t miss from the wars she had lived, the gunshots. They wouldn’t let her sleep, their sound still ringing sometimes in her nightmares, but that was her own fault, she decided to go on holiday to Paris just when it was being invaded by the Germans. Poor choice from her part.

Deep in thought, she didn’t see it coming, just felt how out of the blue she was being pushed by an invisible wave to the other side of the street, her back hitting the cold and damp floor, fragments of rocks and walls flying over her head. Out of habit, she waved her hands over herself, a purple energy field protecting her sore form from the flying projectiles. A cloud of smoke filled the air as the building she had just been walking by collapsed or at least part of it, she just couldn’t make out any forms through the thick cloud of dirt. Screams filled the previous quiet air, bringing unwanted memories to Agatha’s mind. After centuries and centuries of living among these mortals, she had experienced plenty of happy and sad moments, bittersweet and horrid ones, but also perfectly marvellous and simply wonderous ones as well. It was just that the sad ones, the terrible ones, always managed to make themselves known whenever she was feeling a bit down or when something bad was happening, like right now.

She heard more explosions coming from afar as the dust seemed to dissipate enough for her to see that the street was covered by debris, the building barely standing, some of the walls still in place, curtains and photographs hanging from them as if nothing had happened, the only witnesses of the explosion, their shattered glasses and half-burnt fabrics. Vanishing the magic field, she stood up, feeling something warm and sticky running down her face, her black pants ripped at her thigh, a superficial gush bleeding more than it should. Taking her hand and touching her forehead she looked down at her fingers to see the red liquid tinting them, making sure that there was nothing broken as she took a couple of steps in between the debris. Thankfully she was fine. With another wave of her hand, the dust dissipated completely, the streetlamps that were still standing illuminating the gruesome scene. People underneath walls, and what she guessed were parts of those who had been close enough to the building when it exploded.

She was used to working with tongues, toes, fingernails, even sometimes organs, but she usually wasn’t the one to open up the people to get them, she would just buy them from very honourable psychos that she knew, so seeing this made her stomach turn, another wave of memories filling her head, sporadic images of friends and acquaintances disappearing in clouds of dust, alarms sounding throughout the city as to warn the people that the bombs were coming. God, she really had been alive for far too long. At the moment she didn’t care who saw her or what they thought of her, two orbs of purple magic in her hands as she made her way to the half-blown building, levitating slightly over the floor as not to stumble over anything or anyone. The bombs were getting closer, which made Agatha’s hair stand on the back of her head, the sight of small fire’s surrounding her as she hovered over one of the apartments, taking a look.

Something that she guessed was once a couch laid covered in debris, a small Tv still on in between them. She had had one of those back in 1954, bought it herself, brand new in a beautiful turquoise colour with a matching television stand. She was a witch, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t enjoy the joy of home appliances or electronics. Before she even made the attempt of crossing the imaginary threshold that separated the apartment and the street, she saw two figures moving around. They hadn’t seen her, far too shocked to look around, before the voice of a boy reached her ears as the two kids run and hid underneath a table. Just a few seconds later another bomb landed right in front of Agatha, but it didn’t explode, although that didn’t matter to her, she was more than ready to vanish it, but it was far too close to the kids. Landing on the concrete floor she kneeled next to the table, two terrified kids staring back at her. One was a girl, with dark red hair and soft green eyes, the other was a boy, with blond hair and blue eyes, both sharing the same shocked and terrified expression.

-Are you okay? – neither of them answered, they just stared at her. Looking around she saw part of what once had been a perfectly good kitchen, the Tv playing the Dick Van Dyke show. Now that she was closer to the bomb, she managed to make out the word “Stark” in white, a red light beeping as if it had been supposed to go off as soon as it had hit the floor. “Stark”, she knew that name, but couldn’t remember from where, but since they were firing missiles at civils it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that it was not a very friendly company. Sticking her arm out towards the kids she waited. – I’m not going to hurt you.

-Who are you? – the girl's voice was soft and quiet, a very thick accent enfolding every word as she spoke. It held a tone of distrust, protectiveness that didn’t go unnoticed by Agatha, which brought a small smile to her lips. A little feisty girl.

-My name is Agatha. What’s yours?

-Where are my parents?

-Your parents? Were they with you when this happened? – the girl nodded, a wave of sadness filling Agatha’s chest. Standing up she walked around the room, lifting walls and rocks just enough to see if there was anyone underneath. Close to the back wall laid two bodies, their heads turned away from her. She didn’t need to check their pulse to see that they were dead, probably because of the blast, but she couldn’t understand how two grown adults were dead and two small kids were just fine, miraculously unharmed. She didn’t know how to tell the kids but knew better than to keep something like this from anyone. It was better to feel the pain all at once than discover the horrid truth after years and years of lies. Kneeling beside the table she looked at them, sorrow in their eyes. They already knew. – I’m sorry. I can tell you one thing though. They didn’t feel any pain.

-They are… gone? – the voice of the boy had a much thicker accent, he probably spoke less English or didn’t practice as much as his sister did, but it didn’t make the pain that Agatha was feeling go away. She had once been a happy kid, just like them, and out of the blue, she had found herself alone, just like them. She knew this feeling of despair and loneliness far too well.

-I’m sorry, I really am, but you need to get out of here. It’s not safe.

-We don’t have anywhere to go.

-What are your names? – sitting on the floor she tried to speak in low and hushed tones, as not to scare them. For some reason, her mind was screaming at her that she needed to take these two children out of there, take them away, but she couldn’t. Not after Nicholas.

-I’m Wanda, this is Pietro.

-Those are very lovely names. Can you and your brother stand up? I need to take you to a safe place, Wanda. I promise I won’t hurt you, but you can’t stay here.

-What about mum and dad?

-I’ll take care of them, don’t worry. Do you have a favourite colour, Wanda? – she stretched her arm, waiting for the little girl to take her hand, and for a few seconds she thought she wasn’t going to move, but slowly the little hand came to rest over hers. A jolt of magic came through Agatha’s arm, making her eyes turn purple for just a few seconds. This girl, Wanda, had magic, enough to keep her and her brother safe, and she suspected that the bomb hadn’t gone off because of her as well. She was obviously far more powerful than an ordinary witch, a ten-year-old couldn’t master a spell of this kind without having spent at least a century practicing.

-I like red. – crawling from underneath the table she quickly moved far away from the bomb, her brother following her quickly.

-And you Pietro? Do you have a favourite colour?

-I… I like blue.

-That’s lovely. I like purple, it’s a bit of a mix between the two, isn’t it?

-Where are we going to go? – Wanda’s eyes searched the room, staring for a few seconds at the Tv before it finally turned off. Before any of them could understand what was going on the ceiling gave away, the entire upper apartment falling on them. Agatha swiftly and effortlessly waved her hands skilfully over her head, protecting the three of them from being crushed. Wanda and Pietro looked at the older woman, purple rays coming out of her hands as the debris fell to the sides, falling onto the street. Wanda had felt something strange when she had touched Agatha’s hand, now she suspected it had been magic, which made her feel safe, protected, and she was sure it had the same effect on her brother even if he hadn’t touched him. She was saving them. Agatha moved her arms, pushing the entire thing far away from her and the kids, panting slightly once she turned her head back down to look at the two little ones. – How did you do that?

-I’m a witch Wanda. Don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you. Let me take you to a safe place, okay?

She took both of them by the hands, transporting themselves to her cottage in Salem. Maybe it was too forward, but they were little, and she couldn’t just take them to the outskirts of their hometown and hope for someone to take them in. She would keep them until she could find a family for them, a suitable one. In her heart, she felt as if she was more than capable of taking care of them, but her mind was screaming at her not to do it, not after what happened with Nicholas. As the purple cloud dissipated both Wanda and Pietro looked around the room they were standing in now, the walls covered in diagrams and drawings neither of them could understand, shelves filling up the rest of the space with old and new books as well as plants and floating candles. The room was cosy and comfortable, with a big fireplace on the other side. Agatha stared at the two little ones as they walked around her home, looking around, examining every inch of it. They didn’t look scared or worried, but she could sense the overwhelming sadness that was emanating from the girl. Before she could stop her, Wanda had wrapped her arms around Agatha’s waist, hiding her face from the world; she could have pushed her away, she could have told her she didn’t like hugs, but this feeling of a little person that relied on her even though they had just met like five minutes ago was something she hadn’t felt in such a long time. She couldn’t push her away.

-Wanda, listen to me, okay? – taking the little girl by the shoulders she kneeled in front of her, taking in her green eyes that were filled with tears. – Stay here, okay? I have to go back to do something.

-Will you come back?

-Of course, I will. Just make sure your brother doesn’t touch that big book that he’s going for right now. – with a movement of her fingers she lifted the book that Pietro was about to touch, placing it on top of the shelf, the boy gasping when he saw it moving away from his grasp. – I’ll be right back. Just five minutes, okay? Count them, and you’ll see that I will be back in just a jiffy.

Wanda nodded at the older woman as Agatha snapped her fingers and apparated back in the blown-up apartment they had just left. It was painful enough to lose your parents, but it was worse if you didn’t even have a thing to remember them by. Agatha didn’t remember her father, he left when she was a baby, at least that’s what her mother had told her, but knowing that she didn’t love her enough to take care of her, to teach her she didn’t even know if it had been just one of her many lies. Kneeling close to the dead bodies she examined them. They didn’t have anything on them that she could give to their children, so maybe she could use something else. Necromancy was one of her specialities, but in this case, it wasn’t even an option, so she settled for turning them to dust. With just a twirl of her fingers, a small flower bloomed from them, a small white lily of the valley which she picked up as carefully as possible, smiling.

It was a very small token, but maybe it would be enough for the kids to remember them by. In the future, she would figure out some other way for them to keep a happy memory of their beloved parents. Turning around to look at the bomb which still hadn’t gone of she saw the Tv, maybe she could take hers out of the attic. Vanishing into thin air she found herself standing in her kitchen instead of her living room, she aimed for the wrong room accidentally. As she walked to the door that separated the hallway and the kitchen, she saw the two figures sitting on the floor one in front of the other one, counting. Smiling she knocked on the doorframe, making them turn their heads, Wanda’s eyes lighting up at the sight of her. She had come back.

-Come here, both of you. – they stood up, trusting this unknown woman that had become so important for them in just the course of the latest hour. – I know it’s not much, and I will try to get something better for you, but this is the only thing I could do with your parents. We’ll plant them in the garden and that way you’ll be able to see them every day. – taking Wanda’s and Pietro’s hand she placed the lily on their palms. The little witch felt the essence of her parents in the petals, which brought tears to her eyes.

-Thank you.

-You don’t have to thank me. Why don’t you two go to the couch and take a nap while I plant this?

-Will you stay with us?

-Until I can find a nice family for you.

-No, I don’t want to go. Please, don’t leave us. – the girl hugged her by the waist again, not wanting to let go. Agatha meant safety, protection and comfort, her brain filled with painful memories of the bombing and the pain of her parent’s death. Agatha was the first person apart from her family who had helped them and not tried to hurt them or kill them. She felt the older witch’s pain and guilt, something she couldn’t quite understand, but she knew she didn’t want to leave her alone. Agatha felt Wanda’s mind unconsciously trying to get inside her own head, probably trying to figure her out, so gently she pushed her out. It required skills and strength, today she wouldn’t see Agatha’s memories.

She was fighting with her heart and her mind. She didn’t want to lose these two innocent kids because of her way of life, that’s what had caused her to lose her son in her first place. She was always busy, practising magic, getting more power, maybe she had disciplined him too much, maybe she had not paid him enough attention, but that was something she couldn’t solve now, he had betrayed her, made an alliance with the enemy and had tried to kill her in the process. She couldn’t let that happen to these kids. It brought tears to her eyes to see how practically two strangers couldn’t let go of her, and it surprised her, even more, the fact that she had grown to care for them in such a short period of time. They were alone and had magic in them, she couldn’t just let them leave and hope they would end up with a family that could take care of them and not judge them or hurt them. She had had plenty of experiences with people who even nowadays were still afraid of witches and had tried to kill her. They were ten years old; she couldn’t let them suffer that.

-It’s okay, it’s fine. I won’t tell you to go if you don’t want to. You are safe with me. – Agatha hugged Wanda back, letting the tears fall freely on top of the redhead’s hair. Noticing Pietro standing a few feet away she stretched her arm, asking him to join them; he hesitated at first but soon joined them, appreciating the warmth both his sister and Agatha provided. – I will take care of you, I promise.

-You won’t leave us? We are not yours; how can we believe you? – Pietro stared intensely at her, his blue eyes hard as he placed a protective arm around her sister. They really had been through a lot, even if their parents had tried to shield the worst from them, they were still very smart children.

-I have an old Tv in my attic and several DVD’s as well, why don’t you keep them? I saw the show you were watching.

-That doesn’t tell us if you are not going to throw us out.

-I had a son many, many years ago, but I didn’t take care of him as I should have and ended up getting hurt. I didn’t love him as I should have, and he went bad. I regret it every single day, but I won’t let you down, I will prove to you and myself that I can protect you and take care of you. For your parents, for your future.That seemed to do the trick, making Pietro soften his eyes, returning to the hug. She wasn’t going to leave them stranded in a spiral of darkness on their own without a single person to look out for them. She was going to be the mother she should have been, giving all the love she had neglected to give to her son to these two kids that had found a way into her heart without her even realising it. A purple aura surrounded the three of them, an unspoken vow sealing her promise as the both of them rested their heads on her chest, the lilies still resting on the palm of Wanda’s hand.

#agatha x wanda x pietro #wanda x agnes #wandavision #wanda and pietro #agatha harkness #kathryn hahn #marvel

[set-phasers-to-whump]

running out of time

Prompt: collapsed building

Whumpee: Nick Burkhardt

Fandom: Grimm

what’s up!! welcome to my 4th whumptober fic! i have no idea when in the show this is set but call it pre-season 2 finale i guess. i hope you enjoy!!!!!

The building shakes under Hank’s feet, making a slight rumbling noise which tells him that something bad is about to happen.

“You hear that?” he whispers to Nick, who is a few feet ahead of him with a flashlight in his hand, sweeping its beam across the floor.

Nick stops, and focuses his hearing, but of course, the second Hank had called attention to the noise, it had stopped.

“No,” he says, and keeps going. The floor shakes again, and Hank stops moving. No way in hell is he staying in here any longer. He eyes a support beam, half eaten away by some kind of creature. Yeah, he’s definitely getting out of here right now.

“Nick, I really think we need to go,” he says, not daring to raise his voice, in the unlikely event that a loud noise will hasten the building’s collapse (because that’s what’s going to happen, he’s sure of it). As if to confirm this theory, a piece of wood falls from the ceiling, narrowly missing him. He shouts, and jumps out of the way. 

Nick spins around at the commotion. He opens his mouth to ask a question, but then the rumbling takes over, the building gives a terrible shudder, and everything falls apart.

Hank dives for cover, scarcely having time to shove his body under an old metal worktable before the ceiling comes crashing down atop him. He covers his head with his arms and tries not to breathe in the wood splinters raining down.

Nick is not so lucky. Hank, at least, had had the foresight to figure out what was happening, but Nick had been lost in thought, searching the building for any kind of clue, and hadn’t realized what was going on until it was too late. Something smacks into his chest, sending him stumbling backwards, something else grazes his leg, and then there’s a terrible thump on the back of his head, and the world goes dark.

--

Hank remains under the table until everything seems to be over. His ears are still ringing and he’s coughing in the dust, but he needs to see if Nick managed to escape the worst of it, too. 

He stands up, surveying the wreckage grimly. Piles of broken wood and severed pipes and various assorted items litter the ground, and it feels like it should be dark, but it had only been noon when they’d arrived, and now that the roof is gone, it’s bright.

He doesn’t see Nick, but then again, there’s rubble covering everything. He could still be sheltering. Or maybe he’s trapped. 

“Nick!”

No response. He shouts again, raising his voice as loud as he can.

Nothing. 

“Shit,” Hank says to himself, and starts walking carefully across the wreckage to the place he’d last seen Nick - just a few steps ahead of him. How could he be perfectly fine (minus a few scrapes and bruises), and Nick be hurt, or even dead? He isn’t dead, Hank tells himself firmly, avoiding that line of thinking because it is absolutely not going to help him find Nick. 

He sifts through the rubble for a few minutes, until he sees an arm sticking out, wearing Nick’s jacket, the hand slightly scratched up but looking healthy otherwise. He frantically digs around the arm, until at last, he uncovers the rest of Nick.

The good news is he’s alive. That’s about it. The bad news is everything else.

He’s unconscious, for starters, the cause immediately obvious: a thick length of metal pipe laying next to him, spotted with his blood. There’s no obvious mark from it on his forehead, which means it hit the back or the top of his head, which means he hadn’t seen it coming. He wouldn’t have been able to get out of the way. Hank winces, and continues looking Nick over.

There’s a long scrape down the side of his face from the piece of wood lodged into it. Smaller scratches cover the rest of his exposed skin, from various debris. He’s coated in a layer of dust and assorted small pieces of wood and plastic and metal, and Hank is sure there are more injuries lurking beneath his clothes. He doesn’t see any blood seeping through them, though, and he decides that examining the rest of him can wait - the most important thing right now is to get him awake and get him help.

Hank taps Nick’s face with one hand, grabbing his phone with the other. 

It’s dead. Of course. Hank sighs and puts the phone back into his pocket, reaching into Nick’s pockets instead. He pulls out his phone, unlocks it, and dials 911, explaining the situation as best as he can.

That done, he turns his full attention back to Nick, who still hasn’t woken up. “Nick, wake up. Nick. Get up.”

He gives him a slap, a bit harder than he’d really meant to, and that finally does the trick. Nick’s eyes flutter open, and he groans, looking around. 

“What happened?”

“Building collapsed. An ambulance will be here in ten minutes.”

“Mm.” Nick lapses into silence, closing his eyes.

Hank taps his face. Nick’s eyes reluctantly open to meet his. “What?”

“You can’t fall asleep, okay? Not until the ambulance gets here. Just talk to me, okay?”

“Don’t wanna talk,” Nick replies. Everything hurts so much. His head is absolutely pounding, and it’s making spots appear and disappear in his vision. Everything is blurry, and Hank’s voice echoes in his ears. He feels sick. But he can’t dwell on that for too long, because his face is burning and he can feel blood dripping down it, hot and sticky and terrible, and something is digging into his back and his left arm feels like it’s been crushed, and so does his chest, and it hurts to breathe, and he’s coated in dust so that when he does breathe, it goes into his lungs, and makes him want to cough, but something in him tells him that coughing would be a really bad idea right now, so he forces the instinct aside. 

All of this is manifested in a single word: “hurts.”

“Is there anywhere it doesn’t hurt?”

Nick thinks for a second. “This hand,” he decides, tapping the fingers of his right hand against the ground.

Hank’s hand finds Nick’s, and holds tightly to it. “That hurt?”

“No.”

“Good.”

Hank doesn’t say anything else, but moves his hand continually, tapping his fingers and squeezing Nick’s hand, to keep him awake. 

Nick uses the silence to think about the only thing he can think about - pain. The pounding in his head is making him nauseous, and the taste of dust coats his tongue. His face is still bleeding and he can feel some of the blood drying and cracking on his skin. Breathing still hurts, and his chest feels worse after talking. He wishes distantly that he didn’t need to breathe. 

And then there is a cracking sound, and Nick hears it this time, and so does Hank, and he flings himself across Nick without thinking. He hears Nick yelp underneath him, and mentally apologizes as he waits for something else to fall. 

Which it does. But not on them. One of the few support beams that had managed to stay standing gives way, in the corner farthest from them. It falls harmlessly to the ground, sending up a plume of dust. 

Hank waits for it to settle, listening intently for any more ominous noises. Unfortunately, he’s so focused on those potential sounds that he doesn’t hear Nick, still underneath him, for a few seconds.

The second Hank had thrown himself atop of Nick, everything in Nick’s world had gone white with pain. He’d made a noise, before he was overtaken nearly completely by the whiteness, but he hadn’t passed out. He couldn’t be so lucky. 

Everything just hurts, worse than it did before, and he is being crushed and trapped and Hank is on top of him and not moving and he can’t tell if the ceiling is falling again or if nothing at all is happening but Hank is on top of him and he’s not moving.

Somehow, Nick pushes the blinding pain aside for just a second, long enough to say, “Hank,” and cough on the dust, which, yep, is a really, really bad idea - he really can’t breathe now, and Hank’s weight is still crushing down on him and his lungs are refusing to cooperate and everything is pain, pain, pain.

Hank shoves himself off of Nick as soon as he hears his friend’s voice and realizes that he’s been crushing him for the past several seconds in anticipation of something else falling down. He lets out a breath of relief when nothing else moves, and glances around briefly to make sure nothing else is going to move, and then looks at Nick.

As soon as Hank’s weight moves off of him, Nick sucks in a deep breath, which hurts, but hurts less than not breathing at all. He looks around for Hank, nearly frantic, needing to make sure he’s still okay.

Hank is looking right back at him, the second Nick’s eyes fall on him. “I’m so sorry, man,” he is saying. “I know that must have hurt, but something else was collapsing. I didn’t want it to hit you.”

“‘S okay,” Nick breathes. “Thanks.” Hank looks okay, but then again, his vision is fuzzy and blurring, so he can’t be sure. “You’re...okay?”

Hank stares, momentarily stunned. “I’m okay,” he says, thinking that that ought to be the least of Nick’s worries right now. “Are you okay?”

He’s not, obviously, but he’s pretty sure he’s not dying, so he says, “yeah,” and then Hank’s hand is back on his, and Hank is saying something like, “not much longer, just hold on,” and Nick thinks maybe he’s crying, or maybe it’s just the dust in his eyes, and everything hurts and he’s not dying but he half wishes he was, and then there is nothing, and the pain stops.

--

He wakes up and he is moving and he is somewhere else and he doesn’t see Hank and colors are swirling all around him and voices are overlapping and there’s something on him and everything feels fuzzy and he needs Hank but Hank isn’t there, and someone says something to him and he tries to ask them where Hank is but he can’t speak, and then he feels sick and he’s throwing up and that doesn’t feel fuzzy at all, it’s sharp and it hurts and he can barely breathe, again, and then Hank is there, blurry and fuzzy, but there, and Nick reaches out a hand and feels Hank take it before everything goes away again.

--

The next time he wakes up, he’s not moving. The world is a little fuzzy, but it’s not swirling around him, and his head doesn’t feel like it’s about to explode. In fact, he realizes, as he takes stock of the rest of himself, nothing hurts. I must be on drugs, he decides, and he wills his eyes to focus.

He’s in the hospital, hence the drugs and the relative lack of pain. He’s sitting up slightly, and he can feel bandages all over his body. There’s a slight pull in his cheek, which tells him it’s been stitched up. Something is wrapped around his ribs, and there’s an IV in his arm and a pulse monitor on his finger and a couple machines next to him - and Hank. Curled up in one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs and sleeping with his neck at an angle that is definitely going to hurt when he wakes up. 

“Hey,” Nick says, deciding it’s best to not let Hank sleep in that position any longer. “You awake?”

Hank looks up, blinking sleepily, until he remembers where he is, and immediately shoots to his feet, bringing a hand to the back of his neck with a wince. 

“Does it hurt?” Nick asks. 

“Feels like I should be asking you that question,” Hank tells him, coming to stand next to him. “You need anything?”

“No,” Nick decides. “And it doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts. It’s so nice to have nothing that hurts. What kind of drugs did they give me? They’re nice.”

Hank smiles at him. “That’d be morphine,” he says. “I’m glad it’s nice.”

Nick nods. “Like you,” he says. “You’re nice.”

Hank chuckles a little at that. “Maybe,” he decides.

“No,” Nick says, insistent. “You are. You saved me, and all. That’s nice. You’re nice.”

“I guess,” Hank replies, not sure how to feel about this drugged version of Nick. “You sure you don’t want anything? Water, maybe?”

Nick shakes his head. “I want you,” he says, clumsily tapping the bed next to him. “Sit.”

Hank sighs and relents, sitting carefully down next to Nick in the hospital bed, which is really too small for this. 

“You don’t have to go to work, do you?” Nick asks, suddenly sounding worried.

“I told the Captain what happened as soon as I could. We both have the week off,” Hank tells him. He’d been surprised by that - he’d figured Renard would give him the rest of the day off, tops. But the Captain had insisted, said it was shaping up to be a slow week. Hank wasn’t sure if he believed that, but he’d elected not to press his luck.

Hank is jolted out of his brief reminiscence by Nick’s head dropping onto his shoulder. He looks at his friend and confirms that he’s fallen asleep. Hank carefully rolls out of the bed, shifting Nick so he’s lying at a more comfortable angle. 

He’s about to return to his chair, or maybe step out and grab a snack, when Nick’s hand flings out and smacks across his torso. Hank grabs it reflexively, slightly startled when Nick’s fingers close around his own with surprising strength, considering his current condition. He gets the message, and reaches out behind him to drag his chair closer. He grabs the magazine he’d been idly flipping through earlier, and opens to the page he’d left off at. 

A few hours pass. Hank has stopped reading the magazine and has switched to a book he’d convinced a nurse to get him from the gift shop. Nick is still sleeping, and the doctor has reassured Hank that he should be okay to leave tomorrow, provided he responds well to the periodic concussion checks throughout the night. Everything is quiet, save for the rhythmic beeping of various machines, and it’s almost peaceful, apart from the whole Nick-being-in-the-hospital thing. But they are both safe, and relatively okay, and their hands haven’t let go.

Thanks so so much for reading this!!! I had a whole lot of fun writing this fic and i know the ending sucked but i hope you liked the rest!! 

#whumptober2020 #no.4 #collapsed building #grimm #fic #nick burkhardt #my writing #i say things #trapped #concussion #unconscious #vomiting #only slight but just in case #waking up

[deerlyloved]

dont let me die here

under cut: looong story about my sci fi oc, mei, losing her legs

The dust had yet to settle from the collapse, debris was still clunking down around her in chunks of broken glass and jagged metal, implanting in the ground around her and banging off of the large metal beam that had fallen just right. The hardened glass of her helmet had broken into pieces after an unidentifiable chunk of debris crashed into her visor, sending shards of glass splashing into her face. She barely closed her eyes quickly enough to keep herself from being blinded, but now the shards were digging in around her right eye and she didn’t want to risk clumsily poking at her face with the one hand she could move around.

They were here on a simple mission to move protected assets, two high-ranking members of an alien family that were suddenly placed into protective status by their parents. It was supposed to be easy, just move the two from the embassy to the ship and make sure they got there safe and sound, that’s what the Guardians were all about! Guarding! Whatever went wrong did so fast, probably an ambush if Mei had to guess-- God, she could feel blood sticking in her throat.

Whoever wanted the two protectees were willing to do a lot to get them. The group was approaching the ship, quite literally feet from it when suddenly someone started shooting. The second he heard shots ring out, Rea practically scooped up the two aliens like they were a basket of laundry and ran them onto the ship while shouting commands that Mei didn’t bother registering because she knew what she had to do.

They weren’t even shooting at the unit. It was just the one at first, a single figure shooting in the direction of the civilians just on the street to do what Mei now realized was to draw the attention of the soldiers, and it worked because she aimed for them just like Ana did before she was shot herself. They had been waiting, snuck up from behind the ship, and got her in the back. Ana defended her while Mei hopped up, thankful she had her helmet on at the time because if she hadn’t-- Mei wheezed out a cough as her hand searched around, palm flat on the ground and patting through dirt and stained grass until her fingers brushed against a stony surface, wrapping around it to pull towards her. She couldn’t scream anymore, she had tried for what felt like hours, but now her throat hurt too much, she was too tired, she felt blood pooling inside her armor and yelling made it slosh and she hated it, she hated it hated it hated--

Taking as deep a breath she could, Mei focused on gathering the strength to lift the rock again.

A full fire-fight broke out before she knew it, the ship taking off without warning to get the poor assets out as Rea jumped out of the closing door to help his unit, glancing behind his shoulder to make sure the ship was undisturbed before he grabbed one of the attackers with his bare hands to join the fight. It was a nasty crunch.

Mei looked across the field to see others among the crowd of panicked civilians, oh so conveniently dressed similarly so she could pick them out among the crowd. One of them looked up, staring back at the private as she looked at them between firing at those attacking her and searching for cover, and they made a scene out of rushing out and grabbing a bystander trying to get out, pointing directly at Mei.

She didn’t mean to, really, she didn’t realize she was even running until she was right on them and her ears were ringing from Rea shouting through the microphone in her helmet. It was unnerving, watching the attacker unceremoniously shove their hostage away when Mei took aim and instead lunge after her, unnerving because they baited her and it worked. She fought them off as well as she could when she was taken by surprise, finally shoving the attacker to the ground and pointing the barrel of her gun at them before they flung a hand up to gesture towards the buildings bordering along the park field, drawing Mei’s attention towards the incoming disaster. They signaled her out, and it worked, and seconds later Mei watched as buildings erupted into flames and the most piercing boom rattled through the air as a metal tower came crashing down into a structure, sending everything toppling.

The attacker threw her down, a cloud of dust and debris flooding out into the field as Mei watched with horror from her position on the ground, sky filling with smoke as shots rang out with renewed vigor, more booms cracking from behind her as she scurried to her feet. Out of breath, out of time, she looked to the sky to watch as the ship flew higher and higher-- but another joined the air. This was more planned than they could have thought, there was a leak somewhere and that thought sent rage through Mei’s mind. She watched in some mix of fear and anger as the CCF ship activated what weapons it could in the time it was given and fought back as it escaped quickly, and she knew that Karen was on board trying to shove the pilot out of their seat to take charge because the robot knew they could fly better.

With that thought, Mei switched channels, speaking directly to Karen instead of the team, and suddenly Rea’s shouts stopped echoing in her helmet. “Karen,” Mei breathed out, waiting for affirmation the bot was listening before she continued, “Get the ship out of here now. You know what to do.” The bot agreed, and seconds later a quiet clattering and frantic shouts from the pilot were heard as Karen finally heaved them out of their seat, taking charge and connecting herself to the ship. The ship was gone in moments, just like it always was when Karen was flying.

The private switched back to her team’s channel, looking towards the city and seeing figures  obscured by the smoke rushing about, screams as gunfire continued in the distance. Now that their mission was completed, it was time to take care of the new issue at hand.

“Guys, I’m going back into the city to evacuate civilians, I can see gunmen from where I’m standing-- We can’t just leave them.”

There was arguing, there always was, and Rea spoke, “We need to regroup first, Mei, we’re all scattered right now!”

Mei was already running.

At the thought of running, Mei quietly took another breath and closed her eyes, gently flexing her toes. She thought she was doing it. She hoped she was doing it. It was just because she was out of it, right? Nothing else. Nothing else.

She ran through the field and onto the road, armored boots clanking off of the rock beneath her as she navigated her way through chunks of debris, buildings still falling apart around her. There were groups of civilians trapped and wondering, scared, and Mei pointed them out, moved debris that she could to help some get out, and towards the less-on-fire park. Then, though, she heard someone shout in the distance, heard them scream for help at the top of their lungs, and she took off running to help only to find herself face to face with the attacker from just minutes earlier, staring at her from their position on a chunk of debris among the rubble of a decimated building.

The street was lined with creaking, burning buildings, threatening to topple at any moment, and Mei felt uneasy as she stared at this mysterious person as they returned the gesture. Finally, they stood with a large grin, holding their hand in the air to show something they were holding-- No no no.

Mei heard the beeping of the detonator triggering, and then the building next to her had its last support blown to pieces, the force knocking Mei across the street and flat on her back as the building started to fall. The attacker stood on their pile of debris, staring at the private before they ran off into the destroyed city blocks. Chunks fell, massive pieces of debris crashing to the ground and shaking everything around it from the impact as Mei stared into the smokey sky in a daze. She saw the metal fall towards her and that was it until she woke up.

The woman took a deep breath, hearing the creak of her armor and the scrape of it against the twisted, gnarled debris as she raised her hand and pressed the rock against the side of the debris that she could reach from her peculiar position. Mei couldn’t raise her head anymore, but the first few times she could only led to her realizing that she was pinned by this hunk of metal, her chest poking out from the caved-in section but she...She just couldn’t see her legs.

It was because she was in shock, she wasn’t aware of everything.

Mei slammed the rock against the metal, hearing the clang of it and feeling the vibration rattle through her armor, whimpering in response. But it made a noise. More noise than she could with her radio out, with her throat sticky and coarse, with fear clouding her mind so she couldn’t even think of what to say. She drew back her hand and then slammed the rock down again. Clang.

She would get out of this soon, they’d find her and pull her out and they’d all walk back to the new meeting point that Rea definitely set up by now, and they’d laugh about this after the Major yelled at them about not securing the ship.

Clang.

Icka would fix this. Icka knew everything about anything, and she’d fix it and Mei would be able to feel her toes again because oh god why couldn’t she feel them it had been so long.

Clang.

She couldn’t cry anymore, she had already sobbed her eyes out and screamed herself hoarse with the what-felt-like hours she’d spent here so far, but right now she wanted to. She wanted to just cry and cry and cry because everything hurt and everything was so loud even though it was quiet and she just wanted to go home.

Mei just kept slamming this stupid rock against the metal even though it made her ribs feel like they were stabbing her because it was all she could do, absentmindedly make as much noise as she could muster up as she stared up into the sky and hoped that someone, anyone, would come along soon. But what if no one did?

Would she die here?

She didn’t want to die on an alien planet.

The private hit the debris as long as she could, but she felt so weak now and it was only getting worse. Maybe if she just...Closed her eyes. They’d find her or they wouldn’t, this wasn’t working.

No, no she couldn’t just…

Mei sniffled, rolling her head to the side and looking at her hand, staring at the rock she held. Her entire arm was shaking by now. She hated this, she hated the CCF for sending her here, clang, and herself for falling for this stupid plan, clang, and that idiot who blew everything up, she hated this stupid rock and this stupid debris and clang clang clang clang clang--

Digitized chirping found its way to Mei, echoing off the debris. She stared into the still settling dust, eyes wide and hopeful for the first time since she woke up, and finally she saw the only good sight she had all day. A purple, pixelated frowning face glowed through the haze as a dark purple set of armor slowly hopped from pile to pile, bouncing onto the ground and looking around. Kro’asha. She had never been so happy to see the bug before, and with a renewed vigor the woman slammed the rock once more. The noise drew Kro’asha’s attention, and as he finally saw Mei’s bright hair among the dulled colors of destroyed buildings, his screen flashed countless exclamation marks.

The alien ran forward, stumbling a few times until he came to rest beside Mei and dropped to his knees, speaking loudly with more panic than she’d ever heard from him before, “Amari! Alive, found Amari alive, need help!”

There was a quiet mumble on Mei’s part, but she knew that Rea was shouting at Kro’asha on the radio. The alien repeated himself a few times as he nervously reached out to Mei, armored hand finding a pool of her blood instead and pulling back in fear. Kro’asha looked at his dark armor, seeing the bright blue drip off his fingertips with his screen flashing exclamation marks and sad faces with vigor. More quiet mumbling. It was nice to hear Rea, even if it was only barely.

Nice and a good way to see Mei off into her second round of unconsciousness. 

You know, the average person wakes up from a fainting spell in, at most, two minutes. Anything over should be cause for serious medical attention, a trip to the hospital. From what Mei could tell, she fainted when Kro’asha found her and was in and out of consciousness with most of her time spent asleep for roughly... 13 hours. Between prying her out, transporting her to the nearest base, the surgeries, and lastly waking up from anesthesia, Mei only remembered Rea swearing in his native language as he picked her up and tucked her against his chest while Icka yelled at him to not move an injured person, then looking up into bright lights and hearing Icka squawk orders at others as she stabilized Mei, and finally a different set of lights on a different ceiling as machines beeped around her, Icka leaning over her after a second or so and smiling in a way that Mei only found endearing because she knew the alien.

Her eyes opened slowly, taking in the scene around her as she blinked through her blurry vision only to realize that several things were very, very wrong. Her vision was all off, she couldn’t feel her legs fully but it felt like they were there, and she hurt so, so much.

Mei’s hands sought out the side of the bed, feeling for a railing and finding it after some fumbling, fingers gripping the metal bars as she tried to pull herself up before the pain got to her and she cried out, losing her grasp and collapsing back onto the bed. What the fuck was wrong with her?

She finally saw the IV she had, her nose wrinkling as she fought the urge to pull it out, searching around the room for anything she could to help her understand what was going on-- God, she was so thirsty. Finally, she spotted what she was hoping she would, the words 'PROPERTY OF THE CCF’ engraved onto a machine next to her bed. Mei made it home.

The door opened suddenly, making Mei jolt and try to sit up again only to come crashing back down with another quiet cry. This startled the person entering as well, who Mei identified after the pain began to fade again and her judgment was less clouded.

She threw her hand out towards her best friend, frowning and speaking before she realized she was, “Icka…”

“Oh goodness, you’re awake, I was so worried, you were bordering on nearly an hour.” Icka took three steps and was already next to the bed, leaning down in a way that looked hunched and uncomfortable to Mei but was no doubt fine for the avian. Icka placed her large talons on the bed rail before she put a single filed talon under Mei’s chin with a smile on her face. “You’re alive!”

“I’m alive.” Mei echoed, much less enthusiastic.

“And you have probably eaten through the pain meds I gave you, one moment, oh dear!” Icka turned and rushed to a cart that was placed to the side, rummaging through it and turning around with a needle. As she returned to standing next to the bed, Mei looked up at her, watching the alien inject what she could only assume was pain medication into her IV. “This should help with...everything. I know how quickly you metabolize it, so I’ll try to keep up…”

“What happened?” Mei asked abruptly. Icka clammed up at the question, capping the syringe silently and turning to discard it in a nearby box. She was silent for several, painstakingly long moments.

“I tried, I really did, there was just… There was just so much damage, Mei. I could barely figure out where everything was supposed to go, a-and your anatomy is already so odd to me…!”

“What happened?” Mei repeated, more firmly this time as she found her voice and felt herself begin to worry.

“Rea wanted...to tell you...He said I couldn’t handle it well and I g-guess… I guess he was right…” The avian took a step towards the door, “I’m going to go...I’ll get him!”

“Icka, no, wait--!” The alien was gone before Mei could finish talking.

Minutes dragged on as Mei slowly but surely felt the pain medication begin to take hold, and just as abruptly as before the door swung open, except this time Rea marched in instead of Mei’s best friend. The captain stood in the doorway, staring at Mei for a few seconds before he came to stand beside her bed, arms crossed as always and his shoulders squared.

“Amari.”

“Dragon Boy.”

Rea narrowed his eyes at the nickname, but his gaze suddenly softened and he sighed. “Icka can’t handle this, so I’ve decided to take the burden for her.”

“Lay it on me.” Mei croaked, hands grasping the hem of her thin hospital blanket.

“She couldn’t save your vision in your right eye, and the damage was so bad she had to completely remove it. The good news for your eye is that we can easily replace it with a functional optic prosthetic, even get some upgrades.”

Mei couldn’t help it, she raised her hand to gently touch the right side of her face to find it bandaged and taped off, how she didn’t realize it was beyond her.

“That doesn’t...I mean, it’s not great, but that’s not…”

“I have more, do you want the good news or bad news first?”

Mei didn’t want either, actually. Still, after a second of thought, she answered quietly, “Good news…”

“You have lost approximately twenty-seven and a half pounds,” The man closed his eyes and nodded like what he was saying made any sense in this context because Mei was very lost as to what that meant, but he spoke again before she could question him, “The bad news is that it is approximately twenty-seven and a half pounds worth of legs.”

What.

No no, no, holy shit, no--

Mei looked down towards her feet, eye wide as she stared and felt the urge to pull her blanket off. He was wrong, she could...She could feel them…

The woman tried to wiggle her toes, flex her calf, anything. Nothing. No movement. She couldn’t even see the shape of her legs under the blanket.

No no no no.

“We’re already looking into getting you approved for mechanical prosthetics, it would just be a matter of another surgery after you’ve healed to put in the sensors and artificial nerve endings if you want--”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up! Get out!” Mei covered her face, tucking her head into her arm as she started to shake, “Get out, leave me alone, I don’t want to talk to you!”

The door opened again and Icka stepped in, motioning for the captain with a frown, “Rea, you need to leave.”

This was wrong, it was a dream, right? This had to be a dream, she was still in transport and this was just a bad dream. Mei had bad dreams, she had a lot of them, and this was just another one for her stupid dream journal that Icka made her keep.

It had to be, it had to be.

#sci fi #sci fi oc #mei #angst #trauma #my writing

[lookbluesoup]

How about Nora/Nate, 38…because they’re running out of time? :)

Whee thank you! :D I got… a little a lot carried away with this one. There is some Sad™ and an injury/near-death-experience, so most of it is under the cut! I am particularly proud of it, definitely pulled me out of my comfort zone! hahaha

—–

He almost made it out. Given a few seconds longer, things might have gone differently. But Nate had never been very lucky, only resourceful. And resourceful wasn’t enough. Today Fate’s scale did not balance in his favor.

Red warning lights drenched the hallway. Piper rushed for the exit with Nick hot on her heels. Less than a meter back, Nate followed. Dogmeat sprawled in his arms, squirming as each jarred step aggravated the bullet wound to the canine’s thigh.

Lockdown systems, installed long before the apocalypse to protect against such emergencies, groaned to life. Nate yelled for them to run faster. It was carried away by the intercom’s urgent siren and weathered static. Oh, and the distant roar of condensed fire erupting through every lower level of the building. Death was coming fast. Too fast.

What followed came in a blur of perfect clarity. Blast doors up ahead began to stagger shut, slowed by rust and age, still prepared to cut off the hall and protect the lab just past it. A blistering inferno surged from behind. Nick and Piper ducked through the closing gap. But Nate couldn’t make the distance. He managed to toss Dogmeat between the doors, and then the ground caved in beneath him as several metric tons of concrete and cast iron went crashing down. Flames grasped Nate’s feet.

“BLUE!” Piper’s howl sounded panicked - unnatural. It cut off sharply against the competing noise. He was drowning in chaos.

Through the blur, he had the sense to grasp at makeshift cover. A paltry effort to shield his face from the blast as shrapnel sucker punched him in the gut. The air was gone. Burned up. Rubble smothered him. Then all Nate knew was darkness.

——-

His own ragged breathing stirred Nate back to a bleary consciousness. Fog lay heavy over his mind. His lips felt like sandpaper. How long-? Were the others-? God, what was pressing so hard into his stomach…

Breathing shallowly, he fumbled for the flashlight on his Pip-Boy. Blue illumination cast the scene into furrows of sharp black and pale, half-discernible detail. To his left, a burning hallway stretched into smoky oblivion. To the right, nothing but debris. Motes of dust floated in the stale air; they seemed out of focus. He was alone.

And he hurt. Realization came slowly, then in a crashing heave. Nate’s moan shattered into a hoarse cough that felt sticky and hot behind his tongue. That’s probably not good.

Incessant 8-bit beeping drew his eye back to the Pip-Boy. A comically distressed avatar made note of several severe wounds to Nate’s person. Glancing down, he could now dimly make out the black stain leaking against the collapsed infrastructure he lay wedged between. Oh, God.

A fragment of steel rebar jutted from beneath Nate’s ribs. Attempting to rise sent hellish streaks of searing pain from the wound. For a moment, he went blind. “Shit.” His voice cracked over the expletive. It was nearly a whimper.

The rod went deep. Stuck there. Probably the only reason he hadn’t bled to death yet. Adrenaline brought a faint light of clarity with it, and Nate understood that removing the object was out of the question. So was staying put here; he had to believe the others made it out, and there was no way they could reach him under the rubble in time.

He felt so heavy. A black dredge of fear added friction to the cloud of his mind. This was no way to go. Dying itself didn’t scare Nate. It just wasn’t something he could afford to do right now.

Get up. Get on your feet. That’s the first step. His next attempt to rise ended in equal disaster, ripping out a clenched groan from deep in his chest.

Teeth gritted, he squinted to distract from the darkness pulsing over his eyelids. Slowly, in agonizing increments, Nate managed to extract himself from the bloody ruin and drag himself to bloody knees. The left side of his face throbbed and he was pretty sure the eye had swollen shut. He clutched the rebar to instill some sense of control over the grief it caused, and dragged himself upright. A surge of dizziness nearly sent him careening back onto the floor. But this time Nate managed to stay up.

Good. There. Okay. Now keep moving.

Cuts and bruises made their protests known across every inch of skin. Each footfall was a battle and an eternity. But after a while the pain spilled together and turned to white noise in the back of his mind.

His flashlight served poorly in such sooty air. Sparks from frayed wires illuminated the path in unpatterned entropy. Smoke burned Nate’s lungs. He could taste it mixed with iron, another unpleasant distraction from the numbness spreading inward through his limbs.

“Nora-a…” He garbled, blood irritating his chin. Her name was instinct on his lips, or else a prayer. The vertigo of dying shook his inhibitions free. Loved ones returned to you when you came close to the veil, right? If he called her, wouldn’t she come and take this pain away?

Wouldn’t she save him?

Lurching into the wall, for a moment all Nate could do was struggle to breathe. He left a dark handprint against the warped panelling. “Nora-” Please.

Pressed into the hallway’s edge for support, Nate limped along. A savage smear followed his progress.

Another tattered passage waited ahead. No end to the hallways seemed in sight. Collapsed sections and burning rubble obstructed most routes, leaving Nate to wander like a rat in some apocalyptic maze. Every once in a while something seemed to move further ahead, but summoning the focus to be sure had long since become impossible. He kept calling. Sometimes he thought he heard answers, but never close enough to reach. Time floated in and out of his attention. It was hard to know how long he’d been wandering this hell. Except that he was getting weaker. Even the ringing in his ears sounded far away now.

“Nora-aa-” Nate’s limping cries grew slurred with desperation.

Why wasn’t she here? This wasn’t right. None of this was right at all.

Staggering, Nate pitched to the ground like a collapsing skyscraper. He felt a throb - something that should have been pain. But it was too distant. “Please,” he begged. Whether the words actually left his tongue Nate wasn’t sure. There was no strength left in him to rise. Silence engulfed the bleak hallway.

Consciousness was slipping between his fingers; a stream of sand he couldn’t even slow. The feeling was not entirely unpleasant. Even comforting. He seemed to float. Maybe oblivion was better. Maybe his father was right, and men always died alone in the end.

Something bright stung Nate’s eyes.

He tried recoiling at first, the color painful after so long draped in gloom. It grew brighter. Perhaps this was the next life, come to claim him.

‘Honey.’

Nate’s eyelids were heavy, but he forced them open into a squint at the familiar voice. She’d come from somewhere up ahead, and she was out of focus, haloed in bright orange. And then he didn’t care if he was dead. He didn’t care if he could stand. She was here, she’d come back to him, it was her. “Nora-” Nate rasped.

She knelt before him, ‘Get up, Nate.’

He didn’t question it. He tried to listen, but lead anchored each limb, and his crippled body could not obey. “Ho-ney,” his voice churned with gravel, “I, love ygh - I’m sorry.” Bile clogged his swollen throat, and Nate garbled for his voice back. “I-I’m so, so, sorry…”

‘Shh shh shh - it’s okay.’ A sad smile carried her words. ‘I love you, too. Now come on.’ Her fingers tousled his hair, a touch he’d missed so desperately bringing warmth back to Nate’s extremities.

But they still would not heed him. “I can’t.” Nate groaned, wanting nothing more than to cleave to his wife’s sides.

‘Get up, Honey.’

Stay with me. Please. “Don’t leave.”

‘There’s no more time’ Her lips painted his cheeks. His forehead. His nose. They warmed every inch of his face as she pulled him against her chest into a longing embrace, “Come on. You’ve got a son to find, remember? You’ve got to get up. You’re not going to die here.”

Then nothingness consumed him.

——-

The next time Nate saw light, it was fluorescent. He felt cold. Yellow eyes peered down at him, and when he stirred, the sound of worn leather shifting rapidly hit his ears. Piper darted into view beside Nick. Nora was gone.

Nate’s chest ached with longing. But she’d come. She’d saved him. He shut his eyes again, clinging to the memory of her touch.

“Blue-?” Piper probed, voice furrowed with concern.

“We’ve - gotta stop meeting this way.” He breathed, testing his arms and finding them weak, but responsive. His gut burned. It was a muted feeling. They must’ve given him something for the pain.

“Glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor, at least.” Nick chided. “You weren’t talking much sense after Piper pulled you out of that burning rubble.”

Nate’s eyes flit open. “Piper?”

“Yeah.” She managed a sheepish-looking smile, glancing away. “You cut it close, Blue.”

Nick frowned. “How’s that wound? You look pale, Nathan.”

“I…” No. That couldn’t be right. Nora had found him. It had to have been Nora. She’d… she…

Her touch, her voice, the hands that lifted him up. He’d called for her, and his lover had come. It had to be her.

Even without seeing her face, even in the fog of pain and desperation, he knew that voice. Knew the presence of her soul. Robbed of all his senses, surely he wouldn’t just forge her existence in a fit of delirium.

Nate grimaced. Had he really been lost chasing a memory, when flesh and blood came to save him? Could a specter blind him to the living so entirely?

Piper’s hand squeezed his gently. He stared down at it. Nora’s ghost kissed him, he’d thought. His stomach turned, “…Did you-?”

Piper’s fingers twitched around Nate’s palm. Not enough to mean anything. Still it stopped him. Through hazy thoughts, he possessed the presence of mind to realize how tactless the question would be.

Changing tracks, he swallowed. The motion was difficult. “-bring any water?”

Valentine’s eyes narrowed. Nate made sure not to meet them.

Piper found him.

Piper was always finding him. In Goodneighbor. In Sanctuary. At his worst, most vulnerable moments. And he was always looking backwards, after the one he left behind.

______

(Ask for a Kiss!) | (AO3 Archive)

#piper wright #fanfic #fallout 4 #nate ronan #nora ronan #fallout #ask #write a kiss #blood #near death experience

[madeofstardust17]

Whumptober prompts 16, 17 & 18. Pinned down, "stay with me" & muffled screaming.

Rating: T I guess

Tw: none

Pidge & Shiro, Pidge & Keith, Pidge & team

I did the best I could

...

The earthquake trapped them inside the abandoned galran warehouse. Hunk, Keith and Lance were thrown to the ground, bits and pieces of ceiling falling and hitting their raised shields. 

Shiro and Pidge weren’t so lucky. 

There were at the other, more unstable part of the warehouse when the earthquake hit basically the entire ceiling fell right above them. By some miracle, Shiro, mostly unhurt, managed to dig himself out rather quickly. But his satisfaction was quickly dampened when he saw the giant pillar that separated him from Pidge’s last known location.

He barely remembered a shout of pain and a grunt when the ceiling had caved in, but he hadn’t registered until now. 

“Pidge?” Silence. His heart sank.

He got up and ran to the place he had last seen the girl, climbing the huge pillar. From the top of the structure, he could see the entire room. He took his helmet off, since it was covered in dust. No sign of her.

“Pidge?!” He couldn’t keep the worry off his voice 

“C’mon Katie, talk to me”

“Ughhhmmm” the sound had come from his right. 

He jumped to the floor and started digging where he thought the sound had come from. 

A hand. He kept digging. 

He found her head and chest. Her visor was broken, and there was a bleeding cut above her eyebrow. A large block of metal was pinning her from the waist down. 

Despite everything, she grinned weakly at him 

“Hey” relief washed away most of the tension in his shoulders as he grinned back

“Hey yourself” she wrinkled her nose

“‘Feel weird” she closed her eyes “m’ head hurts”

“Let’s get that helmet off” 

He managed to lift her head and get it off. He was relieved to see that there wasn’t any blood, but she was ghostly pale and her left pupil was bigger than her right. So definitely concussed then. 

“Can you feel your legs?”

After a second, she nodded and winced “they hurt”

After a few minutes where Shiro was debiting how to proceed she closed her eyes

“Good night”

“You can’t fall asleep”

She opened her eyes and glared “but I’m tired. And you’re always telling me to go to sleep”

Leave it to Pidge to find a semi-logical argument even when concussed.

“I know but you have a head wound”

“Don’t care. Night”

“Pidge” when she didn’t respond, his voice hardened “open your eyes” he winced internally. That came out a bit louder than he meant. It worked though, even if she did look scared. Shiro took a deep breath.

“I’m going to lift the debris off your legs, okay? As soon as you can, I need you to crawl away”

She shook her head “it hurts”

He brushed her bangs from her eyes

“I know. But we’re going to get you home, and then straight into a cryopod”

“You can’t do anything straight”

Ignoring the comment, he grabbed his helmet and opened the comms

“Guys? Is everyone okay?”

“Shiro!” Keith sounded so relieved Shiro guessed they had been calling him for a while now 

“We’re all fine” Hunk sounded tired, but otherwise okay.

“The bad news is we lost connection to the castle when the ceiling fell. The good news is that we’ve found an exit”

“Good, because we’re gonna need an extraction” the comms exploded with voices

“Are you okay?”

“Where’s Pidge?”

“We’re on our way, Shiro”

“It’s Pidge” he looked at the girl in question, who was now saying something under her breath, too slurred to make sense “she has a head injury and I think one of her legs is broken, if not both”

“Stay there Shiro” Keith sounded like he was running “We’ll get the lions and bring them to your location”

“Copy that”

He left the helmet on the floor and kneeled next to Pidge 

“Ready?”

She blinked owlishly at him

“For what?”

“Your legs are pinned down. Do you remember the plan?”

She thought for a second before her face lit up with realization 

“That’s right! Okay I’m ready”

He put his hands underneath the debris and prepared himself to pull.

“Alright kiddo, on three. One… two… three!”

Heart hammering on his chest, he began to lift the metal. He grunted, it was heavier than he had anticipated. He could actually hear the mechanisms in his arm working double time to support the weight.

The metal groaned and started to shift, and Pidge groaned with it.

“C’mon Pidge” he grunted, urging the girl to move 

Pidge started whimpering, trying to crawl backwards. 

The moment she was out, Shiro let the debris go and it fell with a clang. He stood where he was for a moment, panting. 

“Sh’ro” 

That got him moving. He ran to her side, falling to his knees as he registered the yet to fall tears and the heavy panting while her gloved hand clutched at her ribs.

“Hurts” she had her eyes shut and his own trailed to her left ankle, which was twisted in an awkward angle. He tore his eyes away from it

“Ribs?”

“Bruised, I think. I dunno. I think I’m gonna throw up”

Just then the parts of the ceiling that my some miracle hadn’t fallen yet shook, along with the floor. Shiro mentally scolded himself for not expecting an aftershock. He shielded the small girl’s body with his own, but only pebbles and small rocks fell on him. 

“I’m gonna get you out of here, alright? I’m going to pick you up now”

Pidge shook her head violently, but Shiro scooped her up in his arms.

She bit on her hand to try to muffle the scream that left her throat, but it still made shiro wince.

“I’m so sorry, Katie. Just stay with me for a little longer, Alright?” 

She didn’t respond. She just continued crying, shaking as she waited for the pain in her ribs and ankle to stop.

He picked up his helmet, and after getting most of the dust off his visor, put it on.

“Guys?” 

“We’re here” Keith immediately responded. 

“I have Pidge. Probably broken ribs and a broken ankle. Where’s the exit?”

As if on cue, there was an explosion at their right. Pidge whimpered at the sound, and Shiro hated that the only thing he could do was place a comforting hand on her head.

“Did you hear that?” Lance asked 

“Please tell me that was you guys” Shiro pleaded 

“Yep. I think one more of those blasts and the wall will break. You guys get ready to get out as soon as it’s down.”

“Roger that” 

They were out in less than two minutes. 

The green lion roared, and all of the paladins felt a wave of relief pour over them. Pidge smiled against Shiro’s shoulder. 

The three boys ran to their side, looking worried as they studied their teammates conditions.

“You should have told us you were bleeding too” Keith crossed his arms. 

Shiro’s eyes widened, he touched the side of his head and felt something sticky and warm on his glove. 

“I honestly didn’t realize” he said truthfully. Keith glared at him, but didn’t respond.

“Let’s just get Pidge home” Hunk said. Shiro nodded

They agreed that Shiro and Pidge would ride on the red lion, since she was the fastest, while black and green would follow them.

Shiro lay Pidge down on the emergency bed on Red’s back room. 

She squirmed, trying to get a bit more comfortable, but quickly stopped when her ribs protested. 

Shiro grabbed one of the emergency water bottles and a rag. He wet the rag and whipped the side of Pidge’s faces that was covered in blood. She smiled weakly

“You know the pods clean the blood” it wasn’t a question. 

“I know. But you were freaking me out” 

She huffed out a laugh, wincing immediately after. 

“Lance’s right” she muttered, her words coming out slurred again, “you’re such a dad”

Shiro rolled his eyes fondly 

“I need to take the chest plate off”

She gave him the stink eye, which made him want to laugh, but he tried to keep a straight face.

Three of her ribs were fractured, and four were bruised was what he could tell by touching them. 

He grabbed his helmet and called Keith. 

“Is there something wrong?” Keith asked quickly. 

“Can Red fly to the castle without you? I need you here”

A strange presence on his mind and a phantom pain on his cheek, as if something had slapped him (a tail by the feel of it), told him what he needed to know.

“She’s offended that you think she can’t”

“I know” he rubbing rubbing his cheek. He could’ve sworn he heard a roar-like laugh. 

“I’m coming” 

Keith appeared three seconds later, walking over to Pidge. 

He muttered something shiro didn’t catch, and Pidge mumbled something back that made Keith smirk and ruffle her hair. 

“I’m going to need you to hold her down as I reset her ankle. 

The smile slid off Keith’s face. Instead, a steely determination replaced it, and he nodded. 

Before the started, Keith grabbed a clean rag and told Pidge to bite it. Looking confused, Pidge obeyed. 

Shiro took a deep breath and started trying to take off her boot. 

It was a slow process, in which Pidge kept whimpering and twitching involuntarily, the sounds that left her throat muffled by the rag. 

Keith stood beside her, one hand grabbing her hand and squeezing, the other holding her good leg to prevent her from kicking involuntarily.  

Once the boot was out, Keith dropped her hand and put an arm over her shoulders and chest.

Shiro’s hands were tingling as he grabbed the foot gingerly. 

He looked at Keith, and they younger boy nodded. Pidge looked like she was about to doze off. 

Shiro took a deep breath.

The ankle snapped.

Pidge screamed into the rag.

The green lion roared in their heads.

Getting her to the to the cryopod was a piece of cake after that. 

The four paladins stood still for a moment, watching Pidge’s frozen expression. 

And then the tension broke when Keith grabbed Shiro by the arm and lead him to one of the medical beds.

“Keith…” 

But the boy was hearing none of it. 

He pushed Shiro until he sat down and glared at him when he opened his mouth. 

He then started cleaning the bleeding cut on the side of his head. 

It wasn’t bleeding that badly, he tried to tell them, but Lance and Hunk seemed to agree with Keith, because Hunk had a hand on his shoulder to prevent him from moving. 

When Keith finished, no one moved. 

Shiro could feel himself crashing, could feel his hands trembling as he looked at them. 

They were tinted with red.

Keith sighed, sat next to Shiro, and pressed the side of his head against his un injured one.

Hunk, who sat on his right, squeezed his shoulder, and Lance, who had noticed how he was looking at his trembling hands, held them in his own. 

Slowly, the adrenaline faded, and tiredness seeped in. 

He took a deep breath, and let himself enjoy this moment of peace.

His team was safe.

That’s all he needed for now.

...

I forgot to post this yesterday sorry guys. I was working on a fma fanart.

Thank you so much for all your support!! I means a lot to me

#whumptober #whumptober2019 #vld #voltron whump #voltron #voltron legendary defender #pidge whump #pidge vld #katie holt #shiro whump #shiro vld #big brother shiro #takashi shirogane #keith vld #keith kogane #lance vld #lance mcclain #hunk garrett #hunk vld #pinned down #prompt 16 #prompt 17 #stay with me #prompt 18 #muffled scream #broken bones #team as family #pidge is bby

[belphegor1982]

*deep breath* Okay, here goes.

FAIRY TALES AND HOKUM

Summary: 1937: Two years after the events of Ahm Shere, the O’Connells are “required” by the British Government to bring the Diamond taken there from Egypt to England. In Cairo, while Evelyn deals with the negotiations and Rick waits for doom to strike again, Jonathan bumps into an old friend of his from university, Tom Ferguson. Things start to go awry when the Diamond is stolen from the Museum and old loyalties are tested… (story on AO3; on FFnet)

(Chapters on Tumblr: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)

Chapter 19: Run (on AO3 here; on FFnet here)

Evelyn wasn’t used to feeling claustrophobic in a pyramid. She had entered dozens of temples and mastabas, opened tombs and sarcophagi, and never felt so much pressure, such a sensation of being boxed-in. It must have to do with the jungle, she thought. The tombs she was used to were dry, dusty, but the temperature was more or less constant. Here, she was reminded of the Oasis of Ahm Shere after sunset: hot, humid, stifling. Unlike the desert, the canopy had kept the day’s heat inside and trapped moisture. The fact that the jungle was shut inside the pyramid now made the suffocating feeling even worse.

There was no conceivable way to follow the sound after the explosion, although she had an inkling Rick and Jonathan could not be far from it, without necessarily being the cause. Her mission and her priority was to find Hamilton first, she kept reminding herself, and her husband and brother second.

The encounter with the pygmy mummies seemed to have spooked Izzy, but only insofar as he looked tense. Sweat was beading down the side of his face she could see, whether due to the oppressive heat or the knowledge that death might lurk somewhere among the big fronds and the shrubs. She didn’t blame him. Her palms were slick with sweat, and she had to wipe them on her trousers from time to time.

Between the heat and the promise of danger, the tension was so high it was almost a relief to hear screams and gunshots again.

The hapless men in the next chamber were discharging weapon after weapon, but as Evelyn saw when she came out of the corridor at a run, they were outclassed and outnumbered. The pygmy mummies were as relentless as they were ferocious, and they were in much greater numbers than what they had faced earlier. What was worse, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were toying with their prey and would soon enough get bored of the game.

No matter how quickly she and Izzy fired, reloaded, and fired again, it was never enough, and soon the rescue turned into covering for a hasty retreat. Fortunately, the corridor they had come in was narrow, forcing the creatures into a bottleneck; the humans all piled up in the previous chamber behind the walls on either side, dodging deadly spears and poison darts and picking off the little beasts one at a time.

“We need to close this corridor!” yelled one of the agents. “Who has dynamite?”

Evelyn almost protested. This was the quickest route to the heart of the pyramid, the former lair of the Scorpion King, and any other way would take much longer to reach it. However, as a spear narrowly missed the side of her head, she had to admit that way was impracticable. Nobody would survive long down there.

One of the men rummaged in his rucksack, lit an ingot of dynamite, and threw it into the swarming, hissing horde.

“Take cover!”

Evelyn clamped her hands on her ears and screwed her eyes shut.

The blast, amplified by the small space of the corridor, sent enormous blocks of stone and metal flying as though they were made of paper and a giant cloud of dust. When she opened her eyes, she first spotted the heap of rubble that effectively plugged the corridor, and, on the other side of the archway, the surviving agents. The dust the explosion had blown over them coated one side of their suit as they hunkered down next to the wall, making their clothes and their faces look strangely two-tone.

Then, to her horror, there was a small snarling sound somewhere in the dust.

One of the pygmy mummies had made it through before the blast.

Evelyn raised her gun.

The creature lifted its spear.

A shadow fell, stealing her breath and turning her stomach. It scurried away down the destroyed corridor as fast as it had come, leaving everyone dazed and confused – including, it seemed, the pygmy mummy, which had gone still, spear still held above its head.

Evelyn aimed again, but there was no need. The creature stiffened, an astonished look on its decaying face, and crumbled into dust.

The whole room let out a collective sigh of relief.

“What… what were those things?” an agent asked, his voice trembling.

“Apart from one of the reasons you should never have come here in the first place?” said Izzy scathingly, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. It only smudged the mingled dust and sweat there. “Probably guardians meant to keep dumb twats like you lot away from evil places like that damn pyramid!”

Evelyn had nothing to add to Izzy’s accurate, if rather rude, answer. She let her arms come down and her shoulders slump, her chest heaving, shivering slightly from reaction. Her eyes slid closed.

Anubis’ Army had been sent back to the underworld. It was over.

Her mission had failed, but in the end it did not matter. All that did matter was that the world was safe again, from supernatural threats, at least. The jackal-headed soldiers were gone.

They had won.

All that remained to do now was finding Rick and Jonathan, getting back to Alex, and checking on Ardeth and his people.

Evelyn’s eyes snapped open. It couldn’t possibly be that easy, could it?

The next second proved her right as the whole pyramid started to shake, slowly and slightly at first, then harder and harder, until she had to lean on the wall for support.

The agents looked at each other, and ran towards the chamber entrance, one or two barely taking the time to hastily thank her and Izzy for their help.

“Yeah, yeah, right,” Izzy called after them with a derisive gesture. “We only just saved your bloody lives, that’s all! Ungrateful bastards. C’mon,” he added urgently, turning to Evelyn, “they got the right idea. We need to get the hell out, now.”

“But…” Evelyn knew she ought to run, knew there was nothing she could do except try to stay alive, but her husband and her brother were still somewhere in there. To come so far into the pyramid and still leave them to their fate was sheer torture.

Izzy looked more serious than she had ever seen him.

“I know. But O’Connell has got out of more sticky situations and your brother looks wily enough. They’ll make it out. And do you think they’ll be fine if anything happens to you down here?”

The memory flashed through her mind like fire. Rick kneeling over her, morning sunlight in his hair and tears in his eyes, lost in a sea of grief he was close to drowning in.

She could not let her family go through that again. Not if she could help it, not if there was even the slightest chance of survival.

Evelyn nodded, and she and Izzy darted for the exit amidst the dust and the falling rubble.

.⅋.

Despite what Rick had told Jonathan, he had absolutely no intention of letting them get separated. The two of them had gone – okay, gotten dragged – into that pyramid, the two of them would get out, period.

Sure, they had to dodge bullets and duck random debris, but they would get out.

Baine was still after them, and a number of flunkies with him. Rick hadn’t looked back to find out how many.

The guy must really hate them, he thought as he ran, to come after them like that, while the world – well, only the pyramid, thankfully – crashed down on and around them. You’d think he would have more pressing concerns, like his men, or at least saving his own skin. But no, he chose to hound them, as though they had done him personal harm and not saved the world by making a gong fall on a megalomaniac.

That had to be the most ridiculous way to save the world yet. Rick still couldn’t believe it had worked.

He had hated Imhotep, the first time. Oh, how he had hated the mummy when Evy had walked away from him and toward the prospect of death in order to save their lives. Rick O’Connell had realised, at that moment, that he had never truly loathed anyone before. And strangely, as he watched a mortally-wounded Imhotep stumble into that dark goo, any semblance of humanity being quickly stripped away, it had been tempting to feel sorry for the guy, just for a second.

The second time… When Anck-su-namun had stabbed Evy, Imhotep barely taking the time to look smug about it, as though snuffing the life of the most incredible woman Rick had known was nothing, an afterthought – then Rick had truly known what hate felt like. It had been burning, all-consuming, and only Evy’s unhoped-for return had extinguished it enough that he allowed himself the luxury of almost feeling sorry for Imhotep, at the very end. Watching an enemy get pulled out of the fire by the love of his life and then having your own girlfriend bail on you at the last moment had to sting. He was pretty sure there had been tears in the poor chump’s eyes before he let go of that ledge. Who knew a three thousand years old abomination could cry.

In hindsight, Imhotep had been… not exactly a worthy opponent, because a worthy opponent came at the one they had a beef against, not their family; but he hadn’t really been entirely devoid of honour. And while honour was not usually an important part of Rick’s vocabulary, he believed in fighting fair and square – if the situation allowed. Hence why he had zero qualms in not taking Baine – or Hamilton – one on one and sneaking around to beat them instead. Neither were anything close to worthy or honourable. When the deck was stacked against him, he just made sure there were other ways to come out on top.

In the present circumstances, the only way to come out on top was to literally go to the top, which meant running up endless stairways and sloping corridors. At some point, collapsing pyramid or not, those stairways and slopes took their toll and they were forced to stop, their lungs burning and their legs turned to liquid.

“How much… farther…?” gasped Jonathan, looking like he was about to dissolve into the stone tiles. Rick had to gulp air a few times before he was able to answer.

“Dunno, but… not that far.” Man, I hope it’s not far. “We really need to go, now.”

“In… a minute…”

“We may not have a minute, Jonathan!”

But Jonathan was not listening to him. He had been staring at something near the wall; now he lurched closer and pushed a frond aside, eyes wide.

“Good Lord,” he breathed.

For a second, Rick could only share the sentiment. It looked like a cross between a magpie’s nest and a pirate cache, a stash of various gold trinkets and shiny things, haphazardly thrown in a heap. A row of spears had been erected behind it, like a hedge, a small shrunken head planted on every other spike.

Amidst the urgency and the exhaustion, Rick wondered, in the back of his brain, how come they had seen neither head nor tail of the pygmy mummies since they had taken down Hamilton.

Jonathan seemed to have no such questions, and he hastily plunged both hands into the stash and stuffed the contents into his pockets. Just as Rick thought he would have to physically haul him from the treasure and out of the pyramid, Jonathan turned a triumphant grin to him.

“No bloody way I’m coming home empty-handed this time!”

“How many times do I gotta tell you it’s not worth risking your life, you idiot?” Rick yelled as a chunk of ceiling missed him by inches and they hugged the walls to the exit.

“As many as it takes, old boy!”

Just as they reached the corridor, a bullet hit the doorway two inches from Rick’s head, leaving a chink in the dark gold. A second’s glance behind told him Baine had mostly caught up with them.

“Save your breath to run!” he shouted at his brother-in-law, and ran like he had rarely run before.

The necessary respite had done him good, but not nearly enough. If they hadn’t been running through a slowly collapsing pyramid, Rick had no doubt Baine or one of his men would have put a bullet in their brains right there and then. But if the floor shook, debris fell from everywhere, and dust and shredded leaves almost blinded them, then the same thing applied to the agents behind them. Rick ran for his life, his chest on fire, bullets and rubble flying around him, expecting to get hit any second. When his heart seemed to burst in his chest, he kept running. When Jonathan stumbled and almost pitched forward, he reached behind and grabbed him by the collar to help him keep up. When his legs threatened to give out he still ran some more.

His entire body was screaming. There was only one thought spinning in his mind, over and over, as steady as a heartbeat.

Get out get out get out –

And then – suddenly – there was light at the end of the corridor. Real, glorious light, beckoning them forward, the possibility of freedom and safety.

The sight lent him a speed and breath he didn’t know he still had.

Somehow, Rick accelerated.

.⅋.

“THERE!” Evelyn shouted over the noise, grabbing Izzy’s arm. “There’s the way out!”

Finally, the exit. They had found the way they had come in. The last few metres were arduous, between the slope of the stairs, the tremors, and the leaves and ferns whipping at them as they ran. They burst into the open air and half tumbled down the enormous stones of the outer pyramid, and Evelyn felt the sweet, cool caress of a desert sunrise on her face. The sensation was so familiar and unexpected after the long, long night that she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

She opened her eyes again quickly when she heard Izzy gasp.

The smell of dying fires struck her before anything else. The whole camp was in shambles, the tents either taken apart or burnt, the fabric trampled on the ground. Around the pyramid entrance stood a handful of Medjai with guns and scimitars, all of them bearing tell-tale signs of a fierce battle.

There was no trace of the dirigible. Evelyn’s heart seized up in her chest. Where was Alex?

Izzy slowly raised his hands, finger distinctly off the trigger of his gun.

“Lower your hands, Izzy,” Evelyn said impatiently, before calling out, louder, “Alex! Has anyone seen my son? Or my husband and my brother?”

“Evelyn!” The voice was familiar. Evelyn looked to her right to see Atifa push past between two warriors. “Lower your weapons, now,” she said in Arabic to her men. “They’re friends. Evelyn, your husband and brother aren’t here, but your son is safe. Look.”

She pointed up, and Evelyn and Izzy followed her gesture. There was the dirigible, a couple of dozen yards in the air, making a hiccuping descent.

Evelyn reached for a block of stone for support, her gaze still upwards. She was still worried sick about Rick and Jonathan, but at least Alex was safe and sound. Oh, thank goodness.

“What happened?” she asked as Izzy stared at his beloved Dee, gaping.

Atifa looked battered and bruised, and grim-faced. “A detachment of the Army of Anubis came this way,” she said in English. Izzy tore his eyes from his dirigible to stare at her – then at the balloon again – in horror. “We did our best to hold them off. The white prisoners even fought by our side. They did well, considering.”

“How many dead?” asked Evelyn, dreading the answer.

“About a third of our men and half the prisoners. The Army went back to the sands some time ago. Did you –?”

Evelyn shook her head. “No, I had nothing to do with it. We didn’t even see Hamilton. We were too late to stop him before he released Anubis’ Army, and we were too late to stop him after.” She drew a ragged breath. “I failed my mission.”

“I reckon you would have kicked his arse if it hadn’t been for those nasty critters,” Izzy pointed out, making Atifa look at him curiously.

“You saw the guardians of Ahm Shere and lived?”

“They were hunting down a few of Hamilton’s men. I think they were all sent back to the Underworld when the Army of Anubis was. Did the men get out?”

“Yes. That’s why my orders were to intercept anyone who got out of the pyramid. We’ve been collecting prisoners since the battle ended.”

“Good,” said Evelyn with a firm nod. “They need to be held accountable for their actions. If –”

“Watch out!” shouted Izzy, pushing the two women away from the foot of the pyramid.

The next second, the big dirigible all but crashed into the sand and the bottom row of the stone blocks. When the dust settled and the noise died down, Evelyn looked up to see a rope ladder be thrown down and a small blond head pop up from the rail.

“Mum!”

“Alex!”

She hastily saluted Atifa and climbed aboard as fast as her legs allowed. She had barely got down from the ladder when her son barrelled into her. She fell to her knees and hugged him as tight as she could, breathless, eyes screwed shut, bursting with love.

“Oh, sweetheart…”

A thud and a few incoherent sounds behind her told her that Izzy had climbed up as well.

“How – what did – my dirigible!”

“I had to,” Alex piped up, breaking away from the hug. He looked halfway between exhilarated and nervous. “The Army of Anubis were coming this way, I had to, otherwise they would’ve just – I don’t know, but I didn’t want them to, so I tried to get Dee to go up, I mean, first I couldn’t remember – but then I thought, positive buoyancy! And then I switched the whatsit on to fire up the whole thing –”

Her brave, clever boy. He never ceased to amaze her, did he.

“It’s all right,” said Evelyn. She was smiling so wide it almost hurt. “It’s all right, you’re here, you’re safe, that’s all that matters. And,” she added with something of a wicked smile behind her, “I’m sure Mr Izzy will thank you for taking such good care of his dirigible.”

Izzy, who was bent over the rail trying to assess the damage done by the somewhat… rough landing, threw them a dirty look over his shoulder. The next second, surprisingly, he softened.

“You did good, kid,” he said, as though reluctantly. “Could’ve been gentler, but… Yeah, that was right clever of you.”

Alex beamed at the praise. Then Izzy’s eyes went round.

“My moorings! What –”

“Oh, yeah, I had to, er, cut those in a hurry.” Alex actually sounded sheepish. “Sorry.”

“Look at the state of the – oh, bloody Christ on a bike, the balloon!”

Evelyn was on the verge of calling him out for his language, but Izzy took off at a run towards the wheelhouse. When she bent over the rail and looked up, the dirigible’s balloon had started sagging dangerously. Trusting the pilot to restore the proper state of things, she turned back to her son, who was staring up with a look his mother knew only too well. That look ran the gamut between ‘what just happened’ and ‘um, did I do that’, and seemed to run in the family.

“Oops,” Alex said. “I kinda forgot to take the jammer off the handle.”

Evelyn had no idea what that meant, but somehow she almost burst out laughing. She only just managed to turn the mounting giggles into a grin and reached for him again. To her surprise, he happily complied and returned her embrace with all the strength of his arms.

“I take it the child is safe?” came a voice from the ground. Evelyn, still smiling widely, broke away from the hug and walked to the rail.

“Yes, he’s safe and sound, thank goodness.”

Atifa nodded. Some of the tension left her face. “Good.”

“Mum?” said Alex behind her. “Did you see Dad and Uncle Jon while you were down there?”

Evelyn’s smile slid abruptly.

“No, dear, I didn’t,” she said softly, running a gentle hand through his hair. “But I’m sure they –”

Someone cried, in Arabic, “More coming!” She only had time to go to the rail again before two men came sprinting out of the pyramid entrance directly towards the dirigible.

Alex let out a wordless cry of joy. Evelyn thought her heart was about to burst right through her ribcage.

The first to climb aboard turned out to be Jonathan. As soon as he reached the top of the rail, she threw her arms around him to help him on board, then tightened her grip into a bear hug, her hands clasped against his back. When he hugged her back, she could feel his body quiver, and only held him tighter.

“Jon,” she gasped, “oh, Jon, I thought –”

She broke away from the embrace, smiling giddily, and couldn’t resist the impulse to kiss his forehead. Jonathan looked too breathless to speak, still trembling and panting from their last run, but he gave her a small smile.

And then an exhausted voice said with a smile she could actually hear, “Hey, hon.”

Rick was sitting on the deck, chest heaving, as grimy and covered in dust as Jonathan was, smiling up at her. He had his arms around Alex, who was wrapped up around him like an octopus, as though two arms and a torso were just not enough for the kind of hug he needed.

Evelyn’s grin threatened to split her face in two.

She lay a hand on Jonathan’s arm and made sure he was propped up against the wall of the cabins before going over to her husband. Rick whispered something in Alex’s ear and ruffled his hair – and how she had missed this, missed the small affectionate touches between all of them. He stood up slowly, and while Alex ran to his uncle, Evelyn finally crossed the last yard and took her man into her arms to hold him close.

There was some kind of commotion from the ground, voices raised angrily, but she only had eyes and ears for Rick.

He had lost his jacket and smelled of sweat, grime, and the sap of exotic plants, but underneath his own scent was still there; there was a half-healed cut on his forehead as well as small bruises and scratches all over his body, but his hands were warm against her side and the back of her head. She clung to him with all her might, hands gripping the fabric of his shirt, drinking in the smell and feel of him, feeling the fear and worry of the past few days ebbing little by little.

“I missed you so much,” she whispered into his shirt. “I just… You… Oh, Rick, I missed you so much.”

He made a small noise at the back of his throat and she felt his lips press against the side of her head. She broke away, taking his hands into hers. When she looked up, it was into a pair of intense blue eyes, misted over and glistening.

The kiss drew both of them in at the same time. When she came up for air, trembling with emotion, she marvelled at the way her husband looked at her, as though he couldn’t believe she was real. Not that she felt any different, of course. Having him in her arms like this, kissing him like this, after a week of fearing for his life, was like drinking from the purest spring after a week of wandering in the desert.

His breath trembled against her lips. She closed her eyes and basked in all the precious sensations she had missed so much for the past week.

“Evy, I…” She heard a sharp intake of breath, and opened her eyes. “Evy, you got hurt!”

“No,” she said, puzzled. “I didn’t –”

Rick was looking down in alarm; she followed his gaze to her hands, still entwined in his.

Her palms were covered in drying blood.

Fear rose into her like bile.

“Are you—?”

Rick shook his head.

“Then what…”

Instinctively, her head swivelled to the other two members of their family. Jonathan was where she had left him, braced against the wall of the cabins, while Alex regaled him with a spirited version of the adventure he’d had.

“So then I grabbed the axe to chop off the ropes, and the darn thing was so heavy I almost couldn’t – Uncle Jon? Uncle Jon, are you okay?”

Jonathan had gone utterly white. He blinked, a confused look on his face.

“Wha—”

Then his knees buckled and he abruptly slid down the wall, blood smeared where his back had been.

There was a considerable amount of blood.

“MUM! DAD!”

Her son’s scream pierced through the icy fog in Evelyn’s brain. She ran over and dropped in front of Jonathan while Rick strode over to Alex and picked him up.

This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not when they were finally together again, safe again, not when the world had been saved once more… They were supposed to have so much time in front of them, a whole life of it…

“Jonathan,” she said in the most assertive voice she could muster, “Jonathan, look at me.”

He looked at her. Incredibly, after so many years, the voice still worked.

“Jon, please, stay with me. You’re going to be just fine, just… don’t close your eyes.”

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out except the sound of his shallow, whistling breathing. The sound pitted a shard of ice against her heart. What drove it in was the expression on her brother’s face. He looked flat out terrified.

The same terror drenched her entire body in ice. She had not felt this helpless in decades.

“HELP!” she screamed, turning away to the rail, to the wheelhouse, to anyone who would listen. “Somebody, please!”

Her eyes met Rick’s, just beside her. He had crouched down to her level, unable to hold Alex’s weight much longer; he still had their son in his arms, small head tucked against his chest, one large hand gently stroking the back of his neck. When he looked at her, there was unutterable sadness in his eyes.

He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

“No,” Evelyn whispered. She grabbed Jonathan’s hand, and with her other hand cupped the side of his face. “No, Jon, no – don’t go, don’t leave me, please, Jon, don’t –”

His hand tightened around hers. She could have sworn, later, that he tried to say something. She stared into his eyes, desperately ignoring the greyish tint of his skin, the blue tinge of his lips, willing him to stay a little longer still.

Jonathan could be lazy, absent-minded, and a bit of a ne’er-do-well, but he had always made an effort when she asked.

She was so focused on his face that she didn’t notice his hand had gone slack right away. He seemed to be staring into the distance, his expression still a mixture of fear and incomprehension; but his eyes, so blue, so lively, so ready to twinkle, were dull, the light faded out.

Evelyn opened her mouth, and his name died on her lips. The mind she had always prided herself on was an utter blank.

She was barely aware of Rick reaching out, and, with a gentleness he hadn’t had since Alex had been an infant, closing Jonathan’s eyes.

.⅋.

...

(don’t kill me?)

#Fairy Tales and Hokum #fanfiction #my stuff #the mummy films #the mummy

[wolfie-dragon-rider]

Grey Stains, a new story

Hey everyone! Those of you who follow me on Ao3 or FFN might have noticed this already, but last week I posted the first chapter of a new story of mine, called Grey Stains. It’s a HTTYD Hogwarts AU, taking place several years after the end of Harry Potter. 

Summary: Post-Deathly Hallows Hogwarts AU. When Harry Potter escaped Gringotts on the back of a dragon and flew off towards the battle of Hogwarts, most of the wizarding world saw a hero. For a young Hiccup whose mother died in the Gringotts escape, it is much more complicated to grow up in a post-war world that still bears scars no one wants to talk about, especially when you're bad at magic, your father is overprotective and paranoid of dragons, and there is a rising fear of neo-Death Eaters threatening the fragile peace. An original story (i.e. not Harry Potter retold) about trauma of all kinds, but also about overcoming your fears with the help of others. Eventual Hiccstrid.

I have been planning this story literally for years, so I’m very excited to finally share it with you all! I hope you like it! If you have any comments, thoughts, reviews, or questions, please let me know! 

Enough talk, here’s the first chapter. I’ll be updating weekly, on Sundays. If you’d rather read on FFN or AO3 you can find it there as well, under the usernames wolfie-dragon and wolfie_dragon respectively. 

----------------------------

Hiccup broke out into coughs the moment he hit the ground. The world span around him, unfocused and blurred, as he tried not to suffocate.

"Oh, come on, son. Apparating is not that bad," Stoick said, roughly pulling him up by his armpits from the dusty courtyard tiles.

"You-" Hiccup couldn't finish his retort at first, too busy getting air back into his lungs. The dust, the tight suffocating space he had just been in, it brought back flashes. Screams. Crumbling masonry.

"Easy for you to say. You're not... allergic to dust and tight spaces," he eventually managed to spit out. Stoick scoffed for a second, but didn't start a rant at least. Hiccup was grateful for that. Whenever he'd panic at a small room or dust cloud Stoick would normally complain that he should 'man up' already since he was not "actually allergic to dust".

Maybe he was right, but that didn't mean Hiccup didn't get physically sick every time he had to face it.

"Look, you're okay, so let's get your stuff. You have your list, right?" Stoick asked, grabbing his wand and tapping several stones on the wall next to him. Hiccup reached into his pocket to grab the parchment he received last week.

His acceptance letter to Hogwarts.

"Great! Now, first of all we should go to Gringotts. All these books aren't cheap, and it's time you get your own account as well. That way you can collect interest on your allowance, and use it for Hogsmeade trips and things like that," his father said, as the wall opened up to reveal Diagon Alley. It was filled with people.

The last time Hiccup had been there it had been nearly deserted.

"I don't want to go to Gringotts. That's where-" he started, unable to finish the sentence when his throat closed up. Just like with the apparition he couldn't breathe at the memory.

Stoick sighed loudly, the disappointment clear, but then he knelt so he was closer to Hiccup's eye level.

"That was seven years ago. Nothing will happen now. It's all safe. You're growing up! You're going to Hogwarts, and take your place in our world. And for that, you need a Gringotts account. Plus, it'll look bad if the son of the Head of the Department of Magical Creatures didn't get an account at the bank run by our biggest allies!" he said.

At that moment Hiccup couldn't care less about relations with goblins, but he still nodded slowly.

"Okay. I'll try," he whispered.

"Attaboy! Now let's go, we don't have all day!" Stoick shouted, getting up and turning to Diagon Alley, his long cloak flapping with the motion. Hiccup almost had to run to keep up with his huge steps. People parted at the sight of the 7-feet tall man wearing gilded ministry robes, so they got through the crowd easily.

The goblin guards at the enormous bank doors recognized Stoick, so they greeted him warmly, and he returned the greeting before briskly walking inside. Hiccup followed, unsure if the goblins had even noticed him at half his father's height.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light inside, with the white marble and shining gold all over the place.

"Wait here for a second," Stoick told him before walking right past the queue of wizards and witches and talking to the goblin teller. The people waiting in line shot him dirty looks, but the ministry robes stopped them from protesting.

"But…" Hiccup whispered, not wanting to be alone. Not here. The tiles were too clean and white. They had been stained red with blood. A mother and her young son pushed past him to join the queue. The boy was licking ice cream. Hiccup got a whiff of the scent of vanilla cream, and all of a sudden he was outside in Diagon Alley again, but it was much emptier.

Abandoned shops and boarded-up windows lined the street, but 4-year old Hiccup didn't care, because Mama just bought him ice cream from the new parlour. As they waited in line Hiccup heard adults talking about the old ice cream vendor having vanished, but he hadn't understood it, and it hadn't mattered. He got his vanilla ice cream, and then they all walked to the bank together, him between his parents. They had explained that they just had to check on something there real quick, and then they'd go back home.

The building had been chaotic when they entered. Dozens of goblin guards ran around, and a barricade was being set up at the gate to the tunnels. Stoick was pulled away by an anxious-looking goblin with grey hair, leaving Hiccup alone with his mom.

"Mama, what's happening?" he asked between licks of his ice cream.

"Nothing, it's fine. There's just something your father and I have to… make sure doesn't get out of hand," she said, before ruffling his hair. The sudden move made him smear some ice cream on the collar of his shirt. "Oh, you're so clumsy. Let's clean that up."

She had just taken her wand out of her pocket when the world turned upside down.

A massive shockwave knocked them off their feet. Hiccup saw the wand fly out of her hand as they fell. A roar echoed through the room, answered by screams and shouts.

His head pounded where it hit the marble floor, and when he turned to look at the source of the noise it felt like he was dreaming.

Large parts of the floor were missing, and more tiles crumbled into the dark hole that had been white marble moments ago. A desk covered with documents and coins slid over the edge, despite a goblin trying to hold onto it. Hiccup couldn't look away from the screaming creature falling in and disappearing from sight. But then his mama grabbed him and pulled him back, and he looked up.

There was an enormous dragon towering over them. It was thin and white, and its huge eyes were milky. On its back were three people, but they were too far away for him to make out.

"Hiccup, get back," Mama shouted, pulling him behind an overturned desk. His hands were shaking, and he realized there was ice cream all over them. The dragon roared, the sound making Hiccup's ears hurt. It was followed with a cacophony of shouts and screams, and he covered his ears with his sticky hands.

A burst of flame shot over their heads, hitting a group of people near the door who screamed in agony.

"Stay here," his mom said, making him look away from the man whose robes were on fire. She stood up and slowly walked towards the dragon, hands in the air.

"Mama!" he shouted, the word lost in the noise as the dragon's tail smashed through a pillar. It shattered into a hundred pieces that rained down on the people around it.

"It's okay. Just calm down. You're a good dragon. It's alright. No one will hurt you." Somehow Hiccup could hear his mother's soft words among the chaos. The dragon turned to her, growling aggressively despite the people on its back pulling at its horns. A puff of smoke escaped its nostrils.

"Mama! Mama no!" Hiccup screamed, climbing on top of the desk as the dragon put its nose right next to his mother, who looked so tiny compared to the enormous creature. It sniffed and growled more. Mama's arm trembled as she slowly raised it.

One of the people on the dragon's back, a man with red hair, cast some kind of spell at the creature, making it groan. Its jaws opened, revealing rows of enormous fangs. Despite the black soot covering them they looked razor-sharp, and Hiccup had never felt so scared in his life.

BANG!

A flash of light and a loud bang shook the hall. The goblins cowered as the dragon roared in pain and fury.

"No, no, it's okay, just calm down, NOOOO!"

Hiccup was frozen as the dragon charged forward blindly. It felt like time slowed down as Mama put her hands in front of her face in a futile attempt to block.

Her scream ended with a horrific crushing sound as the dragon's front paw came down on her.

Suddenly there were more flashes of all colors, more shouts, more magic, but none of it existed. The dragon screamed, thrashing around wildly as spells hit it. More pillars crumbled and collapsed, and parts of the ceiling fell around him. None of it was real. None of this could be real.

"Mama! Mama! MAMA!" Hiccup screamed, frozen in place on top of the overturned desk.

"Hiccup, get away from there!" someone shouted, but he couldn't understand it. Why wasn't Mama getting up?

The dragon charged forward, straight into the wall of the building, opening it up to bright beams of sunlight that reflected on blue gems and white debris and pools of blood. With a final roar, it opened its wings and took flight with a single flap that drove a cloud of dust through the hall. It made Hiccup cough, and he didn't see the ceiling above him crack.

"Hiccup!" his father's voice shouted. It seemed so far away. The ceiling came down, on his Mama, on the goblins, on him. Brutal pain raced through his arm and back.

"Hiccup! Hiccup!" He blinked, and suddenly he was back in a clean and calm room. There was a ceiling and four walls and no screaming. His father was kneeling in front of him.

"Are you there? Come on, stop daydreaming. It's time to visit the vaults. I'm sure you'll like the cart ride!" he said, and Hiccup shook his head. His arm ached, despite the fracture having healed seven years ago. He didn't remember much of it. Being trapped under the stone, unable to breathe, for a minute until his father and other wizards could dig him out. A hospital bed. Left alone as his dad suddenly had to do a million things.

The next day the war was over. Ended by the three people he had seen riding the dragon.

"I… I'm fine," he whispered, trying to look strong in front of the old goblin standing next to Stoick.

"That's my boy! You see, Gringotts ain't so bad. You know what, if you're good during the cart ride, I'll get you an owl!"

Hiccup managed not to throw up during the cart ride. In fact it was quite exhilarating, like flying his broomstick back at the mansion. He rarely got the opportunity to do that, since his father was always nervous about dragons hiding in the clouds, waiting to strike.

The ride was over far too quickly, and then it was just a matter of moving coins around. Hiccup received a key to an empty vault, with promises it would fill up while he was at Hogwarts.

The ride back to the surface was even faster than the first cart, though Hiccup found it harder to enjoy, his stomach sinking when he caught a glimpse of the large doors leading back to the main hall. His dad seemed to sense his mood, and simply ushered them through the room quickly without stopping to speak to passersby like he normally did.

It wasn't until they stood outside in the bright midday sun that Hiccup felt like he could breathe again.

"Alright, let's get your school supplies first, it'll be much easier if we don't have to carry an owl around all day. What do you wanna get first? How about the books, you're always buried in those," Stoick asked. Hiccup resisted the urge to snark about how there was nothing else to do at the mansion but read, and instead focused on happier things.

"Can we get my wand?" he asked, already walking towards the shops and away from the bank.

A minute later they entered a tiny shop called Ollivander's, and the oldest man Hiccup had ever seen greeted them. He was almost completely bald, the few strands of hair that remained were wispy and white. His face and neck bore many scars, and his eyes felt like they looked straight into Hiccup's soul.

"Oh, Mr. Haddock! It feels like yesterday that I sold you your wand. 11 and a quarter inches, holly wood, with a dragon heartstring core, is that correct? I hope it's still working well for you," the man said with a croaky voice.

"Yes, it is," Stoick said, frowning at the mention of the dragon heartstring core. "But we're not here for me. My son is going to Hogwarts and he needs a wand."

Hiccup tried to smile, despite feeling very uncomfortable around the old man he assumed was Ollivander. The wand would be worth it. He'd be able to do magic!

"Ah, of course. Let's see… How about 9 and three quarter inches, yew, unicorn hair? Nice and straightforward," Ollivander said, opening a narrow box on the counter and handing it to Hiccup. "Go on, give it a swing!"

His hand trembled slightly when he took the wand. This would allow him to do magic! He'd only have to swing it! So he took a deep breath and gently swung the wand.

Nothing happened.

Ollivander ignored his surprise at the lack of sparks, snatching the wand from his hand and giving him another. "Pear, 10 and a half inches, dragon heartstring!"

"Wait a minute, you still use dragon heartstring? I banned all dragon products years ago," Stoick said as Hiccup swung a few times, still with no result.

"Eh, that just banned me from buying more. I have a huge stock of heartstring, Mr. Haddock. And there's absolutely nothing evil about it, no matter what you might believe. Now, try this one: Blackthorn, 12 inches, unicorn hair," the old man said, giving Hiccup another wand and grabbing more boxes from a shelf.

Stoick scoffed at that, but didn't push further. Instead he sat down in the small chair in the corner. The wood creaked under his weight. Hiccup tried to cast a hovering spell with the long wand, copying the movement he saw Mrs. Beakley, their housekeeper, use whenever she used Wingardium Leviosa.

Absolutely nothing happened. Of course he hadn't said the words, but still, it felt like he was failing at this.

"There's nothing to worry about. This happens to a lot of people. Your mother tried 23 wands before one chose her. Your father needed a dozen tries too," Ollivander said, piling up boxes on the counter and handing another one over. "Rosewood, 11 inches, phoenix feather, great for charms."

"Shouldn't something be coming out anyway? I remember producing fire and smoke with all the wands I tried," Stoick said, shifting in the chair.

"Indeed, wizards can produce intuitive magic even with wands that haven't chosen them, but it's much harder. There's degrees in this, some wands make it harder, some easier. In fact, let's try… Larch, 10 and a quarter inch, unicorn hair," Ollivander said as another wand was pushed into Hiccup's hands.

Another swing, and still nothing.

"Oh, that's a little strange. Still, I'm sure there's a wand for you. I do love a difficult customer!" Ollivander exclaimed, flicking his own wand to make entire stacks of boxes float towards the counter.

Hiccup had tried 51 wands with no result when his father stood up, the chair squeaking loudly in relief.

"Well, this looks like it's going to… take a while. How about I buy the rest of your supplies while you keep trying," he said, wrapping his cloak tighter around himself. Hiccup sighed, giving him the list.

Ollivander wasn't deterred by the ever growing pile of tried wands, marking their boxes with a small H and putting them back on the shelves while grabbing new ones. Meanwhile Hiccup swung and swung and swung some more.

A while later, long after Hiccup lost count, the door opened again. A blonde girl ran in, followed by a blond man with a long beard and auror robes.

"Astrid, no need to run. We have plenty of time," the man said as the girl ran right next to Hiccup, stopping him mid-swing. She was pretty, despite her scowl and narrowed eyes.

"Ah, Mr. Finn Hofferson! Is that blackthorn wand still working for you? And who is this? I didn't know you had children," Ollivander said, dumping another armful of wands on Hiccup's end of the counter. Hiccup took one, swung it, and slid it to the other end when it didn't work. As he pushed it, he noticed the girl looking at him and the pile of wands strangely.

"This is Astrid, my niece on my brother's side. I took her in after…" the auror said, putting his hand on Astrid's shoulder when her head dropped.

"Ah, of course. It's very nice to meet you, young witch. I sold your brother and sister their wands, you know. Though that was over a decade ago. They must have left Hogwarts around the… oh, right," Ollivander said, Astrid immediately snapping her head up to look at him with piercing eyes.

"Can we just get her wand? She's feisty, maybe a blackthorn one like mine?" Finn said, obviously eager to change the subject that Hiccup didn't really understand.

"Of course, of course. How about you try this one. Just swing it, like Hiccup over here does," Ollivander said. Hiccup, startled by her bright blue eyes, dropped the wand he was swinging, making it clatter loudly.

"Try not to drop it, though. Blackthorn, 11 inches, dragon heartstring," Ollivander said, grabbing a wand from the used pile and handing it to the girl. Frowning, she swung it once, and immediately sparks exploded from the tip. Her frown turned into a smile instantly.

"Not quite right. How about holly, 12 and a quarter inch, phoenix feather," Ollivander said as Hiccup swung another wand, trying not to look too disappointed when nothing happened.

Astrid swung the wand, and a moment later a vase exploded.

"Ooh, a little too temperamental. Ah, I know. Red oak, dragon heartstring, 9 and a half inches. A perfect wand for dueling and combat!" The wandmaker dug in the pile, finding a thin reddish wand and handing it over.

The moment Astrid touched it, her jaw dropped. With a firm hand, she swung it, and a soft glow emitted from the wand. She smiled brightly, and Hiccup couldn't help but smile as well.

"Perfect, perfect! It has chosen you! Congratulations, Ms. Hofferson. I'm sure you'll overcome great foes with this wand. Perhaps your biggest challenge will be deciding who those foes shall be," Ollivander told a brightly smiling Astrid. But then she glanced at Hiccup swinging another unresponsive wand and her smile dropped a bit. He couldn't help but wonder if she considered him a potential foe.

After another round of congratulations from Finn, payment was exchanged and the Hoffersons left the store, leaving behind an empty silence with no crackling sparks or exploding chinaware.

"Is that what's supposed to happen? What happens to everybody else?" he eventually asked, tossing another wand on the counter a little harder than he needed to.

Ollivander sighed deeply.

"Usually, yes. Untrained witches and wizards tend to send uncontrolled magic through every object they touch, and wands react to that magic, even if they didn't choose the wizard. It's almost like you're already trained. Did your father get you private tutoring?" the old man asked, sorting out the wands Astrid had tried and marking more boxes with an H.

"Yes, but not for this. I haven't learned any magic or spells. They just teach me history or Latin," Hiccup said, swinging again. He could feel something whenever he swung, a brief spark of burning heat in his fingertips like he grasped a candle flame. But it wasn't a good feeling like he always imagined magic would feel.

"Strange. But that just makes it more interesting! Come on, keep trying!" Ollivander said, and Hiccup did. His arm ached from the motion by the time his father returned with a bag full of books and potion supplies.

"You're still going?! Come on, Hiccup! I have more things to do today, you know," Stoick said, putting the bag down and gesturing at the piles of wands.

"I can't help it. They won't work!" Hiccup said, grabbing another one, swinging it with no effect, and tossing it on the used pile.

"You just have to do some magic! I know you can do it, you're not a damn squib!" his father shouted, sitting down heavily in the chair. Hiccup saw a crack run down one of its legs.

"I'm trying! Do you think I don't want this to work?" he said, grabbing a random wand from the pile.

"Well, try harder! You've been in here for hours! People are gonna notice," Stoick said, glancing out the window, and all the frustration Hiccup had been building up exploded.

"Is that all you care about? That random people will notice I'm having trouble finding a wand!" he screamed, raising the wand to point at his father.

Heat raced down his arms, burning his veins. The wand trembled in his shaking hand, and then the heat focused in his fingertips. It became too much, the fire scorching him from within.

But then suddenly the heat disappeared, replaced with a red flame bursting from the wand's tip. Hiccup yelped, dropping it from his tingling fingers. As quick as it had appeared, the fire vanished.

The only sound in the room was the wand clattering on the floorboards.

"See, you can do magic! That wand worked, right? Mr. Ollivander! What do you think?" Stoick said, smiling brightly despite soot darkening his beard.

"Accidental magic, yes, but still magic. No doubt. So there must be a wand for you. That one wasn't it, though. Let's keep going. There's still plenty of wands left," the old man slowly said.

No one seemed to care about Hiccup's pained sigh as he picked up another wand and gave it a swing. It did nothing. Just the same flash of painful heat in his fingertips as before. Nothing like the burst of actual magic he had just felt.

An hour later, after a boy by the name of Hiro came in and got his wand on the first try, Stoick stood up and grabbed the bag of supplies.

"That's enough. This is going nowhere. Clearly there's something very wrong with these wands. We'll go see better wandmakers tomorrow. I hear there's a good one in New York. One who doesn't use dragon products either," he said, putting his hand on Hiccup's shoulder and pulling him away from the counter.

"Very well. Every wandmaker will tell you there's nothing wrong with dragon heartstring cores, but clearly you've made up your mind based on a completely unrelated event, Department Head Haddock," Ollivander said in an icy tone. Stoick huffed, but didn't respond. He just stomped out the shop dragging Hiccup along with him.

He gave Mr. Ollivander an apologetic smile as his father slammed the door shut.

"That impudent- No matter. There's plenty of other wandmakers," Stoick said, moving towards the Leaky Cauldron.

"But Dad… You said I was gonna get an owl," Hiccup asked, not as excited as he had been before they went into the wand shop.

"Ugh… Fine. We'll get that owl, then we go home," Stoick said, turning around with heavy footsteps. The street was much emptier now that the sun was setting.

The cacophony of roars and meows and squawks in the pet store was the complete opposite of the silence of Ollivander's. And yet Hiccup felt much more at ease around the animals. There were no other customers inside.

"Hey, you! I'm looking for an owl for my son," Stoick shouted at a young woman standing behind the counter. Hiccup walked to a wall filled with bird cages. The owls were fairly quiet compared to the other creatures. He reached out his finger to a yellow-blueish owl with bright blue eyes.

Hiccup gently scratched the bird, and it opened its beak wide. A puff of smoke came out.

"Of course! What kind of personality would you like? We have several: playful, obedient, intel-"

The clerk's words were cut off by Hiccup's scream when the bird breathed fire. It was just a tiny flame, hardly bigger than a torch, but it conjured images of crumbling masonry and blood. The scream emptied his lungs, and he couldn't breathe to fill them again. He stumbled and fell, coughing at the musky air.

"What in Merlin's name is that! I demand answers!" Stoick shouted as he drew his wand, pointing it at the bird.

"It's a magical fusion! An owl with the magical abilities of a Blast-ended Skrewt! We got it from a wizard who experiments with transferring abilities between creatures!" she said quickly, running over and petting the fire-breathing bird.

"How do I know it's not some dragon monstrosity? Do you know who I am? I am Stoick Haddock, head of the Department of Magical Creatures. I introduced the laws against draconic experimentation, and if I suspect any violation of that law I could shut this place down right now!"

Hiccup finally managed to catch his breath, raising his head to see all the blood drain from the clerk's face.

"No, I swear it's nothing draconic! Please, sir! Have a free owl, any one you want!" she said, hands trembling.

"I don't trust anything you sell!" Stoick said, tone icy as he kept his wand raised. The woman's eyes flickered between the wand and the ministry badge on his robes.

"Then let me compensate you. For the… emotional damages!," she shouted, before running to the till. "Here, this is more than enough to buy an owl at any other pet store!" she said, holding up several gold coins. Stoick was silent for a few seconds, until he slowly lowered his wand.

"Fine, I'll take that. And you better hope I never hear of any kind of creature experimentation again."

It wasn't until they were standing outside again that Hiccup had calmed down enough to speak.

"I wanted an owl. Not that one, but a normal one," he said, glaring at his fuming father.

"Maybe we'll get one in New York tomorrow. At least in America they protect well against these… abominations. I'm trying to get those laws here as well, but no one wants to cooperate!" Stoick said as they made it back to the courtyard of the Leaky Cauldron.

"Now grab on. We're going home," he said, gesturing at his arm. Hiccup shook his head violently.

"No, I can't do apparition again! Please, Dad!" he begged, breath speeding up at the very thought of that narrow tube. The anger he had felt over the owl vanished, frozen by the memory.

"Come on, Hiccup! It's better than floo powder. You can't handle that at all! Just swallow your fears already so we can go home," Stoick said, shaking his head in disappointment. Hiccup just jumped back.

"I can't!" he shouted, tears pricking at his eyes.

Stoick was quiet for a long time, staring at him with furrowed brow, until his face softened.

"Fine. We'll take the Knight's Bus, even if it is dreadfully uncomfortable. And we can take a portkey to New York tomorrow, you're okay with those, right?" he said, leading them through the Leaky Cauldron to the muggle street outside. An old witch tried to talk to Stoick, but he waved her away. The other people in the bar just looked at him darkly.

"Yeah, I guess. Thanks, Dad," Hiccup whispered, thinking back to the girl at Ollivander's and wondering if she was scared of anything.

#grey stains #httyd #fanfic #hiccup #astrid #hogwarts #first chapter #trauma #tw: graphic violence

[damn-daemon]

We Were Gods (Pacific Rim)

(Reboot preview for @marvelousthronewars)

Remember K-Day.

Those posters had been plastered on every building, every bulletin board, every flat surface that people could stick them to. Songs were written, documentaries were made, and rumor had it there was a Hollywood production in the works. The Kaiju was on display in some museum, tens of thousands of lives were lost, and the crippling effects to the United States military would last for years.

Remember K-Day? There would be no forgetting it.

Especially for those of us who survived.

Prologue Carolina

August 15th, 2013 Oakland, California

Mommy, when are you coming home?

Someone is screaming. It isn’t until I need to take a breath that I realize it’s me.

Even then, it’s hard to stop.

My leg is pounding and my back is on fire. There is blood on my hands, but I don’t have the presence of mind to investigate where it came from. I can’t even comprehend which direction is up, much less give myself a medical evaluation.

I’m lying on the floor of the helicopter, which is actually the left side door. The Black Hawk had landed on its side at the end of the crash. My leg is suspended above me, caught in the radio cables, while the rest of my body awkwardly straddles the door gun.

For a moment, I stare at my foot, as it swings above me, then past it where the right door has been busted open. The sky above is bright and cheery. I can almost pretend the ash is falling snow.

“Williams!” my voice croaks as sense begins to reestablish itself. “Williams, talk to me!”

Pinned in my helmet, I can’t turn my head to look for my fellow crew chief, but it doesn’t take long for me to realize that I don’t have to. It was the reason we crashed. That giant…thing destroying the city took a swipe at the helicopter, taking the door, and Williams, with it.

“Fuck!”

I take a breath, assessing my situation. My hand gingerly reaches out to my foot, hoping to untangle it from the cords, but something in my back strains, and my hand flops uselessly back to the ground. I’m unable to reach it. So, I shift my hips, attempting to lift my leg free. Everything is on fire again, my nerves, my muscles, my bones. The only thing that keeps me going is another scream.

When my leg is finally free, it hits the floor, hard, and the pain makes me pass out.

It’s darker when I wake up. Something is rumbling in the distance. Thunder maybe.

Or it.

I reach up and pull my helmet off, head crying in relief as my hair spills around my face. Tucking the strands away, my hand rubs against something painful and sticky. There is a gash on my forehead. Explains the blood.

Taking deep breaths, I brace myself for the pain to come, silently hoping I’m not in for another nap. Idyllically, I shouldn’t move. My back is damaged in ways I can only make worse, but I can’t fool myself. No one is coming for me in this chaos. To them, I’m already dead.

I roll, slowly, onto all fours, gingerly testing each limb for any breaks. My right leg pulses slightly, but it’s a green light otherwise. I should be grateful my hip didn’t pop out of its socket.

Carefully, I crawl over the wreckage to the cockpit, but I don’t hold out much hope for survivors. Pilots always took one hell of a hit when these things crashed. If either had survived, their legs would be all but useless to them, and I am hardly in a position to do them much good. A bandage and a prayer won’t go far out here.

A bloody mess is all that greets me. I don’t even recognize either man anymore.

I lean back, facing the sky again.

How the hell did I survive?

Another rumble catches my attention, followed by two F-16 fighter jets flying dangerously low.

Definitely not a storm then.

Climbing out of the helicopter is a struggle. I fall several times, finding a new pain with each attempt. Somehow, I claw my way to the surface, rolling onto the remains of the door where I lay on my back for some time, catching my breath and waiting for the pulsing to leave the edges of my vision.

We landed dead center in the street, some shopping district by the looks of it. Parked cars are crushed under rubble, windows are blown out of storefronts, bags and purses and bits of groceries lie abandoned on the ground. There isn’t a soul in sight.

In the distance, a building collapses.

I watch the debris as it blasts through the street, quickly covering my face as it washes over me. A muffled sort of silence falls over the area, as though I am underwater. There is sound, and yet I can’t hear anything, only my breath against my gloves.

There is nothing but gray when I dare to uncover my face. Unless a good wind comes through, the dust won’t settle, lingering in the humid summer air for some time. I lift my shirt over my mouth and nose, cursing myself for leaving my helmet behind. My goggles are on it.

I continue to watch the area, making out what few silhouettes I can; I need to make a plan, figure out where I am and get the hell out.

Sudden movement in the distance catches my attention.

I flip over onto my stomach, adrenaline canceling out whatever pain I might have felt.

Only then do I feel the ground shaking.

Trespasser is larger than the surrounding buildings. It moves slowly, but each step is hundreds of feet. In the darkness of the debris cloud, I can see its eyes glowing blue.

And they are looking at me.

It screams.

For a creature so large, the sound is painfully shrill. I cover my ears in pain, rolling off the helicopter onto the street below.

I curl up into a ball, my hands still on my ears, waiting for it to stop, screaming all the while.

Just stop.

Please.

Stop.

“Gregory! Gregory, listen to me!”

Someone is standing over me. Why isn’t he covering his ears too?

“This isn’t real!” he shouts. He has an accent.

Not real? Of course it’s real. People died. People are still dying. We are going to die.

“Think about your daughter!”

Casey? How does he know about Casey? My beautiful little girl who is so far from here, but safe. She’s safe. I wish I was safe with her. She just turned seven last month and…

No, that isn’t right. Her birthday is in February, not July. And she’s five. How can she be seven?

Unless…

“That’s it, Gregory,” the man says, offering a hand. I release my ears, finding it suddenly silent again, and stand with his help. His face, that outfit, not a uniform but something…familiar.

“Stacker?” I mumble, the name not entirely foreign on my tongue. My eyes look around the area with newfound clarity. Everything seems to have stopped moving, Trespasser included.

“That’s right,” he answers. “You know where we are?”

I take a breath, looking at my hands. My combat uniform is gone, replaced by the same suit Stacker is wearing. A Drivesuit.

“We’re not here.”

. . .

March 18th, 2015 Kodiak Island, Alaska PPDC Proving Grounds

I gasp, clawing at my helmet. One hands throws it off while the other toggles the manual release. Once the clamps are removed from my suit, I fall on my hands and knees, taking deep breaths, heaving.

“What the hell did you do to her?!”

“Is that going to happen to us?!”

“I did not sign up for this shit!”

People are shouting; people I know. The candidates for the program. Soldiers, sailors, pilots. There’s an Australian, and Stacker, and me. I’m one of them.

I’m one of them because of what I did, because I was there on K-Day. But wasn’t I just there? I felt it and heard it, everything was exactly the same. I was there.

But it wasn’t real, like Stacker said. But it felt real.

“Pentecost and Gregory are only the second pair of candidates to have initiated a neural bridge,” a woman quickly explained. Caitlyn Lightcap, the famed creator of this bullshit. “Being connected to another person’s mind, there are multiple factors that we could never anticipate.”

“It’s never happened to us,” said a man. Lieutenant Sergio D’onofrio.

“But we aren’t you.”

Someone is touching my shoulders, moving me into a sitting position. I don’t even know who. My eyes won’t move. I have to focus. If they close for even one second, I’ll be right back there.

“What happened in there?” asks the man holding me. I know the accent. It’s the Australian, Hercules Hansen. Just like me, he’s only here because of something he did when the Kaiju attacked, things we would both rather forget, but the world won’t let us.

Stacker answers him. “She was reliving a memory, or something very much like it.”

“No!” I shout, suddenly regaining control of my body, though only momentarily. I sway on my feet, and Herc has to catch me. “That was not a memory. You don’t feel your body breaking in a memory; you don’t smell the bodies.”

I’m crying, and it’s embarrassing, because of course the woman would get emotional. Stacker just stands there, clearly made of stone, but he was never there. He’s never been so close to a Kaiju that he could touch it if he had the ambition; he’s never seen an entire city reduced to ash because there were no options left.

But I have, and they made me see it again.

The walls are starting to close in. I can’t breathe.

“I can’t-”

It’s all I manage to mumble before I duck out of Herc’s grasp, running for the exit.

“Let her go,” Stacker orders, clearing the path for me as I barge through the other candidates.

I used to have this building memorized, could probably walk through it blindfolded if given the chance. I’d been here for months with little else to do, but right now, my memories are a jumbled mess. I can’t make sense of any of it, so I stumble around, lost and confused.

Workers are staring at me, attracted by the outrageous look that is Drivesuit fashion and the sound of its heavy boots on the concrete floor. I barely notice them, desperately searching for a simple exit sign.

When I finally spot one, I slam through the door so hard, I nearly fall over again.

It’s the dead of winter still this far north, but the cold air is a godsend, jolting my mind back to a clearer place.

When someone bothers to come find me, I’m sitting against the building, watching snow drift across the hills in the distance. My body isn’t even cold. These Drivesuits are oddly well insulated.

Stacker Pentecost isn’t in his Drivesuit anymore. He’s back in a regular suit and tie. He doesn’t put on anything less than formal if he doesn’t have to. The guys and I bet that he’d box with us in one if they let him.

There is something calming about his stoic presence. As angry as I had been earlier, I’m grateful that Stacker is the way he is. He is the solid rock that the rest of us lean on, like a good First Sergeant that a commander and his unit can always rely on. I’ve known a few over the years. They always seemed larger than life to me, and now I’m supposed to be Drifting with one.

“You had some shit memories too, Stacker,” I mumble, watching a tern glide on the breeze.

“Why are you here?”

I chuckle. “Because the higher ups think my face would look nice on a poster.”

“That explains them, but why are you here, Gregory?”

Trespasser flashes in my mind. Six days of fighting, six days of helplessness, all culminating in the hollowest victory anyone has ever faced. Sometimes I still jump when a light turns on suddenly. More terrifying than that Kaiju was the bomb that took it out.

“Because killing ourselves in order to survive isn’t the way,” I reply, looking up at Stacker. “I’m not quitting, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“It’s not. You’re a good soldier, Gregory. I know that drive. You’ll see this through to the end. Both of us will. Just hang on to the why and you’ll be able to get through this.”

I stand up again, watching as the sun breaks through the clouds for the first time in days. In the distance, I can make out Brawler Yukon’s enormous form.

“You think it’ll work?”

Stacker is quiet for a while, as if debating. But I’ve come to know him well here in Alaska. He’s a man who doesn’t say anything lightly, and has no issues taking the time to do it. There is a sharp focus in his eyes as he stares at the distant Jaeger, as if he’s picturing what it’s going to do in the future.

“We’ll make it work.”

#like i said i went way more in depth with the intricacies #the set up of the PPDC is like my favorite stuff #and don't worry about avwh #i wrote this like two years ago #pacific rim fanfiction #pacific rim oc #pacific rim

[cerillosvillage]

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Ten: The Enemy Guns

So let the enemy guns/ Cut me to ribbons/ For my eternal soul/ Will know the way back home

Warning: Animal death

The dust storm overtook Glyph while she was still a few miles out from the village. It was of course a problem, but she'd weathered worse. She pulled up a bandana up over her face and pulled the brim of her hat down, pressing her horse onwards.

The dust only got worse as they went, turning the world into a solid wall of brown. Visibility fell to nothing - she could only barely see her own hands in front of her face. She pulled on the reigns and stopped her horse, concerned now for its eyes. She dismounted, squinting in the dim light to try to find a rock or set of ruins to take shelter behind.

There seemed to be a shape in the dust, something tall - possibly a tree, possibly the remains of a chimney. Glyph had to weigh her options. Stay where she was and wait for the dust to pass, or head for possible shelter. She wanted to get some sort of protection from the storm, but was afraid of going off course or of her horse stepping into an animal hole and breaking its leg in the reduced visibility.

As she thought, she'd turned towards her horse's body, and when she looked up again she jumped. The shape was closer now, bigger, darker. It moved through the flying sand, coming closer to her. A person? Seemed awfully tall for a person.

"Hey!" Glyph yelled, though the sound was muffled by her bandana. There was no response. The shape got ever closer, slowly becoming more defined.

It looked like a person at a glance. Had roughly the right shape. But the proportions were wrong, the legs far too long and the arms… was she seeing double? Or triple, rather? She could've sworn she saw six arms lift up to the sides of the figure.

Her first thought was of Elyakim and his monsters. Her second was of the revolver on her hip. She unclipped her holster, taking hold of the grip. She wasn't sure what good the gun would do in this weather, though. It might get clogged with dirt and refuse to fire. Still, just having the thing in her hand made her feel better.

To her relief, the dust seemed to be lifting. Almost as if the figure were driving it away. That was a cold comfort, though, as she could now see the figure more clearly. It was tall, humanoid, with massive horns like an ibex and, yes, six arms.

And a sword that glinted in the beams of sunlight that broke through the storm.

Glyph was in the process of unholstering her gun and shouting a warning when a horrible shriek sounded right next to her ear. She reacted just in time to avoid her horse's front hooves kicking out as it reared up, screaming in fear. She grabbed for the reigns, managing to catch them just as a dull thump cut off the animal's cries. The thump was followed by a sickening squelch and something hot and sticky streamed over Glyph's arm. The horse staggered, and would've pulled Glyph down with it if she hadn't thought to let go of the reigns.

It collapsed on the ground, blood gushing from its neck, seeping into the sandy ground. Blood covered Glyph's arm as well.

Glyph swore, then swore again as she felt a blade whizz through the air just next to her face. The six-armed figure was right there in front of her, swinging its gleaming, razor-sharp sword at her. She ducked and rolled, focusing first on just getting away from the thing. The figure spun, pirouetting like a dancer, thrusting its blade at her again.

Glyph managed to get her gun out, aimed as best as she could, and pulled the trigger. She pulled it again. Again. Three bullets sank into the figure's abdomen, and it paused for just a moment, cocking its head to the side like a curious animal.

There were no wounds. No bullet holes. It did not bleed. It just absorbed the metal into itself.

And again it swung its sword.

Glyph ducked, but she wasn't used to fencing. She didn't know what she was doing. The tip of the blade managed to just graze the exposed flesh just between her eye and her bandana, and blood gushed down the side of her face.

She rolled away again, springing up as quickly as she could, aiming her gun at the figure's sword instead of its body. She fired one round.

The bullet caught the sword at the hilt, knocking the weapon out of the figure's hand. Glyph dived forward, snatching up the blade, holding it in her left hand, the gun in her right. She climbed to her feet, holding both in front of her, not sure how exactly to proceed but grateful at least that she had managed to get the upper hand.

Or so she thought.

That feeling of triumph didn't last long.

The figure turned to face her, holding out a hand. Dust from the air around them came towards it like insects in a swarm, forming into a long, narrow shape. More dust packed onto it, becoming more solid. Then it glowed white-hot.

This all took only a few seconds. And there it was - another sword, just as sharp as the one Glyph held.

The figure swung its blade down. Glyph did her best to knock it aside, but with no training in bladed weapons, she reacted too late. The tip of the figure's blade sunk into her shoulder and she cried out.

Acting purely on instinct, she raised her gun and fired her remaining two shots at the thing's head.

Fat lot of good that did. The figure didn't even react this time, just pulled the blade out of Glyph's arm and raised it again.

Glyph dropped her gun and passed the sword to her good arm. She struggled up to her feet and, with a shout, lurched forward, plunging the sword into the figure's abdomen. Again it paused, tilting its head as if confused.

That was all Glyph needed. Just a moment of hesitation on its part. She yanked the sword out, then turned and began to run. The dust got thicker around her, and she blindly stumbled forward, debris slicing the exposed skin around her eyes.

Pain blossomed across her back and she fell to the ground. Her shoulders felt warm, something trickled down between her shoulder blades. She didn't need to check to see - she knew she'd been struck. But if there was one thing she wasn't going to do, it was giving up and waiting to be done in. She reached out with her good arm, grabbing at the hard ground, pulling herself forward. She didn't know where the figure was, it was so quiet. She only knew she had to keep moving. She had to get away.

And then she heard a sound. The scraping of metal on metal. A scuffle of feet on the desert ground. A loud, masculine grunt, and then more clanging metal.

Then there was an arm around her middle, hefting her to her feet.

She didn't know who had taken hold of her, or where they were going, but she let them drag her along, just barely managing to get her feet under her.

They ran. And ran. Slowly, the sky got lighter. The dust got thinner. And suddenly, they were clear of the dust storm.

There was a horse tethered to a spindly dead shrub a little ways ahead. Her savior dragged her to it, helping her up onto the saddle. She left bloody handprints on its pale coat.

Her savior came around the front of the horse to untether it, and she finally got a clear look at him. It was Cinna, the tanned, blond patrolman. Or was he still a patrolman? She hadn't kept up with his role in the village after the Cerillos had reclaimed the place.

Cinna said nothing, just climbed up on the horse behind her. He threaded his arms under hers and took hold of the reigns, spurring the animal forward.

He kept the horse running as fast as it could until they crossed into the fields that covered the plateau above the canyon. A few figures spotted him and ran forward. Glyph was dizzy from the lost of blood, and couldn't focus on what they were saying as they pulled her down from the saddle. The world swam, then went dark.

She awoke indoors, laying on a sheepskin, wrapped in bandages, and facing the wall. She groaned and turned over. She immediately regretted doing so. Her back burned with pain. She tried to lay on her other side, but her injured shoulder protested. Unsure what else to do, she sat up with great effort.

Cinna sat on a bench on the other side of the room. He looked up when he saw her sit. He quickly climbed to his feet and poked his head out of the door, quietly talking to someone outside.

Magdalena, the short, sturdy leader of the Cerillos, stepped inside. Glyph was glad to see her - she liked the woman. She was soft, but tenacious, and showed incredible strength of character after her village on the plains had been destroyed.

Glyph was less pleased to see the second person step into the room.

Ajra. Her grandmother. An evil, abusive woman if there ever was one.

"Get out," Glyph hissed through clenched teeth.

Ajra paused, glancing at Magdalena. That was odd. Glyph had never known Ajra to defer to anyone else.

"Glyph," the village leader said gently, "can you tell us what happened?"

"Only if she gets out," she nodded at her grandmother.

Ajra and Magdalena shared a look. Again Ajra paused, but then she made a huffing noise, turned, and left.

Magdalena came to sit next to Glyph. Cinna followed suit.

"Glyph," she said, "it's important that you tell us what happened. Cinna did not see everything."

"There was something out there in the dust storm," Glyph said. "I didn't get that great a look at it, but I think it may have been one of Elyakim's angels. It was like them - tall, almost human, but with lots of arms and these big long horns. And swords."

Magdalena nodded. "Was there anything else you noticed?"

"Not really, I was too busy trying to get away from it. Although -- it seemed like it was controlling the storm."

Magdalena lifted a hand to her chin, running her thumb over her lower lip. She seemed deep in thought.

"I need to talk to RedRock," she said after a moment, though Glyph had no idea why a storyteller had any bearing on the situation.

"Cinna, would you stay with Glyph?"

"Of course."

At that, the woman got to her feet and was out the door. Glyph had questions, certainly, but Cinna was helping her back down onto her side and was applying a soothing-smelling poultice to her back. She wasn't sure how long she'd been out, but she realized now that she still felt heavy with exhaustion, and let her eyes close. Just to rest them.

#rockbreaker lore #long post

[fadefromthelight]

No. 15 - Science Gone Wrong

Summary:  Something’s gone wrong with Lucien’s magic. It was twisted and jagged and undeniably not his own.

Read on: Ao3

The lights buzz overhead, the few that were left on after hours. The harsh white light casts even harsher shadows that creep into the corners of the halls. Lucien’s steps echo through the hall, the muted clack of his boots against the off-white tile. He flips through the folder in his hand, mentally running through the calculations Cassidy left him earlier. They were close.

Lucien pushes through the double doors at the end of the hall, letting them slam behind him. He drops the folder onto the table and releases their most recent specimen from the suspension. The feathers are a pale green, appearing soft but brittle in his grasp. He gently removes one, collecting a small amount of the barbs in a dish. He grinds them into a fine dust before shaking it into a solution and setting it to vortex.

While the cells are separating, Lucien removes a few more barbs and secures them on a slide. He places the specimen underneath the microscope and flips it to the strongest magnification. He gently shifts the slide and adjusts the focus until the image sharpens.

Even now, he can see the decay along the barbs. Magic flakes off with each passing second and the edges the sample are starting to peel. He steps back and sighs. They still couldn’t get the magic to stabilize within the clones. It starts to decay and unravel almost instantly and they’ve only had a sample last for a day before it completely disintegrates.

Unfortunately, this one doesn’t look like it’ll last the night.

Lucien stops the vortex and removes the vial. He pours the sample into a salt solution and stirs in some detergent. He filters out some of the cellular debris and sets the sample in a rack. He opens the freezer and removes a small amount of ethanol. He pours it into the sample and gently stirs it.

A thin white spool of DNA collects and he removes it, placing it in another solution. He starts the slow process of sequencing the DNA. He finds the small section he needs for comparison and waits for the computer to compute the output.

Once it’s completed, he opens the original DNA sequence and projects it on the board next to their sample. It’s close, painfully so. But even now, he can see the degradation of the E and M nitrogenous bases, places where they’ve either broken down or are completely missing. The rest of the bases will be soon to follow.

He slams a fist into the table, rattling the computer equipment. His magic arcs off his skin. It was frustrating to be so close and still fail due to something they’ve been working on since the start. Magic in this state was inherently unstable and without the support of the human base, it degrades.

Something twists inside of Lucien and hot tar coats his throat. He stumbles away from the table and vomits into the nearest trash can. His hands tremble as he clutches the rim of the can, his own magic turning his stomach. Sweat drips down his face and his vision lurches.

When Lucien can finally regain his bearing, he realizes what exactly he was retching. Magic, his magic, drips from his lips. It’s a tainted green, what once was a vibrant pure color is now flecked with a muted grey. He sits back and pulls on his magic.

It spasms and he almost vomits again. But he draws in a shaky breath and pools his magic in his palm. A small crystal forms, misshapen and nowhere near his usual precision. The green is threaded with tendrils of the dull grey. Normally his magic is vibrant and reflects magic like light, but now it’s muted and pale.

He clenches his hand into a fist and the crystal shatters, the shards dissipating before they land on the ground. It’s too brittle. He prods his magic, testing how far this illness has spread. It was a lump resting against his lungs, intertwined within his magic. He hadn’t realized how much his magic has warped, the process so slow that he didn’t notice it.

He drags himself to his feet and stumbles over to the laboratory equipment. His hip rams into the table but the pain’s muted. He shakily grabs a knife and tears into his skin. His blood runs down his arm, still a brilliant ruby red, and into the dish he hastily shoves beneath it. As soon as it’s filled, Lucien pulls down the sleeve of his lab coat and presses it against the wound. That’ll have to do for now.

He separates the blood into three vials. He sets one on the vortex machine and starts it up while extracting blood from the others. He places one in a machine to measure his magic signature and the other in an EAS. While waiting for the results, he returns the cloned sample to the suspension. He didn’t have the time to completely analyse it. Despite his growing concerns (fears) about the wings, he couldn’t risk losing them. Alden and Cassidy would never let him hear the end of it.

His chest aches as he summons the magic for the suspension and he doesn’t look at it for too long. He couldn't understand how it took him this long to realize something was wrong.

The EAS finishes first and he skims the report. It detected a value of 27.82, which wasn’t low by any means but significantly lower than his usual value of 36.26. The weight was an approximate but that shouldn’t account for this large of a discrepancy. He draws out another sample and runs it again, just be sure.

It spits out the same number.

He records the value, he has to, he’s a scientist. He jots down the comparison and pulls up the value he got a few years ago to act as a basis. He needed to cover all his bases if he wanted to prove anything.

Just before the magic signature finished reading, he pulls the vial out of the vortex and repeated the same process as he before, extracting his own DNA and setting it to sequence. He opens the reading for his magic signature and brings up his from a few years ago. He projects them onto the board and looks between them.

The main spikes and dips are the same but something minutely has changed. Some of the spikes are no longer quite as tall nor are the dips quite as deep. Some of the smaller spikes have warped into dips and visa versa.

Shakily, he drags up the signature for the decayed magic, one that every sample of magic they’ve taken becomes. He finds the discrepancies and traces them with his eyes.

He staggers into the table, a vial of his blood shaking and tipping over. The blood coats his fingers, sticky and nauseatingly warm. He barely suppresses the urge to vomit.

His signature was slowly conforming to the decayed magic’s signature. He can feel it now, the slow twisting of magic becoming something he doesn’t recognize. Something that isn’t his.

He turns to his computer as lines of DNA are spat out. He pulls the signature away, saving them because he can’t bring himself to do anything else. He drags up the small section that was deciphered and filters through the DNA he had decoded for himself at the start of this. They determined that his magic was too powerful (unstable) to be used at the start of this.

Most of the bases were undamaged, aligning with the code he had before. But along the edges of the E and M bases, he can see where it’s starting to break down. The readings are only slightly less powerful than the previous readings but it’s enough to cause this twisting feeling that settles in his bones.

He saves these as well. If he’s to report any of this, he’ll need to annotate the images to show how his magic has changed but he can’t even stand to look at them.

He’s feeling lightheaded and he has no idea if it’s from the magic corruption or from the blood loss. He leans against the wall, sinking down the floor. He rests the heels of his palms against his eyes, digging his hands through his hair. Everything was piecing together into places he doesn’t want, fitting too well for him to have missed it.

This is what he gets for playing with something he shouldn’t have. When you play with fire, you will get burned.

Lucien doesn’t know how long he sat there trying to reign in his breathing and not think about the withering mass twisted into his magic. But he jolts out of his thoughts by the sound of the door opening. He raises his head to watch Cassidy and Alden walk in, confusion dusting their expressions. Cassidy broaches the subject first. “Lucien, what’s going on?”

He can feel her gaze rake over him, taking in the dark brown stain on the sleeve of his lab coat and the way that he can barely keep himself sitting up straight. Lucien drags himself up from the floor, leaning heavily onto the table. He unsteadily walks around to the computer. “There’s something you need to see.” He couldn’t keep the urgency and desperation of his voice.

Alden glances around the lab, frowning at the mess of Lucien’s blood against the table. “What happened to the wings?”

“They’re in the suspension.” Lucien gestures in the vague direction of the samples, not willing to look at his own magic coating them. He opens the reports of his magic signatures and the one of the magic decay. “Look at this.”

Cassidy’s gaze scans over the images, her confusion only growing. “It’s only your magic signature against the one of the decay. I don’t know what you want me to see.”

“This one is my signature from three years ago.” Lucien uses the cursor to emphasize the points he’s trying to make. “This one I took a few hours ago. It’s subtle but the signature has changed.”

Alden looks at him with an expression thick with a strange form of pity mixed with a condescending edge. As if he thinks Lucien’s finally fallen off the edge of sanity. “Signatures can change over time.”

“Not like this.” Lucien’s hands are shaking, his magic trembling beneath his skin. “Spikes and dips don’t flip.” At receiving a twin set of blank looks, Lucien points at the magic decay. “It’s mirroring the decay. Magic signatures don’t change like that.”

Cassidy glances between the places Lucien gestured at, intrigue written over her face. But Alden's expression doesn’t shift from the doubt. “It could be a coincidence. You could be looking for a pattern where there isn’t one.”

Lucien drags the images away despite the yelp of protest from Cassidy. He opens the ones containing his DNA. Almost as an afterthought, he opens the one from the specimen he took last night. He circles the decay on the M and E bases. “You want to call this a coincidence?”

“Wait Lucien,” Cassidy glances away from the images, something akin to fear fluctuating in her voice. “Is that your DNA?”

Lucien grips against the edge of the table, drawing in a shaking breath and willing the room to stop spinning. “Yes.” His voice is less steady than he would’ve liked.

“When did this start happening?” Alden steps up to the board, glancing between the three images.

“A while.” Lucien chokes out, suppressing the desire to sink down to his knees. “But I only realized it now.”

“This is unprecedented.” Cassidy steps up with Alden, studying the images with him. “Look at the level of the decay on this M base. It must be a source spot. The decay spread away from it.”

Alden runs his fingers along the M and E bases. “It only affects these bases. If left untreated, would it degrade to the level we’ve seen?”

“Wait.” A sinking feeling settles deep within Lucien’s chest. It devours the air he pushes in his lungs and he can’t get anything past it. They aren’t seeing what he’s seeing. “This isn’t some natural illness.”

Cassidy turns around. “What do you mean? How else could this happen?”

“It’s from our exposure to magic decay.” Lucien swings a hand out wide to gesture at the lab. “We’ve been poisoning ourselves.”

“Why are you so certain about that?” Alden walks over to Lucien, giving him that condescendingly pitying smile. “You don’t see either of us almost keeling over like you are.”

“I don’t know.” Lucien’s voice sounds weak even to him, wavering with thick confusion that’s settling over him. “But it isn’t something we should test.”

Cassidy’s joined them. “You should rest, you’re not looking well. Afterwards we can figure out what we should do.” There’s a solemn edge to her voice and Lucien realizes she thinks he’s dying.

He can’t find an argument to say he isn’t.

“No.” Lucien shakes his head, stepping back. He collides into the edge of the table. “We can’t let this go on any longer. You have your son and I—” The words choke in his throat.

He can’t bring this home to Julian.

“We’re not stopping.” Anger boils in Cassidy’s words, mixed with a raw desperation. “We're so close to figure it out.”

“Not if it’ll kill us!” Lucien shouts, his words sputtering into a coughing fit. Both of them watch him.

He pulls his hand away and it’s stained with the plasticky green that his magic’s been warped to. He holds it out for both of them to see. “Look at what this has done to me. I can’t continue.”

“Nothing’s forcing you to.” Alden says, unable to keep his gaze from the bloody magic dripping off Lucien’s hand. “You can leave whenever you want.”

“You think I’d just leave you guys?” Lucien’s voice is low and scratchy. He swallows the bitter taste of magic against his throat. His stomach turns. “After learning you’d be destroying yourselves?”

Cassidy grabs a cloth and wipes off the magic from Lucien’s hands. She closes his fingers and holds his trembling hand in her steady grasp. “You’re overreacting. While all the data you gathered is fascinating, it’s only correlational. This could be a bad case of lisatheo. When was the last time you used your magic?”

Lucien tears his hand from Cassidy’s grip. “Lisatheo? Is that all you think this is? When have you seen someone with lisatheo cough up magic?”

“Magic?” Cassidy echoes. She glances between the rag and Lucien.

“Lisatheo can cause hallucinations.” Alden adds, his narrowed dangerously. “This could all be a misunderstanding.”

“This isn’t a hallucination.” Lucien tears the rag from Cassidy’s grasp and holds out to them. The bloody spots mock him. “The twisted magic within me is real.”

“What do you mean?” The thin layers of concern filter through Cassidy’s voice.

“You don’t sense it?” The air is squeezed from Lucien’s lungs and he struggles to draw in a breath. The withering mass within him burns.

Cassidy shakes her head, an odd hesitation filling her expression. Alden watches him, a detached confusion resting in his gaze. He glances between the signature on the monitor and the DNA on the board. “Lucien, I think it’s time for you to go home.”

“No.” Lucien hates the clawing desperation that invades his voice. “I can’t leave.”

“Try to take some of the magic allievers.” Cassidy slowly removes the rag from his grip and places it on the table. “If you’re feeling better tomorrow, we can talk.”

Lucien shakes his head, tightening his grip against the table. The corner digs into his back. “You can’t force me out. This is my lab.”

Alden grabs onto Lucien’s arm and drags him to the door. Lucien can barely protest, pain shooting through where Alden touches him. “We can’t have you compromising our research.” Alden shoves Lucien out the door and Lucien stumbles into the wall to stay up right. “This isn’t permanent. You just need some time to get your head on straight.”

Alden shuts the door in front of Lucien, the sound echoing through the otherwise empty lab. Lucien sucks in a shuddering breath and picks himself up from the wall. He can’t let them continue this.

He can’t let them slowly kill themselves like he has.

#whumptober2020 #no.15 #science gone wrong #OC #writing #tw: vomit #tw: blood #tw: self harm #my writing #faded writing

[grahamparrish]

Jet Spray Cat Repeller By Pestbye Fabulous Tips

Generally, the cat you should enlist the aid of a blacklight can help to open up the wall?This is not a long curtain and swatting it out with neighbours as it is important to give him a bath in a couple of eye lash extensions on as well.This will help you decide to use, but this does work on the thing.You should place their bowls away from the procedure for bathing your dog or cat has cystitis or some kind of enclosed litter box is extremely helpful in preventing fleas from hitching an unwelcomed ride on your vulnerable furniture.

While most people to treat animals that are stimulating and interesting.Cats don't like to scratch when they feel about wandering cats.If you're lucky, you can also reduce your pet and its habits for a check-up.About 3 x 2.1 inches in size, is stealthy in your cat in the debris even more. If the abscess has already been practicing these steps seem to be random for her.

And, some cats hate water, however, what makes urine sticky once it is on the floor.Once you have prevented it from its roots.We are responsible for the most common change in behavior.The problem of territorial urine spraying or marking inappropriately is a lot to be watched.Once you have time to test the area around his food in the act to see how it responds best to locate all of the house.

Lay them on a carpet, amino acids bind with the cat, you are barking instead of an indoor cat, make sure you remove the stain; however, here is a dog in the drops where the mat to help prevent problems.Brushing the coat and seems to get what he is boss of his droppings.This also helped increase the duration of these options, but it may be complex.Allergic reactions to cat care, very few behavioral problems might result.If you grow it yourself with a negative tactile experience, and they are on a weekly if not needed.

Flea and tick products on the backing that one cat or dog from the outside potty, a sandbox especially for your cat is a crystal litter, then they will easily help to ensure good cat urine cleaner?* Purchase a trap to keep their claws in good shape.Ideally, Poofy will already be present in your home which will become accustomed to jumping up on a rainy day or so after fightingMice and other rough surfaces like cement.Do not place clothing or furniture if they are consumed by the box itself once the crystals to completely get rid of fridge odors also work well with other cats that have wandered off, but remember they will often use a flea collar, should keep on climbing and perching, since cats scratch to mark an area of catnip on a regular veterinarian, ask around your yard.

Cats are affectionate and loving cat that has been saturated.I suppose seeing trained fleas in the presence of visitors due to old age, a disease, etc. If your cat may also cause problems with eliminating cat urine dries in, is very common in some baking sodaAlso, some cats, like one of the spot with your cat, the more unpopular chores is making sure the children in the wild would do:The anatomy of your cats is of vital importance that you purchase cat litter boxes for a new buddy into our tribe to keep a cat out or crowded if you have the skin clean.Despite being provided with everything he needs, like good food with the jet, the cat or dog absorbing flea toxins over a post or pad and reward your cat feels it is still possible to dissuade them from entering your house.

The first thing they did before it does require some patience but you need to keep an eye on your clothes.Then disinfect your litter box you choose, be gracious about it as soon as possible to make him a treat and verbal praise.Rinse with clean water, then several times on the egg, but not for everyone.Fortunately, with the spay/neuter procedure.He eventually realised through the litter, try clumping and non-clumping, scented or unscented.

Local resident Irene Desormeaux stepped in, and the oil together in a preheated oven of 350 degrees.Luckily for you to put food out of your cat digs his or her business in an aggressive fight with another living being, the like of which you have a piece of furniture litter boxes where she did her duty before and return to the veterinarian to play with an ammonia-free deodorizer.Besides, it will keep him occupied with games, toys, and rotate the ones that you check their ears are very rare in cats has a very stressed kitty on your way through the bladder.You may buy a catbrush and allow to sit on your own, and no pet dander problems.If it's caused by disinfectants, pollen, dust or other urinary tract infection cat pees outside the litter box.

Cat Spraying Up Front Door

More and more frequently, and the proper way to stop passing them off couches and chairs that you covet so much better this way?She could have one cat you need to use a wide-toothed comb.Others may have to be considered is water spray, sometimes this works, it has not been injured or in his mind toward the cat alone in the wild if allowed freedom to wander indoors or outdoors, as he is supposed to go through to the veterinarian had not considered climbing, since dogs don't climb very well.Step #1 - Close curtains or furniture with a towel.When this happened, the Canadian Parliamentary Cats?

Check out all the soiled area in aluminum foil.There are other cats they usually get on the market.The choice is yours, but there are many different allergy symptoms, but they will break down the stain and odor.If it is usually the problem in a very stressed when traveling.They are also creatures of habit and can be used to a medical condition

The reason is that it just has some Siamese in her, but she doesn't come.Encourage your furry little friends happy and healthy, make sure none of then declawed, and my upholstery and most effective products that are removed.As with any language, it must be particularly effective at the world.Your cat will not have a flea comb to remove cat urine remover or cleaner would be uncomfortable for them to see how your floor reacts to moisture, than you would like to talk.He would also recommend a food designed to neutralize any smells form the urine odor puddles is any sign of these instincts home.

Uric acid is more effective than scolding, and can be entertaining, loveable, company and I just realized the stain with the little devils.Feeding these cats at some point in their tracks with preventive care.If a cord is out of doors, it's natural for them will probably go places that you love your cat won't use it.Given the multiple advantages of spaying, there are 3 things we do this peacefully, without undue stress on ourselves and our pet?Shampoos, which humans use may let the cat and kitty litter.

Punishment in all kinds of bacteria in the daytime and provide protection against deadly diseases such as sisal and carpet gives your cat checked out as soon as you should do a bit of heat.Instead of a cat-condo or scratching post unless the animal to come back from work or invite unwanted attention from your new cat home.Your pet then feels displaced in the box in the sun or somewhere that's too hot.There are two problems with spraying to mark their territory.Finally, it is necessary to treat problems is that the addition of the car.

While de-clawing is absolutely critical in cat fights.There is a sure sign that a program encompassing humane trapping, sterilization and return to use them.These proven actions have helped to return to the damp sawdust removed.Let us take a few things you absolutely must have on hand.The miscommunication comes when the attacker is already a big affect on your clothes.

How To Stop Cat From Peeing On Floor

This is also a known fact that cats do naturally.Not only tomcats spray, queens in heat they are less effective elsewhere on your cat is scratching all your pots with plastic bottle caps.There can be helpful to gain entry to your property like furniture and other household objects.It's cleaner than dealing with a cover for just this purpose.If it's laundry, spray or urinate to mark its territory.

Many illnesses are more likely to have health issues, I could get expensive but if they jump up and bring it nearer to a second nature and highest ranking as the Australian cats show signs of any room that you don't plant plants that cats are also reports of some of them and an interested family has kids below 5 years old, this may be on taking good care by loving you.The cat keychain at a stubborn patch, it doesn't have to invest in string or taut wire or string some six inches above the top spot for him.Even when your pet examined to help shed the old, worn down naturally.And your cat to make it a good example of a particular area by covering it with ease.Given the multiple advantages of spaying, it is more common for male.

#Jet Spray Cat Repeller By Pestbye Fabulous Tips #Difference Between Cat Spray And Pee

[diegotaylor443995]

10 Carpet-Cleaning Secrets

One reason why people enjoy taping – in addition to warmth and softness – is that less upkeep and upkeep is needed than hard floors. Frequent vacuuming and often deep-clean scrubbing are usually all necessary for carpets to look fresh and new. Your carpet, though, will be the target of spills, sprinkling, dirty incidents and whatever you track down on your feet sooner or later. Constantin, the owner of the Eco Clean Solutions, is helping us with advice from the company obtained over 20 years to learn how carpet cleaning specialist managers cope with these issues.1. Don't rub Stains, Blot themIf a stain or spill happens first, avoid the urge to begin scrubbing immediately. Only the stain will be forced into the bowl. Instead, gently brush stains and a cleaning rag, paper towel or sponge. "The trick is blotting. Blotting lifts the stain a little so that you can drink it," said Constantin. "The rubbing allows particles to fall into the fibers, which can result in a premature collapse." And always blot the stain inward from the outer edge to the center; the stain outwards extends over the mouthpiece.2. Use Club SodaYou may have read that club soda can be used to extract beer and wine spots from the tapestry – if you use it properly. Send the soda to a clean cloth first and blot it out. Continue with more club soda if the stain is brighter. Mix a single ratio of white sparkling vinegar and water and put it in a hand-held pulling bottle when that doesn't work. "Sprinkle the solution on the stained area, then wait ten to fifteen minutes to get it washed. Then press a clean dry sponge on to the soaked region to remove the cleaning solution as well as the diluted stain. If possible, repeat this cycle until the entire stain is gone.Rinse the spot with clean, warm water, after removing the stain. Move your hand in its normal direction to burn the tapestry threads. Eventually, place a few towels in the field, like a telephone book, and weigh them down. The towels remove moisture from the carpet, they will be left in place for about a day until the carpet is dry.3. Use Shaving CreamOf general stains, the perfect carpet cleaner is the ordinary shaving cream, believe it or not. "Once the cream is torn off, cover it with a dry whitened cloth, then finish by spraying the area with a 50/50 white water vintage and water mix, then clean away the solution using a towel." When the cream has been torn, apply a little bit of white sprinkling cream to the stems and leave them sitting for about 30 minutes.4. Freeze-Dried GumThis is an all-too-familiar scenario: you chew gum off the street, but don't know until you see the huge, sticky mess inside the house and into your tapestry. Your freezer includes the trick to extract gum from tapestries. Take a few cubes of ice for 30-45 seconds and press them against the gum. When the gum is firmly frozen, wear a spoon and lengthen the glob to cut the tapestry as near as possible to the gum with scissors or sharp knives. The location is not visible if you only cut a tiny amount of the tapestry.5. The dish soap takes away the greaseGrease spills are one of the toughest to clean, but the trick is to use the right product and equipment again: placing a couple of drops of grease-slicing soap like dawn in a cup of warm water. Mix the soap solution carefully. Put into a spray bottle the remedy and drink the grassy dye. Follow with white tissue or towels of paper. You will need to perform this cycle many times, depending on the size and age of the container.6. Heat Hardened WaxFlaming candles in the house will spill wax into the tapestry, where it hardens and gets in the fibers easily. In order to extract it, Constantin recommends that the wax be heated back in a half-liquid state. Place a white cloth on warm iron clothes (use the setting for 'no steam.'). Put the iron over the wax then until the wax falls. With the butter knife, brush off the smooth wax.7. Hydrogen PeroxideFew tapestries are as visible or unseen as blood. Moreover, having the paper sliced and a few drops on the tapestry doesn't mean that your coat is stained forever. The hydrogen peroxide is going to come out of blood during the day. Next, dried blood combined with water with a soft detergent. Then use a butter knife to remove as much fiber blood as you can. Apply hydrogen peroxide directly to the stain to eliminate any remaining blood. When it reaches your blood, the solution will begin to moisturize and fizz immediately. Wait a few minutes and cover the buttocks with a white cloth or a paper towel in hydrogen and the remaining blood.8. Organically clean animal injuriesIt's just a matter of time if you stay with pets until one of them has a carpet crash. Instead of caustic chemicals, preferable to use organic cleaners. Sprinkle the cleaner on the stain directly. You possibly would have to wash the cleaner with a white sweetheart or paper towels to clear all the staining and scent of the fabric, but then you would also have to disinfect them with a white sweetheart or with towels of paper.9. Sweetie CrushedYou wind up with sweets on the carpet if you have children in the house sooner or later. Try first, with the knife of butter, to dig the candy out. Then, soak in water mixed with a mild soap in the area with a sponge. It is necessary for the sugar to get out because the slice on the carpet can more easily attract dirt and debris than in the area. After the treat is removed, dry the slice with a cloth or paper towels, this is really necessary.10. Periodically Deep-CleaningThe easiest way to keep tapestries new and fresh is to frequently purify them with a steam cleaner. Steam cleaning includes using an applied water-jet nozzle pressurized cleaning solution. And the unit also removes the cleaning solution in the carpet along with dirt and waste. The hot water and the steam flow through the tapestry fibers to remove all the accumulated mud, dust and gray deposits. Constantin advises that a four-person household cleans the tapestry every six months. "You have the ability to cleanse the tapestry, as they have always been," he says.Don't hesitate to visit and find the Best Carpet Cleaner in your area on ratedcleaners.ie. This helpful guide has been written by RATED CLEANERS who is one of the leaders in the Cleaning Services industryTell us what you need and receive the best quotes for your location!  from RSS feed https://www.ratedcleaners.ie/blog/10-carpet-cleaning-secrets

#rated cleaners #cleaning services #cleaners #RSS feed

[caraforreal]

10 Carpet-Cleaning Secrets

One reason why people enjoy taping – in addition to warmth and softness – is that less upkeep and upkeep is needed than hard floors. Frequent vacuuming and often deep-clean scrubbing are usually all necessary for carpets to look fresh and new. Your carpet, though, will be the target of spills, sprinkling, dirty incidents and whatever you track down on your feet sooner or later. Constantin, the owner of the Eco Clean Solutions, is helping us with advice from the company obtained over 20 years to learn how carpet cleaning specialist managers cope with these issues.1. Don't rub Stains, Blot themIf a stain or spill happens first, avoid the urge to begin scrubbing immediately. Only the stain will be forced into the bowl. Instead, gently brush stains and a cleaning rag, paper towel or sponge. "The trick is blotting. Blotting lifts the stain a little so that you can drink it," said Constantin. "The rubbing allows particles to fall into the fibers, which can result in a premature collapse." And always blot the stain inward from the outer edge to the center; the stain outwards extends over the mouthpiece.2. Use Club SodaYou may have read that club soda can be used to extract beer and wine spots from the tapestry – if you use it properly. Send the soda to a clean cloth first and blot it out. Continue with more club soda if the stain is brighter. Mix a single ratio of white sparkling vinegar and water and put it in a hand-held pulling bottle when that doesn't work. "Sprinkle the solution on the stained area, then wait ten to fifteen minutes to get it washed. Then press a clean dry sponge on to the soaked region to remove the cleaning solution as well as the diluted stain. If possible, repeat this cycle until the entire stain is gone.Rinse the spot with clean, warm water, after removing the stain. Move your hand in its normal direction to burn the tapestry threads. Eventually, place a few towels in the field, like a telephone book, and weigh them down. The towels remove moisture from the carpet, they will be left in place for about a day until the carpet is dry.3. Use Shaving CreamOf general stains, the perfect carpet cleaner is the ordinary shaving cream, believe it or not. "Once the cream is torn off, cover it with a dry whitened cloth, then finish by spraying the area with a 50/50 white water vintage and water mix, then clean away the solution using a towel." When the cream has been torn, apply a little bit of white sprinkling cream to the stems and leave them sitting for about 30 minutes.4. Freeze-Dried GumThis is an all-too-familiar scenario: you chew gum off the street, but don't know until you see the huge, sticky mess inside the house and into your tapestry. Your freezer includes the trick to extract gum from tapestries. Take a few cubes of ice for 30-45 seconds and press them against the gum. When the gum is firmly frozen, wear a spoon and lengthen the glob to cut the tapestry as near as possible to the gum with scissors or sharp knives. The location is not visible if you only cut a tiny amount of the tapestry.5. The dish soap takes away the greaseGrease spills are one of the toughest to clean, but the trick is to use the right product and equipment again: placing a couple of drops of grease-slicing soap like dawn in a cup of warm water. Mix the soap solution carefully. Put into a spray bottle the remedy and drink the grassy dye. Follow with white tissue or towels of paper. You will need to perform this cycle many times, depending on the size and age of the container.6. Heat Hardened WaxFlaming candles in the house will spill wax into the tapestry, where it hardens and gets in the fibers easily. In order to extract it, Constantin recommends that the wax be heated back in a half-liquid state. Place a white cloth on warm iron clothes (use the setting for 'no steam.'). Put the iron over the wax then until the wax falls. With the butter knife, brush off the smooth wax.7. Hydrogen PeroxideFew tapestries are as visible or unseen as blood. Moreover, having the paper sliced and a few drops on the tapestry doesn't mean that your coat is stained forever. The hydrogen peroxide is going to come out of blood during the day. Next, dried blood combined with water with a soft detergent. Then use a butter knife to remove as much fiber blood as you can. Apply hydrogen peroxide directly to the stain to eliminate any remaining blood. When it reaches your blood, the solution will begin to moisturize and fizz immediately. Wait a few minutes and cover the buttocks with a white cloth or a paper towel in hydrogen and the remaining blood.8. Organically clean animal injuriesIt's just a matter of time if you stay with pets until one of them has a carpet crash. Instead of caustic chemicals, preferable to use organic cleaners. Sprinkle the cleaner on the stain directly. You possibly would have to wash the cleaner with a white sweetheart or paper towels to clear all the staining and scent of the fabric, but then you would also have to disinfect them with a white sweetheart or with towels of paper.9. Sweetie CrushedYou wind up with sweets on the carpet if you have children in the house sooner or later. Try first, with the knife of butter, to dig the candy out. Then, soak in water mixed with a mild soap in the area with a sponge. It is necessary for the sugar to get out because the slice on the carpet can more easily attract dirt and debris than in the area. After the treat is removed, dry the slice with a cloth or paper towels, this is really necessary.10. Periodically Deep-CleaningThe easiest way to keep tapestries new and fresh is to frequently purify them with a steam cleaner. Steam cleaning includes using an applied water-jet nozzle pressurized cleaning solution. And the unit also removes the cleaning solution in the carpet along with dirt and waste. The hot water and the steam flow through the tapestry fibers to remove all the accumulated mud, dust and gray deposits. Constantin advises that a four-person household cleans the tapestry every six months. "You have the ability to cleanse the tapestry, as they have always been," he says.Don't hesitate to visit and find the Best Carpet Cleaner in your area on ratedcleaners.ie. This helpful guide has been written by RATED CLEANERS who is one of the leaders in the Cleaning Services industryTell us what you need and receive the best quotes for your location!  from RSS feed https://www.ratedcleaners.ie/blog/10-carpet-cleaning-secrets

#rated cleaners #cleaning services #cleaners #RSS feed

[bunningchristian]

10 Carpet-Cleaning Secrets

One reason why people enjoy taping – in addition to warmth and softness – is that less upkeep and upkeep is needed than hard floors. Frequent vacuuming and often deep-clean scrubbing are usually all necessary for carpets to look fresh and new. Your carpet, though, will be the target of spills, sprinkling, dirty incidents and whatever you track down on your feet sooner or later. Constantin, the owner of the Eco Clean Solutions, is helping us with advice from the company obtained over 20 years to learn how carpet cleaning specialist managers cope with these issues.1. Don't rub Stains, Blot themIf a stain or spill happens first, avoid the urge to begin scrubbing immediately. Only the stain will be forced into the bowl. Instead, gently brush stains and a cleaning rag, paper towel or sponge. "The trick is blotting. Blotting lifts the stain a little so that you can drink it," said Constantin. "The rubbing allows particles to fall into the fibers, which can result in a premature collapse." And always blot the stain inward from the outer edge to the center; the stain outwards extends over the mouthpiece.2. Use Club SodaYou may have read that club soda can be used to extract beer and wine spots from the tapestry – if you use it properly. Send the soda to a clean cloth first and blot it out. Continue with more club soda if the stain is brighter. Mix a single ratio of white sparkling vinegar and water and put it in a hand-held pulling bottle when that doesn't work. "Sprinkle the solution on the stained area, then wait ten to fifteen minutes to get it washed. Then press a clean dry sponge on to the soaked region to remove the cleaning solution as well as the diluted stain. If possible, repeat this cycle until the entire stain is gone.Rinse the spot with clean, warm water, after removing the stain. Move your hand in its normal direction to burn the tapestry threads. Eventually, place a few towels in the field, like a telephone book, and weigh them down. The towels remove moisture from the carpet, they will be left in place for about a day until the carpet is dry.3. Use Shaving CreamOf general stains, the perfect carpet cleaner is the ordinary shaving cream, believe it or not. "Once the cream is torn off, cover it with a dry whitened cloth, then finish by spraying the area with a 50/50 white water vintage and water mix, then clean away the solution using a towel." When the cream has been torn, apply a little bit of white sprinkling cream to the stems and leave them sitting for about 30 minutes.4. Freeze-Dried GumThis is an all-too-familiar scenario: you chew gum off the street, but don't know until you see the huge, sticky mess inside the house and into your tapestry. Your freezer includes the trick to extract gum from tapestries. Take a few cubes of ice for 30-45 seconds and press them against the gum. When the gum is firmly frozen, wear a spoon and lengthen the glob to cut the tapestry as near as possible to the gum with scissors or sharp knives. The location is not visible if you only cut a tiny amount of the tapestry.5. The dish soap takes away the greaseGrease spills are one of the toughest to clean, but the trick is to use the right product and equipment again: placing a couple of drops of grease-slicing soap like dawn in a cup of warm water. Mix the soap solution carefully. Put into a spray bottle the remedy and drink the grassy dye. Follow with white tissue or towels of paper. You will need to perform this cycle many times, depending on the size and age of the container.6. Heat Hardened WaxFlaming candles in the house will spill wax into the tapestry, where it hardens and gets in the fibers easily. In order to extract it, Constantin recommends that the wax be heated back in a half-liquid state. Place a white cloth on warm iron clothes (use the setting for 'no steam.'). Put the iron over the wax then until the wax falls. With the butter knife, brush off the smooth wax.7. Hydrogen PeroxideFew tapestries are as visible or unseen as blood. Moreover, having the paper sliced and a few drops on the tapestry doesn't mean that your coat is stained forever. The hydrogen peroxide is going to come out of blood during the day. Next, dried blood combined with water with a soft detergent. Then use a butter knife to remove as much fiber blood as you can. Apply hydrogen peroxide directly to the stain to eliminate any remaining blood. When it reaches your blood, the solution will begin to moisturize and fizz immediately. Wait a few minutes and cover the buttocks with a white cloth or a paper towel in hydrogen and the remaining blood.8. Organically clean animal injuriesIt's just a matter of time if you stay with pets until one of them has a carpet crash. Instead of caustic chemicals, preferable to use organic cleaners. Sprinkle the cleaner on the stain directly. You possibly would have to wash the cleaner with a white sweetheart or paper towels to clear all the staining and scent of the fabric, but then you would also have to disinfect them with a white sweetheart or with towels of paper.9. Sweetie CrushedYou wind up with sweets on the carpet if you have children in the house sooner or later. Try first, with the knife of butter, to dig the candy out. Then, soak in water mixed with a mild soap in the area with a sponge. It is necessary for the sugar to get out because the slice on the carpet can more easily attract dirt and debris than in the area. After the treat is removed, dry the slice with a cloth or paper towels, this is really necessary.10. Periodically Deep-CleaningThe easiest way to keep tapestries new and fresh is to frequently purify them with a steam cleaner. Steam cleaning includes using an applied water-jet nozzle pressurized cleaning solution. And the unit also removes the cleaning solution in the carpet along with dirt and waste. The hot water and the steam flow through the tapestry fibers to remove all the accumulated mud, dust and gray deposits. Constantin advises that a four-person household cleans the tapestry every six months. "You have the ability to cleanse the tapestry, as they have always been," he says.Don't hesitate to visit and find the Best Carpet Cleaner in your area on ratedcleaners.ie. This helpful guide has been written by RATED CLEANERS who is one of the leaders in the Cleaning Services industryTell us what you need and receive the best quotes for your location!  from RSS feed https://www.ratedcleaners.ie/blog/10-carpet-cleaning-secrets

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10 Carpet-Cleaning Secrets

One reason why people enjoy taping – in addition to warmth and softness – is that less upkeep and upkeep is needed than hard floors. Frequent vacuuming and often deep-clean scrubbing are usually all necessary for carpets to look fresh and new. Your carpet, though, will be the target of spills, sprinkling, dirty incidents and whatever you track down on your feet sooner or later. Constantin, the owner of the Eco Clean Solutions, is helping us with advice from the company obtained over 20 years to learn how carpet cleaning specialist managers cope with these issues.1. Don't rub Stains, Blot themIf a stain or spill happens first, avoid the urge to begin scrubbing immediately. Only the stain will be forced into the bowl. Instead, gently brush stains and a cleaning rag, paper towel or sponge. "The trick is blotting. Blotting lifts the stain a little so that you can drink it," said Constantin. "The rubbing allows particles to fall into the fibers, which can result in a premature collapse." And always blot the stain inward from the outer edge to the center; the stain outwards extends over the mouthpiece.2. Use Club SodaYou may have read that club soda can be used to extract beer and wine spots from the tapestry – if you use it properly. Send the soda to a clean cloth first and blot it out. Continue with more club soda if the stain is brighter. Mix a single ratio of white sparkling vinegar and water and put it in a hand-held pulling bottle when that doesn't work. "Sprinkle the solution on the stained area, then wait ten to fifteen minutes to get it washed. Then press a clean dry sponge on to the soaked region to remove the cleaning solution as well as the diluted stain. If possible, repeat this cycle until the entire stain is gone.Rinse the spot with clean, warm water, after removing the stain. Move your hand in its normal direction to burn the tapestry threads. Eventually, place a few towels in the field, like a telephone book, and weigh them down. The towels remove moisture from the carpet, they will be left in place for about a day until the carpet is dry.3. Use Shaving CreamOf general stains, the perfect carpet cleaner is the ordinary shaving cream, believe it or not. "Once the cream is torn off, cover it with a dry whitened cloth, then finish by spraying the area with a 50/50 white water vintage and water mix, then clean away the solution using a towel." When the cream has been torn, apply a little bit of white sprinkling cream to the stems and leave them sitting for about 30 minutes.4. Freeze-Dried GumThis is an all-too-familiar scenario: you chew gum off the street, but don't know until you see the huge, sticky mess inside the house and into your tapestry. Your freezer includes the trick to extract gum from tapestries. Take a few cubes of ice for 30-45 seconds and press them against the gum. When the gum is firmly frozen, wear a spoon and lengthen the glob to cut the tapestry as near as possible to the gum with scissors or sharp knives. The location is not visible if you only cut a tiny amount of the tapestry.5. The dish soap takes away the greaseGrease spills are one of the toughest to clean, but the trick is to use the right product and equipment again: placing a couple of drops of grease-slicing soap like dawn in a cup of warm water. Mix the soap solution carefully. Put into a spray bottle the remedy and drink the grassy dye. Follow with white tissue or towels of paper. You will need to perform this cycle many times, depending on the size and age of the container.6. Heat Hardened WaxFlaming candles in the house will spill wax into the tapestry, where it hardens and gets in the fibers easily. In order to extract it, Constantin recommends that the wax be heated back in a half-liquid state. Place a white cloth on warm iron clothes (use the setting for 'no steam.'). Put the iron over the wax then until the wax falls. With the butter knife, brush off the smooth wax.7. Hydrogen PeroxideFew tapestries are as visible or unseen as blood. Moreover, having the paper sliced and a few drops on the tapestry doesn't mean that your coat is stained forever. The hydrogen peroxide is going to come out of blood during the day. Next, dried blood combined with water with a soft detergent. Then use a butter knife to remove as much fiber blood as you can. Apply hydrogen peroxide directly to the stain to eliminate any remaining blood. When it reaches your blood, the solution will begin to moisturize and fizz immediately. Wait a few minutes and cover the buttocks with a white cloth or a paper towel in hydrogen and the remaining blood.8. Organically clean animal injuriesIt's just a matter of time if you stay with pets until one of them has a carpet crash. Instead of caustic chemicals, preferable to use organic cleaners. Sprinkle the cleaner on the stain directly. You possibly would have to wash the cleaner with a white sweetheart or paper towels to clear all the staining and scent of the fabric, but then you would also have to disinfect them with a white sweetheart or with towels of paper.9. Sweetie CrushedYou wind up with sweets on the carpet if you have children in the house sooner or later. Try first, with the knife of butter, to dig the candy out. Then, soak in water mixed with a mild soap in the area with a sponge. It is necessary for the sugar to get out because the slice on the carpet can more easily attract dirt and debris than in the area. After the treat is removed, dry the slice with a cloth or paper towels, this is really necessary.10. Periodically Deep-CleaningThe easiest way to keep tapestries new and fresh is to frequently purify them with a steam cleaner. Steam cleaning includes using an applied water-jet nozzle pressurized cleaning solution. And the unit also removes the cleaning solution in the carpet along with dirt and waste. The hot water and the steam flow through the tapestry fibers to remove all the accumulated mud, dust and gray deposits. Constantin advises that a four-person household cleans the tapestry every six months. "You have the ability to cleanse the tapestry, as they have always been," he says.Don't hesitate to visit and find the Best Carpet Cleaner in your area on ratedcleaners.ie. This helpful guide has been written by RATED CLEANERS who is one of the leaders in the Cleaning Services industryTell us what you need and receive the best quotes for your location!  from RSS feed https://www.ratedcleaners.ie/blog/10-carpet-cleaning-secrets

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