Cheers, DeBeers

AU where someone (Boss, Dalton, Brandt, an Actually Alive Rita) fishes Blaine out of the well.

        “Appreciate it... and if I ever start to take it for granted? Zap some sense back into me. In the past twenty-four hours I’ve got my memories back, a new girl who happens to be cool, cute, and capable... with freakin’ superpowers, and a second chance. The boys gotta learn their lesson, make no mistake I’m not going to let it slide, but I’ve got my eyes on the future.” One with his new partner, enforcer, whatever she wanted to be at his side. “And if you need anything? Just say the word.”

         "Well, they’re zombies. Zombies are hard to kill. Only known ways that I’m aware of are to blow them up, or deliver a headshot. Has to pass through the brain. There was some sort of anti-cure that basically melted them from the inside, but it’d be too much trouble to recreate that when there are quicker, simpler, ways.” Blaine shrugged, smirking at Elle’s ‘sexy’ remark as he took a bite of his own food. “They can feel pain, though. I was thinking of a simple introduction. ‘Hey boys, I got my memory back. By the way, this is Elle. You step out of line or screw me over again, and she’ll fry you.’ Then give them a taste as a warning. I’m more concerned with my former employer, who slit my throat. Once he finds out I’m alive... well, we should deal with him before that.”

“...Lot of bad memories there, though. I was thinking, maybe once I’m in the clear, I might sell the place. We can smuggle ourselves out of the city, retire to a quiet island or something. Take a hands-off approach. Before I was brought in, I saw an article about these diseased brains acting as zombie cures. Could arrange to buy us each a brain... just... forget about all this. Live it up far away from New Seattle. Let Ravi and the CDC work out a cure, and... at least we’d be alive. We’d be free, and still have enough to maintain our lifestyles.”

what they mean: i have little to no understanding of how fiction works and how people interact with it. i genuinely believe enjoying actions in fiction means condoning them in reality, and i don't have any understanding of the transformative nature of fandom. i think it's my job to go around to people i don't even know and demand they submit their extremely personal history of trauma to me so that i might decide if they are Traumatized Enough to be permitted to enjoy their fictional content. and by logical extension, if someone is unwilling to submit to this query of their background or if they *aren't* Traumatized Enough, then they are a Bad Person and I will start a hate campaign against them about how they get off to IRL abuse/rape. and i'll pat myself on the back as i do it because i'm more Pure than they are, i am a Better Person, and that insulates me from having to do any critical thinking about fiction in my entire life. (also i am lowkey jealous that fandom enjoys things that i don't like so i'm just THRILLED to have an excuse to shit on the people who like the thing that i don't.)