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sukirichi · 3 years

Note

wine: ingredient 27 + spice 1/11/19 for feral!megumi pls and thank u 👀 💕

— unstoppable

now that megumi’s had a taste of you, there’s nothing stopping him from having more.

meal order: 27 (siblings’ friend au) + 1,11,19 (breeding kink, dumbification, dirty talking)

feral megumi x fem! reader

content/warnings: nsfw, breeding kink, dumbification, dirty talking, feral megumi, the breeding kink is MASSIVE, we’re talking about babies here so just tread lightly, unedited fic. megumi is really uh...FERAL, so get your holy water

masterlist ! my milestone event !

Megumi’s large palm covered your mouth, preventing the lewd sounds of your moan to echo around the room. His cock is buried into you to the hilt, your walls spasming around him like crazy while you stare up at him with large eyes.

His eyes are narrowed, teeth sunken into the swell of his lips as he watches his fat cock plunge in and out of your squelching hole. He’s wanted to do this for so long, to finally claim you as his, but it was just so damn impossible to be near you when his older sister never left the room.

Megumi couldn’t even remember when or how this started. All he knew was that one day his sister brought you home for a sleepover or whatever, and the first thing he noticed was your smile.

You cowered under his sharp gaze when he caught you rummaging the fridge that night while his sister was already sound asleep, and Megumi was half sleepwalking with the same mission as yours. Through his tired daze, his cock immediately hardened at the sight of you bent over as you reached down, ass perked and tits free from a bra.

Before any of you could realize what was happening, Megumi tugged your wrists, dragging you to his room where you were now laying on his bed, legs wide open and begging for him to go harder.

“G-Gumi, please,” you whined, eyes rolling at the back of your head. It was too dirty; Megumi’s grip on your hips kept slipping because of the sweat coating both of your bodies, the loud sound of skin slapping against skin barely muffled under the sheets. “Ha-harder, Gumi, fuck, right there,” your hips snap forwards to meet the harsh thrusts of his cock, his fingers teasing as he rubs your clit.

“Say that again,” Megumi groaned in your ear, nipping at the flesh when your nails gripped at his ass to pull him closer. “Fuck, baby, you feel so good. You’re so fucking tight around me,” at his words, your walls clench around him, aroused that your best friend’s seemingly quiet younger brother had such ability to exude this sexual prowess.

Megumi didn’t miss the way you tighten around him, small gasps hidden through his palm. He laughed at your state, but follows your command anyway.

He moved upward and leaned closer to you, removing his palm from your hand to wipe away the hair plastered on your sweaty skin. “Moan for me,” he demanded, pupils blown wide with lust while his pace slowed down. You’re left gasping and shaking under his arms when Megumi begins a torturous pace of pulling out his cock inch by inch, letting you feel the way the veins on his dick kiss your wet walls before slamming back in one go.

Your breasts bounced at the thrust and your tongue lolls out, gasping for the air he’s deprived you of. Always having been eager to please, you wrapped your legs around his slender waist, moaning as loud as you could. Megumi’s thrusts increased in pace at how good you were for him.

“Fuck,” Megumi planted his palm beside your face, thumb pinching at the tongue that was making a mess all over his pillow. “Look at you, so fucked out. You’re a naughty little girl, aren’t you? I bet you really wanted me to fuck you – walking around with that ass and your tits hanging out. What would you do if my sister finds out?” he latched his teeth into the crook of your shoulder, faltering for a moment when he hits your g-spot and you scream around his cock. “Fuck, baby, you’re not even trying to be quiet. You’re basically begging to be caught, aren’t you?”

You couldn’t answer him. All you could feel is Megumi’s harsh rutting, his cock hitting places deeper than your fingers or any man could. “N-no,” you defended yourself lamely, eyes closed while Megumi squeezes your cheek. “I’m a good girl, ‘Gumi, I’m g-good for you, oh,” you fist the sheets beside you when he hits a certain sensitive spot that has you seeing white.

Megumi growled at your submission, chuckling when he saw how your pussy eagerly sucked him in. “Your pussy looks so pretty wrapped around my cock,” he used two fingers to spread your lips open, sucking in a breath once he saw that his dick was already creamed white. “Such a dirty little girl – but you’re good for me, aren’t you? You’ll always warm my dick, yeah? Such a good fucking girl – I could fuck you all day and ruin your insides until you’re mine.”

Your eyes snapped open at his words, mouth falling open.

“Well?” he questioned, snapping his hips harder when you only clutch at his bicep, panting wordlessly. “Shit,” Megumi snickered, “Have you gone too dumb to answer me, baby? Too fucked out on my cock?” He leant down to suck at your tits, hands coming up to tug at his hair at the overwhelming sensation. “Tell me how good I’m making you feel. Tell me.”

“F-fuck,” was all you ever managed to say, your legs aching and sore from him pushing into you relentlessly. Megumi didn’t let down one bit, only prompting you to voice out your pleasure to please him. “S-so good, Gumi, too much, your cock is too much, fill me up, fill me up, please, I want—”

“You want me to fuck a baby in you?”

You nodded, too lost in your own heaven and hell to even make sense of things anymore. Megumi nipped at your flesh, his cock already twitching inside you. It seemed that both of you had the same thing in mind because Megumi pushes your legs open wider for him, allowing him to hit deeper and his strokes longer than before.

“I’m going to fill you full with my cum, okay?” he rasped into your skin, and you cry around him, cheeks pressed into his pillow that smelled a lot like boy shampoo. “You’re going to make me a dad and you’ll be such a pretty mommy, belly round with my kid and bulging with my cum.”

“Y-yes, Gumi, please, fuck a baby in me,” you drawled out, your arm reached out behind you to grasp at the headboard. The way Megumi snapped his hips to yours had your head and body shoving backwards, the friction against your skin hot and irritating, but you couldn’t care anymore. Your head is empty, thoughts filled with nothing but being such a young mom with Megumi fathering your kids, your pussy soaked in his cum and stomach round with life. “Baby, baby, baby,” your words were incomprehensible, hands running everywhere just to feel him close to you. “Fuck a baby in me, Megumi, come on, do it for me.”

“So fucking precious,” Megumi praised, and you thought – no, you believed – he’d already be satisfied when he stills, his toned abdomen clenching as Megumi groaned, releasing his load inside you.

Like the good girl you were, you spasmed your walls around his twitching dick, fingers fumbling to scoop all the dripping cum back into your body. Megumi didn’t pull out as he kissed you, his hands curling into a fist to grapple at your hair, both of you moaning breathlessly into each other’s mouth.

“So full,” you gasped, wincing slightly at the oversensitivity. “Thank you, Megumi. I-I feel so good, heaven, yes, fuck.”

Megumi laughed at how fucked out you are. But he wasn’t done with you yet, not when he’d already had a taste of what your pussy felt like. He couldn’t erase the image of you walking around with a huge belly mothering his kids, igniting something feral within him. Before you could open your eyes and pull him out, Megumi flipped you over, hands pulling your ass flat on his crotch while your face planted on the pillows.

“Me-Megumi!” you gasped when you felt his dick lining up at your entrance again, his cock still impossibly harder.

“What, baby girl?” he challenged with a sinister undertone as he rubbed the tip of his cock into your flushed, squirming lips. You were so wet that he slid inside easily and you both took a sharp breath; just like him, you were still so ready, ready to be fucked again. “I’m not done with you yet,” his hand came down to push your face onto the neck until you’re struggling to breathe, but it only urged Megumi when the lack of air had your walls suffocating him.

With a dark laugh, Megumi exhaled into your ear, the warm breath sending chills down your spine. “I’m going to fuck you until you can’t walk, until you’re so sore and filled with my cum you’re begging me to save you from my misery – and you’ll take it all a good girl. I’m not stopping until I know for sure you’re carrying my child.”

Before you could say anything else, Megumi had already fucked you so hard he got his wish; to see you sprawled on his sheets, drooling and crying all over his pillow, and he remained true to his word.

Megumi didn’t stop until your belly was bulging with his cum.

He’d gone absolutely feral, and he was unstoppable.

#fushiguro megumi x reader #megumi x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #fushiguro megumi x reader smut #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen imagines #jjk #megumi x reader imagines #jjk x reader #megumi x reader smut #fushiguro megumi imagines #fushiguro megumi #fushiguro megumi x reader romance #jujutsu kaisen smut #fushiguro megumi smut #megumi x reader fluff #megumi x reader fics #fushiguro megumi x reader imagines #suki: 500 milestone event

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prurientpuddlejumper · 3 years

Text

Hopelessness of Wanting [Part 3]

<- Part 2 | Part 4 ->

Frederick Chilton x Reader

Chilton struggles with his discomfort being touched and desire to cuddle, and grapples with his conscience.

Warnings: Mentions of suicide attempt & noncon (from previous chapters). Angsty fluff.

2,300 words

“You’re coming home with me,” Dr. Chilton said with the authoritative tone of your boss, the hospital administrator. Then you looked at him with questions in your eyes, and his confidence quickly broke. “That is… I would like you to come home with me. It would be professionally irresponsible to leave you alone. You just tried to—”

“I didn’t,” you interjected. “I didn’t try to do anything. I just…” Thought about it. Planned it. Began to execute the plan. But you didn’t do anything.

Chilton watched you, his analytical gaze muddied with guilt. He held your arm as if you might drift away if he didn’t. You glanced down the wide marble hallway of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, but no one was there to see him grasping you so familiarly. You should have known it was safe—Dr. Chilton wouldn’t have risked public affection if there was a chance of being discovered. The main hall was darkened. This wasn’t an emergency hospital, so there were only one or two medical personnel on call overnight, and guards whose rounds Chilton knew by heart.

“If you prefer, I could have you kept under observation. However, it would be more pleasant if I did it myself. Simply to make sure you are alright.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not like I’ve never thought about killing myself before. I’ve never gone through with it,” you shrugged dismissively.

“That is not a reason not to be worried,” his voice pitched up in alarm. “In fact, I am more concerned that this is a pattern.”

Fuck. You forgot you were talking to a psychiatrist.

How could you make him understand you didn’t need help? You would never have the guts to actually go through with it, however much you wanted to. Were you even depressed? Probably not. You were just a dumb, dramatic, half-assed piece of shit who couldn’t even finish—STOP!

Fuck.

“OK,” you conceded, tongue numb and heavy. “If you think it’s best… I’ll go with you.”

***

It wasn’t until you were sobbing in the passenger seat of his classic red cabriolet that Chilton began to have doubts about his own intentions.

“Perhaps it would be better if I brought you to a friend’s house,” he offered softly. Your head shot up, puffy eyes filled with—of all things—betrayal. “Or a hospital.”

“You’re going to check me into a psych ward after fucking me?”

He stiffened. In the few months you’d worked at BSHCI, you always seemed cheerful and naïve—the cutting remark took him by surprise.

Right after you made it, your hands flew to your mouth. “Sorry…” you murmured, equally taken aback. “I didn’t mean that. I know you would never take advantage of me.”

The apology cut deeper than the insult, though you wouldn’t understand why. He fell silent and stricken as he turned the ignition.

Dr. Chilton’s home was an obscenely modern monstrosity with all white walls, white kitchen, hard angles, and open spaces that gave it an air of luxury, but moreover, vacancy. It was a five-star hotel: grandiose, without a single hint of a person living in it.

He offered you the guest-room, like a gentleman—no! He would take the guest-room, and you could—

The press of your lips cut off his nervous babbling. You smiled (a weak, tired smile so different from the sunlight that radiated from your face in public) and said you didn’t want to be alone. So he led you to his bedroom, another pompously large space that dwarfed the king-size bed at its center. He often had trouble sleeping, but never considered that his bedroom’s fishbowl quality could have anything to do with it.

His blood pressure was dangerously high as he stood next to his bed. How was he supposed to sleep next to you? Undress in front of you? He was near panic at his foolish decision to bring you home when there was a sudden weight around his middle grabbing him from behind. He gasped and jerked away before realizing, quite obviously, it was you. But his heart was still racing in his ears, and he winced as you reached for him again.

“Don’t… touch me, please.”

Your eyes widened, mortified. “S-sorry sir,” you stammered, and it didn’t escape his notice that your entire body went rigid, or that you reverted to calling him “sir” like when he was reprimanding you at work. You must have been expecting him to blow up at you. He’d conditioned this response. He’d successfully made you afraid of him, and his reward was a sharp pang in his chest.

His hands found your shoulders, and he pressed a chaste kiss to your forehead. “It is all right,” he said. His best effort to be comforting came out dreadfully stiff and monotone. “And you… you may call me Frederick, if you like.”

He watched your throat tighten as you swallowed. With relief, he felt your shoulders relax, and then you looked up—your eyes fell on his like dawn breaking over Chesapeake Bay. Your mouth shaped into the first syllable of his name, but paused as your eyes locked on his left cheek.

“Oh,” you exclaimed. “Is it because…” You reached up to caress the round scar where a bullet had entered, but withdrew your hand quickly before making contact (and had the decency to blanch at your faux pas).

“Yes,” he gritted his teeth. “Because of that.” And because of the ones left on his abdomen by Gideon’s scalpel. And the scars not visible on the surface, left by years of neglect.

You shifted uncomfortably, seemingly at a loss if physical contact was off-limits. “I’m sorry.”

“It is all right. I am fine.”

Your lips twitched upward at that, and a gentle, sarcastic puff of air escaped your nose. Chilton straightened his posture—he’d been called out, and he knew it. If anyone else had dared laugh, he likely would have gone into a defensive pique and shut down, but instead, he returned your lopsided smirk.

Look at the two of you, pretending you’re fine. Just fine.

“That is to say, I am not incapable of touch”—he squeezed your shoulders as if to prove a point—“Our… rendezvous earlier was… enjoyable. I simply do not like being caught by surprise,” he explained haltingly. His cheeks heated. The truth was, he was bluffing: he had little experience with affectionate touch, so he couldn’t say what he was comfortable with. But surprises he was certain he did not appreciate.

“Then are you sure about sharing a bed?” you asked with tentative shyness. “I like cuddling. But if it doesn’t feel good to you, then…”

“It will be more than all right,” so long as you do not thrash too much in your sleep, he added mentally. He frowned. “I would like to enjoy cuddling.”

But he was never conditioned to enjoy physical contact by affectionate parents or by lovers, and life experience had done little but teach him to anticipate pain. Dr. Chilton understood how abnormal brains functioned. He knew he might never gain that oxytocin boost normal people get from the act of twining their bodies around each other. Still, it meant a great deal that you wanted to twine your body around his—that his simple presence pressed claustrophobically to your skin might invoke a positive emotional response.

Exposure therapy was the only treatment. If he was to become accustomed to being touched, he must practice.

“What should I do to support you?”

“Just go slowly,” he yielded. “Give me warning.”

***

He didn’t know why he showed you. Perhaps there was no other choice—sleeping with contact lenses always made his eyes red and irritated by morning. But perhaps he hoped that you would run away and get it over with. A masochistic side of him wanted to see your face contort in horror, disgust. For you to realize this hideous thing had fucked you, and curse him for hiding the truth.

Anticipation of your impending rejection felt like a boulder lifting off his chest. He was being crushed under his own happiness, unaccustomed to bearing your thoughtful gazes and kind words. The world would be right again when you ran.

“Come here a moment,” he called you into the master bathroom, voice calm but a quarter octave too high with strain. “You deserve to see this.”

Every muscle in his frail, hacked-to-pieces-and-put-back-together body tensed as you cautiously poked your head through the door and saw him standing in front of the mirror. You remained placid, but your eyes registered shock as they fell on his ghostly blue dead eye, then shifted down to his sunken cheek—the bullet hole more pronounced without makeup covering it, a gap of teeth missing where the bullet tore through his jaw.

Instead of disgust, you approached him, padding across the bathroom tile in your bare feet. You asked if it was alright, and waited for his faltering nod before caressing his tattered face under your warm palm. You called him handsome. Rugged. You called him a thousand beautiful things in a tender, soothing voice that held such magic in it he almost believed the words were true.

***

Dr. Chilton held you warm to his chest through the night, barely sleeping himself. Sleeping was impossible under those conditions. The scene of his dark bedroom would give, from the outside, the impression of peaceful stillness, but uneasy emotions roiled inside him, rocking him like a boat on a stormy sea.

Fucking was different.

When his cock was buried deep inside of you, claiming, possessing you, a primal urge took him over, blinding all his senses with desire, blotting out his over-active thoughts. But the feeling of you resting silent and trusting in his bed sickened his stomach.

He stroked your hair, watching your perfect lips move ever so slightly with each exhale that passed between them. He had been so wrong about you. Underneath your bright, friendly, forced smile was a garden as thorny as his own, and he loved you all the more for it. More than you could ever know. More than he imagined possible when he thought of you as a sunflower soaring toward heaven, high above his reach—an unobtainable treasure he admired with envious eyes.

For once in his miserable life, Dr. Chilton found someone who understood his pain.

A sunflower was just another plant trying to escape the cold, dark soil.

He flinched at being touched, especially on his abdomen or face. Holding you while you were deep in a sound sleep from which you barely stirred was tolerable. Not as pleasant as he thought it should have been, but not unpleasant. The sensation of contact was a bit squirmy, like worms writhing under his rib cage, but the warmth of your body, the sight of your peaceful face nestled against his chest made him feel protective. Strong. Desirable. You felt safe with him. A new kind of contentment washed over him, and so he bore the squiggling worms and hoped they would go away with time.

You felt safe with him.

His stomach turned again.

You felt safe, because you didn’t know that Dr. Chilton heard everything inside the BSHCI walls, including the staff break room. You didn’t know he was listening when you told Nurse Clerval that your boyfriend’s night shifts were putting pressure on your relationship. That Chilton began scheduling your shifts to conflict with his, hoping it would be the last straw. And it was. A few weeks later, you were single, and he celebrated his victory alone with a Scotch in his office, a smirk on his lips as he watched you cry to Clerval on the security feed.

You wouldn’t have let him hold you if you knew how deliberate his efforts had been to break you—to dull your shine enough that you might consider him an option, even though he was too cowardly to ever ask you for a date.

In the end, everything worked out better than he could have planned. The ends justified the means, did they not?

Forget the fact that, had a janitor not been cleaning his office, you would have been found dead on the floor of the supply closet tomorrow. Gone forever. How could he have known he pushed you that far?

Dr. Chilton had given up on himself long ago, but he had never considered ending his life. Instead, he used his misery to justify all manner of unscrupulous conduct. He hated himself so deeply that he might as well prey on a disassociating patient reliving memories of sexual abuse. After weeks in a coma, losing an eye, a kidney, half of his hearing, did he not deserve to take what he wanted? The possibility of getting caught was worth a moment’s pleasure when he hardly had anything to lose.

Was he preying on you, he wondered, as you slept in his arms?

No. This was different than Julianne. You were consenting, aware of yourself and your actions. A little depressed perhaps, but nothing that would have you deemed mentally unfit to stand trial. If you ever committed a crime, you would not be sentenced to his care.

You were wonderful, kind, and melancholy, and you wanted him. Your skin was soft, and your lips softer. He dipped his head to kiss them with the lightest ghost of pressure so you would not wake up. Your fingers curled in his silk pajamas, and you murmured a few cooing syllables, nuzzling closer before you stilled again. He would take care of you from now on. Do right by you. Everything he had done was worth it, because you were here with him.

Still, his stomach turned. The worms wriggled in his intestines, and no matter how heavy his eyelids, he could not sleep.

• ● • ━━━━━─ ••●•• ─━━━━━ • ● •

Tags: @beccabarba / @itsjustmyfantasyroom / @thatesqcrush / @dianilaws / @permanentlydizzy / @mrsrafaelbarba / @madamsnape921 / @astrangegirlsmind / @neely1177 / @onerestein / @dreamlover31 / @stormtrooperofficerbrowneyes / @barbasimp / @storiesofsvu / @welcometothemxdhouse / @feedthemadness-sweetie / @law-nerd105 / @amelia-song-pond / @michael-rooker / @xecq / @madpanda75 / @alwaysachorusgirl / @bananas-pajamas / @leanor-min

#Frederick Chilton #Frederick Chilton x reader #gender-neutral reader #dark fic #my writing

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mimik-u · 4 years

Text

Flower Child: Chapter 15 (Daze)

AO3 Link

3:32 AM:

If fault was to be placed, assigned, consecrated, and ordained, then Blue Diamond supposed it was her own fault in the end.

This was nothing new.

How could it possibly be when it was everything familiar?

It was a cycle studiously recapitulated, and it was a tango long danced, and it was a litany of the damned carved deep into the facets of her memories, buried there and intimately known only to the ghostly choir of her own head.

It all circles back to me, does it not? She had asked on a balcony full of light. She had very nearly collapsed. I’m sorry, Yellow.

For being like this.

For being me.

When Blue pulled her nightgown on that evening and stared at her sleeping pill for a few seconds less than her usual disdain for it entailed, she supposed that she should have estimated right then and there that hope was not enough to save her from the night, and that hope was an imperfect solution, and that while grief was one dangerous entity, hope was still another.

At least she knew grief, the very dimensions of it and what it took from her—piece by piece over so many days, months, and years.

She couldn’t say the same about hope, the emotion having eluded her for so long.

If grief was wasting, then hope was generous. It gave and it gave, and it swelled like a tentative blossom in her chest, rising up from a ribcaged ground against all the odds of a cruel, forbidding world.

It gave her a false sense of security.

It gave her the strength to swallow one sleeping pill more.

And so, when the dreams came that night, seething over Blue like a restless tide, she hadn’t expected to be taken so far away from the shore, dragged beneath the undertow, and churned and churned and churned.

She sat on the edge of the hospital bed, leaning over the pale form of Steven Universe who smiled up at her with all of his teeth. Even in the feathery edges of a dream, his dark, brown eyes seemed to be lit from within, candles behind tinted lantern glass, flickering gently.

Sunlight drifted in from the nearest window, falling like a thin, golden blanket across them both.

She dreamed that she was kind, that she reached up and brushed a stray curl from his clammy forehead as various machines hummed all around them. The oxygen cannulas weaving around his ears and into his button nose hissed pneumatically. Wires indicated his aliveness, his hereness and his thereness, in steady, rhythmic beeps.

“Hello, sweet boy,” she murmured, the beginnings of a tentative smile lifting her parenthetically enclosed lips. It was becoming a little easier every time now—to smile and to mean it, to smile and to do so without reflexive condemnation.

“You looked away from me, Mom,” the child beneath her whispered, her skin cool beneath Blue’s long-fingered touch. “Why?”

Pink Diamond had taken Steven’s place in the bed, brown eyes dull and feverish, her accusation and her question alike caked on her cracked lips. Blood dribbled warningly down her mouth in a thin line.

“Pink!” The name was stolen from her, violently wrenched. She was just a little girl, and they still killed her anyway.“I—“

“Excuses,” Yellow Diamond scoffed in that singularly imperial way of hers.

Pink was gone—she was always gone—and her wife remained, her sharp facial features arranged in a knowing sneer. If Steven Universe’s eyes glowed like candlelight, then the businesswoman’s amber eyes seemed to burn with all the ferocity of a dying sun. It was a wonder that she didn’t simply implode on herself with all of that anger, shatter from the inside out and crumple to thousands of unrecoverable pieces.

“That’s all you have these days, Blue. Excuses, excuses.” Each word was a cruel crack of the whip driven into her skin with relish. How they loved to rake the nails of their words across each other’s faces these days; how good it felt to take some of the pain out on themselves and each other and the whole, damn, godawful world. “Why? Why now?”

Blue’s tongue fumbled for an answer, but it was hard, nigh impossible to think over the insistent shrilling of the disconnect tone of a long interrupted call. How long had she sat in that waiting room after Yellow had hung up?

Five minutes?

Maybe ten before the woman named Amethyst plodded over?

Seconds were eternities these days; they felt like years upon years upon bitter, aching years.

“Defend yourself,” Yellow demanded.

“You’ll never let me grow up, will you?”

“So, please , Blue Diamond… please don’t look away,” Steven Universe whispered.

He begged.

Blue Diamond did not wake with a start.

Nor did she wake with a scream.

She woke because a doorbell pealed through the silence of the penthouse suite, its sliding tones slipping beneath the darkness and into Blue Diamond’s half-empty bed, pressing an insistent hand against the wrenched open ‘o’ of her mouth.

It was a gruesomely familiar sound, heard so many times in so many different iterations of the same echo which seized across the twilight zone of her memories.

2:38AM.

That was when a police officer came to their front door and shattered the portrait of the Diamonds’ picturesque lives.

He’d rung the doorbell ever so politely.

He told them that their daughter was dead.

Pale eyes wide in collecting, growing, abscessing horror, Blue Diamond slowly turned her head to the left where she could just make out the change of one minute to the next on the alarm clock as the bell continued to chime, its music walking briskly down the hallway, its urgency knocking insistently at her bedroom door.

3:36AM.

She waited for Yellow Diamond to burst through the threshold in a mass of panicked limbs and bedstruck hair, alarm in her golden eyes, the collar of her silky pajama shirt rising against her neck, but no such reassuring image erupted in the darkness.

The knight didn’t clamber through the trapdoor.

Her wife didn’t come.

It was an untenable oxymoron to Blue.

A contradiction.

An impossibility.

Because Yellow always showed up.

Perhaps she never arrived as quietly and as kindly as Blue would have preferred. Goodness knew that she was loud. Heavens knew she was harsh. The entire world called her abrasive and was almost entirely correct to do so. She wielded the sharpness of her persona like storied warriors had once done their gleaming swords.

But even so, and all the same, Yellow Diamond, for all of her faults, was there—constant, unwavering, stoic, and steady. She was never more than a step across the hallway, the door to her study never completely closed.

She hadn’t come home before Blue had gone to bed, though.

She’d texted.

Brusquely.

And indicated that her meeting would hold her up.

“Don’t stay up. I’ll be home shortly afterwards.”

The doorbell chimed again, loud and ugly.

Ruinous.

8:13AM:

Stunned silence followed the nephrologist’s proclamation as morning light leaned in from the window, eager and insistent, yellow fingertips braced on the sill, as though it was straining to hear the news, too. They crowded around Steven’s bed—Garnet, Amethyst, and Greg—and stared at Priyanka Maheswaran with open disbelief, the emotion naked across their wide eyes and half-opened mouths. Greg’s fingers gently gripped his son’s shoulder.

Softly.

With all the delicacy that his condition required.

Kidneys.

His son was getting—

“No fuckin’ way, Doc!”

Amethyst’s exclamation shattered the vacuum that the extraordinary words had made, and it was with a smile that transformed her entire physiognomy—so harsh and often weary—that Priyanka Maheswaran succinctly replied, “Yes, Amethyst. Yes fucking way.”

It was the most visible marker of how exultant she was that the usually prim doctor swore aloud in front of Steven.

And it was the most audible sign of how overwhelmed Pearl was that she, on speaker phone, didn’t bother to even scold the doctor, her affected gasp nearly unheard over the resulting din. For, in the blurred rush of seconds that followed, there was only incomprehensible noise and laughter and celebratory yelling as Garnet picked Amethyst up and spun her around through the light filled air. And there was an excited tangle of voices on the other end of the line as Peridot and Lapis were handed the news, too, the thin pillars of Pearl’s voice shaking at their foundations. The girls screamed, and they shouted, and they dissolved in paroxysms of disbelief, while a cat somewhere in the midst of them happily meowed. And there was a hoarse sob, thick and unrestrained, as Greg’s shoulders shook with a relief that felt so much like agony that he could barely stand to stand upright. His knees buckled as though were about to give way beneath his feet, the ground shuddering almighty and, strangely enough, not all.

“You mean it, Dr. M?” Steven’s throttled voice entered the fray. His heart monitor had sped up somewhere in the middle of all the commotion, betraying his emotions before his sunken face ever could.

Because, as Greg glanced down, hardly able to comprehend what he was seeing through his tears, he could at very least ascertain that the fourteen-year old’s face was partially closed off, furrowed brow questioning as he peered up at Dr. Maheswaran from darkly grooved eyes.

This year had taken so much out of him.

He couldn’t afford another loss.

None of them could withstand so much as a singular blow more.

“I’m…” Steven grappled with the words as though each one was new on his tongue, heavy and awkward, a little clumsy between the teeth. Greg, wiping at his snotting face with one hand, brought the other downwards from his son’s gowned shoulder and onto his wrist, touching it lightly, careful of all the slithering tubes. “I’m getting kidneys?”

Complete silence then—sudden—expectant and almost fearful.

Garnet set Amethyst down.

Static crackled on the line as Pearl and Lapis and Peridot all held their baited breaths.

And then, Priyanka Maheswaran did something very un-Priyanka Maheswaran-like, and Priyanka Maheswaran had just dropped the f-bomb in a room with a fourteen-year old for God’s sake.

With a movement as slow as it was gentle, as tentative as it was quiet, the careworn doctor sat down on the edge of Steven’s bed and placed one of her lined hands on his blanketed leg. It was a mother’s touch—Greg could tell from the way that the pads of her fingers were arced ever so lightly on top of the wool, as though she was cupping the boy, holding him, and not simply touching. All the accumulated furrows in her face seemed to breathe with a kind of easiness that seemed contrarian to the woman’s unbending nature.

Paradoxical.

Dichotomous even.

But not wrong.

No.

Tenderness very much became Priyanka Maheswaran.

“In roughly half an hour, I’m getting in a helicopter that’s going to take me across the city to Empire Gen,” she began, “to an operating room where I’ll stand for a couple of hours waiting for Dr. Keating to say that it’s time. And there they’ll be, Steven.”

Her dark eyes widened.

A smile crept, all clandestine, onto her lips.

“Your kidneys, ready to come home.”

She squeezed his knee then and held on to it—held on to him, anchoring him, or perhaps even herself, and maybe both of them together.

And in the space following this gesture, there was a pause, a slip of a second of a beat, before Steven finally let out the shuddered breath that they had all been holding.

The skepticism melted from his face, making way for acceptance, and on the heels of acceptance, relief.

“Took them long enough,” he grinned weakly.

It was the kind of joke that wasn’t funny, but, at the same time, very much was.

In that hospital room, filled to the point of excess with light and noise, they all laughed so hard, it was a wonder that they weren’t crying.

9:29AM:

For the first time in months, there was music in the kitchen.

There was dancing, and there was laughter, and there was joy.

Oh, God, there was joy.

So much of it.

Simply overflowing.

Lapis turned the radio on and knobbed the volume up as loud as it would go, and Peridot, cradling a bemused Cat Steven in her arms, swayed breeze-like to the folksy, jangling beat. And the kitchen smelled like bacon and eggs and the warm doughiness of freshly made waffles. And this and this and this. And sunlight glanced in through the open windows, wreathing them all in crowns made of rosy gold and capes of salt-weathered wind. And the waves jubilantly whispered the news against the shore. And the susurrus swelled to a crescendo just as the song on the radio proclaimed its triumphant chorus: love, love, love, precious love.

And this and this and this.

And though Pearl tried to attend to the oranges that needed squeezing for the juice they would eventually drink, and though she attempted to slice a few strawberries to garnish their waffles, Lapis only shook her electric blue head and pulled the slight woman into the center of the wooden floor to dance, their fingers tangling with the sounds of their laughter and shitty singing, with the unfettered sounds of celebration and euphoria and bliss.

And this and this and this.

Because Steven was getting kidneys today.

He was going to live.

And Pearl had no choice but to be swept up with the commotion of it, for the kitchen and the beach house and all the people and animals within its boundaries were simply kinetic with it—the emotion, the feeling, the loveliness, and the respite.

She tried to care about breakfast, but Lapis’s freckled nose, scrunched up in one long, continuous laugh, distracted her.

As the song’s bridge played, they twirled on the oaken slats of the floor as Lion wove between their legs—in and out—trying to catch the rhythm of their bare, tangoing feet.

And Pearl tried to come back down to Earth, thinking through the financial logistics of the surgery that they would still have to contend with after the fact or maybe even before. Finding the kidneys was only one variable in the equation; affording them was the hefty other. And what of Steven’s hospital stay? And all the medicines he would have to take after the completion of the surgery? When would all these bills pile up with the rest? When would the numbers climb so high that her painfully organized ledger could scarcely hope to scale them?

But these worries, always so pressing in the organized corners of her minds, slipped between the folds of her thoughts as though they were but loose grains of sand as Peridot—Peridot!—barreled in to her near the conclusion of the song. Cat Steven fell lightly to the ground, and the engineer braced her slender arms around Pearl’s midsection, fingers curling into the fabric of her shirt. Physical intimacies had never come easily to the reticent twenty-one year old, and so, for this to be the expression of her own relief, for a hug to be how she communicated it to Pearl, was something extraordinary indeed.

Pearl staggered beneath the sudden weight but somehow remained upright, instinctively wrapping her arms around the girl, too.

And they both stood there for what seemed like an eternity compressed into a handful of seconds—fleeting and simply infinite.

The last notes of the song fell through the sun stricken air, and the jockey began to cycle through the daily news. It was seventy-eight degrees outside, sunny without a chance of rain, the wind crisp and cool. Traffic on I-65 leading into Jersey was pretty slow, so drivers might want to consider an alternate route.

It was going to be a beautiful day.

“This is really happening, huh?” Peridot asked, the question muffled against Pearl’s pajama top. A shock of wild, blonde hair brushed the edge of her chin.

“Pinch me,” Pearl only replied, her throat thick with emotion. “I half-think I’m dreaming.”

“Don’t wake up,” Lapis advised dryly as she moved back over to the counter, plucking a piece of bacon from a plate and snapping down hard on it.

“No…” And she smiled then, very softly, the gesture quiet but somehow, simultaneously loud. “I don’t think I will.”

The radio jockey said something then that Pearl tried to care about. Famed Diamond Electric CEO Yellow Diamond had been in a car wreck last night in Empire City. No one was seriously injured, but—

And that was all she deigned to hear before she kissed Peridot lightly atop of the head and extracted herself from the embrace.

“Lapis,” she laughed fondly, “you’re going to eat all the bacon.”

“Oh, like you eat it anyway.”

10:01AM:

Her name was Laura Norwood, and she had been twenty-eight years old—a young woman in the prime of her life. Someone’s daughter. Someone’s fiancée. Someone’s sister. Someone’s very best friend. A drunk driver pulled out in front of her tiny Impala at a red light, and that was that, the damage irrevocably dealt and done.

Five seconds was the difference between Laura Norwood being someone and becoming an empty shell, her head all bandaged up, a ventilator breathing for her because she no longer could. Five seconds was scarcely longer than the blink of an eye, and yet, it was enough to the eradicate everything this girl had been and anything she might have ever hoped to be.

She had a pale scar on her upper lip.

There was a tattoo of the phases of the moon trailing down the fair skin of her upper right arm.

A strand of curly auburn hair escaped the confines of the gauze wrapped around her head wound.

It was always these little things that struck Priyanka Maheswaran so fiercely, piercing her through like a nail hammered in at just the right angle.

Apart from being Steven Universe’s savior, she had been her own person first.

For twenty-eight years and never again.

In the spacious OR at Empire Gen, Priyanka stood in line with the rest of the surgeons who would receive the last gift Laura would ever offer to the world: her organs. The theater was quiet, studiously solemn, as Dr. Alan Keating, the transplant attending, made the first incision, his hand steady as he dragged the scalpel down in a fluid motion that spoke to so many years of having done this dance of vicious contradictions. He had a bushy brow that collected like fuzzy caterpillars above his eyes. Crow’s feet pecked the leathery skin just beneath his wire-rimmed glasses.

“Some of you don’t know the drill,” he said, the bluntness of his words somewhat muffled behind his mask, “but whenever I do this procedure, I have to have a little pick me up, somethin’ to keep me going, somethin’ to remind me why I’m toeing the lines of the Hippocratic Oath that prevents all of us in here from doing any harm.”

Priyanka knew what was coming, and yet, she briefly closed her eyes against it anyway, nausea and aching relief commingling in the pit of her stomach. When she opened them again, she looked at Laura Norwood’s hand, stretched out at a perpendicular angle, and saw that her nails were painted a bright sunshine yellow.

“Startin’ from the left, tell me what organ you’re picking up and who it’s going to.”

Dr. Keating pointed his scalpel at the first person in line, a nervous-looking resident in maroon scrubs. They nearly dropped the cooler they were holding beneath the spotlight of the surgeon’s stare.

“H-heart,” they stuttered, but there was a certain conviction in their voice that spoke volumes. “Masumi Hashimoto. Forty-two years old. She and her husband want to travel the world after she recovers. First stop’s Paris.”

“Good,” Keating nodded gruffly as his fellow passed him an instrument. “Excellent. Next?”

And down the line they went.

“Lungs. Leo Russell. Nineteen and three quarters. He’s the captain of his uni’s debate team.”

“Liver, sir. Jane Myrick. Sixty-three years old. She wants to spend more time with her grandkids... there’s so much more she has to give them.”

“Pancreas. Kitty Coleman. Thirty-one. She and her partner are hoping to rescue a puppy soon.”

And on and on.

Because Laura Norwood’s parents and fiancé had both agreed that she would have wanted to give everything, even if it meant that there was barely nothing of her left.

When Keating’s gray eyes finally lit upon Priyanka, there was a silent understanding that passed in the clinically clean space between them.

Because they’d both been here together, dozens of times—what felt like hundreds—locking gazes over death in order to save just one life more.

“Steven Universe,” she said, her voice low, thick with sudden emotion. She conjured his beaten face in the theater of her mind’s eye. The echoes of all the hands and arms that had embraced her in his hospital room earlier that morning pressed against her skin with a softness that the nephrologist scarcely allowed herself to know. “Fourteen-years old. He’s going to get to grow up, Alan.”

It was a quick gesture, fleeting, but Keating smiled beneath his mask, the wrinkles around his eyes creasing.

“Those stories are always my favorites.”

10:10AM:

If consciousness was a black sea—sloshing, vicious, endless, primordial—then Blue Diamond’s soft voice was the lighthouse that called Yellow Diamond’s vessel safe to shore. She heard the faint strains of it from somewhere within the darkness, and she crawled towards it, simply stumbled, like a child just gaining its feet, all clumsiness. She craved its gentleness. God, how she wanted to be enveloped in its silken embrace. How she wanted to come home.

(Because home was not a place to the consummate businesswoman. It was not a multimillion dollar penthouse suite, nor a study, nor a master bedroom in which she never slept. It was a person. It always had been—Blue and Blue and Blue.)

“She was... inebriated?”

The incredulousness in her wife’s hushed tone was so pronounced, that it was almost, if not entirely, offensive.

“Heavily, Mrs. Diamond,” returned a wry voice that Yellow didn’t recognize. “I doubt she’ll remember even being in the ER when she wakes up, which is a shame. She was absolutely engaging.”

“Insomuch as?”

“She threatened to sue anyone who so much as touched her as we tried to assess her injuries.”

“Ah…” A rustle of heavy fabric and then a sigh, soft and exasperated. “Charming.”

When Yellow Diamond finally wrenched her eyes open, she struggled at first to gather a cohesive impression of her current situation.

Her entire body ached all over, stiff with the sort of heavy soreness she vaguely associated with her college running days, when she’d wake up riddled with cramps after doing ten miles the previous day. If she thought about it, though, really focused, most of the irritation was isolated to her left arm and her head...

Granted, if she had to guess, the latter symptom had more to do with the copious amounts of alcohol she had imbibed the night before as opposed to anything else.

(Another recalled relic from her university days—what it felt like to have a goddamn hangover.)

Apparently lying flat on her back, wherever the hell she was—though she was already beginning to construct a solid theory—Yellow’s heavily-lidded gaze found an unfamiliar white ceiling, upon which she pieced together scattered memories of the night before. Her temples ached dully. There was a heaviness like concrete settled in the dry oasis of her mouth.

They’d been on their way home at who knew what time… it was amazing she had possessed enough of her faculties to be capable of calling her valet to begin with… traffic must have been bad because she kept yelling at the poor woman to drive faster… and then, there was a metallic screeching sound… a simultaneous jolt… a collision… someone had rear ended them… glass shattered with a piercing kind of finality… smoke poured into the entrails of the car, smothering the leather, her clothes, her hacking mouth… Yellow hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt… her entire body had slammed forward with the momentum… and then there was darkness, rushing… the sound of sirens clambering through the night… a jumble of confused noises… people in white coats trying to demand her attention… the coppery scent of blood in the air…

With a wince that wasn’t entirely voluntary, and a conviction that was wholly sure, she concluded that she was absolutely in a hospital.

The question now was the state of her own body.

What was the damage?

How fucked up was she?

Careful not to move her head, she glanced downwards and saw that her left arm was propped on top of a pillow and wrapped tightly in a stiff, dark brace. It comforted her, at the very least, to see that it was not a cast. A cast would have implied brokenness; a brace opened up the possibility that she had been lucky, that she may have escaped nearly intact.

A quick surveillance to her left proffered the view of a wide, glass window with the blinds pulled down. Pinpricks of daylight seeped through the slats, making horizontal rows on the darkened floor.

“She was lucky, Mrs. Diamond.”

Yellow briefly smirked to herself.

Damn right she was.

“As far as we can tell, she only has a hairline fracture in her left wrist and a few small abrasions on her face and neck where glass shrapnels hit her,” the woman she surmised to be her doctor explained. “However, I want to keep her another night for observation, just to ensure that she doesn’t have a concussion we didn’t catch during triage.”

A pause as her wife mulled over the words in that thorough manner of hers, grazing them slowly in the silence.

“That makes sense,” she finally returned. “Thank you, Dr. Reed.”

“Mm, of course.”

The voices waltzed together on Yellow’s far right, the one direction that had escaped her otherwise thorough assessment of her surroundings. Though, perhaps escaped was not the correct word. Escaped was too coincidental; it eliminated the possibility of foresight; it implied a scarcity of intent. And Yellow Diamond, consummate to the last, was not the type of woman who ever committed an action without purpose, who made a movement that did not have an objective neatly attached.

For she was a tactician in her bones, all utilitarian ideology.

Everything had a place stiffly governed by reason.

Every movement was a cosmological chess piece in the game she so adamantly played against the cruel machinations of an unthinking world.

She hadn’t looked to her right because she hadn’t wanted to.

Because she couldn’t bear to face her wife.

Couldn’t stand to comprehend the emotions in her tall, oval face—whatever they happened to be.

The fear.

The shame.

The silent disappointment.

And maybe, worst of all, the love which had long been absent from her grief-torn physiognomy—that Yellow Diamond had craved—desperately—at the very same time that she had grown to fear it in its deficiency.

It was ridiculous—goddamn absurd—but if Blue Diamond still loved her, and it was written all over the softly curving lines in her face, then Yellow didn’t know what she would do.

She supposed she would say it back.

And she would mean it.

Absolutely.

Entirely.

Or, maybe, just maybe, four years of anger and bitterness and sadness and grief and horror and painstaking care and long, sleepless nights and how many missed meetings and hundreds of trips to the cemetery and hundreds of trips to the doctor’s office and fear and loneliness and frustration would rise up the column of her throat and erupt.

Maybe, just maybe, she would simply explode, and the both of them would burn where they laid and stood.

Turning to ash and dust together at last.

All their history consigned to smoke.

So, even now, as Yellow made a motion to slightly tilt her head in that direction, she only allowed herself to ascertain their elongated shadows on the floor, where they stood in the rectangle of light thrown into the room from the hallway. She saw the hem of Blue Diamond’s dress pooling at her feet, and comprehended the metallic supports of her cane sucking the cold, hard ground.

But didn’t dare to glance up.

Because she was afraid that her wife still loved her, and she was terrified that she would say something fucked up to ruin it all over again.

Because that alone was what these four years had so deeply instilled in her, the pedagogy now as habitual as the cup of black coffee she drank every evening.

Insomuch that they still loved each other, they had hurt each other just as much and maybe even more intensely so.

“Do you think she will sleep for a little longer still?” Blue asked, her voice hushed. Yellow Diamond abruptly closed her eyes as she felt the pair’s gazes drawn towards her again, as though suddenly magnetized.

“Possibly,” Dr. Reed replied, her scratchy voice edged with amusement. “We gave her a hefty dosage of sedative.”

“For her sake?” The question was dry, resigned. “Or your own?”

“Excellent question, ma’am.”

In the darkness, Yellow’s brow twitched irritably.

The nerve of this woman.

“In that case then… I think I may go home for awhile—rest… she won’t miss me.”

She said it so casually—and so lightly—that the businesswoman knew that the doctor wouldn’t suspect a thing, but Yellow knew. Or, at the very least, she could hazard a well-educated guess, that Blue believed in the verisimilitude of her statement. Words were always so carefully collected on the palate of her tongue, always loaded with fullness of intent.

It was funny, Yellow supposed.

Downright hilarious.

How belief, then, could be so condemning.

“We’ll keep an eye on her,” Dr. Reed said reassuringly, “and call you if there’s anything urgent.”

“Please do, and thank you. Sincerely…”

“Of course, of course…”

Yellow Diamond heard but did not watch as one pair of footsteps died away and another pair drew closer, the perpetrator’s soft soles shuffling almost imperceptibly against a tiled floor. The clinking and the clanking of an accompanying cane was just a little louder.

It felt as though her heart was about to violate her throat, pulsing so loudly, the sound and the sensation slippery and wet and hot.

Surely, she thought—she dreaded, she half-hoped—Blue Diamond could hear it, too.

Yellow didn’t dare unclose her eyes, though, this shell of a ruse her last defense against a vulnerability she was not yet prepared to confront. She was weak. She was a coward. God, she was so many other foolish things besides. Somewhere, in the hallway just outside the door, the humdrum and quiet cacophony of a hospital swarmed around the two of them like the droning of hazed bees. Somewhere, in the vast, stretching darkness, Blue Diamond stood above her, only feet, mere inches away. Perhaps she even leaned, for the velvety fabric of one of her sleeves grazed the blankets above Yellow’s chest, tantalizing a touch that the woman’s entire existence yearned to re-experience.

How she ached to be touched.

Tenderly.

By the person she loved.

But there was no such relief.

Blue Diamond pulled her hand away.

10:43AM:

While a nurse drew blood from the crook of Steven’s right arm, Garnet dutifully held his left hand, curling the striations of her fingers over the spines of his knuckles—lines and mountains and lines.

He hated needles—this she knew—but he needed one test more in order to ensure that his body was ready for the transplant surgery.

“Hey,” she grinned suddenly, and it was hard to keep the triumph from her voice as she nosed the top of the boy’s pale forehead. “Steven.”

“Whatcha cookin’, good looking?” He returned just as playfully as the nurse withdrew the needle in a flurry of expert motions. She bandaged the spot with a swath of gauze and tape before placing the blood sample carefully in her bin. With a small smile, she took her leave.

“I think it just hit me,” she said softly. She whispered it into his dark hair. Her heart swelled with the emotion. Simply soared. She could have shouted. She half-wanted to still. “You did it, my little fighter. You won.”

“The referee hasn’t called the match yet.” Steven lifted a black brow, taunting her, teasing. She could make out the barest sliver of his face beneath her.

How the side of his mouth was lifted in the beginnings of a smile.

“No,” she murmured, kissing him sweetly, “but it’s all but over.”

11:59AM:

“You suck,” Steven laughed as Amethyst slurped down the dregs of her chocolate milkshake, the straw sucking vacantly at the bottom of the styrofoam.

Because he would be having surgery in a few hours time, the kid wasn’t allowed to eat anymore.

Of course, both of them knew his ribbing was empty anyway.

He hadn’t entirely held down solid food in days.

But hey—it was a special occasion.

She gamely went along, her mouth teasing itself into a wicked smile as she propped her feet up on the side of his bed, crossing her ankles with a kind of delicacy that would have made Pearl both exasperated and faintly proud.

“I’ll drink t’that,” she snorted, raising the empty cup up in the air. “That nurse said you’ll be slurpin’ down milkshakes with me this time next week.”

And it was then, with a suddenness that nearly choked her, all the possibilities of the next chapter of their life opened up to the twenty-eight year old like a good ass preview right before the beginning of a movie.

They were going to get to hit up the Boardwalk for fry bits together again and slam all the burgers and pizzas that they wanted. They would play tag on the beach with Lapis and Peridot and Garnet and sometimes, when she could be enticed, Pearl. They would swim in the shallows of the ocean, riding the salt crusted waves until the sun set low in the carpet of the sky, signaling it was time for dinner.

Time to come home.

They would get to live.

No more hesitations.

No more strings (or tubes) attached.

“Oh,” the little asshole simply smirked. “I can hear Pearl now. That’s disgusting! Are you cave people?”

To which Amethyst could only laugh so hard that her stomach began to ache.

Maybe she shouldn’t have drunk her milkshake so fast after all.

1:12PM:

Tender sunlight threaded itself all silk-like through the blinds as Steven’s soft snores drifted upwards from his half-open mouth. Pearl had only arrived at the hospital a little over half an hour ago, and he had remained awake long enough to smile sleepily at her and say hello before drifting off into the easiest sleep she had seen him surrender to in weeks.

Because it was always a fight these days.

A skirmish.

A war.

To a boy with chronic kidney disease, sleep was as much as a threat as it was a relief.

But now, his purple-ringed eyes were closed in a gentle sort of way, strands of his curly black hair falling across his forehead in loose curls. Pearl was not brave—not in the way Garnet was, at least—she didn’t dare crawl into the hospital bed with him lest she accidentally disturb an important line, a wire, a tube.

Her upbringing was such that she treated all the boundaries she was presented with the respect they may or may not have deserved.

It hadn’t been until she met Rose that she began to wonder what would happen if she toed the tightrope a little more boldly than her strict mother had ever allowed.

It had been Rose who had taught her that love, in all of its sundry, multifaceted forms, was rebellion in and of itself.

A feeling so much bigger than a fixed and finite set of rules.

A sprawling complex of sensations and experiences and memories upon thousands of flickering memories: her spidery fingers tangled in pink hair, Rose’s loud, round laugh, the thrill of protest, the nights they spent exchanging secrets beneath an alabaster moon with its sprinkling of silvery stars. Lips against lips, palms against palms, the shuffle of their warm breaths coiling with the spring breeze. They waltzed together in perfect union, synchronized to even the very last step.

And then she met Greg.

And they fell in love.

And had a baby.

And Rose died.

Simply ceased to exist, as Pearl’s world continued to turn on.

Slowly.

With distant and detached cruelty.

It was an oversimplification of their history, scrubbed free of all the complications that Pearl had agonized over night after night, trying to untangle all the knots in the hopes she would find the lifeline that would tell her where it had all gone wrong.

But the deeper she plunged, the less sure she became, her fingers all red for the effort of trying.

And so, in the end, it was easier to stick to the simple facts.

She had loved Rose, and now she was gone.

But she had left behind Steven for her to love, to cherish, and to protect.

And love?

In and of itself?

Love was rebellion—the woman knew that much at the very least. Love was leaping over sure lines, and it laying your life down on a line. It was eschewing all the boundaries of a normalized existence. It was bravery.

A gentle smile curving the shape of her thin lips, Pearl reached up and pulled the side of her hand down the side of Steven’s face, holding him gently.

Tomorrow morning, she would wrap her slender arms around him.

She would be hard pressed to let him go.

3:28PM:

The hours dripped by, the minutes plunging like saline in a steady, rhythmic drip. Time was meticulously regulated in the space of an OR, systematically quantified and accounted for by the narrow screen on the far wall where huge, red numbers indicated that five hours, twenty-five minutes, and eighteen seconds had elapsed since Keating had made his first incision. Each second, down to its tenth, counted when surgeons literally held lives in their hands, an adage that was especially true of organ procurement surgeries where even the slightest of complications could delay gratification for so many others.

One by one, the various doctors received their organs and made their bow from Dr. Keating’s operating theater. There were places to be, lives to be saved, and new stories to tell in the darkness around the warmth of a kindling fire.

Masumi Hashimoto was going to get to travel to Paris.

And Leo Russell was going to kick ass at debate team.

And Jane Myrick was going to have the opportunity to spend more time with her grandkids.

And Steven Universe… Steven Universe was going to get to grow up.

Sitting on a stool as she waited for Alan to call her up, Priyanka wasn’t quite seeing the Empire Times crossword puzzle that she’d been working on for the last hour or so. Instead, she saw the contours of Steven’s future stretch out before her, bright and tangible where they hadn’t quite been before. There was a lot of smiling and laughter. And there was a flash of sweet mundanity as she pictured him shouldering a backpack for the first time in nearly a year as he wound his way through a crowded school hallway, And there was a certain warmth as the scene suddenly shifted to Greg and the Gems enveloping their boy in the tangle of their arms as they welcomed him home from a long day.

Healthy, safe, and sound.

It struck the nephrologist then, as it so often did when she was caught unaware, that these were all the little things that she sometimes took for granted with her own daughter—going to school and coming home all intact.

Not every parent could say the same.

And so, as Dr. Keating’s team prepared the ice slush that the surgeon would wrap around Laura Norwood’s kidneys in preparation for removal, Priyanka resolved to herself that she would be more attentive to the mundane, to the little moments, to every smile that Connie worked herself up to proffer.

Because the kid had been smiling more often these days, the lines of her lips twitching upwards with more regularity than the doctor was used to knowing.

“Dr. Maheswaran,” Alan said suddenly.

He only ever called her by her formal title when he was about to deliver bad news that any good friend would try to avoid.

His fellows had abruptly stopped what they were doing, hands frozen above Laura’s body, eyes drawn to her midsection.

It was like a grotesque Renaissance painting.

The light head glared unholily onto Dr. Keating’s bowed head.

“Come here for a moment.”

Priyanka’s entire stomach constricted where she sat on a stool that suddenly felt too small for her body. She knew that voice, but it was different this time.

Because she'd gone soft.

She was compromised.

She cared too much about her patient to accept the reasonable outcome of a blow.

“No,” she whispered. Her voice was garbled behind her mask. Guttural. “Alan, no.”

“Blunt kidney trauma…” he replied softly. She knew that voice. It was his best patient voice. The voice doctors used when they were delivering bad news. The voice Priyanka, in all of her studious harshness, had never entirely mastered. “…sometimes doesn’t produce outward signs… I’m sorry, Dr. Maheswaran.”

They’d called each other by their first names for nearly half a decade.

His gruff voice tripped over itself.

It hesitated, and it stared down into the precipice it had to jump.

“These kidneys are unsalvageable.”

4:07PM:

The minutes inched onwards with all the delightfulness of paint drying on a damn wall. They crawled into hours, and they languished like poetic lovers, taking their slow, sweet time. Each second was seemingly savored by the analog clock on the wall, the hands lingering far longer than they should.

A world in love with itself.

How disgustingly saccharine.

Though Dr. Reed was pretty damn sure that Yellow didn’t have a concussion, she was also pretty damn reluctant to let the businesswoman go until her head completely stopped pounding. For, even after she had woken up properly, the dull, localized jabbing hadn’t gone away, persisting around her temples.

A hangover headache.

“Perhaps,” Dr. Reed had hummed noncommittally, pressing a skeptical hand below her chin.

“Trust me,” Yellow returned darkly, rubbing the left side of her head tenderly with her middle finger. “I know when I have a hangover.”

But the batty woman still insisted that she stay, just so they could rule out the possibility of latent brain injury, which was why Yellow was currently hooked up to a banana bag as a means of working the last of Lagavulin out of her system.

Because, if it was indeed a hangover, this simple remedy would assuredly help with her headache.

And, well, if it wasn't, it would replenish her electrolytes at the very least.

Thrilling.

Situated in the chair next to Yellow’s bed, Poppy’s thin brow was woven together in concentration as she knitted what appeared to a lumpen, misshapen scarf—or was it a sweater?—her metallic needles clicking together every so often in the silence. The maid had arrived nearly an hour ago to bring her employer a set of pajamas to change into, as well as some paperwork from the CEO’s office. However, with her usual fumbling obsequiousness, she had insisted that she could stay for awhile.

She could attend to Yellow’s needs while her arm was out of commission.

Could satisfy her hourly duties.

But Yellow was no fool.

The slight woman did not linger out of the simple contract which existed between them as employer and employee. Indeed, she suspected that Poppy’s fidelity ran deeper than even that—that the maid dared to like her despite Yellow’s general sharpness of exterior, that she wanted to keep her company in a hospital room that was as empty as it was cold.

In the end, she supposed that she was… grateful for the implicit support.

She supposed, if she was forced to name an emotion at gunpoint, she would have no choice but to admit to her appreciation of someone who had been by her side, attendant to her every want, for nearly a decade.

But there was no steel barrel pressed against her tousled hairline, only the tinny clinking of those infernal needles and the occasional shuffling of papers as Yellow Diamond tried and subsequently failed to skim the brief the Zircons had left in her inbox. It was well-written—comprehensive—as it always was with Diamond Electric’s head attorneys, but what was an abstract lawsuit to the very real questions which tumbled ceaselessly across the furrows of the woman’s otherwise neatly tilled mind? What were words—nouns and verbs and adjectives—next to the torment of her wife’s almost touch?

To the simultaneous miracle and utter insanity of her sudden recovery?

Sick, angry, guilty, overcome, Yellow plucked her readers from the bridge of her nose and slapped them neatly on the tray next to her bed. The sudden thud startled Poppy from her knitting.

“D-did you need something, ma’am? Can I get you a glass of water? A snack from the vending machine?”

“No,” she snapped, and then, correctly interpreting the stung look on her maid’s face, she remembered herself.

She took a deep breath.

It wasn’t Poppy’s fault that her wife was doing better.

However…

“I mean,” she amended herself gruffly, “no thank you, Poppy… I do have a small favor to ask of you, though.”

“Yes, Mrs. Diamond?” She leaned forward in her chair, her scarf, sweater, or whatever it was flopping limply over her neatly crossed legs. “Anything.”

Gathering her thoughts in the very same way she gathered her lined fingers into a temple next to her stomach, Yellow thought to herself first that perhaps it was about time she gave her maid a raise.

Her second thought was the one she verbalized aloud, the question doled out in carefully measured words, nouns and verbs and a dash of barely repressed reluctance for good measure.

“That boy… Steven… he’s in this hospital, too, yes?”

#bellow diamond #blue diamond #yellow diamond #steven universe #garnet #amethyst #pearl #priyanka maheswaran #greg universe #s: steven universe #mimiku #flower child #oh my god i am exhausted #lapis lazuli #peridot

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film-masochisme · 4 years

Photo

Trust (1990)

Directed by Hal Hartley

Doomsy’s Rating: 100/100 (My favorite film!)

Is Trust the best film ever made from a technical point of view? No. Is it my favorite film of all time? Hell yes it is. At this point, I think I’ve seen this classic going on fifty times and every time it’s just perfect and everything I could ever want in a film.

Before you read any further, I implore you if you’ve never heard of this film (understandable if you haven’t, it’s somewhat obscure), stop what you’re doing and make the effort to find it.

Trust, for lack of a better word, invented emo culture.

It didn’t popularize it—the film was little seen at the time of its release outside arthouse crowds and fans of the director—but it created the first modern emo protagonist way back in 1989 with the wonderfully unpredictable icon and quote machine Matthew Slaughter, seen below in all his jet-black, chain-smoking laconism:

Matthew Slaughter may be, in my humble opinion, one of the top five greatest cinema characters ever. Martin Donovan, who has to date, appeared in nine of director Hal Hartley’s films, brings this troubled, intellectual, confrontation-prone yet empathetic soul to life in a layered performance of gruff scowl and poetic wisdom. If Holden Caulfield’s internal musings of apathy were the skeleton, Matthew Slaughter is the muscular exterior, throwing glances of possession and clouds of smoke to whoever dares to question his integrity. His permanently clenched fists and avoidance of eye contact belie the traumatic home life that in another film would be presented as more serious. Here, instead of regarding parental abuse with the utmost sincerity, Matthew’s obsessive-compulsive, violent father (played with disturbing teeth-gnashing verve by John MacKay) is shown as a near caricature, literally exploding into his son’s room with nefarious intentions, the door being cartoonishly thrown off its hinges like some Looney Tunes gag. But Matthew’s father is no joke. His gaslighting and nasty streak are instantly relatable, evoking no laughs just as Hartley surely intended. Matthew’s half of the film is sad and lonely, but insightful and warm in a way that only a humanist at heart could affect. His deadpan aphorisms are endlessly quotable and influenced many romantic depressives for decades to come, including Jim Carrey’s Joel in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Donnie Darko’s title character, the protagonist of Submarine, and so forth. But alas, Trust is a film of two protagonists and their aimless lives on Long Island and their hope in each other. So, more on Matthew a little later on.

Trust’s other half is dominated by the luminous, adorable Adrienne Shelly in her greatest role, as Maria, a quick-witted and carefree 17-year-old girl grappling with an unplanned pregnancy at the hands of her pathetic quarterback boyfriend Anthony, and suddenly being cast adrift in a cruel and unforgiving town of sexual predators, toxic masculinity, and unstable homes. She begins the film an archetypal nubile, but through her interactions and ultimate romantic relationship with the older and likely asexual Matthew, she learns to believe in someone other than herself and to find her place and confidence. Adrienne Shelly, the beautiful, effervescent soul that was sadly murdered a mere fifteen years later, is a beaming ray of light no matter what room she enters.

Maria, as a pregnant teen struggling to find a path and possessing an acerbic tongue and a penchant for leaving accidental disaster in her wake, precedes Juno by nearly two decades and again, has clearly influenced emo culture with her hilariously dorky glasses (seen below) and sunken, eyeliner heavy aesthetic. She begins the film by unintentionally slapping her father into a heart attack-induced untimely demise, then spends the rest of her narrative attempting to make amends with her psychopathic mother (a fantastic Merritt Nelson) and make up her mind over whether to keep her child, played out in a highly-stylized manner that some would compare to the works of David Lynch (namely the domestic areas of Twin Peaks) but more closely aligns with the literary approach of Salinger or the Bronte sisters.

One thing that Trust managed to do, before perhaps any other piece of media at that time, was show how the alienation of youth from the commercialism of the 1980s was already blooming, and it captured, before grunge took it mainstream, the depressing lack of direction experienced by outsiders who couldn’t fit into Reagan’s model. Matthew and Maria do not fit in to the respective lives: Matthew is a thirty-year-old genius still living with a father who hates him, and despite his gifts, has sustained a failure to launch; Maria is a pregnant high school dropout with nothing on her mind besides what’s ten feet in front of her. These two, forced to rely on lethal safety nets, meet by pure happenstance on a cold night in a ramshackle building, and share four or five honest lines and a connection is forged.Their attempts to bring the other into their respective abusive homes are met with consternation and further verbal and physical altercations, almost all of which are darkly humorous in some way, but never successful. And yet, their initial desires to become responsible members of society only decay their psyches more. It is here that we realize while they may not get a happy ending, they have retained their independent identities and succeeded at what they set out to do.

The best scene in the film comes about halfway through, where Matthew comes into a bar, casually punches two people, then sits down with a massive “keep out” sign practically stapled to his forehead when he’s approached by Peg, Maria’s older, divorced sister. The dialogue of this scene, some of the best I’ve ever seen, somehow pales in comparison to the perfectly-tuned chemistry between the sexy, sassy Peg and the nihilistic Matthew, both of them playing off the other’s perceived weaknesses like the screwball comedies of old. The scene climaxes in a poisonous barb that leaves Peg speechless, and is the only time in entire film when Matthew utilizes a lowbrow dialectic.

It’s also one of the few instances in the entire film when Matthew looks at a character other than Maria while addressing them, leading me to believe (among other reasons) that he’s somewhere on the autism spectrum. His extreme difficulty in opening up to others is shown in painstaking detail, as is his extreme intelligence and lack of upward momentum. Whenever someone or something threatens his world and paradigms, he will often react violently or impulsively. This is a man who carries around a handgrenade “just in case.” He is terrified of change, but he is also aware of the fact that life is always changing. Sometimes quickly, perhaps even painfully, but it does.

The strange thing is that, even by the film’s end, despite his best efforts, Matthew’s changes as a character are minute. His growth, while not stunted per se, is reliant on whether he is understood, and even Maria, his soul mate, doesn’t get him sometimes. Relationships with a partner on the autism spectrum can be tricky (speaking from experience) but are so worthwhile because they are not unsure of who they are or what they want. Matthew spends much of his dialogue speaking his mind, at times perhaps even too direct (as above) but he is a singular and thoughtful person who wants to do right by the world, even when he doesn’t agree with it.

As the film progresses and Maria’s arc of the film takes precedence, the film shifts direction slightly into a powerfully feminist and deeply open-minded look at a woman’s right to choice, both in her life direction, and more bluntly, about abortion issues. A wonderful subplot involving a no-nonsense nurse (Karen Sillas) that nonchalantly offers her teenage abortion patients shots of scotch in celebration is both hysterical and sad, running the gamut of emotions with a tone of ambivalence. It is the flat prosody of the film that makes all these individual elements come to life, from top down.

Overall, Trust is a film without Hollywood glitz, but just as achingly romantic and heartfelt and emotionally fulfilling as the silver screen can provide, and most postmodern romantics and emo culture wouldn’t exist without its influence. It’s as honest, sincere and a real as movies get.

Please, everyone just watch this. It would be Tumblr’s favorite movie, just like it is mine.

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the-jukeboxghostlove · 5 years

Note

This blog appears to be dead, but I am /starving/ for some content for The Inpatient and I saw that you said you'd write for both it and/or Until Dawn, so if you do come back I'd be honored if you responded to this with some Gordon Bennet x male!Inpatient content. 👀 👀

First fic of 2019! :D I’m terrible at finishing fics so it ends a bit abruptly but I do hope that it’s up to par! Also winged the dialogue so lemme know if I fucked it up :’)

- Ghost

———-

Gordon Bennet had been told it would only be for a few days. Bragg had called him in and told him as much when they’d first suggested sending someone in under a patient guise to keep watch. Just a few days to gauge if the treatments were successful and the problems with the breach were resolved, and then Gordon could kick back and enjoy a hearty raise and all the perks it entailed. He thought he should have asked more questions, suggested a contingency in case things backfired, but there wasn’t enough time to dwell on it before he’d shrugged on the patient clothes and sat down in the dingy, low lit room, heels bouncing restlessly on the floor waiting for the orderly to come.

When the door finally clicked he perked up, watching Abe wheel the patient in and help the guy get on his feet and over to the bed before leaving, looking almost too happy to be out of there. His charge wasn’t fully awake yet, Gordon realized, watching the gradual rise and fall of the other man’s chest when his eyes didn’t open, and Gordon took the opportunity to properly gauge his new roommate.

He didn’t look the investigator type that he’d imagined, but he definitely couldn’t have pulled off pretending to be a doctor here like he’d apparently planned; frankly Gordon wanted to laugh, half wishing he’d been on shift to watch this guy scurry around like some kind of elaborate spy thinking he could get away with it. This newcomer was fresh faced and healthy, minus a slight flush from the permanent chill, and it was a welcome change from the sunken faces he was used to seeing, one he’d have to get used to over the next couple of days.

It took awhile for the guy to wake up, long enough for Gordon to rehearse things and make it believable, and the confused, blank expression on the patients face as he looked around the room only drove home to idea that Gordon wasn’t getting anything out of him just yet. Gordon guessed he remembered little, but didn’t realize just how little until he’d try coaxing a name out of the patient, seeing him stare down at the floor for a few moments, searching for something before eventually answering.

“I don’t know.”

—–

This stay was going worse than he’d first thought. It was either bearably cold or downright freezing, a dingy mattress already doing in his back while he slept; it almost made Gordon miss the heating in his office, and it was only getting worse over time. He probably would have found a way to sneak back to it by now if he didn’t have to worry about keeping up appearances - it looked like he was in it for the long run.

Time passed, and Gordon monitored his charge as instructed but only ever had short responses and long pauses to ever report back on; frustrating, but he’d handled worse. He’d almost considered letting Bragg know they’d succeeded in wiping the memories and call it done until the second night.

He’d woken up to find the patient shaking him, calling his name until he grunted to let him know he was finally up.

“-I’m a reporter” Was the only thing he heard, and suddenly Gordon was awake.

“What?”

“I’m a reporter - was, I think. I just - I, I don’t know but it feels true.” He looked almost ecstatic to know, the happiest he’d seen th guy since the beginning and Gordon felt his heart dropping into his stomach realizing this wasn’t going to be nearly as clean cut as he’d first hoped.

Gordon sighed and ran a hand over his face, pushing himself up onto his elbows and shifting to give the patient enough room to prop themselves against the bed.

“Okay” he said finally once they’d settled down. “What else do you remember?”

The rest of the night was spent trying to prod more memories out of him but Gordon couldn’t get much more information aside from the initial realisation and soon the conversation had turned to Gordon’s own story. It took a good few white lies and masked truths until his answers satisfied his patients nagging curiosity and they both returned back to their respective beds, where Gordon took the next hour mulling up a report in his fitful attempts to get back to sleep.

—–

The next wave of memories came after Gordon punched him. He regretted it now, fingers pressing against the bright red marks dusting his knuckles and frowning at the sting it left. An unpleasant reminder, one that he told himself he couldn’t leave be, not with everything else going to hell anyways.

The patient had come round some time ago but hadn’t said a word, back turned and staring at the wall, unmoving other then to shift in a useless attempt to get more comfortable. That didn’t change when Gordon sat down beside him. It was only when he reached a hand out to touch his shoulder that he moved, tensing and rolling onto his back, looking up at Gordon where he could get a good look at the side of his face, red and mottled with the growing signs of a forming bruise. Neither spoke at first, expecting the other to say something, anything; Gordon was the first to break the silence.

“Look I-” He paused “-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, well, how is it?”

He watched the patient touch his cheek, a sour expression settling in no doubt feeling the pain throbbing beneath the skin.

“Hurts; but I’ll live” A few moments of quiet passed, and Gordon found himself reaching for the hand still pressed against the patient’s cheek, pausing only when they stopped him with a noise of confusion.

“Can I…?” he trailed off, gesturing towards the patient’s face.

He seemed to mull it over for a few moments before eventually nodding. Taking his face into his hands he took some time to asses the damage, softening his grip once he noticed the discomfort. His face was softer than he thought all things considered, gaunter than before, but he looked otherwise fine aside from the mark growing darker where he’d been hit.

Gordon Grimaced seeing it up close now.

“Yeah, that’s going to bruise - we’ll have to get you something for that - soon, hopefully”

“It’ll be fine; I don’t care about it right now.” This time when Gordon’s charge looked up at him it was a lot more sure than before, less clouded confusion hazing his eyes and more clarity as they said-

“I remembered something else.”

—–

…A week had passed. A week that felt like years with the growing hunger and radio silence from the outside world making things unbearable and things were getting desperate. They were both starving in here, that much was evident, but even through the hunger Gordon could feel the mounting dread that something had gone very, very wrong out there. So what did that mean for them?

Marks marred the metal door, a desperate attempt the two had made to take it down but it still didn’t budge, and now Gordon had retreated back to the window, hands curled in a knuckle white grip against the bars and head pressed against them as he looked out across the spiraling mountain landscape; eerily beautiful but nothing but a big ironic fuck you from the nut job who built this place now that they were trapped.

The patient was curled up on the bed, conserving his strength for the next attempt at the door. He was a lot more alert in light of the returning memories, a small mercy which made him sharper than before, aware. If he cared Gordon would have considered it a loss, something to strike off of the proverbial chalkboard once the experiment was over. It didn’t matter now though, not when they were going to die down in this goddamn hellhole.

Gordon hadn’t even realized he’d booted the wall till pain blossomed up his foot and he hissed sharply, grip tightening as anger burned through his stomach - an anger towards even the very emptiness left there. His head turned at the hand suddenly pressed against one of his own, another hovering against his back as if providing a silent comfort.

The patient looked worse for wear, paler and void of the usual healthy flush that had been there just days before; he wasn’t the only one suffering, Gordon had to remind himself, but he was confused at the smile his charge still had. It was meant to be reassuring he supposed…and in a way it was.

“They’ll come back for us.”

Gordon huffed and turned back to the window.

“Sure if there’s anyone left.”

“There has to be - and they’ll come back when they know something’s happened, they have to-”

“And how do you know that?”

The two were face to face now, staring expectantly for a response from the charge, brow furrowed, and the grip on Gordon’s hand tightening when the other man spoke.

“I don’t know” he said finally, now coming to rest directly at Gordon’s side. “But I have hope; and I know that we’ve got to pull through this together if we’re getting out of here. Because I’m not dying here - and neither are you”

Maybe it was the conviction in the words the man spoke that made him almost believe it, or maybe they were finally getting bold, but the press of lips against his own as soon as the patient finished talking. It must have been a spur of the moment choice by the hesitant tongue catching across Gordon’s bottom lip as he pulled away but it was enough to spark something more.

Gordon was the one to pull him in this time, his kisses a little too eager as the sudden groan from the other man made him pull away long enough to catch the blood welling on the patients lip from the pull of teeth. The sight of it shouldn’t have sent such a rush through him, but the surge of something other than that emptiness spurred him on as the two grappled for each other and closed the gap again, sloppy open mouthed kisses filling the silence with hard breaths and pants. He felt hands digging into the collar of his shirt and was sure his own grip on the others clothes were just as tight as he pushed his tongue past his lips to meet with the patient’s own, a pleased shudder running down his spine at the muffled gasp he received in response.

By the time the two had finally pulled away Gordon was sure the two looked even more a mess than before. The patients face was flushed red as was his lips, now smeared with faint stains of blood that somehow managed to pale in comparison to the giddy grin bringing a light to his face that Gordon had all but forgotten, and Gordon could practically hear his own pulse in his ears when their foreheads came to rest together, hot breath warming his cheeks and more once hands began moving to grip at his undershirt tugging it upwards.

Things were escalating quickly, and Gordon could already tell there was no going back from this, though perhaps that point had been when he decided to go under guise in the first place; but as his hands came to join theirs in the gradual shuffle back to his bed Gordon didn’t want things to go back.

Maybe he was right; maybe help would come and he could have a couple words with that goddamn Bragg; but that could wait for now, for however long they could forget the blinding hunger and pain for something better, for as long as it lasted…

#jukebox post #scenarios #the inpatient game #The Inpatient #until dawn the inpatient #the inpatient ps4 #doctor gordon bennet #gordon bennet #gordon bennet the inpatient #male inpatient #inpatient fic #until dawn #requests #killeret-and-the-void #was gonna make this one angsty but i couldnt bring myself to do it

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gumnut-logic · 5 years

Text

Gentle Rain (Part Seven)

Title: Gentle Rain

Warm Rain Series

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Author: Gumnut

26 - 27 Jan 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: Sometimes it is so gentle, you don’t realise it is happening.

Word count: 2017

Spoilers & warnings: Virgil/Kayo, Scott/OC, spoilers for Warm Rain up to this point in the timeline.

Timeline: Six months after ‘The Proposal’, almost a sequel.

Author’s note: For Scribbles97 Thank you all for all your support on this fic. You are wonderful.

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

Virgil could never be anything but awed at the power of Mother Nature. The massive swirl of cloud beneath them was one hell of a spectacle. Of course, it wasn’t his first cyclone or hurricane, he had tackled many over the years, but each one had its own character.

And this one was big and angry.

“We’re looking at a category four, verging on five.” John hovered above the dash, sitting rather than his usual float due to his being earthbound. “Be careful.” A frown. “And incidentally, your brother is an idiot.”

“Hey!” This from Gordon in the co-pilot’s seat.

John raised an eyebrow in his younger brother’s direction. “I was referring to your big brother. Scott just ran himself into a wall.”

Virgil was calculating his descent trajectory as the scanner located the fishing trawler floundering in the storm below. His head shot up. “What?!”

“Don’t worry, Kayo’s got him. He’s fine. Update you when you get back.”

“Thanks for that, John.” His tone dripped sarcasm.

“Not a problem.” The red head smirked. “Seriously, he’s fine.” In the background, a woman yelled, “You bloody idiot!” Another arched eyebrow. “Assuming our guest doesn’t kill him.”

Virgil had to grin at that. “Beginning descent now.”

“Copy that.” John’s image flickered out leaving Virgil to concentrate on flying into the cyclone.

-o-o-o-

Em had a split second to see a room with a view, a massive Christmas tree, a desk and some portraits before her eyes latched on her patient barrelling up out of a central sunken lounge area directly into a stonework wall on the other side of the room.

He clipped his prone and broken leg causing the hoverchair to slew sideways, sending his entire left and damaged side into the stonework.

The room froze in shock.

Then she was moving.

Her hand activated the ‘scoot’s controls in her palm and she zipped around the curvature of the lounge and was at his side in a moment.

“Scott?” She lowered herself, reaching for him.

His eyes scrunched closed, but his right hand was reaching for his left arm. “Ouch.” A blink, one eye opened and looked up at her. “Em?”

She stared at him. Her eyes tracked the length of his body, checking for further injury. “Are you okay?” She vaguely registered Kayo approaching from behind.

He wriggled in his seat as if checking. “Uh, yeah. I think so.” An amused glance in her direction. “How are you?”

“How am I?” Her voice was faint even in her ears. His blue eyes sparkled up at her and the butterflies in her stomach went feral. She lost it. “You bloody idiot! How am I? What the hell do you think you are doing? Do you have any bloody idea how close you came to dying under that hotel? My god, Scott!”

The expression on his face faltered and he straightened up. His brow furrowed as he appeared to finally fully register her presence.

“It was an accident.”

“What the hell were you doing? You can fly a Thunderbird, but you can’t steer a bloody hover chair?”

“Well, when you put it like that.” But his eyes latched onto her hoverscoot and he paled...for all of two seconds before looking up at her again. “Nice to finally meet you.” The smile returned.

She spun on the spot and, turning her back to him, made her way around the lounge and out toward the view. She would be of better mind if she didn’t have to contend with his charm.

Goddamnit, he’d scared her. And it scared her how much he had scared her with such a simple moment. She couldn’t afford to be vulnerable right now. Too much to contend with. Maybe she shouldn’t have come. No, she definitely shouldn’t have come. She should have holed up at home and rebuilt her shields.

Behind her she heard a quiet Kayo. “You know she’s right. You are a bloody idiot.”

Okay so that made her smile just a little.

The sea breeze whipped up from the ocean below and she used it to calm her frazzled nerves. Closing her eyes, she forced her muscles to relax, slowed her beating heart and took a moment to just be.

The whir of his hoverchair slipped up beside her. “Can we start again?”

A swallow, keep it together. “I guess.” She turned and looked down at him. He was all calm and politeness. A moment and she offered her hand. “Hi, I’m Em Harris. Very pleased to meet you.”

He took her hand in a firm grip, his skin warm. That smile appeared again, but it was softer and more genuine. “Scott Tracy. And I’m very happy to finally meet you.” His voice was as soft as his smile and she found herself drowning in his eyes.

She mentally shook herself, fighting the current. He still had her hand. “Are you going to introduce me to your brother or do I have to guess which one he is?”

He started at that and let her hand drop, peering over his shoulder. “John, come here.”

The tall and slim red head rolled his eyes and stood up from behind the desk, walking over to join them on the balcony. He dipped his head in greeting and she was stunned by the flicker of green in his eyes. What was it with the Tracy genes? Primed for gorgeous eyes?

“Em, this is my middle brother, John Tracy.”

She held out her hand and he took it gently. His skin was softer than Scott’s, but equally as warm. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

John’s smile was much more subtle than Scott’s as well. “Likewise. Welcome to Tracy Island.” His eyes darted back to the desk. “Please excuse me, I’m on duty.” He took a step back inside before turning back to his brother. “You might want to give Em a tour, Scott.”

To her surprise, Scott started and blinked. “What? Oh, yes, of course.” He shot her a smile, but it was distracted.

She frowned.

But suddenly that genuine soft smile was back and he held out a hand. “Shall we?”

Turning to look back into the lounge, she spotted Kayo. The woman smiled at her and nodded. Okay, in for a penny, in for a pound. At least if she was following him around he wasn’t colliding with any more walls.

She reached out and took that hand.

It was still wonderfully warm.

“Lead on.”

-o-o-o-

Virgil clung to the yoke as the cyclone attempted to throw his ‘bird into the ocean and she fought against the howling wind. It wouldn’t have been a problem if he had been flying straight, but he had to hover and collect the module. His brother and the surviving fishermen were relying on him.

A nasty downdraft slapped them again and the ocean beneath attempted to reach up and grab him from the sky.

His clearance was limited by the length of his grapples and the swell was massive. He had managed the drop off easily enough, the module hitting the surface and rapidly submerging to a safe level where TB4 could disembark. The module’s inbuilt engines and pumps kept it stable in the depths awaiting Gordon’s return.

The aquanaut, with some swearing over the comms, had been able to save the three fishermen before their trawler took a plunge under the next mountainous wave. They all ended up wet, Gordon ended up furious, and now they were safe in the module, awaiting pickup just below the surface.

But the winds were hell, Virgil was tired, and, if he was honest, afraid. This was the one scenario with module deployment that had him scared he may not be able to do it. Mainly because if he couldn’t, his brother could be lost. It all relied on Virgil catching that module in heaving seas and howling winds.

He wrenched on the yoke again and the whole right side of his ribcage twinged. Great. He did not have time for this.

“Whenever you are ready, Virgil.”

He grit his teeth. “Doing my best, Gordon. This is a cyclone after all.”

“FAB.” At least his brother sounded suitably admonished.

He shunted altitude control over to autopilot, upped sensory response to wind velocity and took aim. Three green targets almost immediately. The fourth failed and within a second or two the other three followed and he had to reset the system.

Again.

An exhaled breath, his chest tight.

Two targets green, two red and targets lost.

“Goddamnit!”

He had to do this.

Reset.

Aim.

One target green.

‘C’mon.”

Three.

And four!

He fired.

They stayed green.

Oh, thank god. He immediately set the pumps in the module to shedding water as the grapples started pulling her to the surface. He had to be fast because his ‘bird was now chained to the swell and she rose and dipped alarmingly as the autopilot calculated the distances.

He could almost feel the pumps grinding away below sloshing water, desperately doing their best to free the module of saltwater.

Of course, this was the very moment the ocean decided to throw a wall of that water at him. Suddenly his entire view was wrapped in turbulent whites and greys, TB2’s own spotlights lighting it up for all to see.

Shiiiiiiiit!

He yanked on the yoke and TB2 screamed at the sudden power surge. Module Four was ripped from the ocean surface still half full, and caught immediately by the gale force cross winds. He struggled to gain altitude as the autopilot failed to compensate, desperate to clear the mountain of water bearing down on them.

He almost made it.

Water rushed across the bow of his ‘bird, splashing the rain off his viewports. VTOL flickered, but it was the extra weight on the cables that set the dash screaming at him. There was suddenly a good twenty to thirty metres of saltwater between Thunderbird Two and her flailing module. Unbalanced, continually moving and heavy.

He froze the retrieval, desperate to relieve the strain on the grapples and let the wave move past.

It took forever.

Red lights strobes at him. Grapple two registered a loss of grip momentarily, scaring the bejesus out of him, before locking in green again.

Time hung in terror.

And the swell moved on.

Module Four swung once again in the gale.

Virgil struggled to take a breath.

The pumps churned out the remains of the saltwater as Two finally gained the necessary altitude, fighting the winds best enough to once again draw up and nest the module in her belly.

Heart still pounding, Virgil kicked in the rear thrusters and pushed her towards the cloud ceiling, breaking through finally into the clear air above.

The sudden absence of turbulence was startling.

Once free and steady, he programmed the autopilot to send them to Broome, a matter of minutes away, and took a moment for himself.

Oh god.

His heart was beating against his breastbone. He felt he couldn’t breathe in enough oxygen.

Alone in the cockpit, he dropped his head towards his knees, ignoring the pain in his side at the position. He took strong steadying breaths, desperate to calm himself down.

“Virgil? Virgil!”

Gordon rushed over, but the engineer managed to get himself upright before his brother reached him. “I’m fine. ‘S okay.”

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks.” The sarcasm was there, but the energy wasn’t.

“Are you sure, you’re okay?” Gordon was frowning at him.

A deep breath that didn’t quite feel deep enough, but it got strength back into his voice. “I’m fine. I should be asking you that question.”

“Oh, that was some ride, Virg. We will need to replenish the sick bags in Four, though.”

Virgil stared at his brother. Did he have any idea how close it had been?

Gordon stared back. “What?”

“This is Broome International Airport calling Thunderbird Two. You are clear for approach.”

He blinked and turned back to his console.

Dump the dumb fishermen and go home.

That was all he had to do.

And ignore his trembling hands.

-o-o-o-

End Part Seven.

Part Eight

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #virgil tracy #scott tracy #virgil/kayo #scott/oc #scott/em #warm rain #gentle rain

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zippdementia · 6 years

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Part 53 Alignment May Vary: What to do About Those Pesky Dragons!

This was a short session almost entirely taken up by a single combat. I’ll get to that in a moment. First of all, some housekeeping. Before we leave the temple of Maaken, Trakki announces he has something to do. He takes Trellara and lelads her into the altar room.

Trellara is smitten with Traki, but she is not stupid. The temple of Maaken already has an evil reputation and each step she takes into the temple seems to confirm this. She lingers for a moment at the mural showing the three figures rising to rule the world, but she does not comment on it. When they reach the altar room, her doubts finally settle into fear and then a terrible sort of comprehension. This is due in part to a natural 20 on her insight roll, but probably has more to do with the giant pulsating blob of horrible meaty parts resting in the corner of the altar room, yet in clear view (the Soul Jar).

Trellara draws her scimitars but seems unwilling to accuse Traki. The thought of him betraying her is too awful. “No,” is all she says. “I am sorry,” is all he replies, though no sorrow enters his voice. Then he is on her, stabbing at her with the Dagger of Erythnul, burrying it in her shoulder. It’s evil properties drain the life from her and while she is stunned he open palm strikes her, knocking her unconscious.

A dry cackle comes from out of the shadows and the old woman with the slit throat, who once made honey cakes but whom we now know Traki previously murdered and turned into an undead, approaches. “Nazragul is pleased by your decision,” Mama Honeycakes says.

“Then ask him to tell me how to perform the ritual that made you what you are. But I want it better this time. I want her to rise more powerful than before.”

Mama Honeycakes smiles a broken smile.

Soon the ritual is set. Trellara lies with her chest and heart exposed on the altar. Over her hovers Traki, his arm slit open and the blood gushing over her form, staining her white face red. Sitting on her naked skin are pieces of the soul jar, pulsating slowly in the blue torch flame that lights this area. Traki has drawn a rune on Trellara’s chest, over her heart. Next to him stands Nysyries, supervising the work, for she is one who can manipulate the magical weave while Traki is a stranger to that world. Luck alone, and the power of the dagger, showed him how to bring the old woman back. Now he wants something more than luck.

“Now we begin,” she says, in Nazragul’s throaty growl.

So what’s happening here is a couple of arcana rolls. DC 15 on the first one, to see if Trellara can become anything other than a slobbering zombie who will follow Traki around slowly like a dangerous pet. He passes this, but only barely and with the help of Nysyries aiding him and a fate point (+1 to any roll, remember these? We use them a lot). The second test is to see whether Trellara becomes blood crazed or maintains a semblance of control over her new powers. This he succeeds at wildly!

The dagger plunges into Trellara’s heart, piercing the center of the rune on its way there. Trellara moans, whether in pain or ecstasy, Traki cannot tell. The pieces of the soul jar suddenly move for the wound in the chest, squeezing themselves inside of it, while the blood Traki smeared on Trellara’s face and body seems to be sucked up by her skin, disappearing into it like water poured over dry sand. Trellara sucks in a breath. Her skin has gone whiter than before. Her eyes have sunken back in her head. Her teeth have become sharp points. Yet despite this, she seems to have retained her beauty, unnatural as it might now be. She looks around like a newborn. The hole in her chest reveals a softly beating heart. She demurely covers it with her clothing.

“You have freed me,” she says in wonder to Traki.

Tyrion Ragedrinker, also known as the Blue Bard, sits outside the temple sharpening his axe. He looks up when the three emerge and briefly lets his eyes rest on the new Trellara. “Well, there’s that, then,” he says, and goes back to sharpening his axe.

Trellara has become a wight, with all the good and bad that brings with it. She is pretty powerful now, if not the sturdiest fighter. Definitely more powerful than before! And Traki’s successful ritual means she retains her beautiful voice and a sense of self. She’s a little odd right now, crying tears of blood without knowing why she is crying, and tearing out the feathers of her owl as slowly as possible to see how it reacts (Nysyries has them bent to her will, using her powers to make them actually enjoy being afraid of the group... they are a little twitchy, but they obey). But eventually she will learn to adapt to her new body and will be able to fit in almost as well as any of them. She doesn’t like sunlight, though, and becomes sluggish and less charismatic under its glare. The group is going to have some fun roleplay challenges when they reach Brindol, considering they will have to hide their evil nature during that entire chapter. This just adds to the fun and gives them a powerful NPC ally to boot!

Dragon Leftovers

I have long been dissatisfied with how Red Hand of Doom handles its end game with the Dragons. I’m going to jump ahead a bit here (my players, if you are reading, I’ll keep this vague and spoiler free)... So you’re powering through Red Hand of Doom, having a good time, and then you get to the end of the adventure and, oh, guess what? Your party didn’t kill all the dragons. So now they have to fight them all AT ONE TIME. This is supposed to be a punishment for players who didn’t succeed at routing dragons throughout the adventure and to be honest, it is not an impossible fight to win, depending on your players’ levels and how many there are. But dragons are tough. Young dragons have a CR of somewhere between 7-10, depending on their type. Now, one of these may actually not pose enough of a threat to your party. But two or three of them at once?

Not that I’m saying non-legendary Dragons should fight alone (we’ve seen how that worked back at the Sunken City of Rhest) but they should be paired up with lesser minions meant to keep players from being able to focus fire on them and pin them down, maybe CR 2s or 3s or even a couple 4s if the party is really tough and needs a challenge. You’ll see this happen in the storm battle I’ve set up for Ozyrandion, below. I used Xanathar’s guide for this fight. Looking at Xanathar’s guide, five level 9 characters are said to be equal to taking on a level eight challenge, but I’m not sure I agree with that in practice. At least in my group, I’ve seen two of my party (Traki and Tyrion) take on Ozyrandion at the bridge by themselves and do okay, and that was back at level 6 or 7. At level 9 I have no doubt that all three of them would destroy a single young green dragon and honestly two of them could hold their own in a fight. Thus, I treat my players more like level 13 when using Xanathar’s guide to set difficultly. There are a lot of things that could factor into why this happens in my group, like the fact that we allow epic maneuvers like grappling in mid-air, or it could be the NPCs they travel with, or their aggressive tactics, or my poor rolls, but it seems to balance out a lot better.

Note: A lot of this is gut work more than math work. I pick my monsters for fights based on how well I know my players and how they fight, so I have a good idea of what challenges them. Xanathar’s guide is just there to give me a guideline to judge what I’m doing after the fact.

That said, three young dragons versus my three party members is almost a guaranteed TPK, even using Xanathar’s guide and treating my players as higher level.

But there are story reasons, too, to dislike the way the dragons are used. The players are supposed to believe these beasts show up for one fight in the game and if they survive it then they just disappear from the playing field to go back home. Why would they do this? Why wouldn’t they continue to be active participants in the war? Dragons are touchy beasts: wouldn’t they hold a grudge and seek out the adventurers who escaped their wrath, especially if those adventurers succeeded in getting past them to the thing they were guarding (bridge/eggs/phylactery/etc)?

My advice to GMs running Red Hand of Doom is this: if the players encounter a dragon and survive the encounter without killing it, then look for ways to work that dragon back into the plot before the battle of Brindol. You will have to adjust their fights a bit to keep them a challenge, but I think it lets all the dragons shine more as individual, willful creatures and makes them feel less like obligatory boss fights. For instance, in our game, Ozyrandion lives. I decide to have Azor Khul send him to guard the Ghostlord’s lair instead of Varanthian. Varanthian is a fine monster, and a level 11 challenge would be a decent solo monster fight at this point in the game (and I’ve got other minions in the Ghostlord’s lair who can reinforce if the Behir gets locked down with stun or the like), but I would rather the players get a shot at a reoccuring villain rather than have to establish a new one. So instead of the players fightng her, they have an intense encounter with Ozyrandion and three Manticores who accost them in the middle of a raging storm on the edge of the Ghostlord’s lair.

Here is a list of other suggestions for how to bring surviving dragons back:

Ozyrandion: the haughty green dragon is sent to hunt the players, catching up with them on their way to Rhest or at some other point in the adventure between locations (as I did above). If he fails again but escapes, he becomes obsessed and “goes rogue,” chasing the players down even after the adventure has ended, gathering more powerful allies each time (wyverns, chimera, etc).

Regiarix: if Regiarix and Saarvith both still live, then maybe they attack the elves right after Rhest and launch a side quest to hunt them down in the fens, where they will fight alongside some ghoulish minions. If that doesn’t appeal, or if they survive that, then they join in the battle at Brindol, attacking at the same time as another major event that the players are on their way to help with, waylaying the players and preventing them from reaching their goal. The players have to defeat the two here and if they don’t do it quickly enough, they fail to reach their goal in time, causing the failure of one of the major events of the battle. Note, if you do this, consider giving them extra healing options after the battle.

Varanthian: I think the Behir has the opportunity to become a much more interesting character then just a boss fight. Consider introducing her earlier in the campaign, when the players have little chance of defeating her in combat. Knowing this, she should taunt them, warning them to leave this quest to “better men.” She will continue to dog them throughout the adventure, tracking them for her own pleasure, enjoying the thrill of the hunt more than the promise of the kill, maybe attacking before a big event just to weaken and frighten them. She will criticize and downplay their actions, mocking any other dragons they face as “inferior foes.” She will only go on the full offensive at either her original Ghostlord’s location, or after the Battle of Brindol. You may even want to consider replacing Tyragun with her in this case and removing Tyragun entirely, as using this method the Behir is a more interesting character then him. I honestly wish I’d thought of this sooner...

Abiathrix: The Red Dragon is the only one that it really makes sense to have the players meet again at the finale, if not defeated earlier. Mostly because there really isn’t anywhere else for him to go, as he’s encountered so late in the story. But having two dragons to fight may be an acceptable challenge. If not, it is very possible he defects and flees the fight altogether. I always assumed he was really a coward at heart and hasn’t run yet only because nothing has really challenged him before. Chances are he will remember the characters who defeated him, though, and will return when he is older and more powerful to wreak his vengeance on the people of the Vale.

Riders on the Storm

The players approach the Ghostlord’s Lair by night on owlback, scanning the horizon for signs of “a giant stone lion” which they’ve been told contains the Ghostlord’s lair. Nazragul says they MUST secure the Ghostlord’s services so that he can use his powers over flesh to shape the Soul Jar into something more suitable for carrying into battle. Readers may recall that the point of the Soul Jar is to release the trapped souls of Nazragul’s army into freshly killed bodies after the Battle of Brindol. The entire point of the players fighting off the Red Hand of Doom is so that Nazragul’s armies will then have the easier time of slaughtering the weakened people of Brindol and bringing the city under his control, fulfilling his age-old dream of conquering the vale and the people (descendants in this case) of Rhest. We’ll see how that goes in a future chapter. For now, the players are suddenly distracted by a massive storm which rises just as they finally think they spot the stone lion. Nysyries knows time is short for her: she has two nights left before she needs to feed again on male human souls or else risk losing her druidic powers forever, as per her pact with the lady of the wood. She is not willing to wait out this storm. Tyrion is all for flying in, too, so the group pushes onward.

The storm bats their owls around and visibility drops to what is illuminated by Tyrion’s magical breast plate and the occasional lightning strike. in this darkness hides four ambushers, who roll very well on their stealth checks... but Nysyries rolls even better on her perception, even beating Ozyrandion’s 25 to hide! So she sees the shapes flying out of the darkness at them. When she calls to her companions to ready for combat, Ozyrandion hears her and realizes the surprise is up. “MY CHANCE FOR REVENGE HAS COME!” he booms.

Combat takes us a couple of hours. There is a lot going on. The Dragon is obviously the heavy hitter, but the Manticores get to roll enough times each turn that they pose at least a threat that can’t be ignored. Complicating things is the fact that the owls pose a big weakness. Yes, as mounts they allow the players to dodge, dash, or disengage for free, but they have little hit points and if killed, the players will be in free fall. Finally, the storm itself makes ranged attacks at disadvantage and is difficult terrain. It also has a special effect that happens each round based on a d100 roll:

1-10: A new combatant is carried into the storm. Choose a flying creature of CR 4 and add them as a neutral creature that selects a random target on its turn. Roll initiative for it now.

11-35: everyone must make a DC 14 CON save or be hit for 2d8 thunder damage and have disadvantage on all attacks rolls this round. Success on save takes half damage and avoids the penalty.

35-44: The clouds gather into a thick mass. This round nothing happens. Next round, roll the dice twice and apply both effects, re-rolling 35-44.

45-55: Nothing happens this round, the storm rages on.

56-69: Everyone is struck by confusion as per the spell confusion for one round. On their turn, if they can make a DC 18 WIS save, they avoid this effect.

70-85: lightning strikes a random character in the storm for 4d10 lightning damage

86-100: Everyone must make a DC 14 STR save or be blown into the nearest character within 20 feet. Succeeding the save means nothing happens to you. Failing the save moves you as described and both you and whomever you hit take 3d6 bludgeoning damage.

My players continually roll the thunder and lightning effects throughout combat, with a round where nothing happens occuring near the middle of combat, so we miss most of these effects, but the thunder and lightning have a big impact on the combat nonetheless, usually in favor of the players, who roll much better on their saves than the monsters do.

The combat starts with Nysyries taking control of the storm through call lightning and trying to strike an approaching Manticore. Traki leaps from the back of his owl, meanwhile, and aims for another Manticore, tackling it midair and tumbling down into the storm with it, stabbing with his dagger and punching with his fists all the while. Tyrion, seeing this feat of bravery (insanery?) follows suit, but not to be outdone, he chooses to leap on the dragon! Hey, he argues, Traki already got to kill a dragon, so it’s my turn!

Ah, classic DnD. Where Dragons become equivalent to big-game trophies.

By the end of the round, things are not going as well. The manticore Traki is, er, riding gives as good as it got, using its tail to reach that “oh so hard to scratch spot” on its back where Traki is and impaling him with a critical hit here. Traki gets hurt pretty badly, dropping below half life as he takes three massive hits from the Manticore. Nysyries finds herself targeted by Ozyrandion, who chooses to ignore Tyrion for the moment (”Disgusting little flea! I’ll deal with you next!”) and instead breathes poison at both her and her owl. It’s a heavy hit. The owl dies instantly. Nysyries is knocked unconscious and begins to fall into the storm.

Trellara, meanwhile, goes nuts, unleashing the power of her now supernaturally beautiful voice to psychically attack the nearest Manticore. Her voice allows her to either target one enemy for 10d6 damage or ALL creatures within 30 feet for 3d6 damage (halved for both effects on a save, on a DC 13 Con save). The Manticore makes the save and launch into a flurry of attacks on her, bringing her down to half life. A lightning bolt then sparks across the sky and arks its way through Trellara and her owl, blasting her off into the night sky.

Tyrion casts healing word, saving Nysyries, who mid fall transforms into her signature Quetzalcoatl and rejoins the battle. After this, things turn to the player’s favor. Ozyrandion fails a ton of rolls against Tyrion, both in trying to pull him off and in trying to just do damage to him. Eventually, he flies high above the others, heading into the storm clouds to focus on Tyrion alone. The two beat eachother with their various weapons, the dragon missing more often than not, Tyrion having the same problem. Tyrion gets the upper hand, though, when he uses his reactionary Breastplate of Chaos (which has previously had such wonderful effects as turning him permanently blue) to randomly unleash a high level magic missile on the Dragon. This turns the tide, and from here on out Tyrion hits more and more with his berserker axe, going berserk in the process.

Far below them, Traki keeps leaping from Manticore to Manticore, asking each one “Hey, do I know you,” and confusing the hell out of them in the process. He’s thinking one might be the Manticore from Vraath Keep, you see, though that Manticore is actually still lounging around in those ruins, king of his own little domain. No, these Manticores DO NOT know Traki and have regretted meeting him at all. He manages to intimidate the first one into carrying him back into combat (and then this Manticore quickly bails on the fight), from here leaping on the next one. This one has a smarmy British accent and he’s less inclined to surrender, deciding to Kamikaze in the storm instead of letting Traki have victory. Good thing Nysyries is there to save him!

The rest of the fight is easy to describe. Nysyries and Traki together make easy work of the last Manticore, Nysyries diving underneath it while Traki drags the blade of Erythnul across its exposed belly. And Tyrion finally delivers a bad enough blow to Ozyrandion that he gives up on trying to rip the annoying little man off of him and instead dive bombs into a storm cloud brimming with lightning and booming with thunder. Here Ozyrandion meets his end, struck by a lightning bolt. That same bolt rips through Tyrion as he falls, a speck in the black sky that Nysyries turns and speeds towards.

At this point, what I think would be amazing is for Nysyries to catch Tyrion but have him still be berserk. I think that would be amazing. I think Nysyries and Traki agree, they laugh a little and Traki starts to muse about how he could restrain Tyrion until they can knock him out. But Tyrion isn’t for it and since it would be a stretch of the rules to insist that it happens, we move on. I’m usually okay with bending the rules a little in the name of hilarity and fun, but only if everyone is on board. So instead, Nysyries succeeds on her “catch the Blue Bard” roll without incident and we move on to the rough landing that puts them inside the eye of the storm and directly outside of the Ghostlord’s lair (I’ve doubled the proportions on everything here for reasons I’ll reveal once we actually meet the Ghostlord):

Rising from a low mesa is an intimidating sight. A massive lion of stone crouches, as if ready to pounce on a nearby hill. The cyclopean monolith is composed of a dull tawny stone. It looks to be about four hundred eight feet in length, and the top of its maned head rises over one hundred feet from the ground. There seems to be some sort of hollow between the lion’s front paws, in the area bordered by its chest. Likewise, hints of a dark cave are apparent in its gaping maw. The lair is constantly shrouded by a flight of dozens of ghostly lions. These spirits fly in unending circuits around and through the structure’s stony body and head. They are invisible during the day, but append the following description if the PCs approach the lair at night. Dozens of translucent lion-like shapes fl y and caper about the massive lion’s head and body. The shapes sometimes even pass through its stony surface to emerge in a different spot.

As you stare at this phenomenon, suddenly a voice calls out a confused “Now what is happening here?” You turn, and see the professor’s ghostly form standing nearby, looking aghast at the spiral of ghostly forms. Suddenly he is pulled from your side and lifted into the air, making thin protests as he is quickly drawn towards the spiral against his will and joins the other souls in the vortex.

Quick Analysis: This fight was meant to replace the opening fight against the Behir that’s set up for the entrance of the Ghostlord’s Lair. Thus, the goal was twofold. First, to provide a similar challenge (something equal to a level 11 one enemy challenge) which will drain some of the players’ resources heading into this dungeon. Second, to deliver something impressive to start off this dungeon.

On the first point, I think this was a success. The fight ends up being challenging but fun. It could have gone either way for my players, but once they got the upper hand, the fight continued to go in their favor. They definitely have used up a fair amount of heal spells and Nysyries has used a valuable transformation. They will have to decide whether a short rest is worth the risk before moving on next time. Regardless, they won’t be entering the dungeon at full strength. And Trellara is gone, disappeared in the storm. Not dead, perhaps, but missing in the Thornwaste for the time being, along with the surviving owls.

On the second point, it is also a success! This was a memorable fight and set up the environment for us, too. Flying through the storm to get here and then seeing it surround them as they approach the Ghostlord’s giant lion makes this all the more ominous and impressive. If your players fought and escaped Ozyrandion earlier, then I recommend using this fight (or a similar one) instead of the Behir. Save her for more interesting encounters.

#Behir #Dungeons and Dragons #5e #Red Hand of DOom #Tyrion #Traki #Nysyries

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gamearamamegathons · 5 years

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Dragon Quest V: Our Obligatory Trip To Hell

Circe here! This might be a bit of a long post, because I just went for the finish line this time. The first thing we need to do is go to a tower in the center of the world. Right away, I notice that the monsters here are quite a bit weaker than those in Emblem Cave. So, maybe the guide directed me there too early, I dunno. At this point I'm not going to complain that I'm having an easier time, though. Also, this appears to be the Zenithian Tower from DQIV, except it's kinda in ruins now. We find a magma staff here, and some guy tells us that we need to open the way to the sunken Zenithian Castle with it. Luckily, I know about where that is, so I use the staff to open a path through some mountains blocking the way.

Next up...minecart dungeon! This area has simple puzzles where you have to flip minecart track switches to ride minecarts to where you need to go. It's kinda fun in places, although there's no good way to reset the minecarts if you mess up and end up in the wrong place, so you end up having to just walk back to where you left the carts and bring them back. Which is less fun. Deeper into the dungeon, we find a guy riding a minecart in circles. When we flip a switch to let him out, he says that his name is Pusan and he's been stuck in that cart for 20 years. Which, uh, sounds a little unlikely. But okay. He comes with us, and we find our way to the Zenithian Castle, specifically by riding a minecart off a ramp into the lake. Seems safe to me.

At the castle, we discover why it originally sank from the sky. Pusan says that the revival of a dark lord or something damaged the castle, and one of the orbs powering it fell through a hole in the floor. In fact, it's the very same Gold Orb which fell from the sky aaaall the way back during our childhood. Remember that? Because, uh, I didn't. It's been a while since I played that part. Unfortunately, that orb was destroyed by Gema when he killed our dad, so there's no getting it back. But maybe we could ask the Queen of the Fairies, who originally created it. Hey, finally that side bit about visiting the fairies is going to pay off!

To find the fairies, we have to enter the Forest of Illusion, and guess what, we're back in dungeon hell. The forest is confusing and appears to loop in places, and it also introduces a fun new enemy called the Farewell Crag. This monster can cast Farewell, which destroys itself in order to revive and fully heal all of its allies. To make it even more ridiculous, two Farewell Crags can be in the same group, and can repeatedly revive each other.

I'm not sure who thought this was a good idea.

Luckily, it's not nearly as bad as I thought, because Farewell Crags don't appear that often, and can just be avoided when necessary. The other enemies here aren't so bad, so eventually I find my way to the land of the fairies again. Here, we are given the Faerie Horn, which can lead us to the Queen of the Fairies, who *isn't* here, apparently. We have to go to a lake near the Zenithian Tower and ride a boat out to a lotus and use the horn there. Yes, I'm using a guide again at this point. When we meet the queen, we learn that she can't make another Gold Orb. But she can make an innert glowy orb, and she tells us we might be able to do something with it. And that something is, of course, time travel. Yeah, okay, sure. We travel through a painting and go back to our childhood. We find our younger self, and switch the Gold Orb with our useless one, and return to the present. And now we're golden. I guess. If you think time travel is going to become an important element of the story, well, no, that's the last time it comes up.

The important thing is that once we put the Gold Orb back in place, the castle rises back into the sky, and we can fly it around! So that's pretty cool. This lets us reach a new location, Boble Tower. Except that we need to climb down through the top with a grappling hook. Inside, there's a big dragon head statue, and we need to travel down to the basement to fight two bosses guarding its eyes. The first boss was pretty trivial and I didn't even write down his name. The second boss is Gema, the guy who killed our dad and sold us into slavery. He was, uh...surprisingly easy to kill. Kind of anticlimactic too, for a character who had such a big impact on the plot, he doesn't get any kind of death scene or anything. But this does allow us to put in the dragon's eyes and get inside it, where we find the Dragon Orb. We return to Pusan with it, and find two Zenithians saying that he's suspicious and nobody knows who he is. He asks for us to give him the orb, and of course it looks like he's going to turn out to be evil and he just tricked us into getting the orb for him or something. But actually, no, he's the Master Dragon, who's basically...god? I dunno. Once he turns into a dragon, he gives us some bells that let us summon him and ride him around. What does this get us when we already had a flying mode of transport? Well, first of all, he's a fucking dragon. That's awesome. But second of all, this lets us reach this weird temple, which is the same one we were building back when we were a slave.

There's a run of boss fights here that are pretty easy, but along the way, Lamira learns Bedragon, that spell that lets her turn into a dragon and automatically breathe fire on everything. So that's pretty sweet. In fact, it turns out that an item I found in Boble Tower, the Dragon Staff, can cast Bedragon basically for free. Useful. Eventually we reach Ivol, the evil priest guy of the temple. He's actually fairly tough, but I'm able to pull out a victory. He leaves behind a Ring of Life, and our mom is able to talk to us through it from Hell. She tells us that we should give up on trying to go to Hell and save her, but like, that would be no fun. So we go to Hell. First thing, though, I need to get the other two rings, the Ring of Flame and Ring of Water, from way back in the game. This is unfortunate, because it got sent to the item depository, and I've never used one in the whole game. So, uh, it took me a bit to figure out how to get it.

Now, finally, that water cave from earlier is going to become important, because we can put a ring on each statue, and travel to Hell! As you'd expect, it's got exactly one town to rest at and a whole bunch of really strong monsters. There is one saving grace though: we're given the Sage Stone when we enter Hell, which we can just wave around to instantly heal the whole party for free. Naturally, my hero character spends the rest of the game using it every turn. This does ease things up a bit, but the final dungeon is still pretty rough, and very very long. Partway through, we end up meeting the hero's mom, finally...but then she dies trying to stop the demon lord. So, uh...that sucks. I don't have much to say about it, other than that the game is again weirdly anticlimactic about its plot points.

My first time through the final dungeon, I end up party wiping at a miniboss before the final boss. The second time around, I preserve my MP by mostly running away from everything, which works out pretty well. Finally, it's time to confront Mildrath, the demon lord. His first phase is pretty easy, especially since I have free healing and free dragon-being. His second phase is a lot rougher, but shockingly enough, I'm able to mostly survive just by continuing to wave the Sage Stone around a lot. In both phases he regularly dispels all buffs, which removes the Bedragon effect, but I can recast it instantly and for free, so the bigger issue is that I can't really afford to keep recasting defensive buffs. Eventually I just go it with the Sage Stone only and hope it'll carry me through. My hero ends up dying, and I'm pretty sure I'm fucked, but then Mildrath dies on the very same turn. So that was convenient.

After that, we go back to the surface to celebrate, and become king and stuff, and it's good. Sooo...I'll get right into my thoughts on the game. It might be obvious at this point, but I feel like this is kind of a step backwards from DQIV in terms of storytelling. DQIV spent a lot of time setting up characters and getting us invested in them, and in DQV, the story seems to bend and warp around our single mute protagonist, while other characters often feel rushed and incidental. The game is clearly trying to do something big by showing a story taking place across multiple generations, but they don't appear to know how to build that plot structure organically, so the characters feel like they're being moved around like little chess pieces. And despite all that, the game's plot ends up pretty cookie cutter. All the stuff that's referenced from your childhood is just a lot of callbacks, it doesn't feel like the threads are being tied together meaningfully. There isn't even that much weight given to fighting the monster who killed your father and ruined your life. It all just feels...rushed, and sloppy. And a lot of the novel additions to the game's formula are just, excessively sad for no especially good reason except shock value, I guess. From this entry I never would've guessed that the series had finally hit its stride in the previous entry, despite the limitations of the NES.

Mechanically, it doesn't really stand out either. The big new mechanic for this game was supposed to be monster recruiting, but just like with DQIII, I was too intimidated by the prospect of grinding up brand new characters to bother with this more than I absolutely had to. From seeing forum threads about this game, it looks like you're kinda expected to be recruiting powerful monsters by the endgame, but the final third of the game also gives you a full party with your two kids. I don't really get it. I was able to win with them just fine, albiet by the skin of my teeth. Maybe that's my fault for trying to rush through the game, but I just wasn't able to feel excited by the whole monster recruitment thing.

It must be said that Mildrath was a lot less impressive than Necrosaro as well. Necrosaro had a lot of plot buildup, and the spectacle of fighting him legitimately impressed me. Despite now having the muscle of the SNES, DQV's boss only has two phases, and I was able to get him into a somewhat stable loop that didn't really use much MP and let me just repeat a series of actions over and over again with minor tweaks. I was probably underleveled; if I'd leveled up just a bit more, it might've been possible for me to fight him indefinitely and with no use of resources. Again, all I can say for DQV is that it feels like a step down from the last game.

But hey, maybe things are going to look up. Next is DQVI, the very first game in this marathon that I've played before in some capacity. That was the remake, though. This will be my first time seeing the original. Here's hoping it's more compelling.

#circe #dragon quest #marathon #dragon quest v

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fengshuiatl · 7 years

Text

Go’s Story - A Prequel

Back when I was running the Feng Shui game that precedes the setting outlined in this blog, when we go to the end I wanted to do something special for the players. They got pretty attached to Go Hideki, an NPC that served as their driver, and their characters’ entry point into the Secret War. So, in addition to giving them CD copies of a soundtrack/mixtape for the campaign (I might still have a copy, if I find it I’ll take a picture), I wrote a short script (page wise, it’d be about an hour on TV w/commercial breaks) detailing how Go got involved in the whole mess. Since Feng Shui’s based on action films, I thought it was a neat meta way to present the world to them. I’ll be posting it up here over the course of the next couple of days.

I forwent a lot of exposition and explanations for certain details I would’ve otherwise because the players already knew them from the game itself, or their knowledge of Feng Shui (although I did do some character sketch write-ups in case someone wanted to try their hand at drawing the cast). I wrote out camera instructions because there’s no one trying to film this thing, and it was for my friends, not a director. You’ll get to see how I treated the future juncture compared to how the book. Also I wrote this five or six years ago. There’s stuff about this that I’d change if I were to tackle it again, but it’s something that I enjoyed working on at the time. Let me know what you think.

INT. THE JUNKYARD - NIGHT

Surrounded by piles of electronic refuse and dimmed

watchtowers, GO HIDEKI sits in an old rusted folding chair,

KAR FAI and THE PROFESSOR standing in front of him.

THE PROFESSOR

We'll help you along as we can.

We're limited in our resources

above ground of course...

She stops short, unable to find her words.

KAR FAI

We can get you back on your feet,

Go.

CUT TO:

EXT. THE BEACH - MORNING

GO and LAUREN lean on the hood of his car, Lauren settling

contentedly into his embrace as he holds her from behind.

THE PROFESSOR

(V.O.)

It's probably best that at least

for a time, you stay here in the

Netherworld as we don't have much

in the way of safehouses on the

surface.

He puts his lips close to her ear and whispers something that

earns a bright smile. She turns away from the tide to face

him.

THE PROFESSOR

(V.O.)

Anything you want or need, Kar Fai

and I will do our best to provide

for you.

The two melt into each other as their lips touch.

(V.O.)

My life...

CUT TO:

INT. THE JUNKYARD - NIGHT

The Professor and Kar Fai each give Go a unique look. The

Professor confused, Kar Fai crestfallen.

THE PROFESSOR

I'm sorry?

You're going to help me get my life

back.

CUT TO:

EXT. SUBMETRO SPEEDWAY - NIGHT

Go walks through a veritable circus: Jalopies like something

out of Wacky Races with colorful drivers to match, bleachers

that look like a mosh pit and jury-rigged spotlights

illuminating the whole mess.

(V.O.)

The Professor set me up with a

car...

He stops in front of a Frankenstein's monster of a vehicle,

like a cross between the Popemobile and a luge sled with nary

a hard angle in sight.

(V.O.)

Found the nearest gate to 2056, and

it started from there.

DETECTIVE CORKER

(V.O.)

Actually, I was more curious about

what got you there in the first

place.

Go settles (somewhat) into the contraption and is greeted by

a small spherical robot that is set into the dashboard. Blue

lights in its "eyes" pulsate in time with its speech

patterns.

LU-SID

Good evening Mr. Hideki, I am the

locomotion, umbrage and safety

initiative drive.

You may refer to me as LU-SID.

Adjusting driver's seat cushions.

If not for the automatic seatbelts, Go's uncomfortable

fidgeting in his seat might've been a full fledged jump.

(V.O.)

You'll forgive me if I didn't think

to tell the cop about how I used to

do crime...

CLOSE UP

Go takes a breath and squeezes the steering wheel, brow

furrowed.

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. SWEDISH HOLDINGS COMPANY - DAY

Go's behind the wheel of a decidedly more mundane vehicle,

adjusting his rear view mirror.

(V.O.)

...but you know most of it.

Drove for a crew of thieves, had a

good run until things went south.

'Course, when an old man asks you

to steal a diamond that's a

reservoir for centuries worth of

chi energy so that a worldwide

group of conspirators can't use it

to opress the poor, you figure

you're probably on the cusp of a

downturn.

Just as he starts to notice red and blue lights in his

mirror, Go's passenger door opens.

A dapper young gentleman hops in, admiring a newly pilfered

diamond the size of a baseball before flashing Go a million

dollar smile.

LENNY

Home, James.

Go chuckles and speeds off, three police cruisers pulling up

from behind. Before they give chase, all three have their

engine blocks punctured...

SPEED TILT UP:

The monstrosity responsible is lifted from its tripod one

handed by MICHAEL, the other hand lifting to his earpiece.

MICHAEL

The rear's clear, the boys got

daylight?

LAUREN

(O.S.)

Green lights all the way to The

Pit, you're cleared to move, B.A.

CUT TO:

INT. THE PIT - CONTINUOUS

Lauren sits on the floor of a spartan storage facility, dimly

lit by the blue glow of a laptop.

LAUREN

You copy, Murdock?

(O.S)

Got it.

LENNY

(O.S)

What, no cute callsign for me?

EXT. DOWNTOWN L.A. - CONTINUOUS

Go weaves effortlessly through traffic, finding a steady

pathway through the sea of vehicles on the road. Police

cruisers attempting to intercept at cross streets are caught

in the jam.

LAUREN

(O.S)

Forgive me, Face, I'm a little busy

at the moment.

LENNY

Face, huh? Guess I know what that

makes you then.

LAUREN

(O.S.)

Well, I do love it when a plan

comes together. I'll have the van

running when you get here.

The sedan abruptly makes a wide turn into a small parking

garage, sliding perfectly into a space. Go and Lenny run to

a kiosk in the lot as cop cars barrel toward the entrance.

CUT TO:

ECU - A FINGER SLAMMING DOWN AN 'ENTER' KEY

Less than a second later, police cruiser tries to drive

through and is sunken half way into the ground in a cloud of

sand.

INT. THE PIT - CONTINUOUS

Lauren shuts her notebook and stands to face the boys as the

descend from an elevator.

LENNY

There is a distinct lack of van

here.

She simply smirks and pushes a button on a nearby wall to

reveal a utility van, idling in a tunnel.

God, that's sexy. Let's move.

LAUREN

Shotgun!

She cheerily grasps Go's hand and practically skips to the

van, Lenny following behind. By the time the cops are

spilling into The Pit, the trio is already deep into the

tunnel.

CUT TO:

EXT. NETHERWORLD CAVERNS - NIGHT

While dozens of vehicles jockey for position all around him,

Go navigates the precarious twists and turns of the caverns

at break-neck speed.

So where am I going, Prof?

A staticky image of The Professor is projected onto the

windshield.

THE PROFESSOR

I'm nailing down the exact location

of the gate, LU-SID will tell you

when I have it. From there you'll

be in 2056.

From there?

THE PROFESSOR

I'll be able to lock onto the

device you need so long as you keep

LU-SID with you. Get it, then get

back here so I can re-configure it.

Anything else?

Just as LU-SID's eyes pulse in time to its announcement of

the nearest jumpgate being 800 yards straight ahead, Go

notices a pair of motorcycles in his rear view.

One of the leather and spike clad riders (we'll call him

Hawk) grimaces and levels a sawed-off shotgun at Go's

windshield dome.

How impact resistant is this glass?

THE PROFESSOR

Umm, it should withstand most

highspeed crashes and small arms

fire. Are you being attacked?

Nothing I can't hand-

The stock of the shotgun opens up and a mechanism attaches a

small RPG to each barrel.

Shit.

Go wrenches the steering wheel hard when the RPGs are sent

his way, and the car spins in place while simultaneously

banking right.

The first narrowly misses the car as Go curves just out of

its reach. The second explodes as it skims the dome,

splashing glass in every direction.

LU-SID's eyes change from blue to red as he warns of a

malfunction with the vehicle's climate control.

Animal lines up with a similar weapon, but his stock opens up

to reveal a harpoon/grappling hook contraption.

Go drives in reverse to face the pair, not even looking as he

avoids the falling debris from the first RPG.

Hawk closes in, unsheathing a massive machete. Animal fires

and Go ducks, literally, speeding underneath the harpoon

line. The hook digs into the cavern wall and Hawk gets

clotheslined as he tries to make the jump from his bike to

Go.

The track becomes increasingly treacherous slalom of falling

rocks on the cavern floor. After a few near misses, Go slams

a button on the dash.

LU-SID

Spider treads activated.

In a flash, Go's driving along the cavern walls. Animal

responds by pulling a Calico pistol and trailing after Go

with automatic gunfire.

LU-SID announces that the gate is less than 200 yards ahead,

but as Go finally rights himself to face forward, all he sees

is a wall of rocks from a cave-in. Animal takes careful aim

as Go turns further up the wall, onto the ceiling.

Go grits his teeth and speeds up.

Animal follows suit, keeping his aim steady.

LU-SID

Temporal doorway reached.

Go looks down to see that the cavern floor ends where the

doorway he's looking for begins. With Animal still taking

aim, Go keeps one foot on the gas and takes his hands off the

wheel.

With his car speeding toward a crash, Go yanks his seatbelt

off and plucks LU-SID out of its housing.

Dedicated, Animal doesn't cease his aiming to take note of

things like the slight incline at the end of the cavern floor

that vaults him up as Go falls. The force from the two

vehicles colliding sends Go flying through the portal.

EXT. THE BEACH(NETHERWORLD) - DAY

Go sits on the hood of an Audi S6 Plus, a few bullet holes

and scratches along its exterior but it certainly fared

better than his race vehicle. Similarly, Go looks a little

scratched and bruised, but he carries it with a lazy (or

weary) charm.

He deftly twirls a zippo between his fingers while watching

Detective Corker pace in front of him. He tries to match

Go's lackadaisical demeanor but his interest in Go's tale

betrays it.

DETECTIVE CORKER

But you don't go trying to turn

back time just because of a score

turning out bad, right? It's like

gambling for you guys, you take the

beat and go home. S'what I've

always been told.

The Detective offers a cigarette, which Go waves away with

his right hand, an absolute monster of a handgun held loosely

in its grip.

The whole good cop schtick leads me

to believe your questioning's not

just out of idle curiosity.

DETECTIVE CORKER

Cop instincts aside, you're in the

middle of fucking nowhere, in the

Netherworld, hand cannon the size

of all outdoors in your mitts,

looking like you're about to cash

out. Call it compassion for my

fellow man.

Sure...well, to further string

along your gambling analogy, when

the stakes get high enough for a

player they can go two ways. Cash

out and go home, or you put up

everything you've got for a last

push to win.

Corker arches an eyebrow at that, lighting his own cigarette.

DETECTIVE CORKER

So how high were they, Go?

You read all the files, Detective.

CUT TO:

EXT. SUBURBAN NEIGHBORHOOD - MORNING

An idyllic picture of American Surburbia...if not for the

swarm of police and SWAT vehicles converging onto a modest

split-level home.

CUT TO:

INT. BROADNAX RESIDENCE - MORNING

Michael hurries his two kids out of the kitchen while his

wife frantically turns out the lights. The pair lock eyes

knowingly before Michael takes a breath and steps out into a

sea of red and blue lights.

(V.O.)

You know how close we all were.

CUT TO:

EXT. CITY STREET - MORNING

Go stops at a red light on a decidedly barren street. He

cranes his head upward to spy a helicopter above, and just as

the light turns green he's surrounded by black and whites.

(V.O.)

And you know who the only one not

to end up in the Case Closed

portion of your file was.

CUT TO:

EXT. L.A. COUNTY JAIL - DAY

The midday sun beats down on the jail as Go exits. He

squints out at the parking lot and adjusts his watch,

waiting.

DETECTIVE CORKER

(V.O)

So go pay him back, right? A lot

simpler.

A small coupe pulls up in the driveway and its passenger side

window rolls down. LAUREN sits in the driver's seat and

offers Go a small smile.

Go can only give an uneasy smile in return, running a hand

through his hair as he walks toward the car.

(V.O.)

Revenge wasn't good enough.

Just as Go reaches out for the door, the car EXPLODES,

lifting him off his feet. Employees rush out to help him to

his feet, but end up having to hold him back from running out

to the wreckage.

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. THE BEACH(UNDERWORLD) - DAY

The Detective frowns, making another offer of a cigarette.

To answer, Go snaps his lighter shut and tucks it away.

DETECTIVE CORKER

Helluva undertaking, s'all I'm

sayin'. So you're in 2056, what

for?

There was a device the Architects

developed using energy from diamond

the crew and I nicked.

EXT. RECLAMATION CENTER - DAY

The site of the SWEDISH HOLDINGS COMPANY is much different in

the year 2056. The building is now smaller by a few stories,

and none of the identifying architecture from 1996. It's all

a smooth, featureless polymer.

Surrounding it is a bland, featureless gray expanse. The

street has no traffic marks, there are no road signs or

billboards. The sky itself is an unnaturally flat gray, with

no variation in its hue.

Go spills out of a trash receptacle across the street,

wreckage and refuse following in his wake. Just as he starts

to sit up, LU-SID hums to life, blue lights emanating from

Go's jacket pocket.

LU-SID

Device located.

Go blinks as a decidedly contemporary looking vehicle rolls

by, the Audi from The Beach, sans scratches and bullet holes.

It stops outside the Reclamation Center and its driver, a

hulking behemoth of a man encased in a bulky exoskeleton,

exits. There are pipes and valves that connect the various

panels and plates to his body, and viscous fluids ooze

through them.

(V.O.)

It harnessed the raw chi in the

stone into like...an energy bomb.

Closest thing I could think of is

an EMP, but for chi sites, and it's

permanent.

The driver waves a hand over a section of the seemingly

smooth wall and a door-sized panel recedes, then slides

aside. He steps inside and Go climbs to his feet with a look

on his face approaching relief.

Before Go takes a step, the driver exits the building and

retrieves a package from the backseat, activating the keyless

entry before shutting the door. On cue with the driver re

entering the building, LU-SID announces that the device is

out of range.

The relief on Go's face quickly turns to a furrowed brow and

mouthed curse words.

DETECTIVE CORKER

(V.O.)

So you figured you'd grab it

and...?

Once the driver goes back inside, Go takes a deep breath and

steels himself. He takes another moment to dust himself off,

then heads for what he thinks might be the front door. Much

to his surprise, after passing a hand over the wall

tentatively, the door recedes.

CUT TO:

EXT. THE BEACH(UNDERWORLD) - DAY

Lenny sold us out to the Ascended.

Given that the Ascended's greatest

strength is just how much chi real

estate they hold, that's what they

probably rewarded him with.

DETECTIVE CORKER

But with the kinda cards the

Ascended hold...they could've

bought him off with money, or

something way less valuable...

...but Lenny, to his credit, is a

smart guy. If he was able to

figure out just how big the

Ascended was, he's gonna make a

gamble. In either case, the

Professor and Kar Fai kept

explaining to me how wrong the

whole going back in time to kill

Hitler idea is. You really wanna

change history, you change how and

where chi flows.

Corker regards Go thoughfully for a moment before chuckling

out a breath of cigarette smoke.

DETECTIVE CORKER

Pretty lateral thinkin' for a fella

who notes 'reckless driving' as an

occupational necessity and carries

a piece that could punch a hole in

God.

Go smirks down at the Automag as though he's just realized

how big it is.

Man, I've never even fired this

thing at an actual person before.

CUT TO:

INT. RECLIMATION CENTER - DAY

The entire building is brightly lit, with no light bulbs in

sight: The walls themselves are luminescent.

Inside is just as spartan as out and Go marches through row

after row of nothing dead-eyed workers slavishly typing away

at computer terminals, holding aforementioned Automag at his

side.

DETECTIVE CORKER

(V.O.)

So what'dya carry it around for?

Scare factor?

Separated from the data entry bank by a guard rail, Go spots

a receiving area ahead of him where the behemoth sits at a

desk in front of one of the workers, going over paperwork.

(V.O.)

Honestly? 'Cause it's heavy.

�� One hand vaults Go over the guardrail, the other rains blow

after blow from the handle of the Automag onto the behemoth's

head.

CUT TO:

EXT. DOWNTOWN L.A.(2056) - DAY

What was once eerily calm is now absolute bedlam, all

centered on Go's newly acquired Audi. Spherical droids chase

him from the air, while hovercars close in on him from the

rear like silver bullets.

Bullets. Lasers. RPGs. Flak bursts. All manner of strange

ballistic munitions come flying Go's way, and none of them

can manage to find purchase as he weaves in and out of impact

range.

LU-SID

Temporal doorway up ahead.

Two roads run parallel alongside the one Go's being chased

down, and all three lead to a single platform. Normally the

platform would travel along a track to the doorway -- a huge

ring in the sky, suspended in place by small anti-gravity

gyroscopes -- but it sits dormant at the end of the road as

warning klaxxons sound.

Go looks to his right and sees two more hovercars speeding

toward the intersection. Still at full speed, Go sticks his

gun out of the window and begins firing.

The contrast between Go's masterful driving and his shooting

skills could not be more stark as he gets closer and closer

to the end of the line with each missed shot.

By bullet four he's cut the wheel and is drifting sideways to

buy himself time. Five and six graze the top of a hovercar.

With the seventh, the slide locks open and a bullet slams

into the hovercar's propulsion system.

It drops and skids along the ground, wedging into the space

between the road's edge and the platform at an angle. The

Audi slides up the trapped hovercar and goes airborne,

eventually slamming down onto the rails of the track.

The car does a tightrope act, sending sparks everywhere as he

slides sideways through the gate into...

CUT TO:

EXT. SUBMETRO SPEEDWAY - NIGHT

The Audi screams out of the caverns and crosses the

finishline of the Powercharger to a chorus of cheers,

gunshots and sirens.

A horde of scavengers converging on the vehicle are quickly

turned into scattering bowling pins as Go lays on the horn

and barrels through whoever still wants to try their luck.

DETECTIVE CORKER

(V.O.)

So you secured the device, then

what?

CUT TO:

EXT. THE BEACH(UNDERWORLD) - DAY

Go tucks the pistol away and stands, walking to the water's

edge.

From there I needed to find a

target, so I got down to doing

legwork. For the record, you guys

have a tougher job than I gave you

credit for.

CUT TO:

To be continued in the next post...

#feng shui rpg #screenplay #heists #car chases #betrayal #go's story

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