#novred

[rrrawrf-writes]

Rhiot knew something was off as soon as the mercenaries showed up. The big guy with the pink hair was trying hard to stifle a grin, and it wasn’t working. He exchanged a glance with Dixon, who just shrugged back at him.

“You got the files, right?” she asked, eyeing the pair. They were both inordinately tall, towering over Dixon and Rhiot both, but the taller of them, a woman with long, wild, coily black hair and a face as grim as her companion’s was beaming, flicked a flash drive between her fingers.

“Yeah, right here,” she said, and as Dixon held out her hand, she scowled and dropped it into the female soldier’s palm. The mercenary turned on the heel of her combat boots, tagging her partner on the arm. “C’mon, Flowers -”

“Wait,” Dixon drawled, passing the flash drive to Rhiot. Mercado moved to block the two Mercury Independent agents from the door, her hands on her hips. “Gotta make sure these’re legit.”

The two mercenaries exchanged a look, before Flowers said, “Fine by me.”

He’d given up hiding it, and now grinned broadly, stuffing his hands in the pocket of his jacket. Rhiot tried not to tense up; they’d all agreed to a meet without weapons, but those jackets were easily bulky enough to hide something small.

Loula got to her feet and padded over to Flowers, sniffing at his boots. “Can I pet her?” the pink-haired man asked eagerly, already stooping a little.

Rhiot shrugged. “Yeah, s’fine,” he muttered, turning to the laptop they’d brought with. Palamo was with Hunt and Parker on the other end, across town, waiting to grab the files as soon as they downloaded, and make a copy.

“Where’s your fearless leader at?” Flowers asked, crouching down on his haunches so he could better scratch Loula behind the ears. She wagged her tail happily, while at the same time sticking her nose into his jacket. Rhiot could feel, through their connection, a lack of substance in his pockets, and relaxed minutely.

“Caught a cold,” Dixon said, leaning against the wall as Rhiot plugged the flash drive into the computer. “This thing better not have any viruses on it.”

“It doesn’t,” the merc woman said flatly, scowling down at Mercado. Mercy discreetly puffed out her chest and tried to match the other woman’s height, but she must have had a good six inches, at least, on Mercy. 

Flowers’ grin grew larger and larger. He looked like an idiot.

There was a single file on the flash drive. Rhiot frowned as a request for an access code flashed up on his screen. “What’s the password?”

“Y-3-1-T-5-A.”

The women groaned. “You’re kidding me,” she grumbled.

“What?” Rhiot asked, distracted, as he typed it in. A little progress bar popped up.

“Relax, K,” Flowers said, finally standing up as Loula backed away. He beamed over at Mercy as he straightened up. “I love your hair scarf.”

Mercy blinked, and reached up to touch her headband, the end of it fluttering over her shoulder. She very rarely let herself add any feminine touches to her outfit, and Rhiot half-expected her to punch Flowers for his audacity - except he felt a smidgen of pleasant surprise come from her. “Oh, thanks. Almost matches your hair.”

“Almost,” Flowers agreed cheerfully, leaning against the wall next to her. Dixon watched them sharply, radiating suspicion. Rhiot tamped down on the quartet’s emotional connection, because it was distracting him as he waited for the file to download. This was taking forever -

“Here we go,” he muttered, while Mercy and Flowers chatted amiably in the background, and Dixon and K just scowled at their respective teammates. Loula came back over to lean against Rhiot’s leg, as a Microsoft Notepad file cropped up, filled to the brim with nonsense HTML coding.

Furrowing his brow, Rhiot complained, “What is this?”

“Decryption?” Flowers volunteered. “Uh, MK says to scroll all the way to the bottom.”

Rhiot did, and frowned. “This is a YouTube link.”

“Yeah,” K interrupted, exasperated, “we told you it was a video.”

“So you put it on YouTube?” Mercy asked, bewildered. She relaxed against the door. Flowers flashed K another huge grin, and she scoffed with disgust.

“I can’t believe you and MK,” she muttered.

“Better not be a virus,” Dixon huffed, and leaned over Rhiot’s chair as he clicked the blue link.

“Oh, hey, your shoelaces are untied,” Flowers told Mercy. She looked down, as the laptop abruptly started blaring a heavy 80s pop beat. 

We’re no strangers to love-

Mercy yelped as Flowers tackled her through the door; K’s hands sparked with electricity before Dixon could lunge for her, as Rhiot stared at the screen and bit out, “Are you kidding me.” And that was how the meme war started.

[rrrawrf-writes]

ur a jerk

(tw swearing)

“He has my daughter,” Parker said.

“So… we’re dead?” Palamo said, furrowing his brow to try and make sense of the headline.

Rhiot shrugged, setting the newspaper aside. It had wound up at the door of their hotel room at an hour earlier than any newspaper should be printing these sorts of things, and Mercado had gone straight for the comics before Hunt turned on the radio and heard the actual story.

“That fuck has my daughter.”

“That explains why no one got in touch with us,” Dixon said from behind them, and then she swung her legs over the back of the couch and slouched into it, shoving her feet against Mercado’s thighs until the other woman scowled and made room for her. “So what’s Polka telling us to do now?”

“That’s not Polka, that’s my daughter,” Parker snarled from across the room, wearing a hole in the rug as he paced. Dixon flapped a hand at him.

“Yeah, yeah, but she’s also, like, the smartest person we know and apparently pulling all the strings,” she said.

“She’s being forced to work for a fucking supervillain!”

Dixon, Hunt, Mercado, Palamo, Rhiot, and even Loula all exchanged nervous looks with each other. None of them were convinced that Polka-slash-Char was being forced to work with Pythagoras, but none of them were about to tell Parker that.

“...Anyway, um, there’s some - there’s some words highlighted in this article?” Rhiot said anxiously. “You think that was her?”

“Fucking bastard making her fucking pull shit for him -”

“Sir,” Dixon drawled as the group huddled around Rhiot and the newspaper, “we all know you’re in the middle of a mental breakdown right now, but can you keep it down?”

Their answer was a slamming door. Everyone looked up as one, Mercado said, “Shit,” and then they all scrambled to get after Parker before he went and got himself killed.

Again.

[rrrawrf-writes]

nightmare

Wildcard stood out against the garish red sky as starkly as a cardboard cutout, laughing as maniacally as any cartoon villain.

Even as Rhiot slid down into a pitch-black chasm, he could hear Wildcard - see them if he looked up. But he doggedly did not look up, didn't take his eyes away from the bomb.

It grew larger and larger in his eyes as he struggled towards it, pushing against a seemingly endless crowd of people fleeing it, their screams silent, drowned out by the terror that swamped Rhiot. Eventually the living crowd turned to corpses, that grasped at Rhiot’s ankles as he ran, causing him to trip and stumble. Eventually, even the dead bodies faded into a mountain of rubble, and on top of it was - the bomb.

A monstrosity of wires and elegance. The absolute height of technology, it and twenty others spaced out along the San Andreas fault. Wildcard wanted a country of their own - they’d blow up half of California if they had to, and Rhiot had spent barely three hours memorizing the specs of the thing, in a last-ditch effort to stop it from going off.

He threw himself at the mountain of debris, hands and bare feet bloodied as he dragged himself up, up, up. It was bigger than he thought - so, so impossibly big -

And then Rhiot was there, staring at the bomb, and perched on top with cartoonish simplicity, like a bow on a present: a stick of dynamite, labelled in big block letters, with a simple clock timer and a spill of wires, all black except for one single red one.

It even said CUT ME. But Rhiot didn't have any scissors.

He stuck his hands in his pockets, but all he pulled out was a silvery gum wrapper in the shape of a knife. It, of course, did nothing to slice through the wire, though it nicked the red rubber casing before it crumpled. Rhiot panted for breath as he tried everything he could think of. He cast about for a sharp rock, but the painful rubble he’d climbed up just moments before had turned to mud, soaking his clothes through as red, red rain poured from the sky and stung his eyes. Rhiot pulled on the wire, twisting it around his fingers. He even leaned down and tore at the wire with his teeth, chewing and pulling until his gums dripped red down his chin.

Sobbing with terror, Rhiot stared at the clock attached to the dynamite, and watched as it ticked down from ten seconds, to eight, to five, to three, to -

He woke up to a heavy weight on his chest, gasping for breath as a dog’s rough tongue licked over the side of his face. Rhiot couldn’t move his body for one terrifying moment, as his brain adjusted to being suddenly awake, and the overwhelming wave of calm-safe-calm-quiet-love-safe-safe-safe-safe that swamped him from Loula.

Rhiot screwed his eyes shut and let out his breath in a sob, tears rolling down his cheeks. Loula whined and licked at them, burrowing her nose between Rhiot’s neck and the bed, her cold nose both shocking and grounding all at once.

The bedsheets were wet; so were his sweatpants. Rhiot sucked in a deep, shuddering breath, then put his hands over his eyes and slowly, slowly let it out. This was the second time this month.

Loula whined again. Rhiot rolled over, and finally pulled the dog into his arms, burying his whimpers into her thick brindled fur.

[rrrawrf-writes]

your characters in a 1920's au: who are they

holy hannah the 1920′s??? when even was that

one quick google search later

in all honesty, like, 90% of my characters would’ve been soldiers during the first world war, so i’m just gonna nab november red since they’re… also soldiers!!!

- milt parker, palamo, and dixon, as the oldest, would’ve definitely been in the army before the war started. dixon would’ve been a nurse, until a government agency found out “oh what some people have superpowers” and then started collecting them.

- rhiot and hunt were drafted for wwi, and then inducted into the newly-formed MUGD; mercado, i think, prolly tried to pretend to be a guy to get into the army, and then the MUGD picked her up as well, since she was so insistent on fighting anyway.

- they decide to stay in after the war. or rather, the decision to stay in was made for them.

- they do get lots of downtime, tho, and spend most of it pretending not to have superpowers or that they now spend about 87% of the time mentally linked up to each other and rhiot’s dog loula.

- parker is devastated by prohibition and has to be dragged out of underground bars and speakeasies on the regular. he makes lots of bootlegger friends. dixon does not discourage this, because she drinks almost as much as him. the only difference between them is that she knows how to stop drinking.

- hunt and rhiot get crazy into baseball. palamo plays with them sometimes, but it almost always devolves just into him playing fetch with loula.

- during this time, november red does get called into facing threats from other superpowered people on the sly; there starts to be actual caped superheroes, with uniforms and everything, and novred starts keeping tabs on if they’re actually Good People or not.

- mercado goes full suffragette, and bullies the rest of novred into helping her. their handlers have to regularly curb her activism. she probably almost gets chucked out entirely, except parker tells them that the entire group would leave with her. 

- they probably get mixed up with mobsters, because what’s a 1920′s au without a good mafia story arc! 

[rrrawrf-writes]

also werewolf/vampire au!

awooooo

- november red, aka, The Sad Pack, are a pack of werewolves that all live together in the same town

- they don’t really run on the alpha heirarchy but if anyone asks, milt’s top dog

- except for when literally anyone else disagrees with him

- they all live in the same house on the corner that’s too small for six werewolves and a dog and one werewolf’s wife and children and another werewolf’s unknown daughter who shows up sometimes, but it’s very happy and warm inside and somehow there’s always an extra bed for anyone who needs it

- rhiot actually turns into a dog, not a wolf, but everyone is okay with that. loula is his ESA but has actually grown into keeping the whole group grounded during full moons and high stress

- the epitome of “werewolves not swearwolves”

- some new people have come into town. eli, sam, and kawai are vampires who do “odd jobs” for people in exchange for some of their blood

- eli is literally twilight vampire and sparkles in the sunlight

- sam can heal up the people they take blood from

- kawai is just mean

- the sad pack are v wary of these new people

- misunderstandings ensue, and by misunderstandings, i mean, parts of downtown get wrecked before the sad pack figure out that the vampires aren’t actually there to prey on people, and every single ounce of imbibed blood is either a willing donation or part of a legal transaction

- the sad pack is not happy with this but they reluctantly let it rest

- once they finally get into a good peace, eli invites the rest of his vampire buddies into town and the sad pack is both outnumbered and incredibly pissed off

- fortunately, the vampires become an excellent addition to the sad pack’s usual nightly puppy pile

[rrrawrf-writes]

some earlier november red o3o

Normally, Rhiot would cut the connection as soon as their objective was complete. Normally, they wouldn’t stay synced up for so long. Normally, they’d only be seeing and hearing what the others did.

Normally, they wouldn’t be fighting on American soil. Normally, they wouldn’t be fighting to kill an American citizen.

Of course, they couldn’t really expect the police to handle a superhero-gone-villain.

Well, at least they were still alive. Rhiot had no idea how. They’d managed to lure the cape and trap them in a part of town already evacuated, but he was still certain there had been civilian fatalities. Hopefully, not from their own actions - but Rhiot, honestly, was too tired to speculate if his bullets had struck a bystander.

He felt bad for thinking that, or he would have, if he didn’t currently carry the bone-deep exhaustion of six other bodies with him.

His control had slipped, and they all felt not only the weariness, but the pain of their bruises and cuts. “Share it out,” Parker had said, “you’re carrying too much, Archer.”

So he’d let it go. He’d let go of too much, and so along with the pain and the soreness, they all felt a panic grip their stomach, and Rhiot wasn’t sure who it came from. Maybe it was from all of them.

He found Mercado hiding. Hiding, when she was always the first into the fray. Rhiot’s shaky hands helped him climb over blocks of debris from a crushed building; every inch of Mercy’s normally dark tan skin pulsed with a neon purple light. She gripped her gun too tightly to her chest for it to be of any use, had it been an enemy, and not Rhiot, creeping up on her.

Loula whined. She padded ahead of Rhiot, and stuck her nose under Mercy’s elbow.

“I couldn’t breathe,” she sobbed, grabbed Loula’s harness and burying her face into the dog’s brindled fur. Rhiot just nodded and ignored the slight shadow-pressure against the back of his shoulders and around his chest, as Mercado dropped her gun and gathered Loula into her arms. “I couldn’t breathe.”

“We know.” Rhiot squatted down next to her, reaching out to scratch a spot on Loula’s back. “It’s fine.”

His own words were hollow, and they did absolutely nothing to fill the yawning pit of terror and shame that he was now sure came - at least partially - from Mercado.

Palamo was the next to find them, puffing as he hauled himself over the remains of a wall, and let himself down into the little hollow Mercado had tucked herself in, amidst all the devastation. The big man said nothing, just dumped his own rifle and gear, and strode over to pull Mercado up to her feet, and into the biggest hug he could manage.

She burst into tears. Rhiot felt them prickle at his own eyes, and then finally reached, mentally, to dampen down on their connection, cut it only to visual - and then hesitated.

She hurt. They all hurt.

Mercado sent him a teary-eyed look over Palamo’s shoulder, and Rhiot saw himself standing there, smudged with dirt and coal and blood and his own tears.

“I don’t want to be alone,” Mercy whispered. “I’m scared.”

Parker and Dixon were next to join them, and last of all, Hunt; they all arrived within the same sixty seconds, all weary and bruised and exhausted. They’d all heard Mercy, of course, and more importantly, Rhiot realized after he did some sifting through their tangle of emotions, they all felt much the same.

He looked to Parker.

Their leader sighed, then pulled off his helmet and dropped it on the ground, so that he could run a hand through his sweaty mat of hair. Wordlessly, he shrugged, and Rhiot took that as permission to keep the link going.

Palamo, completely worn out, sank slowly onto the ground again, settling up against the wall. Mercado stayed latched onto his arm, crying into his shoulder, and after a moment, Dixon joined them. The older woman wrapped her arm around Mercy’s shoulders and stroked her hair, making quiet, hushing noises.

“There’s plenty of room,” Palamo said, after a long moment, looking up at the other three men. Parker hesitated, looked down at his watch, then announced, “I’m fuckin’ tired. Reporting in can wait.”

He dropped on Palamo’s other side, pressing his back up against the bigger man’s side, and heaved a gusty sigh, tipping his head back with his eyes closed.

Rhiot glanced over at Hunt, who scoffed and shook his head. “Don’t give me that look,” he said, “I don’t need none of that crap.”

Eyes still closed, Parker said, “You’re shaking, Hunt. Get your ass over here.”

With that permission, Hunt - just aching to be included, Rhiot realized, sprawled down with his head and shoulders on Parker’s legs, covering his eyes. Everyone pretended not to hear the ragged sob that clawed out of his throat after a moment.

Rhiot found himself a place a moment later, tucked a little awkwardly onto Palamo’s and Mercy’s laps, with Loula curling up as tightly in his. Mercy’s glow slowly faded, and so did her crying, until they faded into the even, regular breathing of sleep.

Nobody moved.

When November Red didn’t report in, their superiors were, understandably, concerned. There was visual confirmation that the target was dead, but nothing had been heard from the MUGD team ever since, and so local law enforcement was dispatched to find them - and any others, survivors or fatalities - that hadn’t made it out of the danger zone.

An older policeman was the one who found the team of soldiers, and he let out a startled, relieved laugh, before stifling it and waving the others over. One of them took a picture, which Hunt would later demand, furiously, be deleted and absolutely not put on one of those damn feel-good TIME websites of the year’s best pictures, or what-the-hell-ever.

Six soldiers and their dog, all curled tight together and sleeping deeply. Parker somehow got ahold of the picture, and Hunt and Mercy both swore up and down that it would never happen again.

The next morning, in the hospital, a nurse walked into one of the rooms to find three hospital beds shoved together, the armrests removed, with November Red once again all piled on top of Palamo, with the best sleep they’d ever had in years.

---

not as good as the mi puppy pile, but poor battle buddies deserve it <3

for @lux-scriptum

[rrrawrf-writes]

battle buddies all watch steven universe and super stan it bc fusion reminds them of rhiot's mind-link thing

[rrrawrf-writes]

🌻🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

"ARCHER!"

The door slams open and Rhiot nearly rolls off the couch; equally startled, Loula jumps to her feet in a panic and plants one paw solidly in a very sensitive spot. Mercy storms in to see Rhiot and Loula both whimpering on the floor for very different reasons, and Hunt pulls off his gaming headseat with a scowl.

"I was winning," he snapped at Mercado, "this better be important."

"Ow," Rhiot groans in agreement. Loula whines and nuzzles him apologetically.

"Mormons don't cuss!" Mercy says, very loudly, as Dixon and Parker poke their heads in from the kitchen.

Rhiot rubs the rest of his nap from his eyes. "What?"

Palamo sidles in through the front door next, opening and closing it far more gently than Mercy. He shoots Parker an apologetic look and a wry smile.

"Mormons don't cuss!" Mercy repeats, clearly working herself up over this very simple statement. Loula starts following her circuit around the living room, trying to get her attention. "Why didn't you say something!"

"About swearing?" Rhiot clarifies, looking up at her helplessly. He's only synced up with Loula, but the edges of Mercy's brown skin glint a faint purple, showing her apparent distress. "I mean, uh, I guess we don't, not really?"

Palamo sighs and leans towards Parker and Dixon to explain, "We met some Mormon missionaries at the store."

Loula gives up on Mercy as the woman paces frenetic circles around the room and trots back to Rhiot, still on the floor. He ruffles her ears. "What's - What's the big deal?"

"We cuss all the damn time!" Mercy says, throwing her hands up. Hunt sighs and starts to put his headphones back on, but she leans down and tears them off his head. "That bothers you, right? We gotta fucking stop!"

"You're doing so well already," Hunt says dryly.

Rhiot finally sits up. "I mean, you - you don't-"

"No, it's not respectful," Mercado huffs. "We can't cuss around Archer anymore, guys, you got it?"

Rhiot looks more dismayed than relieved. "You - You really don't need to -"

Parker looks like he's about to cry from not laughing. Dixon, perfectly straight-faced, crosses her arms over her chest. "Mercado's right," she said gravely. "We gotta fucking stop cussing."

"Thank you!" Mercy exclaims.

"That means we can't say shit, either," Dixon goes on. "Or fuck."

"Damn," Parker puts in helpfully.

"You don't say God or anything, either, right?" Dixon asks Rhiot, who sighs and shakes his head.

"Hell is right out," Parker says gravely. Rhiot buries his face in Loula's fur. "We shouldn't talk about things like sex, Mercy, either."

Mercy blinks and looks down at Rhiot. "What, really?"

"It doesn't matter, guys," Rhiot complains into Loula's fur. "I don't care."

"It does too matter," Mercy huffed, "you're part of the team. You should feel comfortable."

Parker brings a mug to his lips. Dixon glances at him, then with a wicked grin, adds in a stage whisper to Palamo, "When do we mention Mormons don't drink coffee, either?"

Mercado whips around. "They don't?"

Rhiot falls onto his back and says, very loudly, "You're allowed to drink coffee, Mercado."

"Well, not when we're synced up!"

Rhiot puts his hands on his face and groans, "Are you freakin' kidding me."

"Hey, Archer," Parker deadpans, "watch your fucking mouth."