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ilkkawhat · 4 years

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Rating: Teen Characters: Nick Stokes Word Count: 1,570 Summary: What if Nick had ended up in the sensory deprivation tank on that campus? Notes: An AU to the events of 11x16, Turn On, Tune In, Drop Dead. Also happens to fit with the Whumptober prompt #24, You're Not Making Any Sense

shoutout to deltajackdalton who gave this a read for me!

read on ao3 or read below:

Flickering bulbs flitter light in and out of the campus hallway. He thinks nothing of it, the initial unease of the atmospheric crime scene had long since faded. He had gotten over the cluttered nature of the neglected hallway, the overgrown nature of the scientist’s laboratory that really reminded him of Grissom’s office, with the almost hoarding of materials that lined every inch of the walls, shelves curving in an almost collapse from the weight of all that’s stored on it.

He had gotten over the 333 on the door that he tentatively walked through, without a second thought of his guardian angel’s warning to him. He shoves the coincidence into the furthest recess of his mind, where he keeps all of the other discomforts he collects from the disturbing, horrific crime scenes, putting off the time for existential dread and crises for later, when he’s not working...when he’s supposed to be sleeping.

Besides, he’s been in the room before.

But not alone.

Though he has a sneaking suspicion backed by the fact that he had heard a clattering noise that drew him here in the first place, that really, he’s not alone.

He connects his gun and flashlight at his wrists, walking slowly and taking in every detail he can, searching the shadows for signs of movement and finds himself tossing aside the plastic flaps of the draw curtain to find the decorated tank in the center of the room, no longer occupied by any corpses, but still half filled with water.

He shines his light in, half expecting to find another corpse, but instead the void is solitary, luring his head in for a few seconds before he hears a noise behind him--

Mid-spin, something knocks into his arm brandishing his gun, it clatters to the floor--he quickly raises his other, his grip on the flashlight readjusting to brandish it as a weapon--but then his neck is chopped and he falls back, not to the floor, but slamming into tensely contained water--

“No!” he shouts, his fingers keeping grasp on the flashlight as he tries to kick his feet onto the lid that seals him into the complete darkness of the tank. He pounds his fists on the wall--or it the ceiling?--as he flails his body in the water, no longer still in his panicking presence.

The flashlight’s beam bounces around him, further disorienting him--he can’t tell if he shuts it off, or just simply shuts his eyes to rid himself of the sight of just how small the space is, how his legs don’t quite fit--he’s bent at the knees, his elbows keep bumping against the walls--a sharp slap to his angled nerves only serves to deepen his hysteria as this situation is far too similar to one he endured nearly six years ago--

“LET ME OUT OF HERE!” he demands in what he feels, is an embarrassing scream.

There’s a sliding, grinding sheathing of metal across the outside of the box--it reminds him of the door closing and locking on a prison cell--teardrops mix with the water that he’s indirectly splashing onto his own face--his gulps for air are short and strangled, the only noise that echoes through the sudden silence of his new tomb, besides the scraping of his splitting nails against the metal.

He tries to reign himself in, quiet himself--perhaps his assailant will think he died, open up the lid, and he can escape--

Moments pass. Minutes. Hours? The only sound he can hear is his own.

He slows his breathing, intensifies its weight but the air is thick. Too thick. He has no support this time around, messy calculations with changing numbers as he tries to account for the air he’s already wasted, for just how much water is in the tank, for the dimensions of this depriving container that is robbing him of more than just air, it seems to be robbing him of life.

His body agrees--though internally he’s still on an everlasting fire that the water can’t extinguish, physically he feels his muscles relax. Limp, almost, as his hands slide down and plop into the water. His feet continue to press against the lid, but the strain on his leg muscles falters, his knees wobble in a weak twitch as the wet fabric of his clothes settles into a cold slap against his pruning skin.

He closes his eyes, longing for the whir of the fan and finding himself daring to miss the green glow in opposition to the harsh white of the flickering, waterlogged flashlight.

Even the beads of water that slide down his face remind him of the ants crawling on his skin. He wishes for the itching burn instead of this freezing numbness.

Wishes so hard, that when he opens his eyes and pulls up his flashlight, he finds that the scratched metal surrounding him morphs into a wallpaper of packed dirt, dark veins connecting the malleable material slammed against the walls around him.

A large circle expands between his feet, a spotlight that flickers on--though really, it’s just him fumbling with his flashlight that he accidentally aims at his face--he pulls his feet together to cover it, the light disappears.

“No, no, no, no, no,” he begins to cry.

There’s no tape recorder to tell him what he did to deserve this (his job,) nor to leave his final words (that he won’t really get to say, his final breath will surely be a final anguished scream.)

There’s no glowstick to replenish the dim light; the flashlight is losing its life just as he’s losing his, though he does find a certain comfort in the darkness, unable to see the fine details such as his own terrified reflection in front of him. Instead, his vision fills with his favorite colors, bright and vibrant and providing him with nostalgia for the overly colorful tones of his childhood, before the spectrum was tainted with greys and darker variants splotching over his innocence. He tries to envision the outer coloring of his prison, the swirling pastel chalk to mask the horror of darkness inside.

There’s no gun to end it all instantly, instead he’s forced to just...float. Wait for it. Wait for the final ounce of air that will enter his body, for the final exchange of oxygen for his production of carbon dioxide only to be left hanging by a thread that snaps away from existence as he knows it.

And though he knows it’s coming, he’ll never know when.

He’s worked this job long enough to know that life is too short, death is a certainty, and it doesn’t discriminate between those who deserve it, and those that do. If things ever seem too good, they most definitely are.

Just like the night at the restaurant.

The tears begin again, and through the choking sounds of his own sobs, he swears for a second...that he hears a knocking.

“H-hello? I’m in here!” he cries out with hope, and is surprised at the response.

“Hang on, buddy, we got you! We got you!” a muffled yell, a distinctly familiar voice.

He puts his hands to the ceiling, pounding, as if that would speed up the process of building this link to the past, an opportunity to hear a ghost’s voice, perhaps even converse with him--

“Get me out, pl-please!”

“It’s okay, shh, shh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” the voice soothes him.

“Wa-wa-r-rick--” he gasps sharply, as being told that “it’s okay” seems to send his body through a whole new wave of panic, searching for the state of being in such a way. To be filled with the air that is being painstakingly drawn out of his body. Filled with blood untainted and unthinned, flowing under healthy skin that isn’t shriveling like a raisin. Filled with energy to think, to feel, to move. Filled with a satisfied appetite that keeps his body from growling at him, berating him for not only its dehydration but its starvation as well.

Filled with love, which is what each word that speaks to him is lined with trace in--if he had a sample brought to the lab for analysis, the results would be one hundred percent friendship. Companionship. Confirmation that in this world that always seems to knock him down, going so far as to lock and bury him away so deep that no soul could find him, that he’s not alone.

“I got you, Nicky, I always got you…”

He presses his hands flat, drops of pressurized blood dripping onto his face but he keeps his darkness-adjusted eyes focused above, waiting for his angel to rescue him--

The lid at his feet is opened.

He’s pulled out, screaming.

They try to be gentle, limiting their touches as he flounders on the ground.

He’s overstimulated.

And slightly embarrassed, but mostly upset.

Deprived of all senses, of course his mind defaulted to the box. Anybody who knew what he had gone through could see that plain as day--which is why nobody says anything beyond asking, “are you okay?”

They know he’s not.

But worse than that, he was deprived of an opportunity. One final conversation with his departed best friend.

“Throw me back in,” he rasps out in a weak plea to his caretaker, before he falls into a boundless void of sleep.

#nick stokes #csi fic #whump fic #whumptober #sensory deprivation #sorry i like to see you suffer nick #mk.op #mk.fic #csi 11x16 #i also decided to make a series on ao3 #the 'make it worse' series since i seem to be messing with canon events

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revengeworld · 5 years

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Robin and Batman

DETROIT BECOME HUMAN RK900 x Reader

Words: +4.000

Warning: none, I think ... o.o

Request: Ok! So...I have an idea for an RK900 story. So, most of the stories I find with him he is so cold and a bit cruel to everyone. By what if he was like that to everyone...except the reader? You know, that one random girl who like comes by to help Hank and Connor or something. I just see him finding that “special someone” and just being like “this is my human, hurt her and they won’t find the body”. XD She just turns him into an adorable sweet and awkward fluff ball that we know he is XD - by @sdavid09

A/N: Hello my Beautiful Deviants!!! ♥ and Hello my dear @sdavid09 I´m finally getting back into things and tried to work on another request for Nines. I hope you will like it <3 I´m a bit nervous >.<

MY MASTERLIST

Since the Android war was over and Program Amanda was shut down and eliminated, RK900 was allowed to work for the DPD like his earlier model RK800 or Connor like most of them called him.

Now standing in the office of Captain Fowler, RK900 could see Connor outside with his Partner Hank Anderson.

The Android was already wondering who his Partner would be or if he could possibly even work alone, that was something he was quietly wishing for.

“I will introduce you to your Partner now, he is a little …peculiar, but a good detective.�� the Captain announced and RK900 adjusted his collar, before following him. While he stepped down the small staircase in front of Fowler's office, the Androids eyes landed on a young woman that excitedly entered the office.

Her open lab coat was waving behind her while she was approaching Connor and Hank with determination. The black clothing underneath not really fitting her image as a Forensic Scientist, like the entrance in his Databank was showing.

“You won't believe what I find out!” he could hear her call excited to the others while waving with her pad.

“I have analyzed the samples of the red ice you guys had given me and ….” stopping mid-sentence a dark shadow was suddenly looming over her.

Slowly lifting her gaze she soon met the ice blue eyes from the Android that suddenly stood right next to her, staring her down.

“U...uhm, can I help you?” she asked with a polite smile but didn't get an answer.

“What is he doing?” Y/N whispered to Connor who started to chuckle.

Watching his little, but taller brother he saw how his LED was blinking profusely before it stopped and suddenly RK900 eyes softened.

“I'm not quite familiar with the new program, but I think he just picked you as his Master.” Connor mumbled amused.

“I heard that higher rank Androids, like him, are allowed to choose their own, since Amanda is no more. I just didn't expect it to be this quick.”

“I can't believe it.” they could only hear Captain Fowler groan in annoyance before he sighed.

“As long as he does his work as a detective satisfyingly. I guess he can stay with you if there is nothing else to do...”

Y/N looked around the Android that was still standing in front her and nodded to her boss.

“I guess that's fine… What is your name?” shrugging with her shoulders, she looked back up into those blue eyes and pressed her pad against her chest.

“RK900.” he answered shortly with the slightest bow of his head.

“Another Number, mhmm?” her shoulders slouched down in disappointment until the tall Android leaned down to her, the tip of their noses almost touching.

“You are very welcome to give me a name, Y/N.” she noticed the little smirk on his lips and raised her eyebrows with a smile.

“Is that so, Mister?” thinking for a moment her eyes landed on her shoes where they fixated on the little bat wings on the side.

“Fine, you can be the Robin to my Batman! So into the batcave we go.” she jokingly said before turning back to the other Android.

“Ah, Connor about the thing I found out….” without being even able to finish her sentence, Robin had lifted her up by her hip and threw her over his shoulder to make his way to the labs.

“Seems like he misunderstood your instructions.” the smaller Android tried to hide his laughter while Hank only shook his head with a grin.

“Uhm yeah. I send you everything!” Y/N called out while she pushed herself of his back to look at them until her arms gave out and she ended back upside down. Looking at the flashing number ‘RK900’ on his jacket it changed to Robin and she couldn't hide a little smirk that appeared on her lips.

When they arrived in her Lab, he gently sat her back down on her own feet.

“Okay we need to work on that.” she sighed and patted her hair down.

“Was that not to your liking?”

“Nobody likes to be suddenly picked up, dear Robin.” fixing her lab coat she turned away from him to tend to her machines.

“According to your heart rate and the grin on your face, it seemed like you very much enjoyed it.” the Android calmly stated while looking around in the lab, the front room was full with machines, and monitors but at the end of the room he could see a smaller office behind a glass wall. But it didn't seem like an office at all, there were posters on the walls, a big coach, probably where she took naps between works, a microwave on a small fridge and a tv with a gaming console.

“Do you even go home sometimes?” Robin suddenly asked her and she pushed her safety goggles up on her head.

“Of course I do… sometimes.” stepping closer, Y/N inspected his face closely.

“Say… you can analyze things in an instant, right? How does that work?” grabbing his chin, she gently opened his mouth and looked inside it with a light on her bracelet.

Carefully wrapping his fingers around her wrist, he pulled her hand out of his mouth.

“If you want an understandable answer, you will need to keep out of my mouth.” he stated and she looked a bit ashamed since her curiosity got the best of her again.

“I will answer every of your questions.” he promised.

“Well I have a few ...” she mumbled, while she looked on her feet again.

“But first! You can't be affected by drugs right? I need you to confirm something for me!” with one swift nod of her head the safety goggles landed back on her nose and she quickly put on some gloves, before grabbing a small bag with red crystals out of one of the cabinets with evidence.

“Since I'm not in possession of a human body, I won't be affected. There will be no need to worry, Y/N.” he had noticed her knitted brows while she had placed one of the small crystals into a bowl and started to crush it into a fine powder.

“Okay, sit down here. Then we can start the analyses. You might be able to find something I have overlooked.” grabbing a spoon from a drawer, she stepped in front of Robin who had sat down on the assigned chair.

“Okay... now open wide.” placing a bit of powder onto the spoon, she held it in front of his mouth that he slowly opened for her.

“Hey I'm here to get my new partner, The boss said you kidnapped… what the fuck?!” Gavin Reed, a young detective was walking into the lab, before he stopped shocked in front of the scene he was seeing.

“It's not what you think!” Y/N immediately shouted and instantly stood in a straight position. Quickly grabbing her hand, Robin placed the spoon in his mouth, so nothing would get spilled onto the ground.

“What the hell?!” the man in the doorway shouted, with quick steps he stood next to them and pushed the other man's arm away.

“Don't you fucking dare touch my sister again!” he hissed before noticing the yellow blinking LED on the Androids temple.

“A fucking Tincan again?” Gavin scoffed while he could feel the small hand of his sister pulling him away.

“His name is Robin and he is mine.” placing her hands against her hips, Gavin instinctively tightened his jaw, since Y/N reminded him of their mother in this stance.

“Well, the boss told me something different. He is supposed to be my Partner and we have a case we need to work on.” Gavin explained, still suspicious of this whole thing he just had barged into.

“He is your partner, but he choose me...” avoiding her brothers gaze, she mumbled her words shyly.

“He did fucking what?!” turning back around to the man that was calmly sitting in his chair, waiting for his instructions, Gavin grabbed the Android by its collar, but Robin didn't even flinch and only scoffed at the other.

“You little sh...” Gavin was about to send his fist in the Android's face, but Y/N was quicker and loosened her brother's hand and pressed Robins head protectively against her shoulder.

“Would you stop this already?!” she shouted at her brother while the Android only smirked spiteful.

Pointing a finger at her brother, Gavin started to cringe and sighed defeated.

“You won't hurt him, You won't bully him and you will call him by his name! No insults!” Y/N said sternly.

“Pff why do you even care.” crossing his arms in front of his chest, Gavin really needed to hold back not to throw that bastard in the recycling bin.

“He chose me as his Master, which means I need to take care of him. He is my responsibility.” she tried to explain her actions, but Gavin only rolled his eyes.

“As if he would need you. You're just happy that at least somebody shows the slightest interest in you...” immediately he regrets his words when he saw the hurt look on her face.

“Y/N I ...”

“You better go now!” turning away from them, she started to clean up the instruments she had just used.

“Well come on then...” Gavin sighed and waited at the entrance for the Android.

Robin quietly stepped closer to the small figure who was standing at her desk.

“I send my results to your computer.” he stated softly and she could hear a confirmation beep from her bracelet.

“Thank you ...” Y/N only mumbled quietly, not to let her tears get the upper hand. When one still rolled over her cheek, Robin gently brushed it away.

“Come one! Let's go, we have a job to do!” Gavin shouted and Y/N nodded to the Android.

Adjusting his collar, he followed the furious detective to their first case together.

“Let me be very clear here, Android!” The detective already started to growl but immediately got pushed against the wall.

“No let me be very clear with you, Detective!” Robin hissed threatening.

“If you dare to harm your sister in any way, physical or mentally, I will break every 206 bones in your body. Do we understand each other?!” now he was the one who had the other grabbed at the collar of his sweatshirt.

For a moment Gavin was too shocked to even answer before he quietly nodded.

“Say it!” the Android whispered dangerously low, his cold eyes fixated on Gavins.

“I… I understand.” he mumbled while avoiding the others gaze.

Letting go, Robin stood up straight again and adjusted his collar, before continuing their walk to the police car.

When they came back in the evening, Robin volunteered to bring the new evidence to Y/N while Gavin followed a few feet behind. Not only did he feel bad, because he hurt his sister, but the constant nagging from RK900 was going on his nerves. He rather wished he would leave again but the young detective needed to admit that the Android only seemed to have the best things in mind for his sister, which was at least one positive thing about him.

Entering the lab they could see Y/N, sitting on her couch in the back, having headphones on her head, while she was munching on a granola bar, her eyes fixated on her pad to read the latest analyses results.

After setting the box with the new evidence down, Robin entered her little office before Gavin could even stop him. Squatting down in front of her, the tall Android gently pushed the big headphones back before she looked up into his blue eyes.

“You're back!” she instantly smiled, but it soon fell again when she noticed her brother.

“We brought the evidence from the scene it would be good if you could take a quick look at it.” he explained when he noticed her eyes on him.

Rolling her eyes the slightest, she munched down the last bit of her snack and threw her pad on the other end of the coach. Taking the pad from Gavin she walked to the box and opened it after getting rid of the safety tape.

“Robin can you tell me what exactly we have?” she asked.

“Of course, Y/N.” controlling the evidence with the list, she soon signed it and pushed it back against Gavin's chest.

“What do you want to know?” putting on some new gloves she looked at the pieces of evidence in the plastic bags.

“We need to find DNA from this subject.” Sending the file to her Bracelet, it gave the confirming beep.

“Alright... now leave, I need to concentrate.” suddenly feeling Gavin's hand on her shoulder she flinched slightly.

“How about you rest first and come home?”

“You want this data as soon as possible right? So let me work and go home yourself.” pulling away from him, Gavin only scoffed and made his way out of the office.

“Nines,! Make sure she eats properly and sleeps at least a little bit.” they heard him shout and Y/N only sighed before she looked up at Robin.

“He is right, you look sleep deprived.” gently he laid his hand against her cheek and looked into her eyes.

“I'm okay. Let's throw the hints that we have in my little boys, they will do the work for us. I promise I rest after that.”

Nodding the slightest he agreed, but still took over most of the work and soon banished her onto the couch so she could rest.

In the next few days, nothing much changed from the first day Robin came in her life. Most of the time he was constantly by her side, helping her with her work and sometimes even Gavin stayed there since it was easier to stay down here to discuss the case instead of dragging the Android back up into the office.

“I brought lunch.” Gavin mumbled when he entered the Lab, but stopped surprised when he saw Connor and Hank here.

Y/N suddenly rolled by him on her chair and grabbed the cup of ice coffee before taking a sip.

“Just one moment...” pulling a diagram on her big monitor she just explained to the other two what she and Robin had found in the newest Red Ice that they had confiscated.

Robin was sitting in the Corner of the lab in a chair while his arms were crossed in front of his chest and one of his legs was laying over the other, ignoring the others.

He was always cold to everyone else but when he was with Y/N he was completely changed that most of them couldn't believe that it was really him. How soft and gentle he took care of her and made sure she was always well with such care.

For Connor it was obvious that his little brother wasn't following a program anymore and seemed to have started to feel emotions which nobody had noticed yet, not even Y/N who seemed oblivious to the looks Robin was sometimes giving her.

But at the moment he wasn't very pleased with all the males in the room that were cornering her because of her work.

“So thanks to Robin, we could determine that the Dealer must have been in this area of town. You should look there next.” trying to hide a yawn, Y/N bit nervously on the straw from her coffee.

“Thank you, we will go there, now.” Connor nodded and left with Hank, while Gavin placed the bag of food in her little office on her desk.

“You should really eat, you have been working nonstop.” her brother mumbled but didn't get any answer until Robin stood up from his chair and noticed that Y/N had fallen asleep right as soon as Connor and Hank had left them. Her head had sunken down on her arms, the cup of coffee was dangerous loosely hanging in her hand, while they could hear quiet snores coming from her.

Gently picking her sleeping figure up, he slowly walked over to the couch to lay her in a more comfortable position until Gavin's phone started to ring.

“We got a lead! An anonymous tip to the serial killer! Come on.” already running to the door he took a last look over his shoulder.

Watching the Android take off his jacket, Robin laid it carefully over Y/N so she would be kept warm, while they would be away.

Brushing a few strands of hair out of her beautiful face, his normal stern look softened and even Gavin seemed to realize now that this Android wasn't seeing his sister just as a Master anymore.

Out of respect he quickly averted his eyes and waited until Robin followed.

Flinching out of her sleep, Y/N looked confused around before shutting off her blaring bracelet.

“I get it I get it, the Sample test is done...” with another yawn, she rubbed over eyes before she noticed something heavy on her body.

Surprised her eyes widened when she recognized Robins jacket and without thinking, she pressed it closer against her chest. The sharp scent of Thirium was lingering on it, but when she buried her face in the fabric, Y/N could even smell a hint of her own perfume.

Feeling the heat rising in her cheeks, she quickly looked around her Lab, just to make sure it was empty before she jumped from her place and threw over the jacket, which of course was too big for her.

Chuckling over the long sleeves, Y/N suddenly shook her head. There was no time to be goofing around. She was so close to finding something for Gavins and Robins case that it was time to give it her full attention, instead of getting her hopes up for something that wasn’t going to happen.

Folding up the sleeves and putting on her safety glasses, Y/N got back to work.

Looking around the empty factory building, Robin tried to find any clues that the anonymous tip had mentioned, but for now he came up with nothing.

“Are you sure the address is the right one?” he asked coldly and looked over to Gavin who seemed confused.

“Of fucking course it is the right one!” the other hissed and continued looking.

Carefully walking up the rusty, metal stairs, Gavin tried to get a good look with his flashlight, his gun always ready.

Searching the upper floor they soon stopped in front of a giant wall.

“What is that…?” seeing something wet smeared on it, Robin immediately started running back to the car.

Taking a few steps back, the detective's eyes widened in shock when he read the words and the picture that hung next to it.

-She will bleed, just like the others.-

When his eyes landed on the face of his own sweet sister, he instantly broke into a sprint.

“Come on!!” Robin screamed, already sitting on the driver seat, to take over instead of letting the autopilot manage the driving. As soon as Gavin entered the car, the Android stepped down on the gas pedal and with screeching tires, they crashed through the next metal fence.

“Why …. why her?!” Gavin cursed while trying to call her.

“Don’t you get it? It was a trap! He wanted to get us away from her because he knows that we never leave her side. The picture that hung with the threat was taken inside the DPD! He is one of us! Which means he knows she might be close to finding out his identity!” running over a red light, Gavin wanted to throw up.

“She isn’t picking up...” seeing the LED from Robin turn to red, he knew nothing good would happen to whoever would harm her.

The car wasn’t even parked yet, but Robin already jumped out and ran into the police building.

When he stumbled into the Lab and saw her well and safe, the Android couldn’t describe how much relieve he felt until he noticed the red dot pointed at her back.

“Get down!” he screamed.

Turning around to him, Y/N had a smile on her lips before he tackled her down onto the ground and a bullet storm was raining down into the lab.

Glas was shattering everywhere and Robin covered her whole body with his, while he could feel her fingers dig into his shirt.

“Robin … the office, it’s bulletproof.” she breathed under his heavy weight.

“I got you.” he answered and waited for the right moment before he picked her up and punched the alarm as soon as he slides into the room on his knees.

The glass door behind them closed with a hiss and the lab was drenched in a red light and the alarm blaring in their ears.

“Are you hurt?!” he shouted through the tumult and cupped her face gently. With a relieved smile she shook her head lightly even though her cheek hat a few small cuts.

Wrapping her arms around his chest, she soon had her head buried in the crook of his neck before a shaky breath escaped her lips.

“It's okay, I’m here now.” he whispered, laying his own arms around her to calmingly brush over her hair.

Hearing another two gunshots, Y/N instinctively pressed herself closer against his chest until they heard a knock at the office door. It was Gavin with a few police members.

“Thank goodness you’re okay … fuck...” falling on his knee, Gavin just hugged both of them tightly, knowing full well Robin wouldn’t let go of her for a long while.

“What about Johnson… is he?” she asked her brother.

“He won’t harm you, don’t worry.” he nodded, confirming the suspect's death.

Watching both of them quietly for a moment, Gavin saw how dearly the Android was holding on to his sister and how much she clung to him.

“I will talk to Fowler, he needs to know what happened. Nines, take good care of her until I’m back.” giving the two of them a bit of space, he soon left the lab.

After sitting there on the floor for a moment, Robin gently picked her up to sat her down on the comfortable couch.

“Are you really alright?” he asked now calmer since the alarm was shut off.

“Maybe we should switch. You seem to be a much better Batman than me.” Y/N chuckled lightly.

“You can be Catwoman instead.” with a small smile Robin leaned his head gently against hers.

“You researched…. Sounds like a good plan.” taking a deep breath, she pressed a quick kiss on the Androids lips.

“Thanks for saving me...” she whispered but was surprised to see him even more shocked than expected.

“Sorry … I thought ...” quickly looking back down onto her own two feet she avoiding his gaze before Robin broke from his daze and gently laid his hand under her chin, to push it up so she would look at him.

“No, you thought correctly. I just didn’t think you could ever feel something for someone like me ...”

“Well, now you know...” she said a bit pouty and he could only smile.

“At least I didn’t fry your circuits.” with a chuckle she leaned her head back against his shoulder.

When Gavin came back, he was relieved that Y/N seemed to have calmed down.

“I talked with Fowler. After a short questioning, we can all go home.” he explained, but nobody seemed to listen.

“You know what, since you are Batman now and I’m Catwoman. Gavin can be Robin.”

Scoffing immediately Gavin crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“As if! Come on you freaking nerds. Let's get home.”

Picking her back on his arms, Robin held her close while she wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Then we need to get a key for Robin as well.” she called to her brother, who was walking in front of them.

“Sure, whatever.” he only shrugged his shoulders, both of them not able to see the little smirk on his lips.

#detroit become human #dbh #dbh au #detroit become human au #rk900 x reader #rk900 #rk900 imagine #rk900 connor #rk900 connor x reader #connor x reader #rk900 au #dbh imagine

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bigskydreaming · 5 years

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Blech. I’ve pretty much officially finished writing, editing and revising this standalone epic fantasy novel I started years and years ago and only just recently got around to finishing. Which is good, for sure, but also....blech. LOL. Because now I have no more excuses for putting off making a decision about the cover.

Like I always intended to self-pub this particular novel for personal reasons, and I can make my own covers just fine. I’ve done epic fantasy covers before for other clients that turned out well, even working with stock art and photomanipulation, its totally possible to make something that hits all the genre expectations and sells the right tone and feel to readers who come across it. BUT I’ve always loved the illustrated covers of a lot of fantasy novels I grew up with, and always kinda wanted something similar for this particular work, even though I have other fantasy projects I wouldn’t care as much about that one way or the other.

And so years ago when I first started the book and was only about a third of the way in, but still had a solid sense of the world and story and where it was all going, I happened to stumble across a fantasy artist whose work was like...exactly the right tone and aesthetic I’d always been picturing for that novel’s setting and vibe. And he was a freelancer, and open to commissions at the time, and you never know with freelancers if they’ll still be taking commissions a year or two down the line or if they’ve gone to work for like, a video game company or studio or something like that by that point, so even though the book was nowhere near done I hopped on that and commissioned an illustration from him to be used for the cover at some future point when I was ready for it. I just needed the illustration, I was fine doing typography and all that myself when the time came.

And I mean, I’ve literally been on the other side of the author/artist interaction tons of times, lol, so like, I know from my own experiences where its helpful to give an artist or a designer room to breathe and exercise their own creativity, make use of their own particular skillset and interpret the story elements you tell them are most important to see conveyed in the final cover, in like...their own way, like what feels best to them, what they’re most inspired to do with the foundational info you give them to build off of.

Like I mean, visual design is its own skillset, and often completely separate from the kind of visualization most authors do of their own work while writing it....and with self-pubbed authors especially, as artists or designers you often run into authors who get really hung up on relatively minor details that they feel really need to be on the cover in some capacity and in really specific ways. Which is often to the detriment of the cover in the long run because like....what looks right in your head as a writer, totally familiar with your own world and story and its every minutiae and the implications and context of every single element....is not always going to come across the same way to readers who happen across your cover while browsing. Because they literally have ZERO context for what they’re looking at, and thus it really needs to stand on its own two feet and sell itself, not....loop back around to some hidden significance that will really only resonate with readers who end up buying the book and only once they reach this one scene in chapter 27 or whatever, you know?

So I really didn’t want to do that with this artist. I was only commissioning him because I loved what I’d seen of his work and the style he seemed to default to naturally was the perfect fit for what I wanted, IMO, so I was more than willing to let him take the broader strokes of the setting/themes/storyline in whatever direction inspired him most, as long as he hit within the general framework I provided him.

BUT, that said, for all that I tried to give him as much creative freedom to work with as possible, there are of course always a FEW things that as the commissioning party, are really important to see in the final product, and so yeah, I did have a couple of areas/elements that I did stress were really important to strike the right tone with, or it could make or break the whole illustration.

Specifically, I was concerned that he hit the right feel with the main character. My protag for this novel is a woman, and the one area his portfolio samples didn’t have a ton of variety with and thus had me slightly worried about what visual tropes he might default to...was female characters. He had tons of gorgeous settings, fantasy creatures, architecture, knights and sorcerers and monsters, but not a ton of women in the samples I saw. He did have some, for sure, and like there was nothing super concerning about the way he’d drawn/painted them....there were some priestesses, sorceresses, that kinda thing, and their anatomy and wardrobes weren’t like....glaringly cheesecake-y or anything like a lot of fantasy artists’ portfolios....so I knew he COULD get the character right, the way I hoped he would, I just wasn’t SURE. Like, I wasn’t concerned about specific details, beyond like....not outrageously contradicting the character description and scenes I gave him to work off of, I wasn’t worried about nitpicking minutiae. But my protag is a warrior-magic user archetype, and warrior women is like, the one female archetype he didn’t have any samples of, and I was more concerned about him defaulting to like....the old fantasy standby’s of ridiculously impossible and unnatural poses for warrior women, not to mention totally impractical armor, that sort of thing.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this was the ONE thing I stressed, lol. I didn’t really care about the finer details of her armor like in terms of decoration or filigree or even color schemes, I honestly could just adjust my own descriptions in the book to match what he came up with if need be. Stuff like that, so not a big deal to me. ALL I was concerned about was like....she not fall into those trope traps that ensnare so many women on fantasy covers, like....just make her look like she’s a fucking warrior who knows what the hell she’s doing, and I’ll be fine with everything else, you know? I even sent him some covers of published fantasy novels to use as comparison comps, like ‘this is the kind of feel or vibe I’d ideally like to see her capture, something like these women in these covers here’ as well as ‘this is what I really really DON”T want to see, like, I shouldn’t have a better sense of how good a contortionist she is than whether or not I believe she can swing a sword.’

Soooooo.....what happened?

Did he prioritize as I’d really really hoped he would and strongly expressed my desire for him to, and take care to at least avoid the more obvious problems, even if the end result was’t 100% what I was hoping for? Nooooooope. She might as well be mid-yoga pose. Sigh. Like, the guy has a damn near perfect grasp of anatomy and proportions on every other human figure I saw in the many samples I looked through before commissioning him, but somehow, despite this being of utmost importance to me and the ONLY thing about the entire project I stressed about and made sure to emphasize, lol, he ended up painting her in this weird bent at the waist position that throws her lower body proportions off entirely and like, her hip is angled or arched in this weird way that’s incredibly distracting and off, and like also, of course her armor is....pointless, in all the specific ways that happened to be the ONLY details about her armor I was concerned with. Y’know. Like. Its effectiveness. As armor.

And the absolutely obnoxious thing about it all, is that everything else about the illustration? Absolutely gorgeous. Everything I’d hoped for, even as I deliberately tried not to build up too specific an image in my mind ahead of time. Hell, BETTER than anything I’d have come up with on my own, and totally validating my impulse to have someone with different skillsets than my own do this instead of just making a cover out of stock art the way I usually do with my other projects. He absolutely captured the specific MOOD I was aiming for with the setting and general atmosphere, like, the very reason I’d been drawn to his style in the first place, he totally nailed that. Couldn’t have asked for a better fit to the general ambiance of the piece. The colors were just the right shade of otherworldly, a great mix of light and darkness that sold the gloom of the surrounding environs without drowning in dark palettes that make it hard to pick out individual details and differentiate between figures. So on and so on.

EVERY SINGLE OTHER THING ABOUT THE DAMN ILLUSTRATION IS PERFECT LOL.

Except for the only fucking part I was worried about in the first place, lmaaaaaaaaaao whyyyyyyy.

And I mean, because his style was a combo of illustration and painting, there was never gonna be a ton of room for revisions or tweaks to the final piece, I knew and understood that going in. He showed me what he had when he was done with the initial pencilwork, before he painted over it, but with the understanding that it could still change from that point, if he needed to shift things around because of the way the colors and lighting and shadows were all coming out once painted. And the pencil work lacked the finer details that he added into his painting in the final stages, so like, I did see a rough draft before he started painting, and could ask for tweaks or adjustments at that point...except at that point, I didn’t NEED to! LOL. In the rougher sketch, her general position was just shifted enough from what it ended up being that like, it wasn’t my ideal pose for her but nothing I’d say I actually had a problem with, like her upper body was elevated just enough and at just the right angle compared to what he ended up with that at that point, there was no unnatural hip thrust or any of that stuff, and there was only a rough sense of what would come to be the final armor. So I mean, TECHNICALLY I had an opportunity to pump the brakes and be like whoa wait dude, this isn’t what we discussed, can I get you to go back to the drawing board just in this one specific area right here and maybe even just take another look at those comps I sent you, see what I mean about what I’m trying to avoid and how that’s kinda sneaking in here anyway....except, I didn’t think I had to say anything at that point lol, because it all looked on track??

I mean, its not like I think he deliberately misled me with that initial draft or anything, nothing as dramatic as that. I’m fairly certain that like most artists and designers will tell you, in the process of like, the actual drawing/painting/designing, you have to make adjustments as you go to account for the little unforseen speedbumps where you were juuuuuust off enough in your prediction of how this would look when working in your ultimate medium, that you have to like...keep nudging your initial outline little by little as you go to account for the slight shift in direction...with gradually that adding up to a fairly significant departure in the end. Ultimately, I think we ended up with what we ended up with because he was good with focusing on my specific concerns when drafting in pencil and just mapping out a general intent, but the closer he got to finishing up his piece, the less and less focused he was on the stuff I prioritized rather than his own innate prioritizations and so he just kinda figured ‘is it really gonna be THAT big a deal?’ instead of sacrificing a direction or angle that played into what he thought was a more important design element. Stuff like that. Like, you know me, I’m def not saying that makes it A-Ok in my book, lol, I just mean to say I honestly don’t think it was...a willful, conscious effort on his part to leave me with something as far removed from what I was hoping for as what I got.

So again I say blech. Its just super frustrating and obnoxious and I’ve been trying to decide what to do with it for like, months now. Because again, EVERYTHING ELSE is perfect and gorgeous and like, yes, good, this is what I wanted, what I was hoping for. Like, I literally could not come up with a design using my own go-to mediums that would come anywhere close to capturing the general feel and tone and mood of the story and its setting better than the overall vibe of his piece.

Its just the protag, front and center, is absolutely driving me fucking nuts. And I keep going back and forth endlessly because I’m like is it really THAT bad and noticeable or am I hyper-fixating because I specifically tried to avoid this end result and ended up with at least a version of it anyway? And then I’m like psst, remember how much fucking money you spent on this, like yeah thats long gone and doesn’t change your current situation one way or another so it doesn’t really matter except oh yeah its totally gonna fucking haunt you if you don’t use this lol and all that money was spent for nothing lmfao you dumbass. And then I’m like, just to weigh my options, what would I design for this cover myself, if I ended up scrapping this and making my own from scratch, do I at least have anything in mind that’s for sure not any worse than my dissatisfaction with this? Except lol I literally can not seem to come up with ANYTHING, like, total blank, because again there’s just enough that I LIKE about the piece that its like, now that I’ve seen THOSE aspects of it, I’m not gonna be content with any cover that doesn’t contain them and I just literally have no way of replicating those effects via my own design medium.

Ugh. So its really annoying, and I keep going around and around and around in circles and making no progress on what to do about it and like...ugh. I hate being so anal about shit like this, especially when I am usually pretty good about dodging the hyper-fixation tendencies on this front specifically.....but I just got whammied but good by the way all of this unfolded and came together and now I feel stuck and lmao I’m really not fond of the fact that I’m really fucking proud of this book and how it came out in terms of the writing and story but like, covers ARE actually a pretty big deal as they’re literally a reader’s first impression, and I feel like no matter which route I go, a big part of me is gonna be doomed to be like NO YOU FUCKING IDIOT THAT WAS THE WRONG CHOICE, UGH WTF DUDE, TURN AROUND, UNDO, UNDO, U’LL REGRET THIIIIIIIS.

ANYWAY! That’s my much ado about nothing. I was kinda hoping that hashing it all out in a post and working my way through it as I wrote it all down would like....magically reveal the Right Decision to me and everything would click and be so obvious by the time I got to this point in the post, but alas.

Fix-It Machine broke. This accomplished nothing. UGH. RUDE.

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bubblesandgutz · 5 years

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Every Record I Own - Day 378: ENDON Bodies

This is a 12″ featuring remixes of the Japanese band ENDON by Justin Broadrick and Vatican Shadow. I received it from the band’s manager after Russian Circles played with ENDON in Tokyo back in 2014. The band impressed me so much that I interviewed them for Noisey. The article is reposted below:

The first time I went to Japan on tour, I was treated to a performance by an opening act consisting of two tiny Japanese girls at a small club in Shibuya. One girl played acoustic guitar and sang in a cute, sweet, elfin voice not unlike Satomi Matsuzaki from Deerhoof. The other girl was playing some sort of motion-activated sampler device. She would make karate chop movements over the small glowing piece of equipment that would trigger samples of gong hits. It was the most Japanese thing I’d ever seen. I just wished there was a hologram Anime character doing lead vocals.

I toured Japan again earlier this year and our host informed me that we would be playing with “the most extreme band in Tokyo”. More extreme than the girl duo with the gong sounds and the martial arts moves? Doubt it. But then I bore witness to ENDON. I can’t say how the band weighs up against other acts in the region—this is a culture that birthed Melt Banana and Masonna, after all—but I’d be hard pressed to envision any other Tokyoites coming close to their level of aggressive dissonance. The drummer plowed through the set with an unrelenting barrage of blast beats. On stage left, a guy was beating a black box strapped to his chest. At first I thought it was old piece of stereo equipment—an old CD player, perhaps—but on closer inspection I realized it was some homemade device with a series of springs stretched across the front. He was beating the springs the way a heavy-handed guitarist strummed guitar strings. Harsh noise thundered out of his amp. Stage right, a guitarist churned out a caustic wash of distortion that sounded Burzum’s Filosofem and the Mohinder discography getting sucked into a turbine engine. Next to him, another band member hunched over a bank of blinking lights, cranking out electronic squalls. At the front of the stage, vocalist Taichi Nagura loomed over the crowd. Built like a tank with a shaved head and a well-groomed moustache, Taichi would be perfectly cast as the intimidating bodyguard Tamaru in a movie adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84. While the band doled out their sonic punishment, Tamaru shrieked, howled, whinnied, growled, and bellowed his way through the set, occasionally chucking a beer cans at the audience along the way.

I was shell-shocked by their set. A few weeks later, I was able to get a hold of Taichi to talk about what I’d witnessed.

Brian (B): I remember talking to you over dinner before seeing you play and you described ENDON as “noise metal”. That’s probably the most straightforward description of what you do. But in the States, noise metal usually refers to bands like Today Is The Day, Dazzling Killmen, or Deadguy. Those bands seem tame in comparison. For the sake of not confusing or misleading American readers, we need to come up with a different genre name for you guys. How about power-electronics-violence? Or white-noise metal?

Taichi (T): I love both of the suggestions, really appreciate it. They hit the mark. I know I should be modest, but how about “catastrophic noise metal”?

B: “Catastrophic noise metal” it is, then. So how does a catastrophic noise metal band like ENDON even start? Did you have an idea of what you wanted to sound like when you first got together?

T: Originally, we started ENDON in order to make noise music more functional on an entertainment level. In the extreme music scene in Japan, combining general rock sounds and noise has been a very popular subject for many years but it has mainly been made through collaborations between established bands and noise musicians. We were not satisfied or comfortable with it, because there were very few bands that focused on it as one unit. I think there should be more artists with these terms. Typically, these collaborations tend to add harsh noise as an addition to the higher frequencies of the guitar, like a shoegaze sound. We would like to stay away from that. We wanted to offer listeners a different style. And there is another reason we wanted to make our own sound: general noise and avant-garde styles in Japan have been too close to free-jazz or free music. We still like that stuff, but it’s gotten to be too much, too limiting in its criteria.

B: I would guess that the songwriting originates around guitar riffs, since the guitar seems to have the most concrete and recognizable structure. Am I right? Does the creative process ever start around the noise elements? Lou Reed has that famous quote about cymbals eating guitars—do you ever run into the problem of the noise eating the guitar?

T: Exactly. In most cases we wrote music with guitar riffs first just because metal and hardcore music was a major reference for most of the songs on this album. However, the guitar in “Pray For Me” was written last. For our previous EP, we did lots of jamming and improvisation over and over again to arrange and shape songs. But now we write more with the guitar first. When there is no context or specific ideas, a tiny little motif from an instrument is a great lead. With the invention of black metal, combining noise and metal is not so difficult to imagine anymore. Harsh noise and black metal have an affinity. At the same time, an affinity means a competitive frequency level, especially between guitar and noise. It is very important how we control and arrange them. That’s fun though; we never feel that the structure between guitar and noise is annoying. It is the best part of our songwriting. We usually adjust the equalization between noise and distortion, which leads to a definitive result for listeners. For example, we adjusted our amplifiers a little bit before a recent show and played our usual set. We saw a review later that said ENDON played a bunch of new songs that night.

B: I know Atsuo from Boris helped record your new album MAMA, and I could imagine there being some crossover between ENDON’s audience and Boris’s audience, just because you both have one foot in the metal world and one foot in the experimental music world. And Boris obviously has the occasional collaboration with Merzbow to add the noise element. But aside from that, ENDON and Boris are very different beasts. Do you feel like you have any musical peers in Tokyo? Do you feel a kinship with the Japanese hardcore scene?

T: Atsuo knows exactly what we would like to do, even more so than us! I am so proud of our first full-length being so well made despite our noisy and complicated style. I know we are absolutely in Atsuo’s debt. Yeah, Boris and ENDON have similar tastes in some ways, though they are the pioneers of this genre and no one can be like them. We respect them a lot. ENDON has also been very good friends with a sludge-core band called Zenocide and an industrial unit called Carre. They are the same age as us and often do collaborations together. We also have lots of friends in Tokyo’s grind and noise scenes. Personally, I don’t think ENDON belong to the hardcore music scene in Tokyo, though our favorite venue Earthdom is a mecca of the local hardcore scene. You can still see legendary Japanese hardcore bands there, bands we grew up seeing over and over again. My impression is that the cool and interesting bands at our age used to be hardcore bands that then try to do another thing. Zenocide, who I mentioned earlier, used to be crust punk guys, for example.

B: I think the hardcore vibe I was picking up on comes from the strong antagonistic vibe to your live show, as if the music and performance is meant to punish the audience. Do you feel hostility towards the crowd? Or do you ever feel like the crowd is hostile towards you?

T: No, it’s not intended to be against the audience at all, but against myself. It’s me against the world. In order to act like that, I prepare songs without words. I have no idea what makes me so irate. I see no major difference among each and every individual besides an unspecified mental condition. I try to put myself in that headspace for the purpose of the show. It is not only a punishment but also a sweet pleasure to me. When I act like a master and try to pretend to punish the audience during our show, I feel like I am released from my sin and am buried in happiness. My shows with ENDON are kind of a tragedy in that way. In fact, during the early days of ENDON, there was a lot of fighting between the audience and me…

B: A lot of singers in the world of extreme music tend to fade into the background on record because they have a limited vocal range. With ENDON, it sounds like you have 5 or 6 different singers because the timbre of your voice changes so much. It literally sounds like an entire family—father, mother, son, daughter, family dog—attacking each other. Is this a response to the monotonic quality of metal vocals? Or is it just what naturally came out of your mouth at the first practice?

T: To me, screaming and shouting within the limited range of extreme music sounds so boring. It’s just laborious, a kind of duty they have to fulfill. Of course, what I do is partially a response to monotonous metal vocals, but more than that I would like to keep myself happy as opposed to responding to or attacking others. In that sense, my vocals need to be done unconsciously. Most importantly, ENDON as a whole should prepare our sounds and arrangements to make our music operate unconsciously. As you’ve pointed out, I have tried to do several vocal styles, like one voice that has multiple characters. And I show a relationship among those characters in a psychoanalytical way, like family therapy role-playing. Certainly, there have been good examples of other people doing this. A few singers from great depressive black metal bands have an impressive scream that has both the characters of victim and assailant in one. Multiple characters in one voice… I wanted to move ahead in that direction.

B: Speaking of family therapy, have any of your parents ever come to see you play? And are you still welcome in their homes afterwards?

T: It’s annoying to say that my parents don’t recognize I am crazy at all even though I am doing crazy stuff in ENDON. They are baby boomers that enjoyed Western art, culture, and music during their youth, and they view themselves as the first generation that brought that Western culture over to Japan. They still try to tell me what is best when it comes to music. That is one of the major reasons why everyone in ENDON and I try to focus on musical and cultural “parricide” with songs like “Parricide Agent Service” and “Etude For Lynching By Family”.

B: So I take it that’s a “no” then.

#endon #everyrecordiown

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zaney-hacknslash · 7 years

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God from the Machine 9

Present Gojyo

Taibo’s bar was just where Pitchfork said it would be, and it definitely looked closed. Like most of the other shops around town, the windows were boarded up and the lights were off. I stepped up onto the porch, feeling the boards creak under my feet like they were ready to give way, and stared through the window, trying to see a sign of anything even remotely promising through the cracks between the boards. It was dark as night in there.

Rubbing my hands, I approached the door. Damn, it had gotten even colder. The wind was whipping and snow had started to fall, and I wanted to go home as soon as I could.

Just a quick chat with this Willis dork, and then I could be on my way. Home was a long walk, but maybe I could stop at Keiun, and if I told Sanzo everything I knew, maybe he’d be a dude and let me stay the night there. I’d be dog tired by then.

I pounded on the door so loudly I bruised my fist. “Hey! Willis? You in there?”

The town was so quiet, not even my voice echoed back at me.

“C’mon, you damn intellectual fuck! Open the door!”

Still nothing.

“I’m gonna break it down!” I gave the door a kick, but it didn’t give, and I just wound up hurting my leg.

Stomping and cursing, I stumbled back to take a deep breath and reassess the situation. The building was shabby—there could be another way in, or they might all be locked up tight like this one. Whatever happened, I didn’t dare leave empty-handed. Like Sanzo said, this was serious. It didn’t matter that stupid Hakkai couldn’t see that or had stopped caring. I wanted to know what it was all about.

“Willis!” I threw myself against the door again, beating for all I was worth. “Open this damn door!”

Suddenly, the door sprang open, almost smacking me in the face, and I was staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

“Fuck!”

“Hanyou,” a voice hissed from the darkness. Fingers caught the front of my shirt, dragging me into the shadows.

The door slammed shut again, cutting out the light, and I whipped around, panting, straining to see whoever was at the other end of the shotgun hovering in front of my face. All it took was for them to get a good look at me and decide they didn’t want to deal with whatever I had to say.

I pressed back against the wall, heart slamming hard. “Wh-who are you?”

“Who are you?” that hissing voice demanded. The muzzle of the shotgun nudged my chest. “Are you wild? Like the others. Did you come here from Tai-Ping?”

“T-Tai-Ping? I don’t know what that—”

The shotgun touched my chin. “Don’t lie to me, hanyou. I know what you are.”

“Look,” I drew a shaky breath, but I didn’t know what to say to get myself out of this mess. “My name’s Gojyo, not hanyou. Got it?”

The voice laughed lowly. “Am I supposed to care about that? Your kind are a scourge to the earth—that’s all that matters.”

“I’m looking for Willis,” I said quickly. “That’s all I want. I didn’t come here to start trouble.”

They seemed to hesitate. My eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness, but I still couldn’t make out much aside from the shape of someone’s head, shorter than me, and just out of arm’s reach. The shotgun gleamed. I could only imagine the finger lying lightly across the trigger. It wouldn’t take much. Just me saying the wrong thing.

“What do you want with Willis?” they wanted to know. It sounded almost like a woman’s voice this time.

“I came to find Willis about the lab. Priest Sanzo from Keiun sent me to find out what happened there.”

The dark figured stiffened, and suddenly they turned away, lowering the shotgun.

Perfectly still, I waited while they rushed around the room, collecting something, and after a second I heard the sound of a match lighting, and a wavering light filled the darkness.

I found myself staring at a woman not much older than I was. She was short and slim with her hair tied back in a messy bun, dressed in fatigues and a leather jacket with black gloves. She kept the shotgun pointed at the floor as she walked back over to me, holding her lantern up in her free hand. Her eyes were blue, and she looked like she was half-foreign. Western.

“Priest Sanzo?” she repeated. “Priest Genjyo Sanzo?”

“Y-yeah…” my mouth was so dry I almost couldn’t speak. “You know him?”

“I know of him.” She frowned, looking me up and down. “What’s a hanyou like you doing running errands for a high-ranking priest like Gejyo Sanzo?”

“Good question,” I muttered, lighting my cigarette. “Look…I don’t have time to chat. If you’re not gonna shoot me, tell me where I can find Willis, and I’ll get out of your way.”

She let out a sudden laugh and suddenly hoisted herself up to sit on the bare table in the middle of the room, setting the lantern aside there. “You’re looking for Willis, huh? Well, you’re in luck, boy. Here I am.”

I studied her skeptically. “You’re Willis? The scientist from the lab?”

“We call it Hybrid-Tech Facility number 4, but yes, that’s me. Sandra Willis.”

“And I’m just supposed to believe that? You don’t look like a scientist.”

“Scientists don’t tend to have a look, but you look like a half-youkai, and not many people know what to look for in such a rare breed. How could I know that unless I’ve studied such things?”

“I’ve met other people who know what a hybrid looks like,” I growled.

“Oh, I’m sure you have. Educated people. Or people who have seen one born before. Other than that, the appearance of the children of taboo isn’t common knowledge.”

Hakkai was educated—he said he’d read about hybrids when he was in school. Sanzo knew too, because he was a high-ranking priest. Other than that, she was right. People like Banri knew because they’d been around hanyou before.

“Fine, so you’re Willis,” I agreed.

“Go ahead and call me Sandra,” she suggested. “I think my life as a scientist is at an end.” She cocked her head, sizing me up. Her blue eyes were fiery and full of passion and the will to survive. “Explain to me why Genjyo Sanzo sent you to find me.”

Taking another deep breath, I lit a cigarette, trying to calm down from the shock of being held at gunpoint out of nowhere. Hard to believe how much more nerve-wracking stuff like that seemed when Hakkai didn’t have my back. “My partner and I went to your…facility… Almost two months ago now.”

Willis’ eyes flickered and her pink lips frowned. She lowered her head. “I see…”

“What we found there… Sanzo wanted us to figure out what it was all about… We thought all the scientists went missing.”

“They didn’t go missing, Gojyo,” she corrected. Something about that matter-of-fact tone reminded me of Hakkai, and I wished he were with me. I was afraid to miss all the details he’d normally pick up. “They were killed.”

“Yeah, I saw that.” I tried not to think about that messy scene in the room where Hakkai found his time machine notes. “It looked like they were torn apart… Eaten.”

“That’s right,” she agreed, still sounding way too calm.

“Well, do you wanna tell me how it happened? That’s what I’m here for.”

Willis sighed, sadly, and to my surprise she lit a cigarette of her own, laid her shotgun down so she could lean back on her arms, and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know really. One day, the youkai members of our team just…lost their minds. I was lucky to survive.”

“Wait a minute. You’re telling me some of your own team did that? Tore their buddies apart and just left them like that?”

“It seems that way. I don’t know, exactly—I managed to escape in the middle of the chaos, and I never went back to see the aftermath, but based off what I did see… Yes. Those youkai attacked their human colleagues.”

My stomach did a flop as I thought about what Hakkai and me saw again. He’d said it—it had to have been a youkai that did that—but I’d figured it was some experiment gone wrong, that the scientists sort of got what they deserved, not something messed up like what she’d just said. “Why would they do that?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out, Gojyo.”

Again, she said it like I should have realized that by myself.

“It doesn’t look like it. You’ve just been hiding down here, holed up in a broken-down dive.”

She eyed me with some contempt. “You’re not very smart, are you? Most hybrids have a deficiency when it comes to intelligence.”

“Hey,” I snarled. “I’m not dumb either. I just don’t know what the fuck’s going on around here. This whole town is freaky—I’ll give you that—but nothing I’ve seen so far has explained why a bunch of tree-hugging sciencey types would flip out one day and try to make their friends into lunch meat.”

Willis gave a delicate, girly laugh. “Sorry, then. First of all, the scientists in facility four weren’t exactly tree-huggers. We did a lot of experiments that would likely make your skin crawl, and I can’t say it was necessarily for the betterment of humanity.”

“Why then?”

“There are some things we wanted to know,” she explained through a breath of smoke. “Boundaries we wanted to push. Rules we wanted to break. You might call it playing God. That is the nature of mankind.”

Just like Hakkai and his damned time machine… He’d fit right in with those assholes.

I couldn’t help wincing.

Willis suddenly jumped down from the table and strode toward me, looking me over again, this time with more interest. “Tell me about your birth.”

“What the hell does that matter right now?” Never mind that it wasn’t something I wanted to get into at all.

“People are stupid. In many cases, hanyou are born out of some witless facsimile of love, or a perversion of instinct.”

My face flushed.

Before I could shout at her, she said, “But most of your kind are made in labs. Youkai and human women are artificially inseminated with samples from the opposite species, respectively.”

“What in the hell for?”

She shrugged. She’d gotten closer now and was making a half-circle around me, drinking in my every detail with a fascinated gleam in her eye. “For experiments, mostly. Again, it’s a boundary man naturally feels the urge to push. In some cases, they’re a request—the monstrously rich have been known to order a hanyou to keep as a pet, or a slave, or a sex toy.”

A shiver ran down my spine. “That’s fucked up,” I husked.

Giggling again, she said, “Seeing how you’re unfamiliar with such practices, I’m going to assume you’re somebody’s ill-fated lovechild.”

Too bad Hakkai wasn’t here. I’d like to think he’d throw a fit to hear anyone talk about me like this, but since he’d decided it was cool to dump my ass and run into the past after Kanan, I wasn’t sure. Maybe it didn’t make any real difference that he wasn’t with me for this.

“I didn’t come here to talk about me,” I told her roughly. “I want to know why those youkai attacked the other scientists. Was it an experiment gone wrong?”

“No.” She ashed nonchalantly on the floor and let her hair down. She’d be really beautiful if she weren’t such a cold bitch. “I have no idea what happened to my youkai colleagues. It seemed they simply lost their minds one day, all at once. We’d noticed some strange behavior in them during the weeks preceding the catastrophe, but nothing telling. No real precursor to the horror in store for us. I don’t have an explanation for why that happened. Yet.”

“You’re trying to find one though, right? Does asking me weird questions about my birth and telling me fucked up shit about my kind help with that?”

“It could,” she agreed absently. “It’s possible youkai have something in their genetic makeup which humans lack that led them to go…berserk, so to speak. I wonder about you though. You don’t seem crazed, just a little scared.”

“I’m not scared.” I tried to hide the shaking in my hands from her, but she’d probably noticed already. “What do you think you can learn down here?”

With another sigh, she dropped her cigarette and stomped it out, only half-smoked. “Since the incident, this village has experienced a number of attacks like the one I saw that day.”

“So the youkai scientists escaped and came down here?”

She shook her head and whispered, “No, I don’t think so, Gojyo. According to the townspeople, their youkai neighbors suddenly lost their minds and attacked, just like my colleagues. Dozens of humans were killed, some even devoured. The youkai who survived fled into the woods and have been raiding the place ever since. I thought I could learn something by studying the bodies of the youkai who have been killed, but there’s nothing. No disease, at least. Nothing physical that can explain what’s going on. It’s been a useless endeavor, and I may as well leave, but…I must admit, I’m a little afraid to go off on my own right now.” She fixed a serious look on me. “This is a time of chaos. If I were you, I’d be very careful—you’re as likely to be attacked as anyone else. For all you know, you’re going to go berserk next.”

My heart thumped all the louder. “Can I? Do you think? Hybrids…?”

She nodded. “Before I came here, I was in a town called Tai-Ping. I might have been crazy to go there, but it’s a community of youkai and hanyou—not many humans are even allowed to visit—and they, like the youkai in this town, all went berserk, killed humans, and ran away. There were a few hybrids among them. I know at least one of them lost his mind as well.”

I stared down at my hands, thinking. I hadn’t felt weird at all lately. Hakkai didn’t seem like he was acting weird, other than suddenly having an obsession for traveling back in time. I wondered about Goku. The kid had seemed normal the few times I’d seen him since we were at the lab, but maybe that was why Sanzo hadn’t asked him to deal with this after Hakkai bailed.

“If I go to Tai-Ping,” I wondered quietly. “Do you think I’ll find anything else out? Do you think there’s anything the three different attacks have in common?”

“I didn’t notice,” she answered flippantly. “If I didn’t, I seriously doubt you will.”

“Oh, nice,” I snarled. “You know, I was gonna offer to walk you home, or at least help you get somewhere a little safer.”

“I wouldn’t want to put my life in your hands anyway. You seem sane now, but you could turn on me.”

“Fine.” I stomped for the door. “Good luck then, lady.”

I heard her laugh again. “When you see Genjyo Sanzo again… If you see him again… Tell him to send someone a little smarter next time.”

I slammed the door behind me.

As I walked away from the bar, I fumed. Here I came down here to try and figure this mess out—to try and help—even without my partner, who happened to be the smart and capable one, and that bitch just treated me like a second-class citizen. Where did she get off, calling me stupid and telling me that fucked up shit about hybrids?

Mom used to say people like me weren’t good for anything but sex. Since trying to get laid was how I spent a lot of my time ever since I was thirteen or fourteen years old, it must have sunk in somewhere, but I wondered if she’d meant the same thing Willis had told me—that rich purebloods bred us specifically for…

No. I didn’t want to think about that. It was just too fucked up. Sleeping around a lot wasn’t like being raised to be a sex slave, getting raped every night as soon as you were old enough to…

Stop thinking about this.

I paused in the middle of the street to light a cigarette and try to get my bearings. The town was darker than ever, and there wasn’t a soul around. The sky overhead was black and starless. I wondered what Hakkai was doing right now. Most nights, he worked until dusk, and then he set up lights so he could keep working until he was exhausted. Once or twice I’d found him passed out in the snowy garden, shuddering and mumbling about Kanan, and I’d dragged him inside to bed. I worried he’d get really sick doing shit like that, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He wasn’t listening to me about anything, and that was nothing new. He thought he knew everything, and I was just a dumb hanyou who was lucky not to be bred as some rich fuck’s fetish…

At least if Hakkai was here he could tell me to forget all that. He could say something that made sense. He could remind me that I was a person—he was good at that. Even if he didn’t know how, he always thought of some way to distract me so I could forget about it.

What is going on with him? Why is he so determined to leave me?

I didn’t want to think about that either. It was up to Hakkai what he did and where he went, and I couldn’t stop him. I wasn’t going to beg him to stay, but…thinking about how friendless and bleak life would be without him was too much.

I turned around in the street suddenly, facing the direction where I’d seen the pillar of smoke earlier. I saw an orangey glow that way, and I could sort of make out the ashy cloud polluting the night air. The wind carried a foul smell. I decided I wanted to figure out exactly what was going on in this town before I headed back to Hakkai. It was a long walk anyway, so what the hell, why not?

Navigating through the unlit streets at night was hard. The road was rough, and I kept stumbling in potholes or tripping over rocks, but it was easy to follow the fiery glow, and before I knew it I was at the edge of town, facing an open field, coated in crystalline white, and the wind whipped through the clearing, bitterer than ever.

Most of the town was gathered there around a huge bonfire, like they were having a party, but nobody danced or drank or laughed. In fact, no one was even speaking. I heard some sobbing.

Stacked off to one side, I saw a huge pile of bodies, thrown one on top of another, irreverently, and most of them had been stripped naked. All of them had the pointy ears and sharp claws of youkai. I even saw little children, crushed under the bodies of adults. Human men were picking up corpses one after another and throwing them carelessly onto the fire. The air was choked with the despicable scent of burning flesh.

For the longest time, I just stood there and stared. Willis said the youkai in this town went crazy, attacked humans, and ran away. There were enough bodies there to account for the whole youkai populace. Did that mean the humans had hunted them down and dragged them all back here, or…? I mean, was it possible some of the youkai hadn’t lost their minds yet and their neighbors just killed them as a preemptive strike?

The idea put an unshakeable chill in my bones and a sick feeling in my guts. That was way too fucked up. It was all too fucked up—eating people, murdering innocents, torching the bodies like some kind of ritual…

Sanzo wasn’t kidding about this being a bigger deal than it seemed like.

Someone gasped suddenly and shouted, “That man! The outsider—he’s seen us!”

I blinked myself out of my horror-stricken trance and noticed a group of townspeople clustered together, faces drawn with terror, pointing at me. A few men rushed toward me—I even recognized several of the guys from earlier.

The old man who’d had the pitchfork grabbed up a chainsaw and stormed toward me, his face ruthless with resolve. He yanked the starter, and the saw roared to life, filling the silence with a terrifying sound of certain death. Lugging it with him, he ran in my direction.

Another man cried, “We can’t let him get away! We can’t let him tell!”

“Oh, holy fuck, no,” I whispered.

Tossing my cigarette, I spun around and ran back the way I’d come.

I was fast, but I kept running into dead ends and getting turned around, and the mob closed in on me, shouting angrily and carrying torches. The guy with the chainsaw was surprisingly fast for his age, and it seemed like every time I looked over my shoulder he’d gotten a step closer, bearing down on me with the saw, eager to chop my body to bits.

My heart slammed so hard I thought I wouldn’t even be able to run, but if I stopped they’d be on me. Staggering and sliding through snow and pitfalls, I cursed the darkened streets. Did they make it like this on purpose? So if someone dropped by and saw what they were doing they could kill them easier?

The lunatics screamed for me to stop where I was. I didn’t know why they’d bother. Sometimes they insisted they just wanted to talk, but the hum of the chainsaw motor always reminded me I couldn’t take that chance.

I turned a corner and dashed down an alley.

At the other end, a group of men jumped in my way and surged at me.

Behind me, the sound of the chainsaw bounced down the walls.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

I summoned my shakujou. The alley was so narrow I had to carry it vertically.

Not understanding what it was, the men rushed at me.

I whacked off one guy’s legs, and he collapsed in a heap, screaming and writhing. Hot blood sprayed across my shirt.

The others shouted and paused.

I plowed through them, shaking them off and racing into the street again. I recognized the tree with the fresh graves planted under it, just ahead.

With a burst of speed, I leapt over the fence, crashed through the graveyard, and sprinted out into the woods and the night.

It didn’t matter what direction I went, I just had to get away.

Past Gojyo

Hakkai woke me up a few times, like he said he would, once when the moon was directly above us, once when it was getting close to the horizon, and one more time when the sky was starting to brighten. Each time, he talked to me a few minutes, asking me questions like, “what’s your address and what’s your birth date”, and then he gave me some pills for my headache and some water, and told me to go back to sleep.

That was easy since I felt so tired, and it was good to know he was close by, keeping watch.

The next time, I woke up by myself, and it was already eight or nine in the morning. Hakkai was cooking something over his fire, and he greeted me quietly and told me to lie still while he finished making the food.

“How do you feel?” he asked while I ate.

“Better, I think.”

“Does your head still hurt?”

“Not so bad.”

“And the dizziness?”

I looked around the forest, but everything was normal. “It’s gone.”

“You’re not seeing double or anything like that?”

“No.”

“Do your ears ring?”

I shook my head.

“Are you nauseated?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

He nodded. “You’ll be fine, I believe, but you should take it easy for a few days.”

I didn’t know how I could do that. If I went home, I didn’t know if Mom would let me hide in my room for a few days, but I did know she wouldn’t let me lie around the house and watch cartoons. Jien couldn’t take off work to babysit me.

There wasn’t anywhere else to go though. I couldn’t camp out for a few days—that wasn’t taking it easy at all.

Suddenly, Hakkai got up from where he’d been sitting on the other side of the fire and came over to sit down in front of me, cross-legged. He looked seriously into my eyes, and his voice was gentle. “I want to discuss something important with you.”

I blinked at him and popped some bacon in my mouth. “’Kay.”

“I understand you only just met me yesterday, but please believe me when I say my concern for you is genuine.”

I cocked my head and studied him. Maybe I was naïve, but Hakkai just didn’t seem like a liar, and he had a really honest face. “I believe you.”

“Good.” He cleared his throat and clasped his hands together, staring down at them thoughtfully. “Last night, you told me something rather disturbing about the interaction between your stepmother and your brother. I somehow doubt he’s taken the time to talk about this with you… Well, why would he? I’m sure he’s ashamed of it.”

“What’re you talkin’ about?”

He sighed. “I just want to make sure you understand how…unnatural your home life is.”

“’Cause she hits me, right? Other moms don’t hit their kids… Do they?”

“Well, no, not as such. That isn’t precisely what I mean. If it’s true the two of them engage in…er…intimate relations…”

He paused, and I realized he wanted me to tell him for sure whether or not they did. Last night, I hadn’t meant to babble that out, but there wasn’t any taking it back now. “Yeah…” I looked away. “Sometimes.”

“That is not natural behavior for a mother and son—not by any means—that’s known as incest.” He sighed. “Not that I’m one to have much to say about incest in and of itself…”

“This’s confusing.”

“I know. I apologize. It’s a delicate subject. The important thing though—the thing I’d like to stress to you—is that Jien’s course of actions are not necessarily the most prudent. It could be there’s some very real emotional or mental ailment behind that behavior, particularly where she’s concerned, and it…” He paused again, and his expression hardened. “It’s wrong, Gojyo. A mother and son should not be doing that, and it distresses me to hear that watching them perform that action has left you feeling conflicted. Jien shouldn’t be doing that, regardless of the reason, and I don’t at all want you to grow up thinking you should try it next. She may not be your mother by blood, but regardless, there are healthy reasons to engage in sexual intercourse with someone, and unhealthy reasons. For example, things like love and respect are integral to sexual intercourse, and reasons like guilt, or shame, or insecurity would be unhealthy reasons.” He stopped suddenly, eyebrows knitting together, as if he were feeling somewhat confused himself. “Do you understand?”

“I think so…”

“I just…you’ll be a young man before you know it, and this misconception could be damaging to your development, and that concerns me. Furthermore, it absolutely is not okay to allow anyone in a position of authority to take advantage of you simply because it might make them feel better, and although I don’t know very much about this particular situation—I’m completely new to it—I assume that’s what’s happened to Jien.”

I tried to remember the first time they’d done each other, but…it just seemed like something that happened before I knew it.

Hakkai grumbled under his breath, “I’ve never had such a hard time explaining anything in my life… I feel as if I’m pushing a boulder up a hill.” He looked earnestly into my eyes. “Don’t sleep with your mother, Gojyo-chan. Don’t even consider the possibility that it might make her love you, because it won’t. This is not the way family is supposed to behave, and these are not the things they’re supposed to be teaching you. Being intimate with someone is worth more than a cheap distraction.”

“I know.” I lowered my eyes. “I know nothing can ever make her love me…”

“No,” he agreed quietly. “I suppose if she doesn’t love you by this time, she’s never going to. But there will be other people in your life who will love you. They’ll matter much more than any of this.”

I couldn’t even imagine that. “Yeah right. When?”

“Not too long.”

I shook my head and lit a cigarette, repeating, “Yeah right.”

“Gojyo.” He lifted my chin to look me in the eyes again. His were greener than the grass, and they burned with an intense expression. Again, I felt like I had to believe whatever he said. I felt like he wouldn’t lie to me. “I promise,” he said firmly.

Meeting anyone who would actually care about me still sounded impossible, but I nodded. For all I knew, it could happen.

“Good. Now, if you’re finished eating I think we should get you home.”

My stomach squirmed. “Home… Really?”

“Yes.” He stood up and started picking up his stuff. “If Jien is any sort of decent brother he’s been looking for you.”

“My concussion though.” I couldn’t help feeling betrayed. I hadn’t thought he’d make me go back there after everything I told him.

Hakkai hesitated and sighed. “I’m sorry, Gojyo. I wish I didn’t have to take you back there, but I don’t know where else you would go, and having a roof over your head is an important part of childhood.”

“I could go with you,” I said smally.

Hakkai smiled sadly. “Ah…that… If only I were going somewhere you could go as well.”

“I can’t go with you to Cheng?”

“I’m not sure I’m going to Cheng anymore.”

“Why?”

“It’s occurred to me that perhaps I should simply return home…if I even can.”

I stared at him. He was really a weird guy. “How come you can’t go home?”

“Oh, I don’t know yet if I can. We’ll see, I suppose.” He slung his pack over one shoulder, and Jeep hopped to the other.

“Can’t I go home with you?”

He faced me. “Do you really want to go with me? Do you really want to leave your brother and everything else you know?”

That bothered me. On one hand, I didn’t have anything else in this town I cared about, but…Jien. I didn’t know if I wanted to leave him. I still felt like we needed to stick together. “I don’t know.”

“Whatever you decide, I’ll be in town a while longer, I think, so there’s still time to figure something out.”

I got up too, holding the coat he’d spread over me last night. I wondered why he was even wearing a coat in the middle of the summer. “You’re staying a while? Are you gonna keep camping out?”

Hakkai shrugged and started to lead the way back to town. “Perhaps I’ll ask your mother if I can stay a few nights at your house.”

I couldn’t help smiling as I trotted up to walk next to him. “Really? That’d be cool.”

Hakkai just nodded. “Regardless of what I do, I want you to keep in mind what we talked about. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, okay. I will.” I lit another cigarette.

He added under his breath, “Also…perhaps you should consider giving up smoking. Jien may not have told you this either, but it’s considered to be quite hazardous to your health.”

I took a deep breath of the tobacco. “I like smoking.”

This time he chuckled and ruffled my hair, “I know you do, Goj.”

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