I am not running, I am choosing

Create wings out of fire. Burn holes through the nets they cast upon you.

[infractuslucas]

@wraithesca

If he’d been asked a year ago to believe that he’d be sprawled out on the floor of his apartment in the company of a vampire, there would be no way he would have. And yet here he was. Rifling futilely through his textbooks and the tabs open on his laptop in front of him for information, trying to finish his assignment while said vampire, a friend no less, shared the space with him. The fall of Rome seemed impossibly long ago to Lucas, though to Esca he realised it must only be a series of lifetimes - an impossible amount, of course, but still enough that he had lived through them all. 

“I know I told you last time that it would be the last time I asked for you to help me cheat my professors, but I mean, Es, you lived through this whole thing...” He flashed a grin seething with mischief in his unlikely friend’s direction, knowing full well that Esca knew exactly where he was going with this. “Surely you can give me some clues, at least. Save me trawling through these old books for the next couple of hours?” As if to stress his point, he made a theatrical reach for a very hefty book and sighed dramatically. 

Lucas had long ago mastered the perfect puppy-dog eyes, and had no qualms in using them against Esca, or anyone else for that matter. Not that Esca was ‘just anyone’ by any means. The vampire, though of a kind that Lucas had been bred to be wary of under all circumstances, had become Lucas’ best friend in what seemed record time for the older being, who’s inclination for the shadows and all that came with them did not lend itself easily to letting in strangers. 

Unless, apparently, those strangers were tenacious witches with no self preservation and a lot of love to give. Love, of course, and magic - part of the magic that flowed through the ring on the vampire’s ivory-white finger even, had flowed from Lucas’ hand. A gift from the witch to the vampire and his hunter - the least he could do to aid their seemingly doomed romance. The magic within it was powerful, bestowed there eons ago by a witch much more knowledgeable than he himself was, but his power was great enough to stabilise it, to update what time had worn around the edges, so that it was safe for Esca to venture into the lethal sunlight without fear. 

[icarianezra]

up the stakes (open)

[infractuslucas]

Normally, Ezra kept to the fields west of Colorado Springs for alone time. He’d always had an obsession with open sky, and there was no better place to really take in the vastness than Colorado farmland. In another life, he imagined he might have been a pilot, or at least taken up flying as a hobby. There was something about the stars and the vacant white-blue of high-noon that called to him, so he found time to tilt his head back and just imagine what laid beyond the atmosphere’s curve. That sort of thing was left to greater men, he imagined.

He didn’t expect to find a straggler wondering out of the woodlands at the base of the mountain, especially at this hour. The daylight had dissipated and the long shadows had drawn inward, chasing out slants of light and adding to pools of darkness. “Lucas?” he asked, half-laughing the name. “What the hell are you doing out here?” he tossed the finished stake behind him, and jumped out of the bed of his truck to greet the witch. 

As a hunter, he had been introduced to witches at a young age. His first tattoo at age eight had been given by a blood witch, and all the ones since. He’d worked closely with witches who predicted the future, and read the past, whose peasant hands could churn an elixir of protection, or a poison out of sprigs of plants and pinches of earth. Others who breathed fire as easily as he breathed air, who sculpted the earth with a thought. He had a great respect for them, but, as a hunter, he also knew that anyone capable of such greatness was also capable of chaos.

Ezra didn’t see Lucas that way. He saw Lucas just as he was. After taking him by the shoulders, he gave him a crooked smile. “You’re lost, aren’t you?”

The familiarity of Ezra’s voice pulled him out of his internal reverie, and a grin split his features almost immediately. He had not been intending to look for anyone in particular, and yet he had been lead (either by luck or by magic) into the sights of a friend. “I, uh, I was walking and daydreaming and I guess I kind of just ended up here.” He shrugged, rubbing at the back of his neck self consciously in the face of his own absentmindedness.  

It was quiet out here, and it unnerved him. He was used to the ever-bustling city he had grown up in, and though he had been born in tune with the trees and the earth as ancient as the magic he possessed, they still did not feel like home to him. Not in the way the other witches in his coven spoke of, at least. Not that he minded. He drew his power from other places - the humming of a room full of people, the streaks of lights of cars on the motorways, the thump of two hearts in love. 

Lucas blushed at his own incompetency at doing something so mundane as taking a walk as Ezra took him by the shoulders. “I mean, I..” He began to dig himself out of his mistake, before realising that with the hunter, he probably didn’t have to. “Yeah. I guess I am lost.” The young witch had definitely never seen this neck of the woods before, that was for sure. 

A smile graced his lips, the kind of smile that hid chaos and power and bore only warmth. “What are you doing out here at this time of night?” He added, barely concealing a little yawn at the realisation of how late it must be. He was not one to question the actions or choices of others, but a flame of protectiveness rose in him at the wordless realisation that Ezra was carving stakes to kill vampires with the same hands he used to hold Lucas’ best friend in the world. 

[infractuslucas]

( the empyrean. )

She had been traversing the night on no business or addendum of it when she had seen that lightning strike of white upon the woodland floors.

The feline was a darting thing, patched and puffed with colored fur as it pitter-pattered its way along her path. Eva would have spared it no passing glance had it not come to a halting stop, tail twitching as two twin eyes assessed her own presence. It was a response not uncommon from animals she encountered, they were fueled with energy far more concentrated in its presence than that found within humans– -the devoid perplexed them so. She entertained its gaze for a moment or so, chin rising as she felt the air rise with something reverbing, electric.

It was not instinct that had her follow that white furred creature back to where it darted, but experience. Eva knew what the air took to tasting like when there was a witch folding their way across the plains. It smelled like burnt embers, and the night bent and shined like it was curling around the corner of a prism. And well, if she was to make these Springs her abode given the home her dearest and his lover seemed to have found here, Eva could use some introductions to the other varieties that populated the boundaries of this town.

An unassuming corner of a residence, it was. Her guide disappeared through a door that stood ajar– - - –they had arrived, it seemed.

“I seemed to have found him.” Eva responded, eyes wandering about the jumble of collectives that this witch had made his home. She could smell the tang of what wafted much like burnt hazel in the air, feel it upon the ridges of her spine as it curled a honey dipped smile ( hiding things far sharper underneath it ) upon her lips. Her gaze wandering rather directly to the four-legged creature that had darted her from the night to this destination, Eva tilted her head and watched as the cat gave her a rolling rise of a tail upturned before turning to break past where their gazes had met.

Clever, clever thing.

The sharp of her eyes landing on the boy once again, Eva spoke. “Won’t you invite me in, darling?” A bare breath of time passed as the edge of her risen mouthends dipped into something more amused, and soft-edged for it, brows rising to soften the sharp cuts of the predator’s face into that of the moonlight-kissed maiden she so often paraded as. 

“I come in peace.”

The woman seemed to slip from the shadows as if they had carried her here, and he took note of the little mewl of warning that Hera offered as she wove her way protectively around his ankles. There was something not quite normal about this stranger, and though he was not as adept at identifying the creatures he now coexisted with in Colorado Springs like the older members of his coven were, he was certainly competent as drawing together the signs. Asking to be invited in, the darkness of night that had long fallen over her visit, the fact that Lucas could not feel a heartbeat, or the same kind of energy coming from her in the way that it did from others. 

The young witch’s eyes narrowed as she revealed that she had found him, and he took a step forward defensively. His exposure to vampires was limited, though he had met a select few. They were not creatures he was overly fond of, thanks to an upbringing riddled with tales of their wily deceit and sharp fangs that no sum of years could possibly dull - that was, of course, until he had met Esca. They were an odd pair, not even taking into consideration the fact that vampires and witches had a fraught history, but Lucas had been determined to pick past his chilling exterior to perhaps seek a friend within. 

But, just because he trusted one, did not mean he trusted them all. To invite her over his threshold without gauging her reason for being here would not be wise, especially not with all the cautionary stories he had grown up with from his mother about vampires seeking out witches to leech blood off them for the magic that flowed through it. 

With barely a twitch of his left hand, the array of books behind him snapped themselves shut, protecting age-old spells from view along with the useless paragraphs of the more mundane texts in his possession. 

“Peace, maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t tend to trust strangers who show up at my door in the middle of the night.” He said, though accompanying it was a smile that only spread warmth. He was more curious than unnerved in any way, though wary all the same. 

“Is there a reason the cat dragged you in?” A golden brow arched in question as Hera chirped something Lucas knew to be an affirmation. Clearly there was, though perhaps the feline was the only one that knew it just yet. 

[dorianhawthorne-deactivated2023]

Last Call [open]

[infractuslucas]

Maybe it was his morals kicking back in, but maybe he shouldn’t have been paying for a kid’s alcohol, especially when he wasn’t old enough to be having a drink. And he didn’t even have an ID on him. Tough break. Before Dorian could say anything, though, the kid seemed to handle the situation like magic. Too much like magic. His brow rose, his gaze shifting between the stranger and the bartender, who seemed to let his uptight nature slide with the kid rather abruptly. Yeah, like magic.

Well, if getting away with underage drinking was about as harmful as he was using his powers for, Dorian couldn’t really fault him for it. He had been young once, too. 

Not like he was going to do anything even if he was still a hunter; magic could be useful if used the right way, even helpful to a hunter if needed. The kid definitely had potential, not hat Dorian was a warlock himself. But he knew a little bit about magic. Came with the territory of having been raised with hunters. Also helped him dodge the spotlight when it was necessary. And in his current state, it was very necessary.

“So where did you learn that trick?” he asked, taking a drink from his glass. There was nothing accusing or intimidating in his tone. If anything, Dorian was curious of the stranger. Magic had always interested him, he just never had the ability to use it. So to meet someone that could was always an instant conversation starter.

Lucas raised a brow and peered over the neck of the bottle at the man. His coven would collectively have an aneurysm if they knew that he was being so careless about who saw him using his magic in such a public place. This was a town teaming with supernatural activity, but there were exceptions to every rule and Lucas had had it drilled into him from the moment he stepped foot in Colorado Springs that for the sake of the human population he must not get complacent. 

“I’m afraid I don’t have any idea what you mean.” Lucas said, feigning ignorance with his features schooled to a mask of angelic innocence. Though, of course, there was nothing to be done about disguising that wickedly mischievous glint in his eye that his mother would swear he was born with.

Some of the older witches in the coven were adept at identifying creatures that they lived amongst on observation alone, and though Lucas was learning, it was not a skill he had completely managed to master. He thought that a human might have had a more extreme reaction to seeing him mess with someone else’s mind as he just had, and decided to go by his assumption that this man had some exposure to the underbelly of this town. 

“But if I did, I would say that I read it in a book.” He smirked, tipping his head to one side.

[dorianhawthorne-deactivated2023]

Last Call [open]

[infractuslucas]

All of his senses were cranked up to a twenty. He could smell everything in the bar; the smoke lingering in the air, the strong liquor in the guy’s drink a few seats down. He could even hear the murmurs of what was supposed to be a personal conversation between two people in a corner booth. A mild nuisance at first, but Dorian grew used to it all. He had to since it was his life now.

It was his night off from work, and he intended on spending it at the bar. Better than spending it drinking at home, anyway. It was weird staying in one spot for so long; maybe he was just so used to travel, or he just wanted to keep going. Just give into what the beast wanted and run. But where did he have to go? And what would he even do? Get on with his fucking life?

Dorian downed the last of his drink, earning a quirk of a brow from the bartender. He gave a light shrug, nudging the glass forward along with some cash. “Did you drive tonight?” the bartender asked.

“Nope,” he replied.

The glass was filled with another round of whsikey. “Got cabfare? I sure as shit ain’t carrying your ass out of here.”

Dorian reached out for the glass and offered a sheepish grin and a shrug of his shoulder, “Let’s hope so,” he replied and took a drink from the glass.

The bartender scoffed, leaving Dorian to his drink after a vague threat of cutting him off. With a lazy roll of his eyes, Dorian took the time to glance around at the bar. As much as he drank, Dorian had yet to feel the effects of the alcohol he was consuming. He was going to walk himself out of the bar just fine that night.

Just as he was about to finish off his drink and call it a night, someone came in through the door. Dorian glanced over at the newcomer, then down at the bartender as he made hus return to their end of the bar. “Use some of that for their drink if you’re cutting me off,” he nodded toward the cash left on the bar, “I don’t need it.”

Lucas wasn’t especially fond of bars, particularly the ones in this town, but there was something adrenaline inducing in being somewhere he wasn’t allowed to be, and he found them at least an interesting place to meet the kind of people who he been so sheltered from in his upbringing. Scoping out the inhabitants of the place, the young witch saw no one he knew, and wandered idly across the room to one of the spare seats at the bar. He only smirked when he garnered attention from the bartender, seeing as he hardly passed for 21 and had the look on his face that spoke of trouble. 

The other man’s words made him turn his head, and a smile graced his lips in thanks. “Really?” He chirped, grateful for someone else’s kindness. “Thanks, 

“Not so fast kid, I’m going to need to see some ID first.” The bartender interrupted, just as Lucas hoped he would. 

You see, he was not here solely to drink. He was here to test out something he had been practicing. 

“‘Course you do, it’s just, I don’t have it on me...” He smiled warmly, exuding the warmth of the magic that flowed through his blood. “So we might just have to give it a miss this time, yeah?” 

Just as practiced, the bartender’s eyes glazed over slightly, and echoed his words back to him as Lucas’ heart hammered triumphantly in his chest. “Yeah, we’ll give it a miss this time.” Came his voice, more distant this time, as he placed the beer that he proceeded to order in front of him instead of having him thrown out as he should. 

It was safe enough, with most of the patrons of the bar too busy in drowning in conversation or their drinks to pay him any notice, except of course the man next to him, the one who had left the money on the bar, who most certainly had borne witness to the whole thing. 

Lucas turned to grin at him with a rather stupid look on his face, taking a sip from the bottle and tasting victory and hops and the magic still left on his tongue all at once. There was something about him that seemed inhuman, and Lucas hoped he was right on that account as he tried to gauge his reaction. It would be a fuss to have to use the same spell to make him think he had seen nothing, after all. 

[infractuslucas]

@empyrhien

Though his coven resided outside of the city itself, Lucas couldn’t bear the thought of the isolation they preferred. The life he was used to was amongst people, slipping between crowds and enjoying the choir of cars, footsteps and idle conversations that slipped in through his apartment window when he opened it.

Night had long since fallen, and though various spell-books as well as his college texts were spread open in front of him, it had been more than an hour since he had read anything out of them. Instead, he was focused on idly messing with things around him as a method of amusing himself - first it had been shifting the colours of the fire burning in the fireplace, then he had attempted to tie the curtains together without touching them, and now he was dragging a stray shoelace across the floor for Hera to chase... or at least he had been until she had grown bored with him and wandered out the front door that he had opened for her. 

Leaving it ajar, unwilling to call her in and interrupt her exploration, he set his mind back to playing with the hues of the fire. His familiar, once again, interrupted his aimless actions with the pitter-patter of paws on the wooden floor as she rushed back inside, presumably because she had acquired company out there. Lifting his hand to whisk the door shut from where he was sitting across the room, the emergence of a figure into his line of sight made him halt and get to his feet. 

“Are you looking for someone?” He frowned, not recognising the woman who had come so quietly and wondering if he should have slammed the door anyway now that she stood just behind the frame.

[icarianezra]

up the stakes (open)

[infractuslucas]

The pulp of the wood sloughed off easier when it was wet. It was a trick his grandfather had taught him, sitting in the back of an old Ford under their oak tree. He was young to hold a knife so big — as long or longer than his whole arm — but he was strong for his age, they’d told him, clapping him hard on the back and thrusting the sheathed blade against his chest. The hilt cramped his fingers, and the strenuous motion of scraping away the wood burned his biceps, but he kept going. There was one thing the men in his family couldn’t abide, and that was weakness.

If he could avoid having that disappointment directed at him for as long as he lived, he imagined he’d live a long while.

Ezra pulled the cigarette from between his teeth, and finally looked up from his work. He’d gotten through two dozen in an hour; not mad. As he exhaled a plume of smoke, he set his knife aside and exchanged its weight for that of a long-neck. Pale, piss-flavoured suds lingered within. Hunting didn’t pay for the good lager. When he noticed someone eyeing what was left of his six pack, he spoke up.

“You want one?”

Lucas had no qualms about wandering around alone, his mind travelling far from his path while a nameless tune slipped from his lips as he quietly hummed to himself. He was more than capable of protecting himself should something jump out at him, no matter how unarmed and distracted he appeared. 

Before long, he came back to himself as he rounded a corner and came to the realisation that he had no idea in hell where he was. Granted, he hadn’t been in town long to know everywhere, but he thought he’d done enough exploring in that short time to at least have his bearings at a time like this. Sighing, he tried not to think anything of it and continued to wander, unsure of where he was going or where he’d been. 

As if by magic, Lucas ears picked up the sounds of what seemed to be metal against wood if he was not mistaken. It didn’t take him long to locate where it was coming from. The young witch found himself watching the scene he had stumbled upon with keen interest, carefully curious as the wood was pared back into thin, deadly-looking stakes, and the knife was set aside... and eyes turned to him. 

“Hmm? Oh, no, uh, I was just watching is all.” He beamed, ever friendly. 

[infractuslucas]

Lucas’ mother never told the father of her child that witchcraft would flow through his veins. It was safer that way; a werewolf hunter with a penchant for violence, he was not one overly accepting of those different to him. Why his mother ended up with such a man, Lucas could never figure out though she assured him there was a spark between them, at least in the beginning.

The two of them spent hours pouring over spell books and muttering magic under their breath while Lucas’ father was away on hunting trips. Their secret was well kept, and the young witch was a quick study. He loved the magic flowing in his veins, and was adept at controlling his power well before he reached his teens.

It came as a heavy blow when their secret came off the shelf, quite literally, in the form of a spellbook left out after his fathers early return from a hunting trip. Lucas’ mother sent him away, and he could merely sit and listen through the walls at the fight that ensued. By the morning, a house that once was home to three, was a home only to one.

Lucas and his mother were on a plane back to Colorado by the time the sun came up, off to join with his mothers coven that she had left for life with her then-growing family. Returned to them, with her young son, they were welcomed home with open arms. Lucas thrived in a town bustling with supernatural activity and the kind of people his father always warned him to steer clear of. He found them more fascinating than dangerous, and though his father’s warnings still linger in the back of his mind, he pays them less and less mind with each day that passes.

Powerful beyond his years, Lucas no longer lives with his mother and the coven, but is in regular contact with them as they’re his collective family now. His familiar, a calico cat named Hera, is the only other inhabitant of his little apartment, though it overflows with plants and books and a plethora of things he’s collected over time.

[billylewisjrrps]

              i wish your mom had been a little stronger.                    i wish she’d stayed around a little longer.                                                                                                            i wish your dad were good.                                                                                                        i wish grown-ups understood.                                                 i wish we’d met before                                           they c o n v i n c e d you                                       LIFE was WAR.                                                                                                         – [ i wish i had more TNT ]

[celebritiesandmovies]

[danielsharmanphotos]

[thezipzap]

[infractuslucas]

( the legion. )

“Out in the wastelands,” Zero chirped in response, reaching down to fussily adjust an old metal pendant necklace, lining it up more exactly alongside a rusty pen. “I like to explore there and gather what I can. Mostly it is just odds and ends, or trash that was once thrown away. But sometimes I find the most fascinating things!”

Case in the point: the dog-tags. Logic dictated that, since the human had a pair of his own, he was an ex-solider. Zero’s sharp eyes had caught the name – Winters, Lucas A. – though they did not know if the serial number meant anything. Did it indicate rank? Zero was not sure.

One of their siblings had been a soldier, of a sort. Not a proper one. 0-4 had been sold off to a militia, and from what Zero knew, 0-4 had mostly been used as a meatshield. Or, to be exact, a metalshield. They knew, second-hand, how awful combat was. Had Lucas seen combat? They wondered if it was rude to ask.

“Would you like to help me?” Zero asked, a rare note of tentativeness in their voice. “With the burial, to be precise. I know it would likely be impossible to find the remains of the man or woman who wore these dog-tags, but it might be possible to determine where they died. I have the co-ordinates of where I found these.” They hastened to add, “You do not have to help, obviously. But I wanted to extend the offer.”

Lucas’ eyes roamed over the collection of things this clever creature had acquired through their scouring of the wastelands. A smile came to his lips at the normality of such a gesture, straightening the way that the pendant lay, and the fussy determination with which it was carried out. “I’m sure you do.” He said admiringly, not a hint of sarcasm in his voice. The state of the world had not drained the genuineness from him just yet, and he had no intention of letting it. 

He decided, as the A.I. resolved to not let the unlikelihood of success change his purpose, that he very much liked them, in all their optimistic glory. If he were the soldier whose tags had been retrieved, he supposed that he would want to be located and given a proper burial. Death scared him, and mortality so often stared him straight in the face these days, but doing for others what they deserved after death seemed a courtesy he should not forget now that everything had fallen apart. 

“Okay.” He beamed, thinking it a good excuse not to go back to the base and lie around waiting for Ezra to return for some company. Lucas had always liked to make new friends, and wasn’t about to let one get away, besides. “I’d be glad to help you out, mate.” 

Venturing off into the Wastes with a complete stranger might have screamed ‘bad idea’ to someone less trusting and optimistic about new people, but the former pilot had never been one to exercise excessive caution at times like these, and he was still alive to tell of it - so how dangerous could it be? “I’m Lucas, by the way. It’s real nice to meet you.”

[infractuslucas]

( the legion. )

The human did indeed seem to be correct. The intact version he wore around his neck bore a distinct resemblance to the broken one he now held. Dog-tag. Zero knew the term: it was item used primarily to identify dead or wounded soldiers, bearing an engraving of name, medical information, and religious preference. Normally, there were two. Here, there was only half of one, and all Zero could read was:

era 0580 ative olic

Zero stared curiously at it and its unbroken twin–

_> input: emotional trigger detected, {death; record of death; memorial; soldier; hero;} _> response: {engage lacrimal duct fluid ejection system, 2.0 µl}

–blinked, and soon had two perfect tears rolling down their cheeks.

“I think that is very sad,” they said solemnly, expression pulled into representation of politely restrained sadness, all gentle frown and big damp eyes. A pitch-perfect image of artistic empathetic grief, with none of the messiness of humans, none of the sniffing or red eyes or quivering lips. And none of the authenticity that the average human might recognize as a genuine emotion.

They lifted a hand halfway up, but stopped short of taking the dog-tag back from the man. “May I have it back?” they inquired. “I suppose it may not have much physical value, but I find it to have emotional value. And I may, with some research, be able to figure out who these belonged to. If the owner was killed in the wasteland, they likely did not have a proper burial. I may be able to rectify that.”

Lucas stared down at his own tags, hanging around his neck still after all this time, and the shard beside them. Though he was no longer the soldier he had once been, he couldn’t bring himself to take them off. Perhaps he was clinging to the past, or trying to retain the last physical proof of an identity long forfeited --           Winters, Lucas A.            432-98-4362 AF            O Negative            No Preference -- It could just as easily be his own tag in the hands of a survivor, the last remnant of the life he had lived. Survival was a privilege though it so often felt like a burden. Some, including this fallen solider, had not been allowed a chance at life after the end, and Lucas mourned the loss that he still felt guilty for causing. His father had orchestrated this chaos, turned the world into a dumping ground that he would have one day left for dead if his son had not halted his plans. Though he had had no knowing part in it, and abhorred everything his father had put into motion, he was still the blood of a man like that. The next of kin to a monster.

Lucas had never seen an A.I. emit tears before, and when he looked up from the shard of metal with a lump in his throat he wondered how much of that response was programmed. He knew little of the inner workings of artificial intelligence, though he had always been so struck by the finesse with which they achieved human passibility that he found it hard to even differentiate the two in his head.

“Of course.” It was an honourable sentiment that the A.I. proposed, and one that Lucas respected immensely, he could not help but sigh sadly as he relinquished the fragment back to it’s finder. “If whoever owned this tag died out there in the Wastes, I doubt they’ll still be out there to be found. Raiders, Hellhounds, Waste Worms - they’re not the sort to honour the fallen.”

Idly, he cast his eye over the assortment of odds and ends laid out on the blanket, and shifted the uncomfortable crouch he was position in so that that he sat cross-legged opposite the stranger, hoping they wouldn’t mind the company. “This is quite the collection you’ve got here. Where’d you find all this stuff?”

[infractuslucas]

( the legion. )

Zero was still not entirely sure how humans went about classifying someone as a Friend–

(they had a list of parameters as defined in Mirriam-Webster:               i. one attached to another by affection or esteem,               ii. one that is not hostile               iii. one that is of the same nation, party or group               iv. a favored companion)

–but that seemed rather vague and difficult to accurately quantify. Still, Zero thought they had found a few friends. And one of them was an elderly Polish woman who sold a miscellaneous collection of found items in Fervention out of a tent. Zero enjoyed bringing her items that they found in the Wasteland, and in return, whenever they hung around her tent and passing humans asked if they could buy ‘the machine’, the woman yelled at them in furious Polish until they went away.

Some days, like today, they sat cross-legged just outside the tent, odd items of scrap spread carefully out on a tattered blanket as they attempted to identify them. Some were easy: bottle cap, old dime, screw, bottle shard. Some were difficult. Some had Zero’s visual identification software completely confused.

“Excuse me,” they said, hoping to gain the attention of the human looking at the tent’s wares, “May I ask for your help in identifying this item?” In cupped metal hands, they offered the item for study, a faintly perplexed frown on their smooth features. Internally, their visual identification software went nearly apoplectic over the thing. Beetle? Fossil? Rock? Rusted toy car?? “I would greatly appreciate your help.”

Fervention had never been Lucas’ favourite place in the world, in fact he avoided it at all costs, only venturing within it’s tight alleys of vendors when the necessity arose. It was a long way from the Air Force base in which he had taken up shelter, and a treacherous trip through the Wastes stood between here and there, but when supplies got low he was left with little choice. He was tense as he scanned the wares on offer knowing all too well that trouble could be lurking behind every corner. He’d had too many run-ins with the wrong sorts due to his reckless behaviour and had no intention of making repeat offences today.

He almost jumped when a voice pierced the idle bustle of the markets, and he snapped his head around to see who had spoken to him. There weren’t many good reasons he could think of that someone here might want to get his attention, but the young man relaxed slightly when he caught sight of the question’s owner who was both a stranger, and a benevolent looking one at that. The patches that exposed the figure as artificial intelligence were not as jarring to Lucas as they might have been if he hadn’t spent so much time around ThetaGen’s creations whilst at Valeris at his father’s side. Though he had never seen an A.I. so obviously visually mechanic. The end of the world had taken a toll on all, he supposed.

“Uh, yeah. Sure, mate” He said with a smile, crouching down and picking the item in question up to regard it properly. Lucas chuckled as he instantly recognised what it was, not that he had seen one for a very long time. “It’s a part of an old dog-tag, I think.” The former pilot squinted to see if he could identify the name of it’s late owner, though to no avail, as he his thumb across the flat edge to remove sand caked into it’s grooves. He shuddered at the resemblance it bore to his own set, still hanging around his neck, which he pulled out and aligned the shard over the top. “See?” The force of whatever blast had broken it had been strong enough to snap metal; it did not bode well to think of what it had done to it’s former-wearer. “Not of much value, I’m afraid.” He tested the jagged broken edge carefully with his finger. “Except as a kind of shit knife, I guess?”  

[infractuslucas]

non nobis solum • ezra & lucas

[infractuslucas]

One would think when Ezra Cooper felt the burden of responsibility focusing down on him, he would bolt out from under it as fast as his legs could carry him. The matter of his integrity and the nature of his character had been on trial since his father’s coldblooded betrayal, and he was simply tired of fighting it. Where he had once walked the streets of Fervention with his head high, and his defenses raised like garrison walls around him, now he had given up that mantle, and had slowly let the shadows of whispered words swath him. The blackness of narrow gazes warped him, and when he looked into the surfaces of cracked mirrors, he saw the villain they saw, the villain they needed him to be. 

The fight was gone, hand in hand with the burn of hope, and the empty spaces left behind were vast. Oceans of black water. Fields of infertile ash.

If it hadn’t been for Lucas, Ezra would have let the rot and ruin eat away at him until there was nothing left, but the small torch the younger pilot carried for him had yet to extinguish. However small, however hidden, it still glowed. In the midst of his deepest spiral, when he looked up from the bottom of his hand-dug well, he could always see it glimmer. A warmth, a reminder, a beacon. And in those brief moments of reprieve from the dark avenues of the present, he remembered what he used to be. The man he once was. It was the only reason why, when he’d pushed the barrel of his pistol into his mouth — the metal ringing against the porcelain of his teeth, cold and unforgiving against the soft velvet of his pink tongue — he hadn’t pulled the trigger. Lucas was the only reason why.

“A lot of things are my fault,” he corrected, his voice meandering through a gutter. His head suddenly hurt. Maybe it was the draw back of adrenaline after such a steep come-up. In its wake, it left a stale drunkenness that mixed poorly with the scent of gunpowder and gore, but there were more important matters than the state of his skull and the slosh of his stomach. “I’d known if I hadn’t drunk the Legless Man dry,” he rebutted, his head propped back against the metal frame of the bed. It was cool against the nape of his neck, and curbed his nausea. He was grateful for it. 

“Lucas,” he interrupted, the sharpness of a warning in his voice. He picked his head up and leveled his murky, brown eyes on his co-pilot. They were level as the earth and just as unyielding. “I fucked up. You’re all I’ve got, and I put you in danger by .. by being the asshole everyone expects me to be. Just — let me take responsibility for this, because I need to. Do you understand me?” It sounded more like a plea than anything. He searched Lucas’ wide, doe eyes for acknowledgement. “Fuck, look at you,” he mumbled, continuing to dab away the coagulase from his chin, careful of the bruises and welts that were already appearing. “You can’t keep making excuses for me, Luc. And I can’t keep letting you down.”

There was a strained moment of silence as the younger pilot unlocked himself from around Ezra’s arm. The pain on his face, and the wheeze in each breath worried him endlessly, but there was nothing he could do about it right now. He just needed to get him cleaned up and comfortable. When the sun rose, and the desert thawed, he could go find help. There was no shortage of vehicles outside to get where he needed to go, after all, but he reasoned that he would go on foot if he had to. When Lucas replied with his usual humour, Ezra allowed a smile to tilt his unbalanced lips. At least his mental clarity hadn’t been jeopardized. “Just as well. I’m no Prince Charming, and you’d look dumb in a dress.” 

Despite Lucas’ slight weight, Ezra struggled to get his legs bent beneath him. Something had gone wrong when he’d flipped the Jeep, and while he was not the sort to complain, the twinge in his lower back scared him as he stood upright. A sign of his age. A reminder of the mistakes he’d made that night. He cradled Lucas against his chest, and took long strides to travel from the east wing of bunks to the west, where he’d set up camp. He’d procured the same private room for himself in which he’d grown up as soon as Valeris had cleared out. It was small (about 14x10 to be exact), but cozy enough, and created the illusion of normalcy for which most were desperate. As he laid Lucas’s broken frame down on the lumpy mattress, he gave him a sad smile.

“I really am sorry, kid.”

Lucas had lead a rather lonely life, and though he had always been the kind of person who craved friendship, it had never been within arms reach. His father had kept a tight watch on who his son was associating with, limiting his circle to the sons of his associates, most of whom were just as twisted as their fathers. Lucas had gotten used to being alone surrounded by many, and though his decision to enlist with the Air Force had been in part a desperate attempt to earn the approval of his father, but also an attempt to break away from him to find his own flock. In part, it had worked. He had flocked to people like Ezra, people who had the bravery, honour and kindness that most he had associated with thus far had lacked. 

When he had pulled that fateful trigger and sent a bullet through his father’s skull, he had fled without saying goodbye. No one had been important enough to risk his life for, and most of his comrades would never be seen again. Of course he mourned them, but none as much as Ezra Cooper. The idea that he might have ascended to the stars without a proper goodbye, believing whatever garbage Valeris had spun to explain the loss of one of their own alongside the disappearance of his golden son. Lucas could not remember feeling such relief as he did when he had found Ezra just as stuck in this barren wasteland as he was.  

His chances of survival had tripled when he had found Ezra, and his quality of life had too. For once in his life he wasn’t alone, and even one person on his side made all the difference. Lucas had learnt to be a better person for Ezra - keeping his recklessness in check, learning to be less fatally idealistic, and taking things seriously had only been the beginning. Lucas had someone to live for, and someone’s approval to chase in lieu of his father. 

Though it felt like every part of his body was screaming in pain, the only thing Lucas could care about was the fact that Ezra was blaming this on himself. He couldn’t blame Ezra for drinking, though he worried immensely that his friend’s coping mechanisms would wind up in disaster for him. Granted, he’d never thought it would backfire on him like this. The young pilot went to make a joke about someone having to keep the Legless Man in business, but bit his tongue in a rare moment of self restraint, knowing it would do nothing to remedy the situation. 

He was lost for words, not wanting Ezra to needlessly carry the weight of this but unable to ignore the plea. The older man wasn’t wrong - Lucas had hero-worshipped Ezra from even before he’d met him, and continued to do so even now. He had spent his whole life being let down by those who were supposed to care about him, and he couldn’t bear to admit to himself that Ezra could do any wrong to even slightly let him down. Lucas bit his lip, and his words came out quietly. “I don’t agree with you.” He knew what Ezra needed to hear, and because he loved him more than anyone else in the world he let him hear it. “But if it’s what you want, I won’t argue with you. I understand...” Ezra could take responsibility for this, and Lucas could only hope that it spurned him to change his ways without plaguing him with guilt. “I forgive you though, Ez.” 

He would always forgive him. 

If there was one thing he hated to appear in front of Ezra, it was weak. And right now, he had never felt weaker. A broken, coughing mess in Ezra’s arms, tears tracking down his cheeks and blood collecting on his chin. The world, as big and barren as it was, seemed tiny to him right now, and though to an extent he wanted to disappear out from under Ezra’s guilt-ridden gaze, he knew this was the only place he felt safe. Here, in the skeleton of an old base surrounded by poisoned desert, knowing that there was someone in the world who cared about him completely. 

“Wrong, and wrong - I’d look fantastic in a dress.” He giggled, ignoring the way it made his chest ache. “Not to mention that you’d make an excellent Prince Charming.” He said matter-of-factly, thinking specifically of a certain inhabitant of the Wastes who Lucas had his suspicions might be on the receiving end of Ezra’s dormant talents. 

Bracing himself for the potential ache that would come with being moved, Lucas looped his arms around Ezra’s neck and gritted his teeth against the wave of pain that washed over him. He knew there was definitely something wrong with his ribcage, and that there was an acute discomfort in his shoulder - everything else that hurt seemed to be from scrapes, cuts and bruises that would fade in time. The way that Ezra faltered in taking up his weight was not missed by Lucas, and his brow furrowed in concern. “Are you okay, Ez?”He asked, voice wavering, as though he could divert attention away from his own damages. 

He breathed a sigh of relief as Ezra deposited him onto the bed after what seemed like a much longer journey than it really was. Unlike Ezra, Lucas had chosen to inhabit a space as far from where he had lived before the fallout as possible. Psychologically, he knew it wouldn’t be good for him, and he preferred to be closer to Ezra in the empty halls of the base. 

“I know...” He closed his eyes for a moment, wishing none of this had ever happened for Ezra’s sake. But you will always be forgiven.

[infractuslucas]