bakerstreet | the apocalypse meme

the apocalypse meme

it's the end of the world as we know it

and damn do i feel fine.
Apocalypse meme for all your apocalyptic scenario needs.

HOW TO PLAY:
- Comment with character. Add your preferences, possible plot ideas, maybe some brief information on the character.
- Comment to others. Mix and match your preferred scenario or RNG it if you can't choose.
- Have fun and play nice!

PROMPTS:

TIMEFRAME

1. Impending doom. Patient Zero is loose, something was sighted off the Atlantic coast, a prophecy from on high - it's the beginning of the end, and only a few people know. There's not much time left, so best get preparin'.

2. Falling apart around us. You were there when it began, and now you're in the thick of it. The natural, the supernatural, or even your fellow man are against you now, and the only thought on your mind should be survival.

3. From the ashes. Whether you remember peaceful days or not, it's over now, and this is your life for good. Whatever happened has changed your world forever, and whether you choose to adapt or rebuild, nothing will ever quite be the same as it was.

CAUSE

1. Natural disaster. Storm's coming, water's rising, earth's shaking. Whether it's the whole world that's in danger or only a piece of it, you're in the line of fire and this one's gonna be a doozy.

2. War. World powers collided, or maybe everyone thought there was something worth fighting for. Then the swords flashed, or the bombs fell, or the dragon knights swarmed the villages, and now everyone's asking - was it worth all this?

3. Disease. Infection's in the air (or the water, or the bugs, or the mana.) When the doctors drop dead, who's left to fight the plague? Can't trust anyone to come near you, not even your friends, and especially the mysterious immune.

4. Monsters. Zombies, demons, kaiju, titans, Elder Gods? They're not human, they're not happy, and they're coming soon to a city near you.

5. Aliens. Monsters are scary, but aliens are organized. And they have cool spaceships. Can the human species stand together in the face of this threat?

6. Dystopia. Surely, this isn't the end. Why, it's a whole new beginning! Peace and prosperity...so why does it feel so wrong sometimes?

RELATIONSHIP

1. Buddy system. Stick together for safety and try not to kill each other while you're at it. You might even get to liking each other after a few years of this.

2. Enemies. Whether you're competing for resources or on opposite sides of a conflict, you've got reason to hate each other.

3. Friends to the end. Or siblings, or family, or lovers, or whatever. You knew each other before this, and now you're each others' emotional (and possibly moral) anchor. Death flags abound.

4. Let's be heroes. You hold the cure, the secret weapon, the map to paradise, and whether you're on your own or part of The Resistance, your mission is to save lives. All of them, preferably.

5. Let's be villains. You're in this for the fun of watching the world burn. Why? You tell me, you twisted little fucks. Can come in "co-conspirators" and "facing down the mastermind" flavors.

6. Rock bottom. Prisoners, slaves, soldiers, infected. The two of you have been through hell and have yet to come back - might as well wallow together. Or maybe you had the guts to fight back?

SCENARIO

1. Fighting to survive. Watch each others' backs! (Or try to put a knife in them, if that's your thing.)

2. A quiet moment. Swapping solemn stories around a campfire while you nurse each others' wounds - treasure these moments, because they don't come along too often.

3. Death...or worse. Goddammit you said you weren't going to get bitten and now look what happened.

4. Letting loose. Laughter is good for the soul, especially in times like these. Surely, you can recreate the things that used to delight you in the world before the end.

5. Future in your hands. You're in a situation to uncover all the sordid details of how the end of the world began - and you've got what you need to change it all, for better or for worse. The question is, are you willing?

6. Love in a hopeless place. Nobody's an island, and these are tough times on even the most hardened heart.

7. A day in the life. Anarchy isn't the only outcome - maybe there's an force trying to stop the disaster, or control it, or perhaps advance it. As members of this organization, you're not always in the thick of things, giving you plenty of time to watch the world fall and ponder your contribution .

7. Other. There's a whole world of apocalypse tropes out there. Go nuts.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Mine always smell like parchment - a-and grass. [ She flushes hard, glancing away. It's strikingly similar to the scent of her love potion, not that she'd ever, ever say that aloud. ]

Bruce shivers, then drapes an arm over Tim's shoulders in a loose embrace. He's careful not to put too much weight on him, because even if you're not fragile—and Tim isn't, none of them are—the more intensive sessions can make you brittle, collapsible at the slightest touch.

“It's … a sound theory. In which case the others are immune as well.” No maybe, no uncertainty, just candid hypothesis. If it's something Bruce synthesized, one of the dozens upon dozens of rigorous regiments of protective vaccines to which he subjected the team—then yes. Yes. Perhaps.

Bruce drops his head, breathes him in. Tim smells like sweat and latex, with the thick rusty tang of blood covering them both like a shroud. Or maybe that's just how the cell always smells, a small rectangular homage to mortality. If he tries he thinks he can still wince out the scent of something distinctly Tim, though, something his brain has been trained to recognize like a bloodhound, and it brings him a sharp pang of reckless joy even while he knows the rest of him may be beginning to break down.

“I know,” Bruce says. “You. I thought—similarly. About your fate. And in the moments I believed it, and I wish they were few—”

He cuts himself off abruptly, pushes his mouth up against Tim's hairline. Breathes him in some more. It hasn't been that long, but he feels like he hasn't spoken in years.

"I know," Tim croaks, eyes closed, body soft and held limp against Bruce's. He weights himself there, feeling Bruce take him on, and he could cry. Could just give up and cry and tell Bruce how much he's missed him. He barely has the strength to consider it though. All he can do is breathe Bruce in. They're sniffing each other like dogs, and if Tim had a tail, it'd be wagging like mad.

"The others?" he forces himself to ask. Part of him doesn't want to know. "I searched. For a month. Before... Before..."

Tim pauses, panting, and draws closer still, nearly crawling into Bruce's lap. "You smell perfect. Just like I remember." A smile, there against Bruce's throat. "Your cologne. I still smell it."

[ he thinks that over a minute, wondering what her blush is all about. ] That sounds much more pleasant. You know those artificial muggle candy mints? [ draco wrinkles his nose and forces himself to stand again. ]

We should probably... [ inclining his head vaguely, he reaches a hand down to her. ]

Something rumbles in his chest, creaking, somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. “That's generous of you to say.”

Dizzying to have Tim here like this, under the circumstances. Bruce's body is accustomed to long periods without touch, without intimacy, but—they've wrung his body of as much hope as they have blood. And he's never given up, not once in his life, but the days are roiling past him like mist, and in the midst of the fog passing thoughts of his team—of Tim—have begun to carry with them the smell of death and decay.

He drops his hand to Tim's waist and draws him in more fully, twists his shaking fingers into the soft hair at the nape of Tim's neck. His pulse is hammering close to Tim's mouth. The meticulous care he applies in appearing unflappable within the walls of the compound can't win against the devastating relief of Tim being alive.

“I'm.” He's not glad Tim is here, he hates that Tim is here, he does, it's just been a terribly long time. He drags his hand down the side of Tim's face, tips his head up enough so Tim can see his eyes. There's still strength left in them, diamond-hard, but it's accented by the deep circles beneath his eyes, a set of stitches cutting through his eyebrow. “I missed you too.”

I know the ones you mean. They're alright if you need a breath check, but otherwise... [ She wrinkles her nose, reaching up and taking his hand, letting herself be pulled up.

Maybe she was rubbing off on him for the better. ] You're right.

[ That earns a rude eye roll and a faint scoff. Yeah, he really doesn't give a fuck, he cared nothing for the scrambles of the newly ruined world before them, he's just being a bastard for the sake of being a bastard. Avenger gestures at the rumble, the empty, haunted shells of buildings that loom against the reddened morning sky. Telephone poles were thin black lines that jabbed into the sky, and cars had been left unattended. ]

W-ell, pal, I doubt even between the both of us we could rustle up a cure. Be realistic, though nobody's gonna fault you for wishing for it. I'm hardly doctor material, and you're not much of a medicinal life-saver yourself.

[ He looked at Lancer, noticing the Heroic Spirit being at a loss for what to do now. He shrugged, shoulders moving loosely. ]

A cure would be a lasting solution, finding survivors will work for as long as their short lives do. Pick. We could do both. Or neither. There's no fuckin' manual. Whatever soothes your conscience.

"I must look like I'm on my death bed," Tim says, sighing. To hear Bruce say anything even remotely like that, something emotional and affectionate... His smile widens. He's delirious, probably, but it's been so long, and just the weight of Bruce's hand against his spine is enough to take the breath from his lungs. It stings him to the core.

"I know I should let go. But..." He swallows the rest of his words, only holding on tighter.

He tries to shake himself but can't quite. "How long...have you been here?" His voice is wet, hoarse. He can't help it. "Haven't seen anyone else in...months."

Almost always. [ he agreed idly, stuffing his hands in jacket pockets once she was up. ]

[ raleigh didn't just lose his brother when the toxin hit. he was losing the last of his family. mom had been dead for a few years at that point, dad had gone away and good riddance to him. there had been a rift between the boys and jazmine. sometimes raleigh thinks about googling her, seeing if there's an obit anywhere. but he never does. instead, he clings to the desperate hope that maybe she's still alive out there somewhere.

he didn't lose everything he ever had. there were a few friends he and yance had made that were immune. tendo was probably the one he was closest to. they'd gone to the shatterdome together and they were still pretty close. tendo still calls him brother. but there's no denying that the tenor of their relationship had changed.

raleigh had changed, really. he was always a bit introverted--vastly preferred small groups of people he could be boisterous around rather than people, people everywhere. he'd always needed downtime with no one but himself to really feel content. now, he's introverted to the extreme. quiet most of the time except for a few wry comments when he can't help being a little snot. tendo's one of a handful of people he'll initiate conversation with. he's a bit of a loner who keeps to himself as much as possible in a place like the 'dome.

it's just easier that way. if he doesn't get attached to anyone, then he doesn't run the risk of getting hurt even worse if they leave suddenly the way yancy did.

the roof is probably his favorite place in all of the shatterdome. it's usually empty, and it's just far enough away from all the hubbub that he can observe it without being wrangled into it. it's also a pretty decent place to have a smoke. ( yeah, smoking killed mom. and, yeah, if yancy were alive he would be so disappointed in his little brother for slowly killing himself the way mom did. but it's calming and it gives him something to do when the silences get to long and he doesn't know what to do with himself. ) but the best part of the roof is the usually empty part.

which means he's incredibly surprised when he tromps up there and finds chuck and max. the door to the roof creaks and slams behind him, so there's no hiding the fact that he's standing up there now with an unlit cigarette between his fingers. ]

Uh, sorry. Didn't think anyone else would be up here. [ he pauses and fidgets with the cigarette. ] I can go if you'd rather be alone.

[ please don't make him move from his favorite spot, chuck. then people might actually talk to him and he'll have to put up with them. ]

[ She smiles, tucking their things away quickly before starting up again. ]

Don't get too cocky, Malfoy, I was just starting to like you.

Bruce idly dismisses Tim’s anxiousness about hanging onto him, pushing his hand into the tense base of Tim’s spine and letting his own eyes fall shut. His mind ticks backs the seconds, minutes, days with machinelike ease. One hundred and forty-four days, with two spaces of freedom in between like burning gulps of air after suffocating too long.

“Two months,” he says. “Since I last managed to leave.”

The realization that they’re keeping Tim in isolation comes on in waves that threaten to stir the anger sitting dormant in his chest. He’s been in solitary as well, ever since his last escape, but he’s used to it, has spent weeks buried in living tombs with nothing but his mind to keep him company. His throat is burning, his mind stuttering out ideas haltingly, because he hasn’t let himself think about it since he came back, how best to keep alive all that might be left of what he loves.

Gingerly, Tim pulls back enough to look at Bruce. Tim's practically straddling his lap, and it's all sorts of wrong, not least because neither of them are very well dressed at this point and after being in isolation for so long, any kind of touch has the ability to drive Tim out of his mind. But looking at him, his eyes open a little wider, in shock.

"You've escaped?" Bruce said last. That means... "Multiple times?" Tim's breath catches. "How? I've tried a dozen times now. I never get past the guards at the entry or the gas bombs in the basement." He'd tried digging his way out. Had managed to get close enough to smell it before they'd sent dogs to catch his scent and drag him bloody from the hole.

Both hands lift and Tim presses them urgently to Bruce's face, feeling him. A worn, exhausted smile blooms, sweetly. "Of course you've escaped." He was Batman, after all.

“Twice,” Bruce says grimly. “Neither of them took. Clearly.”

Bruce is a tank when he needs to be, is capable of tuning out pain nearly down to the receptor, and a combination of desperation and his usual ironclad pragmatism has led him here to do many things he normally wouldn’t have short of killing. He’s never felt the need, before, to put down dogs. To intentionally and with uninhibited prejudice put a grown man in a coma. He’d known, dully, that his violence and vehemence has all culminated in this one thing: the almost incidental occurrence of Tim, in his cell, in this small room.

They outfitted him with a paper-thin wifebeater, and the small shorts they give to every patient, both anonymous grey. Tim’s legs framing his are an almost pleasant weight on his thighs, and the touch of Tim’s hands on his face kicks the breath from his lungs. He turns his face into one of Tim’s hands, his mouth pressed thin against the heel of Tim’s palm like an apology.

"Clearly," Tim agrees, still straining to smile, although the emotion is cut short as his gaze refocuses on Bruce's mouth, the way his chapped, split lips press to the dirty heel of Tim's hand. That takes his breath away too, and for a long moment in silence, Tim just stares at the dry spot Bruce's lips leave against his skin. The plushness of Bruce's lower lip cracked against Tim's filthy palm.

Maybe this is still a hallucination, brought on by whatever the doctors have been injecting him with over the past three days. But so far, it's the best hallucination he's had in the cells. Usually, it's disembodied voices or all his doubts ganging up against him, not tangible things he can cling to and feel.

Forcing his eyes shut, Tim gulps down whatever else he wants to say. There's a lot. He should be concentrating on getting out. They have a better chance if they can act together; Bruce has escaped before, after all. But Tim can't focus. Not on anything but Bruce's halted breath against his palm and the dampness of Bruce's hair against his fingertips as Tim drags them over Bruce's scalp.

He leans in, stupidly, and finds Bruce's mouth in the darkness. They both taste like blood and salt and dirt.

For a second all Bruce can think to do is go utterly still under the dry, hungry press of Tim’s mouth, and in his doubt he’s taken back to a time that feels like years ago when in actuality it’s probably only been months. A time when he would’ve said no, unequivocally. Tim is young, brilliant, hopeful. Well-loved. And Bruce has always trodden carefully in the distorted landscapes of his boys’ adolescence.

But then, all the rest might be dead, and the tremor of Tim’s hands on his skin suggest that there isn’t a place for sense in this small angled space. That the death of good sense took with it billions of people, and all that’s left is need. They’re exhausted, alone, and the touch of Tim’s mouth is inescapably real, like the faint and fading warmth of him can fill in all the fissures in Bruce’s chest, keep his blood pumping long enough for him to scrabble for real hope.

Bruce sets aside his doubt, lets his hunger through. His fingers tangle their way into Tim’s blood-slick hair, and he’s hefting Tim further into his lap, sliding his tongue into the wet heat of Tim’s mouth.

Oh. God. Tim isn't expecting that it'll be so good, kissing Bruce, that it'll make him feel so real and complete and full. Bruce's tongue is a heavy weight sliding in his mouth, a heavy weight that Tim accepts with a low, half-choked moan. Tim's hands slide down Bruce's shoulders, over the broadness of the musculature beneath the thin fabric of his clothes. Tim's not good at this stuff. Sex< in general. But that doesn't mean he hasn't fantasized about certain things. With certain people.

It's now or never, because what he's learned here is that tomorrow is only a sliver of hope. Today is all that counts. The here and now of things.

Scooting up, Tim swallows against Bruce's tongue, his kiss more clumsy than anything else but more than desperate enough to make up for it. He's not like Dick, who had a girlfriend every other week or Jason, who did all right himself, or even Damian, who acted like he didn't care. He was Tim, the middle child, the workaholic. Now all he wants is to pretend he has enough experience in these things, because God knows he wants this.

The press of Tim’s body against his own raises the hair on the back of Bruce’s neck, rushes the sound of pumping blood into his ears. Nearly anyone is small up against what Bruce has made of himself over the years, and Tim is far from a child, but the fact of their size difference highlights how little of a distinction Bruce’s mind makes between comforting and consuming. Like he wants to press Tim hard into the floor of the cell, let the concrete swallow them both.

There’s something else, too, an imprecision in the way he kisses that Bruce could chalk up to both inexperience and exhaustion. It’d be endearing if it didn’t make Bruce’s insides quake. He pushes his fingers up against the back of Tim’s head and deepens the kiss, matching Tim’s ravenous clumsiness with something darker, velvety. There’s blood at the corner of Tim’s mouth, and he touches his tongue to the scrap to lick him clean, licks his way back inside.

A groan spills out, heady and heavy in the thick air between their wet, ravenous mouths. Tim's skin is prickly with goosebumps, and he's hard as a rock within seconds of Bruce deepening the kiss. It makes him feel dizzied, but he knows Bruce has him, that even if Bruce was fighting his last dying breath, he'd have Tim. Hold him. Keep him safe.

Tim can barely breathe right. His hands are impatient, seeking out Bruce's skin, lifting his wifebeater to get at the warm, sweaty flesh beneath. He seeks the hair on Bruce's chest, the scars on his belly, the trail of hair from his navel down until Tim would have to break the kiss or pull back to go further.

Finding a nipple instead, Tim runs his palm over it several times, feeling the nub perk, and then slides his hand until the nipple is caught against the web of his index and middle fingers. He squeezes. Gently.

Edited 2013-09-12 15:58 (UTC)

[ He's bleeding, stumbling, ash choking thick in the air and in his throat, his lungs, stinging his eyes, blanketing his hair and his clothes in a fine veil of gray. He's got his hand around Aya's arm, helping the man along, trying not to lose him in the darkness created when clouds of dust and smoke blot out of the sun. He remembers his heart in his throat, the terror and amazement of those four giant claws—the size of a house, each one—coming down on the street so close to where they hid, raining dust and debris down on them. So close he could have reached out and laid his hand on one. Raleigh knew the Drift was a mistake. They called the monster here, and now what was a city, a military base, home to thousands and thousands of refugees, is just so much smoke and ash.

He never met the man before today, but he's been inside his head, so wrapping an arm around his waist for comfort as much as support hardly seems too intimate, not when he's still reeling from the trauma of his thoughts, his memories, the loss of a sister, the loss of a brother, tragedies that he lived and lived and lived until he thought he would go insane, and he's still not sure whose is whose, which pain belongs to him. And then there were the monsters, the whole species of them invading his brain until he finally saw with terror the Precursor and saw it look back: look and know him, know all of them.

Raleigh stops, letting go of Aya as he goes down to his knees, legs buckling under him, bending over, vomiting up the bitter ashy substance that chokes his lungs; burning and acrid on his tongue, his back heaving. When he finally stops he waits another moment or two to catch his breath, gasping—I'm okay—and finally staggers to his feet again. They can't stop. They need to find shelter, get underground, far underground where the Kaiju can't reach, because there will be more of them, he knows. The Precursor saw them. ]

You were? [ there's a hint of teasing to his tone, holding out a hand again. ] Let me take the pack a while. You've had it this whole time.

[ She rolls her eyes before she blinks, startled. ] It's alright, it's not that heavy. The charms on it make it far lighter than you'd think.

[ he stifles a laugh, still looking at her expectantly, arm outstretched. ]

Just let me take it, Granger.

[ She sighs, letting the bag slip down her arm before she passes it over. ]

Fine. Just be careful with it!

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the apocalypse meme

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helllooo ; w;

ngl i pretty much await your every response w pavlovian droolage

ME TOOOOOOO

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ohgod size kink

Emily Senkov | Original Character

drops this here

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