shark vs the universe
Three Goblin Art
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
NASA
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
JVL
Today's Document
izzy's playlists!
Acquired Stardust
oozey mess
RMH
@theartofmadeline
will byers stan first human second
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Not today Justin
tannertan36
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JBB: An Artblog!
Discoholic 🪩
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Austria
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from France
seen from Hong Kong SAR China
seen from Malaysia
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Italy
seen from Malaysia
seen from Germany
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
@immediate-action
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Pet Peeve Headcanon: Jackal has no patience for people with poor trigger discipline, and if he feels they’re handling a firearm in an unsafe way he won’t hesitate to do something about it. For example...
Sleep Headcanon: Jackal can’t sleep in beds with soft mattresses and pillows; he prefers a standard British Army-issue cot with no pillow and just a sleeping bag if he’s cold.
Name a type of crime, and my Muse/s will reveal if they have done it.
What’s a day without Arson, Murder and Jaywalking?
☠ ☮ ☼
Drinking Headcanon: Jackal doesn’t actually enjoy drinking very much, and the only alcoholic beverages he’ll let down his neck are beer and (very occasionally) a rum ration. He’s more of a social drinker than anything.
Random Headcanon: Jackal abhors any kind of discrimination - racism, homophobia, classism, and even sexism - on principle, and he’ll regularly call people like Fox out for using discriminatory language. That said, he’ll still use words like “cunt”, and expressions like “raghead” and “japseye” without even thinking about it; in his experience minorities in the British Army give as good as they get, and it’s all just banter at the end of the day. It’s only when people say it and mean it that he finds it offensive.
Cooking Headcanon: Jackal isn’t a very skilled cook. He can make a boil-in-the-bag meal, or something simple like bangers and mash or beans on toast, but to him food is just fuel. He doesn’t see the point in bothering with anything extravagant if it’s just to keep him going.
"Don't chase the rabbit"
It’s the same every morning. The cold air would attack his ears first, reddening them, and then his feet would start to get numb. He’s got pins and needles in his hands because the flow of blood to them is restricted, and the weight of the extra food and water in his pack is causing welts on his shoulders. The pouches of his belt-kit are crammed with Yorkie bars that he bought from the newsagents in town, bought and paid for with his own money, not stolen.
He leans forward to counterbalance the weight of his pack as he struggles uphill, the frozen mud crunching under his feet. Getting it on is the worst part, or so he keeps telling himself. He has to sit down, put his arms through the shoulder straps and then get two other lads to pull him onto his feet.
When he first sees it, he thinks someone’s dumped their Bergen and jacket, and finds himself wondering what kind of daft cunt would do such a thing. Then he draws closer, and realises what he’s looking at.
He promised himself he wasn’t going to stop, and when he does it’s only for a second. That’s all he needs to confirm the worst. He can’t find a pulse, and the boy’s skin is the colour of cement. The tips of his fingers are black; one of the straps of his Bergen his halfway down his arm.
When he reaches the next checkpoint, he finds several other lads and an officer sat in the back of a vehicle, passing around a packet of biscuits and swigging tea. He refuses to make eye contact with any of the quitters, as he’s come to think of them, and addresses the DS directly.
“There’s someone back there.”
“What d’you mean?”
“There’s a- he’s lying in the middle of the dirt road about half a K back. I checked him for a pulse, but he wouldn’t…”
He doesn’t finish. The other recruits are staring at him with a mixture of horror and fascination; the DS is looking at him as though he’s got his head on back-to-front. The officer turns away for a second, tells the lads in the vehicle to pass him the radio, asks the recruit what his name is- but by the time he’s turned back the stony-faced young man is already a dark spot fading into the distance.
don't chase the rabbit.
“Stay with me! Just focus on the sound of my voice!”
“Jesus, I can’t- fucking bleeding-”
“Look at me! Listen to what I’m saying! You’re going to be all right!”
“Fuck-”
“Hey! HEY! LISTEN! I’ve got to do something, all right? Look at me- LOOK AT ME! I’ve got to do something, and it’s going to hurt, all right? It’s going to hurt a lot, and I’m sorry, but I have to do it. Do you understand?”
“I- fuck- oh God, I don’t want to die-”
“You’re not going to die. You’re going to be fine. I promise. Just- I’m sorry, all right? I’m sorry-”
There’s a horrible slick noise like a slab of meat being stepped on, and then a long, piercing scream that goes on for a full minute before subsiding to a choked groan of anguish, punctuated by shuddering sobs, and as soon as the screaming stops the other voice whispers I’m sorry and doesn’t stop saying it until long after the tears and the blood have both dried on the cracked, dusty skin they’ve dripped on to.
Don't chase the rabbit.
"The age demanded that we sing…and…and cut away our tongue."
A silent nod of encouragement.
"The age demanded that we flow, and ham…ham…"
"Hammered-"
"Hammered…in the bung."
A pause.
"The age demanded that we…dance, and…jammed us…into iron pants. And in the end the age was handed…the sort of…shit…that it demanded."
He flushes, realising after a full three seconds that his finger is still pressed into the page below the last word that he read, and turns anxiously to her, snapping the book shut.
"So…how’d I do?"
"How did you do? Well, you just read an entire poem by yourself - I’d say you did pretty damn good."
He smiles a shy, awkward little smile, and for a second she can see the little boy beneath the dirt and the grime and the sparse stubble on his face.
"I’m proud of you," she says, giving his shoulder a playful nudge in lieu of the hug she so desperately wants. "Now, your turn to uphold your end of the deal."
"All right…what d’you wanna do first?"
She grins. “Teach me some more swear words.”
Hook, Line...
His ears are ringing and his head feels as if it was collapsed on itself. He feels like he is floating and spinning as he tries to push up. Halfway up he falls onto his side with a pained groan. He opens his eyes to help but it only makes the dizziness and sickness worse.
Everything is blurry- now he’s seeing double, quadruple. He tries to push himself up again, pushing past the pain and sick feeling. It feels as if the whole room is spinning and the floor shifting to the left, getting him to fall onto his side.
He tries to calm his breathing, he’s landed on the punctured lung twice now and it feels like he might stop breathing if it happens again. In. Out. In. Out. He repeats to himself. In. Out In- shit.. His blood runs cold and the hairs on the back of his neck raise.
Curling on his side, he retches. His head spinning more and more. A few more dry retches pass before bile rises into his throat and drips out of his mouth. The movements just making him more nauseous, causing him to puke again.
"J-Jackal.." He coughs out, head landing in the puddle of bile. "Talk to m-me.."
He doesn't speak. At least, not at first. He pushes himself across the floor by his boot-heels, slowly, painfully, his good arm gripping the wounded one, applying pressure to the wound to try and stem the blood flow. Shit, there's a lot of it. His hands are soaked.
"Vic," he grunts. "Stop talking."
The Ranger goes silent. Think, the SAS man urges himself. It'll take your mind off the pain. OK. So now they're both wounded. He's hurting bad, but he can deal with it. Stingray, though...he's in a right state. They're not going to survive another beating like that last one in this condition. Especially not if he keeps running his mouth. He's having difficulty breathing as it is.
Send me "Don't chase the rabbit" and your muse will be shown a random memory from my muse's past.
Hook, Line...
What the fuck are you doing? You’re going to get yourself fucking killed. Stop playing fucking hero, Jackal. He can only watch as the Georgians beat the man senseless.
The pain in his chest has gotten worse with the small beating he had received. His vision fading to black with every shortened breath. He gets glimpses of the beating going on in front of him.
He can’t breathe. He can’t focus. All he can do is watch and wait for it to end. Or can I? He pulls his hands under his chest and pushes up, kneeling.
"Hey, fuckheads!" He grins at them, the same bloody grin as before. He gasps and huffs a bit more before continuing, voice softer. "Give the man a b-break.."
He stays tall as the Georgians walk over, one swinging the metal bar. He takes one last look over to the man they were beating before a swish of air and a searing pain knocks his lights out.
He hears the thud of the bar striking Stingray's head, followed by the thump of his head impacting the floor.
Then two rebels - a couple of really big bastards like Kiwi and Dutch - get a hold of him, and his heels scuff the floor as he lashes out with his legs, his arms immobilised.
He's flailing around like a spastic, grunting and snarling and thrashing uselessly, and then he hears something else; a thin, high-pitched scraping noise. Repeating over and over. Scrape, scrape, scrape.
It's the sound of a knife being sharpened.
There's a glint of metal in the light, and with horror he watches one of the rebels pull Stingray up by his hair, limp as a rag doll and wholly unaware of the cold metal against his throat.
"NO!"
One of the Georgians has a video camera. The one holding the blade - more like a machete than a knife - is talking, and he seems to be addressing the lens instead of Jackal.
They're getting ready to put him on fucking YouTube like that poor bastard in the Chechen soldier video.
"Wait! Wait wait wait- STOP! Just listen for a minute! LISTEN TO ME! We're worth more to you alive! Don't go doing anything stupid - you can use us!"
The rebels appear to hesitate for a moment. Thank fuck. Apparently at least a few of them speak a little English; he knows a little Russian too, but there's no guarantee that won't just make them angrier.
"When was the last time you had two foreign soldiers to bargain with, eh? That's a valuable chip- you don't don't want to get wasting it! Put the knife down! Let him go!"
Somewhat reluctantly, the man holding Stingray lets the Ranger's head drop and takes the knife away from his throat - and then, with a sadistic smile, he crosses over to Jackal and slashes at him, slicing through the thin fabric of his shirt and leaving a deep laceration across his shoulder.
He bites down on the pain, with some effort, and it's not until they leave that he allows himself to spit out a venomous "FUCK!"
Hook, Line...
He huffs out through his nose, the slightest bit of a scoff, as he turns to look at the man next to him. He grins, showing a few missing and chipped teeth along with bloody gums.
"You’re fucking with me r-right?" He exhales with a a shaky breath. He takes a few more before continuing, "I’m a goddamn Ranger. I can fucking do this."
He’s thrown into a violent fit of coughs, some hurting more than the others.
"I might be relying on one l-lung, and my vision might be fucked, but I can do this."
He chuckles again before biting his lip to hold back a groan. His chest feeling like it’s falling in on itself, pushing all the air out. But his eyesight is improving much more, the corners of the room coming into focus; the profile of the man sitting next to him is no longer a mass of greys, but now the features the balaclava hid.
I’ve always wondered what he looked like. He thinks to himself. And of course my sight is fucked the one chance I get.
"Are you going to be able to get through?" He keeps it short and simple, not wanting to put anymore stress on his lung.
"I'm not the one with a punctured lung," Jackal reminds him curtly. After that, he says nothing.
He forces himself to think past the dull ache in his bones, the stinging of the grazes and lacerations, the painful swelling in his groin. Jesus, he hadn't had a kicking like that since the first time he'd traded blows with Riley.
It's just pain, you fucking pussy. Ignore it. It's a distraction you can't afford. He's in a worse-off state than you and you don't see him complaining about it. Ranger the fuck up, like the Yanks say.
Then his heart jumps into his chest as he hears the metal door burst open with a clang. Booted footsteps approach rapidly from behind him, and he sees Stingray's mouth open as if to shout a warning before he feels a steel toecap connect with the back of his skull. He tastes blood in his mouth.
The Georgians snarl like rabid dogs as they lay into him. He makes no attempt to fight back, and prays Stingray is smart enough to follow his example. He can't see anything. Blood in his face. In his eyes. Ignore the pain. He can handle it. So can you. Just worry about yourself. Fuck, what if they kill him?
He needs to draw attention to himself to spare his mate the worst of it, so he does something very stupid. He lashes out with whatever he can use. Fists aren't an option. Elbows. Feet. He headbutts. Kicks. He bites down on a fist aimed at his mouth and hears a grown man let out a high-pitched scream. Soft meat, then something hard. Is that bone? No. A ring. Damn near broke his teeth on it. Come on, bite down harder. Break his fucking finger if you can. Rip it off. Hurt him.
Something hard - metal - strikes his left shoulder blade, and he's pretty sure he hears bone cracking. He yells. Can't bite down on it. Fuck, that one really hurt. His guts are next. That's it, you cunts. Aim for the soft bits, where there's no bones for you to break. He'll probably get a ruptured spleen instead, and that'll be just his luck.
The beating continues.
Hook, Line...
"I’m pretty sure the fucks punctured my fucking lung." He grunts out as he curls up into a sitting position, attempting to loop his cuffed wrists under his legs also.
As much as it pains him to do so, he finally brings his hands forward. He grunts as he lets himself fall onto his back again.
"Yeah- they definitely punctured it." Slowly, he reaches to pull off the dark hood the Georgians threw onto his head. Once he gets it off he looks around, eyes stinging as they try to adjust to the dark room. Blobs of black and grey merge into defined shapes as pushes against the nearest wall to sit up.
"You see anything?"
Damn, he finds himself thinking. This complicates things.
They both know the score. It's a plant. A false-flag operation with a group of Russian troops being led by two Western special operatives? They couldn't have made it any easier for those gullible rebel fucks if they'd had themselves gift-wrapped and FedEx'd to this site - except that was the whole point of getting captured in the first place. JSOC are eager to keep things smooth with the Russians since the last war, and since there's talk that the leader of this militia might be connected to the Ultranationalists
The idea was to get in, get interrogated, roll with the punches and offer up some bum intel to throw them off the scent, lull them into a false sense of security, ascertain the identity and location of the militia's commander, the man known only as Meomari (the Georgian word for Warrior) and kill him before extracting.
Best-laid plans and all that other bollocks.
His priorities are threefold - my men, my mission, myself - but with his number two badly wounded, number three had suddenly become lot harder. He needs to get the other man stabilised before he can even focus on finding a way out of this bloody room, but his med kit is strapped to his patrol belt along with the other gear the militia had stripped from him. A hot surge of anger runs through him as he thinks of the grubby bastards pawing through his kit; most of it is just STANAG gear but along with his balaclava, they've had his knife off him - although they haven't found the SERE kit sewed into the lining of his waistband.
He'd going to get his folder back, he vows. That's his knife, God damn it.
"Look mate, what we don't need right now is waste time trying to sugar-coat a shit. I need a no-BS assessment here - can you do your job in the state you're in right now?"
hrrrrgh got to hunker down and finish the newest chapter of bullet points
Hook, Line...
The door bursts open with a clang of metal against concrete, and all at once the cramped room is alive with activity. The armed men spit curses in their native Georgian as the two men they drag between them yell and struggle, their wrists bound and their voices muffled by the black bags over their heads.
The prisoners are in poor shape, and from the moment they enter their poor treatment continues. Boots connect with their softer bits of their bodies as they were thrown down hard on the floor, unable even to tell where the blows were coming from, much less defend against them. They simply have to roll with the punches until their captors grew bored, only daring to speak once the door has slammed shut and the coarse laughter and cursing has faded into the distance.
"Stingray," one of the men gasps, in British-accented English. "Talk to me, mate. Come on."
"J-Jackal.." The other painfully groans out in response.
He lets out a pained grunt and grits his teeth as he settles on his back, his ribs hurt with each breath, definitely a few broken ones. It even hurts to breathe. He turns his head over a bit to where the voice was coming from.
"Jackal, you’re okay?" He kicks his feet against the cold concrete floor, pushing over to the voice.
He presses against something warm, “That you?” He rasps, pushing closer.
"Yes, and no."
Hoisting himself awkwardly into a sitting position, he draws his knees up to his chest and hooks his cuffed wrists under his feet; then awkwardly, painfully, he reaches up and pulls off the hood. The bastards nicked his balaclava shortly before they administered the first beating, and in a petulant sort of way he's actually kind of pissed off about it.
"It's me, but I'm pretty fucking far from OK. Feels like I've cracked a rib. One of my eyes has swollen shut, my bollocks are sore, and...I think I've shit myself."
He glances around the room, his eyes gradually adjusting to the darkness. Looks as though they're in some kind of workshop or garage. One door, barred and bolted from the other side - no windows. Chains hang from the ceiling, and piles of what look to be scrap parts are stacked everywhere. Could be useful, he thinks, but we need to get our bearings before we even entertain the prospect of escape.
Hook, Line...
The door burst open with a clang of metal against concrete, and all at once the cramped room was alive with activity. The armed men spat curses in their native Georgian as the two men they dragged between them yelled and struggled, their wrists bound and their voices muffled by the black bags over their heads.
The prisoners were in poor shape, and from the moment they entered their poor treatment continued. Boots connected with their softer bits of their bodies as they were thrown down hard on the floor, unable even to tell where the blows were coming from, much less defend against them. They simply had to roll with the punches until their captors grew bored, only daring to speak once the door had slammed shut and the coarse laughter and cursing had faded into the distance.
"Stingray," one of the men gasped, in British-accented English. "Talk to me, mate. Come on."
Pretend you’re me and write me an “About Me”.
Kiss, kiss, let's meet for breakfast.
Piss off.
♒ !!
The VTAC comes down hard, splitting the coconut as evenly as an insurgent’s skull - though not nearly as messily.
"Nice. You’re a regular Robinson Crusoe."
"Just a heads-up - if you start referencing Tom Sawyer and call me Injun Joe, I am gonna punch you."
"Why does everything have to be about race with you?"
She gives him a sidelong glance, scooping some of the soft flesh out of the shell and popping it into her mouth before thrusting it in his direction. He declines with a polite shake of his head.
"Never figured you for a fan of the classics."
"It was actually one of the first books I ever read, along with Treasure Island.”
"Get the fuck out."
"No, really. Voodoo read it to me, and then after she taught me how to read she started moving me on to more intermediate stuff. Charles Dickens, Bill Shakespeare…the Bible."
"The Bible is intermediate?"
"You do realise coconut is a laxative, right?"
"You learn that from Treasure Island?"
"No, actually. That was another thing Voodoo taught me. Mind you, she is lactose intolerant…"
"God, of all the assholes I could’ve gotten stranded on a…on a fucking desert island with-"
"Could be worse. It could’ve been Sitch."
"Or Fox."
"Or Langley."
