#fff106

This is my third time to join  @flashfictionfridayofficial​ ! 

Word count: 1005 

TW: non

'Don't go to the old town of this city. That area is rough and sketchy.' That's what well-behaved grown-ups usually say. 'It's dirty, and there are a lot of ghosts!' That's what good kids usually say. I heard it so many times. However, their words could not stop my curiosity.

This city is like a labyrinth. Fully automated trains run between the numerous skyscrapers and fancy glass-façade buildings. The neon signs keep shining throughout the night. The sky never gets fully dark because of the reflection of the lights.  It is over-sanitised, too. I swear that nobody can find birds or rats or bugs, even a single fly. 

Yet, when it comes to the 'old town,' it is an entirely different story. The 'old town' is a messy jungle spreading the outskirts of the urban city. Old buildings are cramming and almost crushing down each other. From the crack of the walls, ivy and trees are creeping out. The 'old town' is riddled with countless alleys. And those backstreets have a particular smell - like, a mixture of exotic incense, street foods, alcohol, piss, laundry soap, and cigarettes. The 'old town' is stubbornly resisting the development and the bright, over-hygienic future. Those who live on the clean side of the city say that the residents of the 'old town' are a ragtag group of criminals. There are some gangs, yes. Yet, many residents have their own stories. Many of them found themselves misfitting to the city. Or they just can't leave the place they grew up. Like, my old friend Seiran.

  You cannot tell the age nor the gender of Seiran. They have long silver hair secured at the back of the head with an iron pin. They usually cover their face with an indigo-dyed bandana so that the only things you can see are their thin eyebrows and dark blue eyes. Once,  they told me that their name means 'blue storm' in an ancient language, which matches their personality quite well. Some people think of them as an arrogant artist. Some say they are a talented yet unfortunate magician. Even some say that they are an exorcist. They are bits of all of them, I'd say. But something more special than that.

I make my way to their studio located in one of the cramped old factories. There is a metallic plate hanging on the door, which says ''Barbed Wire Studio'' followed by ''no walk-ins''. I push the door nonetheless. 'Hey Seiran, how are you doing?' 'Lower your goddamn voice, kiddo. I'm working. Can't you see?' Seiran is always like this when they are working. They are concentrating on their patient-client lying in front of them. The room is full of stuff -  needles of various sizes, inkpots, papers, broken glasses, and cups are lying here and there.  Ivy and trees are stretching inside the room from the cracks of the ceiling.  The room itself is a little bit hazy because of the incense and the cigarettes they are smoking.   Seiran is a tattoo artist. But not an ordinary one. They make tattoos to protect the clients. They can erase old tattoos to eliminate whatever bad luck the clients shouldered. It sounds superstitious (and the city dwellers would hate it),  but the demand is surprisingly high.  

Written for  @flashfictionfridayofficial   [#FFF106 Barbed Wires]  and also @therollingstonys  Stony Trope Bingo   I5 - "Don't You Dare Die on Me!"  square.

Fandom: MCU/Marvel   -- Pairing:  Steve Rogers x Tony Stark   --  Words:  215 

“Don’t you dare die on me!”    Steve trapped the words behind his gritted teeth.  He didn’t have the right to say them, not any more.    He had felt how frail Tony was, catching him as he stumbled off the bottom of the ramp.  He heard the anguish in Tony’s voice:  “I lost the kid.”  Tony clearly took all the blame for their defeat, just like he always did.  

Steve’s mind flashed back to their first meeting, and how over the years of  working together, Tony had proved him wrong over and over again.  If his brilliant mind couldn’t find a way to cut the barbed wire, Tony was all too willing to lay down on it.  Tony had put his life on the line in New York, in Sokovia and presumably on a distant planet, where Steve was sure he had fought Thanos to what he had believed would be his last breath.  

A/N based on the @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt, Barbed wire. It is based on an interview with an abused child. Single moms, please take heed. Not all would be rescuers are real. Quite a few are monsters. Like the moron mentioned here.

What do you remember?

Barbed wire to keep the cows in. Me in.

Where?

Way out in the country, past the turnoff into town. The cows, we were to be feeding them not…

Go on.

Not to be doing what he did. He shot one once.

What!

A cow. A baby. Then we dumped it into the pond. I had to, you see?

I do.

It was to show me he wasn’t afraid to do the same to me, my brother, my mom. A threat. He didn’t have to say a word.

I imagine not.

No, it was enough. I did all he asked that day, and everyday after. I knew he wasn’t playing.

Anything else you want to tell us?

He acted like a rescuer. Gave us a place to stay. But he wasn’t. It was a trick. To get to me.

Thank you. You were quite brave.

Will you get him?

We will try.

(Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial​‘s prompt: FFF106 Barbed Wires. Set in the Avis Coda. The quotes are taken from Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, specifically from the Act 4 Scene 1 ‘Our revels now are ended’ speech. Enjoy!)

You do look, my son, in a moved sort. As if you were dismayed.

 Be cheerful, sir. Our revels now are ended.

             She folds her fan. Taps it against her palm, the shining wood thudding against her arm as she considers the solution before her.

             She considers the solution, looking at the tiny scratches of symbols, before looking again at the shimmering gold solution before her. She tilts it, watching the precipitate catch the light.

             “So?”

             She doesn’t respond. Merely tilts the flask back and forth.

             The exhausted young man clenches his fists, slamming a palm against a wall. “I brought you here because they told me you were the best. If you don’t know, then get out.”

             She looks up, placing the sheaf of paper down next to the flask. When she speaks, her voice is deceptively calm.

             “Don’t worry. I understand what you’re trying to do.” She pushes the flask further away from the edge of the table. “I was thinking of how to tell you that you may not want what you get.”

 These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air;

 “And what is that supposed to mean?” He storms up to her.

             Up close, she can see that his eyes have darkened bags against the pallor of his face. His eyes are bloodshot, his hair greasy with a lack of care. His hands tremble where they reach out to grip her and she stands up, pushing the chair backwards.

             In the dim fluorescent light of the laboratory, she considers the man.

 “I’m telling you that I can read.” She says easily. “I do understand what you’re trying to achieve. And you’re close. It’s just a few agents that you need to change.”

             “Then tell me what they are!”

             She holds his gaze, refusing to speak. The air is stale here, the aircon long since turned off. It doesn’t bother her. Not the silence of the laboratory (save for the bubbling of someone’s distillation set-up), not the tension of the conversation.

             He steps forward. “Tell me!”

             “Why do you want immortality?”

 And like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towards, the gorgeous palaces.

 The solemn temples, the great globe itself.

             “Why does it matter?” He demands, frustrated, after a period of silence.

             “Because if you want glory, immortality will not give that to you. If you want money, immortality will not give that to you.” She fixes her gaze on him, letting gold leak into her eyes. “And if you want freedom, you will learn, over time, that immortality is the last thing you truly want.”

             She turns away, picking up the sheaf of papers with an idle flick of her wrist. She flips through them.

             Her voice turns scholarly. “Your use of a ferrous metal for a binding agent is good, but the issue is that you have used 2+ rather than 3+. When the metal oxidises, the connection to blood and life here will shift, and you will not get the effect that you want on the telomeres. The aluminium here is also an issue because it will reduce your manganate base here—”

             “But I need aluminium—” She holds up her hand.

             “Substitute it with gold here. Or use platinum and then you’ll get the connection to prosperity that you want here. Don’t use silver because it will react with the aldehyde you use earlier and then that will deactivate it.”

 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve. And like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind.

             “The acylation you’re trying to achieve here will not work when you add in that oxide at this step. The acylation relies on—”

           “The use of the lead as the original Lewis acid, which disappears when the lead becomes gold.” His eyes widen, and he grabs wildly, gripping a ballpoint pen from the table. He scribbles twice before ink comes out, and then starts to alter his calculations.

             “I think you know how to move from here.” She says kindly.

             She considers her fingers, considering the ink stains on her own fingers. She twists the bracelet on her wrist, looking at the little symbols engraved in it. The scribbling happens in the background, fast and with the slightly more than the normal volume of expletives.

             She pulls her fan back out, opening it again. She runs her fingers along it, feeling the delicate artworks edged in shadow before she turns to fan herself.

             She changes the current with a thought, feeling the air patterns swirl around her. She stands up to look at the distillation set-up, suppressing her instinctive criticisms of the way the glassware was constructed and connected. It was a standard set-up, and the reagents were done by Academy standards.

             Still below her standards.

 We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life rounded with a sleep.

             Once upon a time, she would have been more than happy to criticise and make suggestions without any warning. She had had few contemporaries back in the Realm, fewer still who would give her such a challenge and be able to understand her need to constantly improve and change. She would have bitten down her criticisms even when she first arrived, lest she be put in danger by someone who perceived her criticisms as a moral criticism rather than an academic one.

             She would have been more than happy to discuss an Elixir for Immortality with someone actively seeking criticism.

             But then she saw. And she understood. And she couldn’t go back to what was once her dream.

             And now, she thinks wryly, considering the shadows spreading on her fan. And to think, it was dying that taught her the importance of death. It was to die, that taught her that death was not the ultimate restriction.

             The student presents her with the amended solution, even still muttering to himself.

             She looks at it, considers how it would work, and closes her eyes.

 Sir, I am vexed. Bear with my weakness: my old brain is troubled.

 Be not disturbed with my infirmity. If you be pleased, retire into my cell.

A/N: do I know what this is? No. Did I have fun writing it? Yup, so here it is!

(@flashfictionfridayofficial)

Words: 765

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I always liked to think the barbed wires around me were to protect the rest of the world from me.

That, in the little circular space I had been living -more like surviving- for almost nineteen years, I was seen like a powerful creature who must be controlled for the rest of the world’s fate.

Even though I had plenty of space to stretch my legs (from the center to the wires I could walk fifteen average steps), I never usually left my bed in the center of the “room”. The bed had been in one of the edges some years ago, until I decided to move it to the center.

The center was always safer. Or so I’ve been told.