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[ailerons]

WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK

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 hangman

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Comments

[haggle]

1. and i'm still getting shortchanged on a fucking callsign? did i not clock in the hours? where is the respect for our troops???
1a. NATO = no action all talk. me = all action, all talk
2. beauty, brains, brawn, better than you 😘 (a man legally can't compete with a woman, because. i mean, he's a man, jake)
4. did you really look at my thighs and think "damn, they deserve the roughest exfoliation of their life"
5. almost got wet til i remembered they're not marlboros :(

adequate tho
pick a door. 1 2 3

[ailerons]

For the last time
If you want to see where I keep my respect for the men and women of the armed forces, all you have to do is ask

[ Blah blah he keeps it in his pants.

also, ""ADEQUATE"" ]

We're revisiting this later

Door #1

[haggle]

that the same filthy mouth you kiss your CO with?

( you know. her, on account of big lead dog wrangler. )

door #1 says that's a whole lotta disrespect, lt seresin
considering i secured you an invite to the grown-up's round table
but if you wanna pass, we can put you back on the bench

[ailerons]

Sure is, Captain.

[ Jesus. In one light: insubordination (commonly bad, mostly bullshit charge). In another light: insubordination vis a vis independent action, stepping to the brass by gathering a action committee (indescribably hot).

Locking in: ]

Who else made the shortlist?
Take it you have something to present if you're ringing the bell

Related to door #2?

[haggle]

♦︎ koby, yours truly
♣︎ strange, shadowheart
♥︎ silco, gale
♠︎ you + tony stark (conditional: pops a fucking benzo) or i'm rebounding to the next dork (wally)

remember when i said me = all talk all action
you bet your sweet ass i've got a project to share with the class

( pointedly, exaggeratedly held for dramatic effect. )

door #2: got a bigger picture of the roles in play
names & teams stay confidential, strictly you + me
set gets one shot at asking one of our stiffs a question
roza gets to rez someone who kicked it the round before
embry's claiming the same

blackmail didn't make him crack so he's probably not your man
which brings us to door #3
i'm edging my way there so your blood pressure can calm down between hard-ons fyi
jesus, men always wanna skip the foreplay

[ailerons]

[ The guy with a semi-public breakdown? ]

Not a bad second
Quigley not showing her chops?

[ misty your extremely offputting but terrifying harriet the spy energy will always be famous.

Pointedly not saying anything about Embry, given the givens. Innocent (for this case)? Likely, he agrees. Possibility of him being thrown in a cage? Who cares, still a win. Agreeing with anything regarding said innocence aloud, even over text? Hard pass. ]

1. Who's Set asking
2. Koby still on a one man mission to find you a doc?

Speaking as your number one fan, Jackie Cochran
Talk to me like this again when I have both my lungs back
This is really working for me

[haggle]

hell no
she's what happens when a muppet on meth fucks miss frizzle
the only bossy bitch at the head of the table's gonna be me

( speak of the devil, and ani vomits in her mouth — the less time she has to spend swallowing bile over embry moore, the better. )

1. peony, we're brainstorming q's
2. two-man mission with bertie

number one? you got a contenders for that seat, babe
anyway, hold the applause

( thank you bella for saber's everything so i can easily link this: but one screenshot later: )

if you say "thank you ani you're the best ani i owe you my life ani" and don't make me squirt so bad it ruins a mattress you're an ungrateful motherfucker
i'll take the IOU while your dick's out of commission

[ailerons]

[ Okay first of all— ]

You think I'm letting someone else take my spot?

[ Honey, please. ]

Jesus, Ani
Don't insult a man while he's down
Mattress and until the shower runs cold
Final offer

[ A solid beat later. Probably two beats. Longer than strictly verboten, before: ]

Lifetime guarantee, милая.
I'll spend the rest of it making it up to you

[haggle]

cute
just like old times

( — it's two beats past two beats, in the aftermath. like she's still trapped by her compulsive need to find loopholes before they find her, race to the fine print that boasts satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back. lifetime guarantees that get voided the second someone decides you're fucking refundable, replaceable, returnable. not what they thought they were ordering — assembled into the wrong girl, wrong attitude, wrong fit, no matter how many pretty coats of paint she slaps on top to reinvent herself, polish over the imperfections no one sane would value.

maybe that's the scariest fucking part about reading lifetime in pixels. because jake seresin and the chemical reaction of being too close to him for too long is paint thinner to her bullshit: he was always going to strip her bare.

first two beats: she shelves a shitty joke. something about having no guarantee she won't kill him. tasteless, morbid coping, like any pair of soldiers sitting in the trenches. numbness she recognizes, once you make peace with the odds of seeing home again. imagines it'd still make him laugh, his mouth flinching at the mistake. next two beats: gathering the guts to nudge, cautiously: )

yeah? that's one helluva mission, Собачка
you got an operation plan for that?

[ailerons]

[ Immediately, ]

Yep.

Gotta see it through to find out

[ The continuous pursuit of flight took at least two milennia. Ani Mikheeva found and saved his life in a single night. Battles are highlighted in seconds, and words like lifetime, lives shorter than they're meant to be in this neck of the woods — or longer, more present, if they ever make it back to the fucking manor — it doesn't even matter which. A man says what he means, and means what he says. Satisfaction guaranteed.

And then: ]

It'll be good for you to find a doc, in case I end up taking the hit
Think I can only cover you once

[haggle]

( yeah, there it fucking is. the loophole, the fine print. it's a long, painful eclipse of a pause — drawn-out and delayed, staring until the words blur into a uniform black bruise. like that'll unjumble it, unfuck it, undo exactly what she thinks — must already know, deep down, with dread rotting cavities in her stomach lining — jake is implying.

it doesn't. the words stay the same. ani knows fatal disease when she's handed the page — the diagnosis doesn't disappear, either, no matter how small the sentences feel every time she re-reads them, tries to make sense of a scenario where jake doesn't come out soaring, untouchable adonis. stage four, no available cure for the incurable, when it's terminal fucking sacrifice. just the promise of waiting for someone to waste away on her again, and knowing she doesn't have the power to do a single fucking thing about it. except — watch the damage run its course, make peace with the grief of an inevitable, if it comes. when it comes. terminal sacrifice.

something in her brain spasms, anyway: that strange, nostalgic sense of loss before it's even gotten the chance to knock her down. finally, punched out so viciously quick the typing bubbles can't keep pace: )

the fuck is that supposed to mean?
fuck you
i'm not pre-planning your funeral

[ailerons]

I agree
You hate the Longhorns, Ani
A lack of blinding orange is not something a man can abide

[ Barely disguised affection, even over the wires. Pixels on a page. Not exactly dying if you can come back from it, he thinks. Not exactly something that comes hand in hand with a flag and a rifle detail. Like it's not the end of every worst case scenario for every man and woman who decides to fight gravity for country — crashing into the side of a mountain, being blown to pieces, surviving the eject and internal bleeding and broken bones only to freeze to death in a foreign sea. What had Parisa said? No sound, no people. Being temporarily dead's a seven outta ten. ]

I got asked who I wanted to watch over
Did consider Koby, since he is about 2 ft tall.

[ Bullshit for the sake of bullshit. That good ol' release valve. It's not like it would've ever been anyone else's name Jake said aloud.

At a clip: ]

Anybody come crawling out of the woodwork to ask you for a favor?

[haggle]

( go figure. hand jake seresin fear, and he'll make a balloon animal out of it — like twisting it into a new shape was ever going to make it easier for her to witness. except she's not fucking laughing. maybe that's just all there is to it. maybe what's world-defining tragedy for her is just regular tuesday for him — worst case scenario, the bottom line when a soldier suits up for service — but fuck if she isn't tired of it. men who promise a lifetime only to cut it short with a smile and a shrug, like she should have gotten the memo it was always going to go south on her, somewhere along the way.

she types, first: i hate you. some pointless tantrum. the kind that just makes her ribs feel too narrow to hold the swell of panic without cracking her open, without wringing her breath into sharper punctuations. just makes her think that's the exact poison a person regrets spitting once they're famous last words, too late to take back before lights out. forcing him to lie in a grave without knowing peace, for however long the dead stay dead.

her next draft's only a more colorful improvement on the first. it stays that way, for awhile. bubbles on a screen, fading then resurfacing. a familiar urge, ratcheted up to downed-wire intensity, to either kiss him or cut her fist on his stupid fucking jaw. for playing hero, for protecting her when no one else would stick their neck out. for quitting on her by fucking croaking, and all the ways he's just diminished the decision to choose her.

then, viciously silent: )

✔ READ

1/4 don't quote me

[ailerons]

[ Not the first time. Wouldn't be the last.

Five minutes. Give or take. Feels the pull of a smile that's too late to abort halfway through, even though the pain lances all the way down, the throb that aches all the way to the space behind his eyes. Not the kind of smile that comes because something's been won, or held, or laughed at, but the kind that makes Jake Seresin think: Yeah. Guess I deserve that. Sacrifice is selfish that way. Leaves the one you love whole, but only because you're not around to see what follows. Hangman, always leaving someone else out to dry.

Character flaw: he'd still do it anyway. Even before she was the one to cut him out of that chair and he'd thought—

Six minutes: ]

Are you reading up on the Longhorns right now?

2/4

[ailerons]

[ And, ]

You know, it is uncharitable to ignore a man who can barely open his mouth

3/4

[ailerons]

[ Later on: ]

I ever tell you about the bar in Pensacola?

4/4

[ailerons]

[ A lot to say, but not the hour to say it, given who they're trying to put into a cage. Jake Seresin, still bold enough to say, ]

You know I'll come back.

[haggle]

( you know. not exactly a promise, so much as laying it out like a flight map she should have memorized, by now — skies, storms, or seas, jake seresin finds a way to stay above ground. not exactly a promise, so much as the daring arrogance of men who've spent years rising above the world — pushing back against impossible odds, defying impossible physics, still coming out on top. what's a grave to jake, if not another challenge issued by gravity? how could she ever think something as mundane as six feet of dirt could hold him down, when the earth itself couldn't?

it's a comforting lie she won't let herself buy into. you know i'll come back. you know mortal shortcomings are for other men — human next to hercules, mettle and might that's made his immortal ego read like an unkillable myth. but she's lived through til death do you part before — didn't stop her from standing alone on the other side of it, waiting for someone who had already given up the ghost on her, long before she put the final nail in her hope. always, always, always the one waiting.

don't make me believe, she can't bring herself to write, that there's a chance any of this ends okay. )

keep telling yourself that, prince charming
maybe there won't be anything left for you to come back to
lucky you, huh? you won't have to stick around to see what happens