re: the wip titles, i am intrigued by the "scrapped AU"? bc the name potentially implies it's no longer a wip but it is also in the wip folder? What Is The Truth
SLDKJFSL yeahhh you caught me, I’ve legit abandoned it because I was just putting myself Through It and there was nothing positive to keep writing for. I keep it around to lift any good dialogue for future purposes. that one was an AU where Nile doesn’t tell the others about her dream at Goussainville, so they all go back to sleep, so Andy’s the one who catches that first grenade through the door, and, well...
The nearest guy turns to look at her, then looks back to Joe. Nile puts her back against the wall. Her eyes water; she coughs into her elbow.
Booker is sitting up at her right, awake but looking like he’d rather not be. There’s barely enough room between the benches for the four of them, and there is no sign of Andy.
Joe continues, “I love this man beyond measure and reason. He’s not my boyfriend--”
If this is payback for some job from before Nile came along, the troopers would have just shot them all at Goussainville. Instead they’re being transported somewhere, and now the cold prick of fear is in her heart: they know.
Her train of thought is derailed by the sight of Joe and Nicky kissing. A tender, life-affirming thing. It’s cut short when the guards yank them away from each other.
A look passes from Nicky to Joe, from Joe to Booker. The air changes in the van like it changed the moment Nile let Andy loose on the plane. From one second to the next, they are in motion.
It’s almost too fast for Nile to track. Nicky hooks his bound hands behind the neck of one of the guards and levers him forward over his shoulder. Joe is waiting to give the guy’s momentum a boost, right into the bench behind him.
The tiny, cramped space goes chaotic with shouts and moving bodies. There are hand loops hanging from the van’s ceiling, like the El train has for commuters when it’s standing room only. Joe stands, grabs one, and hoists his feet up to wrap the chain around another guard. Nicky kicks out that guard’s legs, and Joe twists as gravity brings him down, then shakes the guard’s corpse off.
Nile gets up, her back still tight to the wall, to give them more space. There are three down already. Booker has two on him, wailing with their batons, and Nile acts without thinking, puts her arms over the closest guy’s helmet and hangs on his back. She gets the wind knocked out of her when he staggers against the wall, but thanks to the ziptie it’s impossible to let go. The guy slumps to his knees, beating at Nile’s arm with his fist, but he gets weaker and weaker.
“I got him,” someone says--Joe, she thinks numbly--and a warm hand eases her arm up and off the guy. Joe shoves the guard toward the back end of the van. Nicky does something to him that makes a terrible crunching sound, but fortunately that’s hidden behind Joe.
She didn’t kill the guy, at least. Not directly.
It seems that was the last of them. But despite the noise they made, the van is still moving. “Okay?” Joe checks, bending a little to look Nile in the eye.
Instead of answering, she says, “The fuck is going on?”
