I call upon the fan fic writing gods to bless you with the perseverance to finish one of your unfinished drafts.Ā
May your fingers dance along the letters upon your device with ease, may the devil of distraction stay far from you, and may your work not need much editing.
I pass this blessing upon every fan fic writer out there.
Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.
Carpathia received Titanicās distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.
(Californianās exact position at the time isā¦controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanicās distress rockets. Itās uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)
Carpathiaās Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanicās aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.
All of Carpathiaās lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.
I donāt know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.
Carpathia had threeĀ dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awakeāprepping a ship for disaster relief isnāt quietāand all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.
And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.
Hereās the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining roomsāwhich, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when sheād done that, he asked her to go faster.
I need you to understand that you simply canāt push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only recklessāitās difficult to maneuverābut it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They canāt do it. It canāt be done.
Carpathiaās absolute do-or-die, the-engines-canāt-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.
No one would have asked this of them. It wasnāt expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a respondibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.
They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.
This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanicās last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.
In total, 705 people of Titanicās original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.
At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.
I think the least we can do is remember them for it.
āAnd even as he watched the rescue unfolding that morning, he would have understood that for the living, everything which could have been done had been done: not a single survivor was lost or injured being brought aboard the Carpathia. For those who had gone down with the Titanic, save for reverencing their memory at the service later that day, there was nothing more that he or anyone could do. Rostronās duty now was as he always saw it: to the living.ā
I looked up a bit about this because the post is so movingly written that when I read it aloud to my husband and mother they both wept like babies, and something else really struck me about this story.
So Carpathia was not a top-end luxury liner. Her reputation was for being Jolly Comfortable - she was very broad in her proportions, and not super-duper fast, and the result was that she didnāt rock so much on the waves and you couldnāt particularly hear/feel the engines. She was solid and dependable, and lots of people liked using her, but she therefore occupied a lesser niche than Titanic or Olympian or whatever - and crucially, as a result of that, she only had one radio operator on board. This means she only had radio ops for a certain window in the day, unlike Titanic, which had 24 hour radio ops.
So on that night, when Titanic went down, Carpathiaās wireless operator - one Harold Cottam - clocked off his shift at midnight, and went to bed. While he was getting ready for bed, though, he left the transmitter on for the hell of it, and therefore picked up a transmission from Cape Race in Newfoundland, the closest transmitting tower sending messages to the ships. They told him that they had a backlog of private traffic for Titanic that wasnāt getting through. So, even though his shift was over, and it was now 11 minutes past bloody midnight, and he just wanted to go to bed, Harold Cottam decided that nonetheless, heād be helpful, and let the Titanic know they had messages waiting.
And thatās how he received the Titanicās distress signal. In spite of no longer being on shift to receive it, and therefore in order to send Carpathia galloping to Titanicās rescue, and thus saving 705 people.
All because Harold Cottam decided one night to be kind.Ā
Cottam also ended up staying awake for something like 48 hours straight trying to send survivors messages and a list of survivors home, but due to Carpathiaās limited radio frequency range and with no other ships to act as a relay, this was rather patchy. However, he tried his damn best to make sure the survivorās messages got home, and was also bombarded with incoming messages of bribes to spill the details of the disaster to the press.
Rostrum had ordered that no messages to the press be sent out of respect to the survivors, for they would have their privacy destroyed as soon as they reached New York. Cottam respected this order, even under extreme duress of fatigue, stress, and the knowledge that in some cases the bribes were almost three times his annual salary.
He eventually went to bed but not before working with one of the rescued Titanicās radio operators, Harold Bride, to transmit as many messages as possible. Bride was injured (his feet had been crushed in a lifeboat) and had just passed the body of the second of Titanicās radio operators aboard (Jack Phillips), so neither of them were really in the best shape to keep working, but they did.
In the face of extreme adversity, both men refused to do anything but their duty (and exceeding their duty) not just because Rostrum had ordered it, but because it was the right thing to do. They could have profited considerably from the disaster and they refused for the dignity of the survivors.
This is hopepunk. This is what we can be, what we are, when instinct takes over. This is what we are when we choose to care about each other. Weāre not profit machines or units of production or lone fierce wolves in a bitter wilderness. We are people, and we care about people.
How many stand-alone works do you own written by a single author?
take "stand-alone work" to mean books not related as a series, the series can count as one work (ie me owning all of NK Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy and The City We Became would count as two stand-alone works, even though it's 4 books). Owning multiple copies also only counts as 1 stand-alone work, sorry edition-hoarders
tell me the author name in the tags!
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im jared 19 and never learned to read (i don't own books/see results)
She was his mate, she had wholeheartedly accepted that claim, and who was I to stick my nose in where it clearly wouldnāt be wanted? // I couldnāt put my finger to it, couldnāt figure out what it was - couldnāt figure out why on earth I was so invested in my moody brother and his besotted human either. // The only logical solution was, of course, to stalk them.
Febuwhump2024, day 04: obedience. Twilight, AU.
cw: mind control
pairing: bella/rosalie, past bella/edward.
fill for @febuwhump day 04: obedience
I hadnāt thought about it, not really - I mean, of course I knew Bella was beautiful, I have eyes and Iām not stupid, despite my hair colour. It didnāt quite register, however, considering how Edward had made his claim on her clear from the very beginning.
She was his mate, she had wholeheartedly accepted that claim, and who was I to stick my nose in where it clearly wouldnāt be wanted?Ā
That is, until I saw them together. There was something off about it - she adored him, that much was clear - but she wasnāt fawning over him the way she should have. I had seen Carlisle and Esme find each other, and I saw how Jasper treated Alice, and it was nothing like the dynamic that was Edward-and-Bella.Ā
I couldnāt put my finger to it, couldnāt figure out what it was - couldnāt figure out why on earth I was so invested in my moody brother and his besotted human either. I talked to Emmett about it, he was my best friend after all, but he was of absolutely no help - he just stared motionlessly at me for a minute before breaking out in great honking laughter.Ā
The only logical solution was, of course, to stalk them. Easier said than done, of course, considering one of them is a mind reader, but I did have several decades' worth of experience avoiding Edwardās intrusive gift. The key was to simply think in several layers, where the topmost layer was so annoying he would never go digging deeper. In my case, I just kept the script to Bee Movie running on repeat through my mind. He hated that movie.
The only reason I followed them that day was that it was sunny. We usually all went hunting when the sun was out - as rarely as that happened in Forks, Washington - but that day, Edward had begged off. Carlisle hadnāt questioned him, just accepted it straight off the bat despite how Edwardās eyes were turning darker almost by the hour.Ā
In and of itself, Edward not going along for a family hunt wasnāt all that unusual, he had that whole lone wolf schtick going for him, but the weird part was that Bella had called in sick at school. She had seemed fine the day before, and it was incredibly unlike her to in any way neglect school, so like any concerned friend would be, I was worried.Ā
Swinging by Bellaās house revealed that she and Edward had already left - luckily, Iām a decent tracker, and I could have followed Bellaās scent even if I was the worst tracker in vampire history.
Coming upon the Volvo parked at the end of a secluded forest road, Edward and Bella nowhere to be seen, actually made me slightly worried. It was probably just superstition, but it was also the exact kind of scenario like half of all murder mysteries ever began with.Ā
Trekking through the woods, carefully following their tracks while doing my best to not alert them to my presence, did nothing to lessen the unease in the pit of my stomach. At the same time, I was also arguing with myself - itās not like I had any business following them, theyāre mates and want to be alone, it would be so much easier to just turn around and leave them be.
And yet.Ā
Something pulled me forward, Bellaās scent filling my nostrils, my entire being demanding I track the two of them through the forest.Ā
I reached the edge of a large clearing, and there in the middle, I found them. It was a beautiful clearing, and I could fully understand why Edward had led her here - it was beautiful, in a monstrous way, the way his skin glittered in the sun, throwing reflections across the entire clearing.Ā
I settled down, twenty feet up in a tree where the branches had grown to make a quite comfortable little nook for me to hide in. I could certainly hear them, and if I craned my neck a little I could see them as well.Ā
Bella was facing in my direction, and there was something about her expression that put me on edge. Despite her vicinity to Edward she looked almost uncomfortable, a glint in her eyes that I wasnāt used to seeing.Ā
āDonāt you love me?ā I heard Edward say, in a tone I hadnāt ever heard him use before - and Bellaās face lost the uncomfortable expression as if it was a slate wiped clean, and the glint in her eyes turned to a cloudy, unfocused gaze, almost as if she was sleepwalking.
āOf course I love you,ā she replied dreamily.
Honestly, Iām not entirely certain what happened next, because all of a sudden I was standing before Bella, eyes trained on Edward, the thunderous sound of me hitting him still ringing out through the clearing. It looked almost like Iād tackled him, considering how heād been thrown back several feet, but I genuinely had no idea how Iād ended up where I was. I knew why, though.
āHow dare you, Edward Anthony Masen!ā I hissed, venom flying like spittle from my mouth.Ā
āWhat the fuck are you doing, Rose!ā Edward said, still lying prone on the forest floor where heād landed. āWhat are you on about?ā
āYouāre mesmerizing her!ā I yelled, still carefully keeping Bella behind me. She wasnāt doing anything, just standing there. It was like she was in a fugue, and how had I not seen it before? āHow dare you mesmerize your mate!ā
āLeave it, Rosalie,ā he replied, tone suddenly much harsher than it had been. āYou donāt know what youāre talking about.ā
āThe fuck I do! Youāre mesmerizing her, does she have any idea what youāve done to her?āĀ
āSheās mine, Rosalie, donāt you dare do anything to her.ā He crawled his way to his feet, eyes intently trained on her.Ā
āMe? I wonāt do anything to her, itās all what you have done to her!ā Edward started circling us, and there wasnāt much else for me to do but start circling as well. He was much faster than me, I knew that, but I hoped I would be able to protect Bella anyway. āI know what mesmerized humans look like, but Iāve never seen someone mesmerize their mate before - itās always been the prey thatās been mesmerized.ā
That sentence was enough to make him stop in his tracks and straighten up from the crouching stalk heād been using to circle us.Ā
āI donāt - I wouldnāt - I love her,ā he said beseechingly, sounding and looking most of all like a lost little boy.Ā
āNot a good way to show it, Edward,ā I bit out, cautiously straightening from my crouch. Behind me, Bella stood stock-still, neither moving nor speaking. āLook at her, sheās so lost to the world sheās not even reacting to either of us! Is she even your mate?ā
āI donāt - ā he violently shook his head before turning on his heel and running off. I knew there was no chance of me catching him, and for that matter - Bella was still lost to the world. Turning to face her, I could tell she hadnāt registered anything of mine and Edwardās exchange, but then again - she wouldnāt have registered if a clown was dancing the macarena in front of her either.Ā
I inched closer to her, as slowly as I would close in on a spooked horse, carefully lifting my hands to place them on her shoulders. What I didnāt expect to happen when my hands made contact with the skin bared by the tank top she was wearing, was the zing that went through me.Ā
Static electricity wasnāt usually something a vampire experienced, but it did happen. Weird though.
āI hope youāll forgive me for this,ā I said to her, all while knowing she couldnāt hear me. The easiest way to snap someone out of hysteria, panic or what have you - the way Iād learnt when I was a human, anyway - was to slap them. It gave them a shock and something to focus on, rather than the spiral of thoughts that had brought them to the state.Ā
Of course, Iām a vampire and sheās a human, and while I do have a lot of experience regulating my strength in normal interactions, I really donāt want to take the risk of snapping her neck in the process of snapping her out of her fugue.Ā
That just leaves the other way. The other way, unless you had tranquilizers on hand, was to kiss them.
The first thing I noticed when my lips descended on hers was the sheer warmth she was emitting - I hadnāt felt this warm since before my turning, and it was absolutely beautiful. The second thing was that the static electricity hadnāt abated, and actually, wasnāt that one of the signs of meeting your mate?Ā
Third of all, Bella was a really good kisser.
I broke the kiss with an unnecessary gasp, breath heaving despite having no need for it, and was gratified to see Bella looking back at me, gaze clearer than Iād ever seen it - in hindsight, someone should have seen what Edward was doing to her.Ā
āYouāre welcome to do that anytime,ā she murmured, hands tightly clasped behind my back. At some point, I had apparently buried my hands in her hair, and it was even silkier than Iād thought. āWhat happened?ā
āEdwardās been - well, itās a way of catching our, that is to say, wellā¦ prey, really,ā I replied, well aware of how horrible it must sound to a human who had not that long ago learnt about the existence of vampires. āHypnotizing, in essence, so that our prey will follow us to a more secluded area - and we can hide our nature. It keeps them pliant and unafraid.ā
I could see the revulsion in her eyes and tried to take a step back, mindful of hurting her with the tight grip she had on me. In spite of what she was clearly feeling, however, her grip tightened further - she didnāt have a chance of stopping me unless I let her, but I wasnāt of a mind to let go either.
āItās not you, Rose, that terrifies me,ā she said, raising one hand to feather it through my hair. āItās what he did to me that disgusts me, and that I did nothing to resist him.ā
āYou couldnāt have,ā I said soothingly, trying not to arch into her hand like a pleased cat. āItās not something any human could resist, even if they wanted to. Itās like a drug, insidious and turning you against your very self if necessary.ā
āWell, I should hope so - Iāve never been interested in men, before, and to be entirely frank - that first day in the cafeteria? You were the one who caught my attention.ā
If I still could, I would have blushed. I was used to people looking, but the frank admiration shining out of her eyes would be my undoing.Ā
āIām hoping Iām not the only one who felt the jolt when you kissed me?ā Bella said teasingly, looking like she knew exactly what she was doing to me.Ā
āI - didnāt want to say anything, I donāt want you to feel pressured - not this soon after what he did to you,ā I replied bashfully. Bashful wasnāt a word Iād ever used to describe myself, certainly not a word anyone else had ever used either, but in that moment, it was the only applicable one. āI think it was, well, it is often one of the more obvious signs of meeting your mate, especially when one isnāt a vampire.ā
āYes, I did read some of Carlisleās literature on the subject - I didnāt think much of how Iād never felt it with Edward, I just assumed it was because I was human.ā
āI think he justā¦ mesmerized you into not caring.āĀ
She hummed thoughtfully, one hand fiddling with my hair. I was fairly certain that if she kept it up Iād melt into a boneless puddle, but I wasnāt complaining. I certainly wasnāt complaining when she kissed me again.Ā
āWhat do you say to getting out of here? I hope you know the way back to your car, because I have no idea how we got here in the first place. I would really like to be anywhere else but here, to be honest.ā She looked around, a faintly repulsed look on her face.Ā
āOf course,ā I said, not letting go more than absolutely necessary to swing her onto my back, gratified to hear her surprised squeal turn into helpless peals of laughter.Ā
cw: infection, drug use, fem!Bilbo.
pairing: Bilbo/Bofur
fill for @febuwhump day 03: "bite down on this".
āThis feels all too familiar,ā Briar muttered in the general direction of Ćin, despite knowing he probably couldnāt hear her. He had her foot in his lap, and while she wanted nothing more than to stand up and run away she knew she couldnāt. Sheād probably be able to run about three feet before her legs would buckle, and if she against all odds would be capable of remaining on her feet for longer, Dwalin stood like an ominous sentinel at the opening of the tent.Ā
Despite the war hammer and all of the other blows she had received during the battle, the worst was still her foot. Sheād burned it on the molten gold, during the flight from Smaug, and it had not fared well being exposed to mud, blood and gore. She should have worn boots, no matter how disquieting it felt, but there just hadnāt been any time for her to put the wretched contraptions on.Ā
So far, Ćin was the only member of the Company who had even spoken to her since Azog met his end on the river. She had betrayed them all, so it wasnāt exactly unexpected that theyād shun her, but it nevertheless pained her. Sheād taken the only way out she could see, and maybe it was selfish of her, but she was fairly certain that if she hadnāt bartered that bloody stone away the entire Company would be dead, never to see Erebor restored.
It was a weak comfort, to know that everyone had survived the battle, even if some were still fighting for their lives. It was not far from pulling teeth, but Briar had managed to pull that much information from Ćin, in-between his disparaging muttering about her intellect and self-preservation.
āThereās nothing for it,ā Ćin suddenly said in a much louder voice, clearly meant for her to hear. He stood up, being achingly gentle when he lifted her foot and placed it down on the bed - no matter how gently he handled her, however, the pain that shot through her like lightning was enough to make her gasp for breath. Out of the corner of her eye, through eyes gone cloudy with pain, she saw Dwalin make an aborted gesture, attempting to reach for her but stopping himself.Ā
Briar tried to force the pain away by focusing on something, anything else, but considering it was either Dwalin and his imposing glower, or Ćin and his hurried bustling, there wasnāt much for her to think about other than how thoroughly she had ruined her own life.
āHere,ā Ćin said gruffly, thrusting a roughly hewn mug at her. It was half-full of a milky liquid, and she couldnāt resist sniffing it curiously. āPoppy milk. Ye donāt want to be fully aware for what Iām going to do, lass.ā
āOh dear,ā she mumbled, knowing if the healer suggested to knock her out it would not be a good time.Ā
āI dosed it for a dwarfling, I donāt know how receptive yer lot is to poppies.ā
āRather receptive, but Iāve never had to drink poppy milk back in the Shire, so I wouldnāt know the dosage,ā Briar replied, looking between the cup and Ćin before she grimaced and drank it all down.Ā
āGood,ā Ćin said, grabbing something bundled in canvas from the workbench installed along one of the sides of the tent. He placed the bundle at the end of the bed, far out of reach for her to kick it - the bed was ridiculously oversized, clearly made for one of the tall folk rather than the more sensibly sized beds the dwarrow had provided. He handed her a thick chunk of leather. āBefore ye start feeling too loopy, bite down on this.ā
āOh no,ā Briar said, for the first time since the battle ended feeling very afraid. There was a slight haze lowering itself over her, but she wouldnāt say she was feeling loopy.
āI donāt want ye to bite yer tongue off, lass.ā There was a hint of sympathy in his tone, but he was unyielding with the leather chunk. Itās borne out of care, Briar knows that, but it didnāt exactly feel reassuring when she tucked the leather between her teeth.
The poppy milk has time to make her very loopy before Ćin has settled back at her feet, too many surgical instruments for her comfort spread out around him.
āReady?ā he asked and didnāt wait for her to reply before he started lifting the bandages from her foot.Ā
She was thankful for the poppy milk, and even more thankful that she passed out from the pain before he had time to put the knife in his hand to her foot.Ā
āHold her still, sheās thrashing too much!ā
āSheās running a high fever, I donāt know - ā
āHold on lass, ye canāt let an infection take ye when the dragon didnātā¦ā
āIt looks like sheās just sleepingā¦ā
āItās looking better - ā
When Briar woke up again, it was to a stone ceiling above her, rather than the canvas she had passed out to. She also felt rather comfortable, but kind of like her body was too heavy for her. She tried to move but only managed to confirm that she couldnāt lift her arms. She could wiggle her fingers, however, so she did - and noticed that something was holding her right hand tightly.Ā
Turning her head to look to her right was the effort of a lifetime, but the reward was incredible - there, on a stool next to her bed, was Bofur. Heād put his hat on the nightstand next to the bed, and laid his head down next to the hand he was clasping tightly with both of his.
āBofur,ā she tried to say, but couldnāt make a sound other than a raspy breath that first made her wince and then started her coughing. Beside her, Bofur shot up like heād been stung, looking wildly around the room before he realised she was the one coughing.
āBriar! Yeāre awake!ā he said, surprised joy shining out of his eyes, raising her hand to his mouth to press a whiskered kiss to the back of it. Suddenly he jolted, carefully putting her hand down before bolting to the door and yelling for Ćin.
āAbout time ye wake up, lass,ā the gruff healer said as he entered the room.
āHow longā¦?ā
āThree weeks, lass, and it was touch and go for a while there,ā he replied, not looking up from where he was removing the bandages on her foot. āHowever, I do think this was the best outcome - if yeāre in a coma ye canāt be up and about, running around on this foot of yers and ruining all my hard work.ā
He gestured for her to look, and while she really didnāt want to see, she gathered up what bravery she had left and lowered her gaze to her feet. She couldnāt help but let out a gasp when she saw it, however. The most shocking part was just how normal her foot looked - the scar tissue was much shinier than the rest of her skin, of course, and the hair hadnāt started growing out just yet - maybe wouldnāt grow, considering how much of her foot was a scar now, but other than thatā¦ her foot looked, maybe not fine, but like it eventually would be.
Rustyās never been a fan of the dark, heād assumed it was something about how in every shadow there can be anything hiding - but in this darkness, there arenāt any shadows. Thereās no light to cast shadows by.
- fill for @febuwhump day 02: solitary confinement
The room - the box - the space heās in is utterly dark, entirely silent and so small he canāt turn around or stand up. He wouldnāt be able to, anyway, considering how tightly his hands are bound behind his back. Rustyās never been a fan of the dark, heād assumed it was something about how in every shadow there can be anything hiding - but in this darkness, there arenāt any shadows. Thereās no light to cast shadows by.
Heās not afraid of the dark, of course not - Rusty would admit to one fear in his life, and that was losing Danny - but heād strongly prefer if the space he currently occupied was slightly more well-lit.
As if the darkness wasnāt enough, heās also hungry.
He hadnāt been without food within easy reach since he left the streets, twenty years and countless heists ago - he had sworn to himself that never again would he go that hungry.
Danny had made sure of it.Ā
Heās self-aware enough to realise that every thought heās having - especially the nonrelevant ones - is all in a vain hope to distract himself from the fact that heās been bound, put in a dark and tiny space, all without any knowledge of it happening.
Rusty went to bed in a large, extremely comfortable hotel bed, in the room next to Dannyās, and woke up here. Wherever here may be.Ā
He had spent an enjoyable five (was it five? Was it more or was it less?) minutes trying to figure out who he had pissed off badly enough recently that theyād go to these lengths to get back at him, but the list was so long it didnāt exactly give him anything to go on.
Heās got high hopes that Danny will find him soon.
Unless Danny is in a similar predicament.
In which caseā¦ theyāre screwed.
After a while, Rusty had started wondering if it was some kind of sensory deprivation tank he was in - there was no sound, no light, only what little of his surroundings he could physically feel - but heās pretty certain those are supposed to be salt water? And heās not in water.
The worst part, he thinks, besides the darkness, the hunger and the being tied up, is that heās got no idea what time it is, or even day. How long has he been wherever it is he is? Outside, on heists and in general, heās got a good grasp of the passage of time. The only thing he can do here is count heartbeats, and considering heās on the verge of a panic attack constantly his heart rate isnāt all that steady.
He thinks he might have fallen asleep, for when he opens his eyes again it is to light so bright he canāt see anything.
Never pleased, his mental Danny-voice says, tone the kind of fond Rusty can only hope to hear from him.
The light, once heās gotten used to it, reveals that he was right - he is inside a box. A plexiglass box. He can see that every side of the box - just the right size to not quite let him sit comfortably, because of course - is plexiglass, too, because the room the box is placed in seems to be made entirely of mirrors. The floors arenāt, as far as he can tell, but every wall and even the ceiling? Mirrored.
All he can see, no matter where he looks, is his own terrified eyes staring back at him from his pale face, all from a slightly hunched posture inside a plexiglass box.Ā
Suddenly, he has an entirely different view of zoos.
The room isnāt large, but the box heās stuck in doesnāt occupy much of what space is available - if he werenāt tied up in a box, the room would be an ideal size to pace in.Ā
He thinks the mirrors might be one-way, and then considers what that means - somewhere, there is someone watching. Someone has put him in this box, in this mirrored room, for a reason.
Itās cleverly done, he gives them that - werenāt it for his hands being tied and him being stuffed in a box, there are no sensations to give anything away. Thereās no draft, thereās no heat - everything is just the right temperature to give him no stimulation whatsoever.Ā
The only thing he has to look at is himself, and heās never been that vain - and if he can see the despair creeping into his eyes, so can anyone.
Heās not sure how long itās been when the lights suddenly go out and is replaced by the same impenetrable darkness heād woken up in.
Again, he is floating in a nothingness unlike any heās ever experienced before, and again, heās as discomfited by it as heās ever been.
There are several of the dark-then-light cycles, and at no point does he manage to figure out how long either period is - it might be hours, it might be days - he spends as much time as Ć„pssobƶe sleeping, because when heās asleep at least he doesnāt see things.Ā
As far as he knows, thereās no history of delusion in his family, and heās certainly never been one for hallucinations (except for one bad acid-trip in his mid-teens), so why heās seeing shapes in the darkness thatās so complete he wouldnāt be able to see his hand in front of his faceā¦ it might be the solitude, might be the hunger.
Heās got a feeling that at one point or another, heās been drugged into unconsciousness rather than just falling asleep because while he is hungry and thirsty, itās nothing like what heād expect after the amount of time heās spent in his plexiglass box,
The worst part, still, is how much heās missing Danny.
Heās even started talking out loud to his internal Danny-voice, just to feel a bit of normalcy - as if he wasnāt pathetic enough already.Ā
Of course, itās all hallucinatory, which is why he can swear he sees Danny lurking behind him the next time the lights go on. The Danny-visage doesnāt do anything, doesnāt speak, doesnāt raise a judgemental eyebrow, (doesnāt hand him a snack,) which is how Rusty knows itās not actually Danny.Ā
He likes to think Danny wouldnāt leave him in the cramped plexiglass box, either, but then again - sometimes Rusty is a bother, he knows he is, so maybe sometimes Danny just wants to lock him up in a box so he knows where Rusty is.Ā
That thought nags at him for several more cycles, until suddenly - during one of the light-cycles - one of the mirrored walls bursts into thousands of shards, courtesy of a sledgehammer - and Rustyās never been as glad to see Danny as he is then.Ā
It is slow in dawning on her, the realisation of who the victim (culprit, her traitorous mind whispers to her, the inflexion changing from suspicious to accusing) is. When it does, though, it is obvious.
cw: demonic possession, religious imagery.
pairing: frenchie/kate (background)
- fill for @febuwhump day 01: helpless
It is slow in dawning on her, the realisation of who the victim (culprit, her traitorous mind whispers to her, the inflexion changing from suspicious to accusing) is. When it does, though, it is obvious.
Frenchie, poor Frenchie, who helped her in Saint Cartha - who there fought with the demon for her life - had brought Valak with him to Tarascon. Had brought Valak along inside him.
Maybe it is that - the fact that once upon a time, Frenchie - Maurice - saved her life from the very demon currently possessing him - that keeps her from hating him as he tries to burn her alive. It is not him, she repeatedly chants in her mind, and she does not hate him. She hates the demon, her Lord preaches love thy neighbour and to let go of hatred, but in this case, she cannot, she will not let it go.Ā
Sister Irene is burning, Sister Debra is hiding, and across the wine cellar, Maurice-who-is-Valak laughs.
Sister Irene drops to the hard floor, her very breath burned out of her, and Sister Debra pulls her to what safety can be found.
She knows that Maurice would be horrified if he knew what his body was doing - mayhaps he does know - and she swears on her very faith that she will free him from this possession.Ā
Sister Irene had seen how he looked at her, Kate the school teacher, but also how he looked at her daughter - once, Frenchie had looked at her in the way he watched Kate, and he remained the one man Sister Irene had considered turning her habit in for. Her love for her Lord was, is, and will be insurmountable, but for a moment, maybe even a day, her love for Frenchie almost measured up to it.
Then - post Saint Cartha, post possession and almost-drowning alike, after ten ghosts of nuns long since dead had been put to rest - Frenchie put her on a train and stepped on another, and he did not ask her to turn her habit in. Perhaps she loved him even more after that, simply for not asking her to change.Ā
She did not change - she joined the convent in Italy, put Frenchie out of her mind, and dedicated herself to her Lord and to trying to forget what had happened in the desecrated catacombs beneath the haunted convent of Saint Cartha, tried to forget that the most horrifying moment of her life had turned into a ghost story told around campfires and in convent kitchens.
Now, however, now she is burning at an imaginary stake, the demon she had spent years attempting to forget trying to make her burn for a relic that could give it powers more ungodly than any ever seen.
It tries to burn her.
Itā¦
ā¦fails.
Sister Irene does not burn and instead, she falls to the stone floor, landing in a heap from which Sister Debra pulls her away. They are both covered in wine, the demon inside Maurice is clutching at the case containing the eyes of Saint Lucia and - they are covered in wine, Sister Irene realises. Wine long stored on consecrated ground, ground once blessed by the monks who lived there - it may now be a school, but the ground is sacred.
Ā She looks at Sister Debra, and wonders if the same thought has struck her as it has Sister Irene.
āSister Debra,ā Sister Irene says, tone as slow and measured as she can make it while panicking the way she is. Sister Debra looks at her, eyes wide and panicked, but she is listening. āSister Debra, have faith and pray with me.ā
It is as if they are one when they start praying, as if they have never done anything else than pray together - without lead, without prompting, they both fall into the communion prayer.
āHear us, O Heavenly Father, and with thy Word and Holy Spirit bless and sanctify this wine that it, also, may be the Sacrament of the precious blood of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who took the cup and said, āThis is my Blood.ā Amen.ā They take a deep breath each and then they keep praying. āHear us, O Heavenly Father, and with thy Word and Holy Spirit bless and sanctify this wine that it, also, may be the Sacrament of the precious blood of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who took the cup and said, āThis is my Blood.ā Amen.ā
At the second sanctify, the demon starts screaming as it is showered in wine blessed to be the Blood of Christ.
When all is done, when the demon is expelled from Maurice and when the demon goat has returned to whatever Hellscape it came from - and had that not been a surprise, when Kate informed them that while Sisters Irene and Debra were praying the wine into Blood of Christ to expel the demon, Kate was trying to save the schoolgirls from a demon in the shape of a goat man.
As they stand in the courtyard of the old monastery. Frenchie with his Kate and Sophie on one side, Sisters Irene and Debra on the other, the pale faces of schoolgirls peek through the windows of the dorms.
They do not say anything to each other, there are no words left to say - there are only wan smiles and the remains of terror, none of it leaving any room for conversation.
They leave.Ā
Maurice goes with Kate and young Sophie, and Sister Irene hopes he will find happiness and peace now the demon is expelled - hopes his gardening will continue to brighten his day, hopes that he will have the direction in his life that he has missed as he lives his life with Kate and Sophie - she expects him to live his life with them, for stronger, more mutual love than the three of them feel for each other she has never encountered.
Sisters Irene and Debra get on a train, and they go back to their Italian convent. Sister Irene hopes that now she will be allowed to live out her life in the service to her Lord that she has hoped for since she first donned a habit.
She knows that the nightmares will follow her through her life, but hopes that will be all the reminders she encounters - hopes that Sister Debra will be able to live with her experiences. She knows that after the wine cellar, Sister Debraās faith has grown in strength, in the way only miracles can cause in people who experience them.
More than anything, Sister Irene hopes she will be able to forget the helplessness she felt as the demon tried to burn her alive.
an obviously stolen copy of this crossed my dash last week, and i wanted to reblog the real thing. tracking down an image that originates in social media is a bit of hassle, but i am the citation fairy (sort of), and this is her quest. and she had to do whatever it took on this one. that only turned out to be less than 10 minutes, but she was prepared to put in a few hours. the hogfather lit the spark of her creation, and this is his night.
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