#//Like I flip through doing several things in the span of five minutes because my brain can't pick what channel it wants to be on.

[kingspuppet-a]

Me: Wants to write Also me: Wants to read fanfic Still me: Wants to play more P5 Meeee: Wan––

[teacupfulofstarshine]

LOVELY, DARK, AND DEEP CHAPTER 10

PLEASE HEED THE CONTENT WARNINGS!!! this chapter features Evil Scientist Lady and her Fucked Up WorldView a LOT, and there are also some Major Plot Events that involve Violence. i will put a summary in the end notes if you decide at any point that this particular chapter is too much - that's super valid! i will also mention here that no main characters are going to die in this story and no one dies in this chapter either.

huge huge thanks to @flamingfawkes for beta’ing!

CW: extreme disregard for human life, mentioned human and animal cruelty, toxic workplace environment, violence (both imagined and actual, mildly graphic), gun mention, minor blood, death threats, extremely unethical character, unethical science, stalking

chapter 1 // chapter 2 // chapter 3 // chapter 4 // chapter 5 // chapter 6 // chapter 7 // chapter 8 // chapter 9 // read it on ao3!

“This is the same result we’ve gotten the last twenty times -”

“I don’t care, Steven, run it again!”

Steven sighs, punching at the keyboard to run the statistical analysis sequence again. “This is ridiculous! I’ve run this sequence so many times it feels like my eyes are going to bleed. Why can’t we just turn in the results we have and -”

“Because she’ll behead us,” James snaps, “and then she’ll destroy our reputations and our families and they’ll get no severance. I have three young children at home, Steven, I need this money.” Steven softens a little, fingers running smoothly over the keys as he combs the data again. Next to him, James has a computer screen full of frame-by-frame stills of what little data they recovered from the probe before it was destroyed; Penny across the room is surrounded by ancient texts a mile high and at least three laptops.

“Why is she so interested in this, anyway?”

“It’s beyond me. Since when do we question the whims of what we’re told to do?”

Steven squints at the screen, pushing his chair back and rubbing at his eyes. “If I have to stare at these numbers for one more second, my brain is going to explode. I feel like my eyeballs are going to melt out of my skull. I wanna scream.”

James pulls up another image, staring at the blurry image of the merman before him. Steven pushes away from his own screen and squints at James’s. The merman in the photo looks young, not much older than his kid brother, but they don’t know anything about the lifespan of these creatures. He looks confused, squinting at the camera. As James flicks through the stills, the merman transitions from confused to angry to enraged, and then he attacks.

“He’s not happy about the camera.”

“Would you be happy about someone spying on you and your family?” James says, switching to the next still.

“I wouldn’t be happy if I thought someone was doing anything we do in this lab to me or my family.” James elbows Steven, but luckily no one else seems to have heard.

“This lab isn’t the most ethical place I’ve ever worked, but it pays the bills,” James mutters. “And we’re not even in the experimentation lab. We just do data analysis. We’re removed from the situation.”

Are we? Steven wonders. He sees James reach out and touch the framed picture of his daughters, and keeps his mouth shut. He turns back to his computer, watching the little spinning color wheel of his mouse as the program calculates the same numbers again and again. The results come up identical to the previous ones, and Steven clicks “Run Program” again wordlessly.

They work in silence for a while, the three of them, broken only by James’s muttering and the occasional thud of one of Penny’s books and the clicks of keyboards and mice. If they weren’t so reliant on technology, Steven thinks, there would be an enormous corkboard spanning three of the four walls, covered in pushpins and handwriting and red string connecting images. He debates actually building one, if only to increase the levity in the room, but decides against it.

He’s seen people punished or fired or who-knows-what-else for far less, after all.

Instead, after his program tells him for the twenty-third time that his results are the same (and didn’t someone say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?), Steven scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms and opens the data entry window. Maybe the problem with the results has to do with the entry of the data; did he input something wrong? It’s possible . . .

Here he goes again, he supposes. He stands up, stretches, and leans back to crack some vertebrae. “I’m gonna grab a coffee, take a short screen break, and go back to the beginning. Maybe there’s something in the input that I missed. You want anything?”

James groans, thunking his head against the desk. “I want something with enough caffeine to kill three elephants, please.” Steven nods, looking over at Penny. She shakes her head, and he heads for the shitty coffee machine a few doors down.

Several floors below, a young woman pulls her lab goggles up to rest on top of her head with her perfectly-pinned protocol-compliant bun. “The latest round of tests is completely done, ma’am. I think you’ll find the efficacy . . . striking.”

She takes the clipboard, glossy perfectly-painted nails pinching the sheets of thin paper and flicking between them. “I’m afraid I don’t do so well with the scientific side of things - Kathleen, was it? Explain this to me, would you?”

“Certainly, ma’am. As you know, the kill time for the most effective neurotoxin currently available, tetrodotoxin, varies from thirty minutes to four hours. Average time for symptoms to manifest is seventeen minutes, and from there the symptoms progress through tingling of the lips and tongue, headache, vomiting, muscle weakness, ataxia, et cetera. Death occurs as a result of respiratory or heart failure, and the poison is nearly undetectable if you do not specifically test for it.”

“The untraceability is a plus, but that is far too wide a range of times, and too slow a time even at its fastest.”

“Of course, ma’am, but as far as naturally-occurring marine poisons go - actually, as far as naturally-occurring poisons go, full stop - it is the most effective. Until now, that is.”

“Oh? What are your findings?”

“Which trials would you like to start with, ma’am?”

“The human trials, Kathleen. The only ones that matter. I hardly intend to go around killing mice and hoping that no one traces their deaths to a novel neurotoxin.” She laughs airily, and Kathleen nods along.

“Certainly, ma’am. The most recent data points indicate an average efficacy time of thirteen minutes for our compound neurotoxin, with a full range between nine and seventeen minutes passing before subject death. Subjects began to show symptoms around five minutes, give or take twenty-five seconds.”

“And those symptoms were?”

Kathleen flips through the document. “Seizures, vital organ failure, blindness, painful muscle spasms, suffocation from the inside out.”

She hums, tapping a manicured finger against the report. “Well, Kathleen, that is certainly impressive, especially for a preliminary human subject trial. These results . . . I must say, they are not nearly as disappointing as I anticipated when I came down here.”

“Ma’am?”

“How long have you worked for this company, Kathleen?”

“Almost five years, ma’am, but I’ve always been an assistant. This is my first time as lead researcher and biochemist on a project, ever since you . . . laid off the previous lead researcher.”

“Kathleen, let me be frank. These results are not what I hoped for. The efficacy time and symptom onset times are both far too long for my liking, and the range of efficacy time is too broad. By all accounts, I should consider this a failure.” Kathleen swallows, but remains poised. “However, you’ve managed to shave off a considerable amount of time from the tetrodotoxin readings. The range of symptom onset time is an acceptable breadth, and your results are far beyond anything your predecessor ever accomplished for me. This is truly impressive, all things considered.”

“Thank you, ma’am. How should I proceed?”

“I want the efficacy doubled - tripled - I want it upped by anywhere between four and five hundred percent. I want the pain increased, too. Feel free to increase your requests for test subjects, but get me the results I want. You said the original tetrodotoxin was untraceable?”

“That’s correct, ma’am.”

“Can you keep that feature intact?”

“As of right now, it is intact, ma’am. I will endeavor to keep it so in future experiments.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Welcome to your new position as head of this research division. Don’t let me down.” She holds out a slender hand, and Kathleen takes it, trying not to seem too eager.

“I won’t, ma’am.”

“How soon can you start this experiment up again?”

“The cleaners should be finished by tomorrow morning, ma’am, and I can tweak chemical formulas until then.”

“Excellent.” Her watch beeps, and she lifts it, pursing her bright lips as she examines the message she’s just received. “If you’ll excuse me, I have another matter to attend to. Someone will drop off your master access key for Lab Three within the hour.”

She steps into the elevator and lifts her watch up to her face, swiping through the messages from her secretary. One finger reaches out to press the button for the digital analysis labs floor, and the other taps away at her watch.

When she steps off the elevator, her secretary is waiting. “Ma’am.”

“What do they have for me?”

“Unclear. They said it was something they wanted to report directly to you and you alone, but it seems to be something big.”

“Hopefully it’s a big step in the right direction, or they’ll be taking a big step out of a job.” She relishes in the way the employees she passes all unfailingly flinch and then snap to perfect attention when they hear the sharp echo of her heels against the floor. She lifts her head and walks faster, striking the tiles with her heels like a gavel, sharp and precise against a judge’s desk.

The computer labs are disorganized when she enters, but there is a string of promising-looking numbers on the main display monitor. There is a woman surrounded by books and a man pulling up photos on his computer, and there is a third man standing in front of her like a toy soldier. She focuses on that one.

“I hear you have news for me? Make it swift, and make it good.”

He swallows, hard, and her eyes idly trace the line of his throat. If he disappoints her, perhaps she will drive her heel through it, to make an example of him. That would be far too messy; perhaps his dominant hand will do.

“I have narrowed down the location of the missing net, ma’am. I believe it to have washed up somewhere around these general GPS coordinates.” He fiddles with a remote in his hand, and the image on the screen changes. It shows an aerial satellite view of a secluded strip of beach, framed by rocky cliffs with larger rocks studded out into the open water. “It should have washed up somewhere in this one-point-three-seven-mile strip of beach. The whole area is property of one Doctor Thomas Sanders.”

She snarls. “That man. He won’t let us on that beach willingly until hell freezes over.”

The other man, the one scanning through photo stills and video footage, jumps up, knocking his chair backwards. “I found something!”

She turns towards him, and his excitement freezes and sputters into something much more controlled and terrified. “Show me.” He clicks something and pulls up video footage from one of their surveillance drones, zooming in on a particular patch of ocean along the stretch of Sanders’ beach. Her eyes widen when she sees what he’d noticed - a hump of red-and-white tail arcing above the waves before a pattern of ripples streaks off towards the cliff. He pauses the footage, rewinds it, uses a laser pointer to show an opening concealed in the cliff face.

“There’s some kind of grotto in there, hidden by the cliff. It’s on Sanders’ property, he has to know it’s there. And it looks like the merman from the destroyed drone knows it’s there too. Which means -”

“That must be where he’s keeping them.” Something burns in her chest, brilliant and terrifying and all-encapsulating, like wildfire. “We’ve found them, at long last.”

“What would you have me do?” her secretary asks. “I can arrange for a recovery squad at your earliest possible convenience, ma’am.”

“Assemble the squad, but do not have them move out. They will wait for my orders. When they go, you are to go with them.” Her secretary nods, once, sharp and sure. “Dispatch a crew to Lab One and clear it out. I want it prepped for containment, vivisection, chemical tests - the works. Get at least three tanks set up and one strap-down human table.”

“A human table, ma’am?”

“Yes. We have to deal with Sanders once and for all to ensure that he does not ruin any future experiments.”

“Will we be taking him as well?”

She hums thoughtfully. “No. Pull up the file we have on his known associate?”

A few swift clicks and flicks and a photo appears on the large screen: a young man with brown-and-purple hair, sleeves rolled up, carefully lowering a perfectly viable specimen into the ocean and letting it go, like some kind of fool. “His doctoral student, ma’am. The longest one he’s ever kept - this one has been with him a few years.”

“Excellent. When you raid the lab, take him.”

“Should we kill Sanders?”

“No. Rough him up a little, but leave him alive. Taking his protégé and leaving him alone, helpless to rescue him, will be the highest form of torture for such an insufferable person. The agony will eat him alive until his dying day.”

Her secretary nods, taking the notes down dutifully. The other employees look vaguely horrified, but she pays them no mind. No sacrifice is too great to be made in the name of progress, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a weakling who will never get anywhere in life.

She refuses to be one of those weaklings.

*~*~*~*~*

Logan wakes up confused.

He’s warm, warmer than he thinks he’s ever been in his whole life. When he stirs, he moves farther than he meant to - he must not be underwater. That’s enough to send a jolt of concern through his sleep-addled brain. Why isn’t he underwater? Why was he sleeping if he was above the surface? There’s no way his dad is here, and Roman hates surfacing, where are they? Where is he? But he’s so comfortable . . .

Someone shifts beside him, an arm draping across his waist, and Logan forces his eyes open. He shifts his lower half, confused when two things move instead of one, and there are layers upon layers of thin, flat, soft things wrapping around him. What is happening?

Slowly, slowly, his mind clears, and he remembers the events of last night. He grew legs - he was a human, once, before he was mer - he couldn’t sleep underwater with Dad and Roman - Virgil was teaching him to walk - Virgil put “clothes” on him - Virgil was embarrassed that he didn’t have those “clothes” on him - Virgil took him out of the lab to sleep - Virgil agreed to cuddle him since his pod couldn’t -

Logan feels the strange burning in his face again as he shifts. He can’t see well in this new human form, but when things are close enough to his face they’re relatively clear. And Virgil, still sleeping, is close enough that Logan can smell him - he smells like salt water mixed with something sharp and something sweet and something else that Logan can’t quite identify but finds addicting nonetheless. Sunlight streams in and pools around Virgil’s face, illuminating the tangled mess of hair spread around him and flopping into his face, the small puddle of water leaking out from his open mouth onto the soft thing he’s resting his head on, the way his chest moves slowly with every breath. His arm is wrapped around Logan, pulling him close. Logan thinks he might explode if he focuses on this any more, so he rolls from his side to his back as carefully as he can, not wanting to wake Virgil. Virgil tightens his arm around Logan and mutters something indecipherable in his sleep, but he doesn’t wake.

Rather than focusing on his very confusing feelings for the very pretty man next to him, Logan focuses on what he can see of the room around him. He makes a list in his mind of things that he plans to ask Virgil about later today, including:

1: There are many draws attached to the small, smooth cliffs surrounding them. How do they stay there?

2: There are lots of “clothes” scattered all around the floor, and there were several on the bed, too. Is that normal for humans?

3: Last night, Virgil did something that made the room light up with trapped sunlight! How did he do that?

4: How did Virgil get ice to stay in those big frozen sheets in such a warm place to let the sunlight in?

5: How did Virgil make ice into that weird shape that he filled with water and drank last night?

6: How did Virgil get the water to come into this place?

7: Do all humans have a specific area set aside for sleeping? Logan and his pod usually just sleep wherever they can, but Virgil seems to have this soft slab set aside with all of these soft things to be comfortable and sleep in every night. Is this a Human Thing or strictly a Virgil Thing?

Logan looks out through the sheet of ice that protects Virgil’s area from the outside and gasps. He can’t see well, but there’s a glittering expanse of blue that shifts and moves and oh, is that the ocean?

He’s spent his whole life (well, his whole remembered life, anyways) in the ocean, and he’s seen some truly wondrous things. He travels around the world with his pod, he knows the ocean is big, but seeing it spread out like this is . . . awe-inspiring. Logan has never seen the ocean like this, and now that he has he doesn’t think he can ever not see it like this again. It’s like a perfect sheet of sea-glass, rippling and unbroken but dynamic in a way that he never really gets a sense of when he’s beneath it.

He knows that there are waves, of course. There are smaller swells out on the open ocean, and larger ones when the Second Goddess dips her fingers down from the Upper Ocean and swirls the storms to a thundering burst. There are waves along the shoreline, ones that he frolics in with Roman and batter him against the shoreline. There are waves created when he or his pod members surface. But watching the movement of the ocean from up here is . . .

Even with his imperfect vision, he is completely at a loss for words as he stares at the ocean.

Eventually, Virgil stirs next to him, and Logan turns away from the ocean to stare at him. Virgil is close to him, arms wrapped tightly around him, face pressed against him. Logan’s eyesight is not great, but Virgil is close enough that he can pick out little details of his face. There are brown face scales scattered all over him, but they seem to cluster on his nose and his cheeks. Logan has wanted to touch them for a substantial amount of time, and he can’t stop himself from gently settling the tips of his fingers over Virgil’s cheek.

His face doesn’t feel like Logan was expecting. The scales don’t give texture to his face the way that Logan’s do; the skin is smooth and flat. There are little bumps all over, but the brown scales aren’t raised off the skin like Logan expected. He lets his fingers trail along Virgil’s face. His bone structure seems to be exceedingly similar to Logan’s, at least in regards to his head. Logan’s finger rests gently on the curve of bone under Virgil’s eye, and Virgil exhales warm breath onto his palm.

Logan wonders what it would be like to have this for longer than just his recovery period. He wonders what it would be like to wake up next to Virgil all the time, to get to run his hands over Virgil’s face and arms and chest and examine the differences between their anatomy. He wonders what it would be like to learn to walk without falling over, and he feels a sharp, unexpected twinge in his chest as he realizes that getting better at walking means no more closeness to Virgil.

His chest feels strange, like there’s a school of small fish swarming around and tickling his insides and making him feel all foamy, like the froth churned up by a windswept sea. He feels like he does when he’s underwater - free, weightless, mobile, limited by nothing except his own imagination. He feels unstoppable.

Virgil makes a sudden, sharp inhale, blinking his eyes open slowly. Logan thinks that, perhaps, he might not appreciate being studied unknowingly - he hadn’t appreciated Virgil doing it, before he understood what was happening, when all he knew was the loss of his pod aching like a scraped-out seashell. As Virgil wakes up, Logan shifts, turning his gaze to the rest of the room.

Virgil makes a sleepy grumbling noise, opening one eye. Logan chances another quick glance at him, and when his eye slides open Logan is struck by its beauty. He doesn’t get much of a chance to admire it, however, before Virgil is jolting backwards like Logan’s struck him with lightning. Logan is confused, reaching out and gently touching his shoulder. “Virgil?”

“Wassat?! Wait . . . L’gan?”

“It is me,” Logan says softly. “Are - are you upset with me?”

Virgil yawns, jaw dropping to his chest, revealing a flash of teeth and a soft pink tongue. (Logan wants to lick it. Why does Logan want to lick it? Why is Logan thinking about Virgil’s tongue licking his tongue - why is Logan thinking about Virgil - what in the Seven Oceans is happening to him.) “Wh - no, no, ‘m okay, I just - woke up, forgot I had you with me, got confused about another person in my bed.” Before Logan can start to feel bad, Virgil adds, “S’okay if it’s you, though,” and the foamy, floaty feeling is back.

“Did you sleep well?”

Virgil laughs, low and rumbling, and Logan can feel it in his fingers where he touches Virgil’s skin. “I never sleep well.” He sits up, and the fabric of his pajamas shifts to let Logan see stretches of soft, supple skin that he usually doesn’t. Logan wants to touch it. He very determinedly keeps his hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “Gotta admit, though, last night was . . . better than usual.”

This appears to be the point where Virgil first notices their position - pressed together, arm slung over Logan, basically cuddling the way that Logan normally would with his pod. (No tangle with his pod has ever felt this . . . electric, this charged, this important to Logan before.) His face flares a brilliant red, and he shifts like he wants to move away but -

“I’m sorry,” Virgil says. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No!” Logan blurts out. Virgil blinks at him a little, and maybe he was a little overly enthusiastic, but - “I sleep in a tangle with Dad and Roman all the time. I have extreme difficulty sleeping without contact with someone else. It . . . helped me greatly.”

“Oh,” Virgil says, face turning redder still, smiling shyly. “That - makes me feel better. Thanks, Lo.”

Logan smiles, and Virgil smiles too, reaching up to gently move a piece of hair away from his face. Logan thinks that, as far as deaths go, his chest exploding (which seems to be getting more and more likely every fifteen seconds he spends in Virgil’s presence, only accelerated by all this skin-on-skin contact they’re having right now) seems to be the most pleasurable.

Virgil opens his mouth to say something, but whatever it was is interrupted by a Ping! noise from across the room. “What is that?” Logan asks. Virgil, sadly, untangles himself from Logan and the blankets, sliding out of bed and heading over to one of the other structures in the room (what did he call it last night? Dex?) and picking up a flat glowing rectangle.

“Is everything alright?”

“What? Yeah, yeah, I - Thomas sent me a text, it’s a little weird.”

“What is a text?”

“It’s a kind of human messaging system, it allows us to communicate when we’re far away from each other.”

“Like a pod call?” “Kind of? I’ll explain more later, I promise, I just - I gotta go down to the lab real quick.”

“I’ll come with -”

“No!” Virgil snaps. Logan flinches, and Virgil softens, crossing the room and gently touching his shoulder. “Hey, no, Logan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just - this message, there’s something off. I think something might be wrong, and I don’t want to put you in any unnecessary danger. Just - wait here, okay? Wait in my room, where it’s safe. It’s probably nothing, he’s probably fine, but on the off chance that he’s not, I want you to stay hidden safely up here.”

Logan isn’t sure why this makes his face heat up slightly, but it does. “Okay. I accept your apology, and I . . . trust you.”

Virgil smiles, soft and heartwarming, and Logan is beginning to give more credence to his “chest explosion is fine, actually” theory. “Wait for me here, okay? I’ll be right back. I promise.”

He leaves, shutting the door firmly behind him, and the foamy feeling in Logan’s chest dissipates a little. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but there’s something . . . off. If Logan didn’t know better, he’d think that he was sensing a predator approaching.

But that can’t be right, he isn’t underwater. His danger senses are likely just overreacting to his disappointment at Virgil’s absence.

. . . Right?

*~*~*~*~*

Thomas is beginning to regret letting Roman and Patton (specifically, Roman) out of the large tank before finishing his first coffee of the morning.

“I want some!” Roman complains.

“Do you even know what it is?” Thomas says. Roman pouts sulkily at him.

“. . . No,” he mutters, rolling his eyes. Thomas gives him the deadpan, no-nonsense, I-am-your-direct-superior-take-the-damn-samples-Virgil stare that he has perfected over the past few years. Roman wilts a little more, and Thomas feels slightly bad.

“It’s called coffee,” he says. “It’s a hot drink that lots of people have in the morning. Some people drink it plain, and some people add things to it to change the way it tastes. It helps me wake up more and get focused to start my day, and sometimes I drink it late at night to help keep me awake.”

Roman looks less like a kicked puppy and more like Logan, eyes wide and curious. “I want some!”

Thomas, taking a sip of his own two-seconds-of-cream-five-cubes-of-sugar coffee, nearly spits it out. He looks at Roman, eyes the very sharp, very detachable, very toxic spines covering his body, and says, “No.”

Roman’s demeanor changes entirely, switching from “curious toddler” to “toddler about to throw a temper tantrum” in a heartbeat. “Why not?!”

“Because when people drink coffee without being used to it, sometimes it makes them a little crazy.”

“I’m not crazy!”

“Do I need to recount to you how many times you’ve threatened me and my assistant since we met you?” Thomas says, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not giving you coffee until I know I can trust you not to stab me with your poisonous spines that cover your entire body and can be fired at people.”

Roman pouts more, dropping under the water and letting out a gratingly harmonious string of mer that Thomas is pretty sure translates to Roman bitching about the coffee situation to his dad. Based on the pattern of Patton’s response, he’s pretty sure Patton is laughing at Roman.

More sulky chalkboard-violin music, and then Roman resurfaces grumpily. “Dad agrees with you and says no consuming strange human foods.”

“Did he laugh at you?”

Roman squints suspiciously at him. “You can’t speak our language.”

“Yeah, but I know what it sounds like when a dad laughs at his kid.” Roman, continuing to pout, sinks back into the tank, presumably to sulk some more. Thomas takes another very long sip of coffee that is definitely too hot for his mouth and turns back to his desk.

Virgil should definitely be awake and in the lab at this point. The samples he’s supposed to be analyzing are sitting in their little tubes, each neatly labelled with locations and dates and times and what, specifically, Virgil is supposed to be looking for. Thomas considers going upstairs and waking up Virgil, who’s almost never been late for work in this way, but he decides against it. Virgil is upstairs with Logan, and Thomas knows that there’s something building between them. He’s not sure how advisable that something is, but he trusts Virgil to make his own decisions.

Besides, he could probably use some practice. His water sample analysis skills are pretty rusty, he’s had Virgil doing them for years. “Virgil, you owe me big time for what I’m doing for you.” He carefully shifts the samples over to his own desk, slides his earbuds in, picks up a pipette, and gets to work analyzing the bacterial and algal concentrations for any abnormalities.

Thomas accomplishes about forty-five minutes’ worth of work before Roman interrupts him by flicking water at him and soaking the back of his neck. “Hey!”

“I tried your name, but your little ear bug things were keeping you from hearing me,” Roman says smugly. Thomas, not for the first time, considers retreating to the closet and throwing beakers until he feels better.

“Can I help you?”

“Dad wants to go hunting and bring back breakfast, but we can’t leave without you.”

“Are you not going hunting?”

“I’m going to stay here and observe you,” Roman says.

Thomas blinks. “Do I . . . need observing?”

“How do I know you won’t sell us out to your little human friends the second you get a chance? If I’m here, I can stop you. Plus, what if you do something to Logan while we’re not here to protect him? No, no, I’m staying right where I am and you can’t make me leave.” His spines ripple; Thomas steps closer to a whiteboard in case he needs to duck.

“I’m not going to do that, and I don’t want you to stab me.”

“Still! I’m staying here! Also, Dad’s bigger than me, and he’s a better hunter cause he’s faster and he’s been hunting longer.

“Does he need something to help him carry all those fish?” Thomas asks. Roman opens his mouth like he’s going to say something snarky, pauses, and stops.

“I . . . usually we just eat what we catch when we catch it. We make a pile of prey and take turns guarding it while the other two hunt. Then we make a sacrifice to the Seven Mother Goddesses and eat what’s left.”

After some debate, Thomas is able to fashion a sling of sorts from some waterproof tarps and leftover anchor rope to tie around Patton’s body. “You can put the fish in this pouch and carry them back here. Will you be able to navigate your way back to the grotto?”

“He will,” Roman says. “Dad knows more about the ocean than any human possibly could.” Another discordant song from the tank, chastising, and Roman huffs. “Dad wants me to reassure you that he’ll be fine.”

Patton settles into the mobile tank easily, and Thomas gets him down to the grotto leading towards the sea. “When you come back, let out one of your pod calls and Virgil or I will come and collect you and your catch. Take as much time as you need, okay?”

Patton reaches up and gently pats Thomas’s arm with one large, damp hand, and Thomas takes that to mean an agreement. “Alright, off you go.” There’s a whoosh and a rush of water as it flows from the tank into the grotto in a clean arc, carrying Patton with it. Thomas waits for a moment, letting Patton disappear into the open ocean, before returning to the laboratory.

Roman, for the most part, ignores Thomas. He asks the occasional question, which Thomas tries to answer in a way that he’ll understand, and leans over the edge of his touch tank, eyes guarded. Every time Thomas sneaks a glance, when he thinks Roman isn’t looking, his expression is wide-eyed and wondrous, like Logan’s usually are, but the moment he realizes Thomas is watching him his entire face closes up like a clamshell.

Thomas wonders what it’ll take to get Roman to trust him, trust Virgil, trust any human. Granted, he doesn’t know Roman’s history with humans, but he and Patton are both fairly scarred, and Thomas might not know the whole story but he’d bet a not-insignificant amount of his monthly income that the giant starburst scar taking up the majority of Patton’s chest isn’t the result of a clash with a marine creature.

He works quietly, fielding the occasional question, keeping one ear on the grotto tunnel for Patton’s return. He’s not sure how long he expected Patton to be gone, but he hears movement in the grotto tunnel far sooner than he’d expected.

“Thomas, what’s -”

“Shhhh,” Thomas says. He stands up, pushing away from his desk, but before he can say anything else, there’s a flood of movement coming from the tunnel. Bodies pour into the lab, swift and strong and carrying weapons that they immediately train on Thomas and Roman.

“What is this?” Roman snaps, bristling. He sounds betrayed, like he thinks Thomas is behind this. Thomas picks up a heavy glass beaker, fully prepared to shatter it upside someone’s skull if necessary, but something heavy and hard strikes the back of his skull and he feels his knees crumple. Roman cries out, and Thomas struggles to push himself up. A hand fists itself in his hair and yanks him upright, sharply. Thomas exhales sharply through his teeth, but before he can start struggling, something cool and round rests against the back of his neck, shutting him up and shutting his brain down.

Roman is puffed up like a hedgehog, apparently fully prepared to defend Thomas despite his strong and inherent mistrust. Before he can begin to attack, Thomas hears the click-click-click of shoes on the hard stone floor. Whoever’s holding his head yanks him back again, and he is forced to watch as a woman walks into his laboratory.

(It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke - a sick, horrible, twisted joke.)

She has black heels, black tights, a black pencil skirt, a black blazer, and a blood-red blouse. Her hair is scraped back into a tight bun, pulled so taut it must hurt, and is held in place with a pitch black stick. She carries a - clipboard? tablet? Unclear - held against her chest, and there’s a sleek silver weapon in her right hand.

“The one from the video?” she asks.

“Affirmative, ma’am,” says the person holding Thomas’s head. The woman nods, lifting her weapon, and fires at Roman. Thomas tries to scream a warning, earning himself another painful yank from his captor, but the projectile lodges itself in Roman’s shoulder anyway.

It isn’t a bullet, but something that looks like a small syringe. Roman swats it out of his shoulder, swaying a little, but it doesn’t stop him from swiping at the - mercenary, they must be - who tries to grab him with his elbow spines. The woman frowns, lifts the weapon - some kind of tranquilizer gun? - and fires again.

Roman screams, inhuman and animal, and tears the newest dart from his arm, throwing himself out of his tank and clinging to the nearest mercenary. His teeth tear into the man’s shoulder, spines piercing through his camouflage clothing and flooding him with neurotoxin. The man collapses against the concrete, alive but unconscious, and Roman snarls at the next man as though daring him to approach. He sways, weakened but awake, and bares his teeth.

“Of course,” the woman says, tapping something on her tablet. “His naturally produced neurotoxin must be providing him with some level of natural resistance. Unexpected, but not a limitation.”

It takes three more tranquilizer darts before Roman finally slumps down into his tank, unconscious. The mercenaries look hesitant to approach him, but the woman reaches for her tablet and they scramble to action at once.

“No - no, stop, let him go, he’s not an animal for you to cart off to your lab -” Thomas starts. The man holding him knees him sharply in the back and he cries out, coughing.

They wrap Roman in thick leather bands, roughly shoving his spines flat and binding them against his skin so that he can’t attack them again. The woman nods, once, short and sharp, and they drag Roman away, letting his head bang mercilessly on the ground. Thomas catches a glimpse of a logo - emblazoned on the back of the jackets, on the back of the woman’s tablet, on the side of her tranquilizer gun - and commits it to memory. He’s going to need it, if he gets out of here alive.

“- your phone,” the woman says, and oh, when did she get in front of him.

“My what?”

His mouth runs dry as she places the tranquilizer gun under his chin, barrel pressing against his throat, and tips his chin up. “I said, give me your phone.”

Thomas blinks. “My - the desk. It’s on the desk.”

She sets her tablet down, picks up his phone, and shoves it in his face. “Open it.”

“I - wh -”

“Unlock your phone, Dr. Sanders. Must I repeat myself a third time?” She rolls her eyes. “Doctorates are wasted on people like you.”

Thomas numbly punches in his passcode, and she swipes through to his messages app, frowning before turning the screen towards his face to reveal a message thread with Virgil. “Is this your assistant?”

Thomas glares at her, he’s not going to give her what she wants, he’s not going to just give her Virgil but then the - gun, it must be a gun, what else would they be holding against his neck like this - pushes into him harder, and it’s probably bruising, and he can’t get himself killed here because then he definitely won’t be able to take care of Virgil and -

“Yes,” Thomas says, hating himself for giving in so easily. “What do you -”

She turns away from him, nails clicking against his phone screen as she sends a text message - to Virgil, presumably, and that makes his heart sink like a stone - before dropping it on the floor and stepping on it to shatter it. “I have a message for you.”

“A - what?”

“Did they really hit you that hard, or were you this stupid before we came here?” she says coldly, picking up the tablet again and tapping at the screen. Thomas groans as the man yanks him to his feet, shoving him onto his chair and pulling a roll of duct tape out of one of his multiple pants pockets. He tapes Thomas’s wrists and ankles to the chair, keeping his weapon trained on Thomas’s temple at all times, before pressing it roughly against his head and gripping his hair again.

The woman sets the tablet on his lab table, and the screen flickers to life, and then there’s a woman in front of a dark black backdrop, smiling at him like a cat who’s caught a canary. “Thomas Sanders. How long I’ve waited for this day.”

Thomas recognizes her. He knows he recognizes her. She used to be his classmate, before . . .

His head hurts, so badly that he can barely keep his eyes open, and the memory slips away. “You . . . why are you doing this?”

“Why? Because I am a real scientist, unlike you. You refuse to do what is necessary, what must be done for the progression of the species. The sacrifice of some worthless animals is necessary for humanity to reach its zenith. You would really hinder the entire human race for the preservation of lower life forms?”

“Wh - I -”

“You think that ‘preserving the ecosystem’ and ‘keeping animals alive’ makes you a good scientist, but it makes you weak. You are weak, Thomas Sanders, and if the world was left in the hands of people like you, the human race as we know it would die out in a few centuries. Fortunately, there are people like me, who understand what must be done.”

“Caring about other people and things - it doesn’t - it doesn’t make you weak,” Thomas says, chest heaving, and the woman just laughs.

“One of many logical fallacies to which you subscribe, Thomas. They really gave you a doctorate? Of course caring makes you weak. All emotions make you weak. They corrupt your data and make your experiments worthless. You must be ruthless. You must be willing to do whatever it takes to pursue your goals and achieve the height of success. But no.” She rolls her eyes, face hardening, twirling a pen in her fingers. “You insist on ethics and principles and letting emotions cloud your judgement, and that makes you a failure as a scientist. It makes you weak. Your attachments will be your downfall.”

Thomas’s eyes slide shut, head pounding, and the man behind him yanks at his hair so sharply that he knows some has been ripped out. He forces his eyes open in time to see a smile slide across the woman’s face like a knife, teeth gleaming white as sun-bleached bone.

“You won’t - get away with this,” Thomas manages. He grinds his teeth together and curls his hands into fists, digging his nails into his palms to keep himself awake. “If you leave me alive -” Thomas, stop talking, why are you reminding her that she has the option to fucking kill you “- I will not rest until I find you. I’ll - you can’t -”

“You’ll what, Thomas? If you call the police, you’ll expose those creatures you’re so intent on protecting to the world. Are you really willing to take that chance?” Before Thomas can even begin formulating a response, she steamrolls him. “It doesn’t matter. Even if you were, I’m going to take some . . . insurance, shall we say.”

“Why not just kill me?” Thomas spits. Excellent idea, Doc, poke the murderous lady with a stick like a god damn hornet’s nest, the tiny Virgil in his brain hisses. Her smile, somehow, only widens, and that’s . . . that can’t be good, can it? Smiles are supposed to be good! They’re supposed to make you happy, but all Thomas feels is creeping dread and pain, so much pain, and -

Yeah. He’s . . . pretty sure he has a concussion.

“Because if I kill you, you get to take the easy way out. Your suffering will end. But unlike you, I don’t put limits on my science. I know how to cause you the maximum amount of pain.”

Thomas eyes the toxin gun, but the on-screen woman just laughs. “Not yet, Thomas. We need something from you, first.”

“You already took Roman,” Thomas says. “What more can you possibly take from me?”

“You named it? You’re even weaker than I thought.”

“He told me his name, he’s not an it, he’s not a thing for you to play with and - and I -”

There’s a strange sinking feeling in Thomas’s chest as the woman onscreen laughs. “I knew you were emotional, Thomas, but I can’t believe this! It looks like I’ll have more hanging over your head than you thought.”

“You -”

“Say, Tommy-boy, have you heard from your precious little assistant recently?”

Thomas’s entire body flushes ice-cold and then white-hot, immediately struggling against his duct tape bindings despite the man tearing at his hair and shoving the gun into his neck and snapping at him to shut up, shut up, shut the fuck up before I do something we’re both gonna regret -

“Don’t you touch him!” Thomas snaps. “If you hurt him, I swear to God -”

“You’re not in a position to be making demands, and if you don’t calm down, I’ll paint your boring little lab bright red.” Thomas freezes, holding his entire body tensed like electricity is running through his blood.

There are footsteps on the stairs. “Doc? I got your text, what’s -”

“Virgil, run!” Thomas chokes. Virgil comes around the corner, holding his phone, staring at the screen in confusion. He looks up, eyes widening in horror as he takes in the scene.

“You know what to do,” the woman onscreen says. The other woman lifts her tranquilizer gun, and Thomas is sure that he’s screaming, his mouth is open and sound is coming out but his blood is rushing through his ears and his heart is pounding like waves against a boat in rough sea and he can’t - he can’t -

Virgil turns to run, but the tranquilizer dart hits in him the back of the neck and he collapses like a sack of bricks. The woman lowers her gun and jerks her head at the two remaining conscious, unoccupied mercenaries, who step forward and grab Virgil.

“Let him go!” Thomas screams, and his throat feels raw and his chest feels raw and his wrists are rubbed raw and his soul feels hollow and raw, like he’s been scraped out with a jagged piece of metal and only an empty shell remains. Virgil’s head lolls against his chest as they drag him down the grotto tunnel, and Thomas struggles and screams and stares after them until Virgil is out of sight.

His face is damp, and his eyes are burning, and he isn’t sure if it’s blood from his head wound or tears or some strange, morbid mixture of both.

“The greatest torture of which I can conceive,” the woman onscreen says, and it takes him a moment to realize that oh, she’s talking to me, “is to leave you alive, knowing that your precious little protégé is with me, and that there is nothing you can do about it.” She leans forward, and any trace of a smile is gone. “If you try to come after me, I will kill him. If you call the authorities, I will kill him. I already found you, Thomas. Don’t think I’m not watching. If I catch so much as a whiff of you planning something, his blood will be on your hands. Do you understand me?”

Thomas, numb and shocked, can’t even respond. “Knock him out and bring the specimens back to me,” the woman onscreen says.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He doesn’t even feel the tranquilizer dart hit his neck, but he welcomes the sweeping darkness.

(Summary: Evil Scientist Lady has been spying on Thomas and she finds the entrance to the grotto where our mer friends have been hiding. She sends her assistant and several armed thugs to invade the lab, they drug Roman with tranquilizers and kidnap him. Thomas gets knocked around a lot and is mocked for being an ethical scientist and caring about people by Evil Scientist Lady and she gloats at him through Evil Facetime before kidnapping Virgil in the same way they did Roman, knocking Thomas unconscious, and leaving him tied to his lab chair. During this whole scene, Patton is out in the open ocean hunting and Logan is safely hidden in Virgil's room.)

[inquartata30]

WIP Whenever, Fluff Part 1

tagged by @sky-ham for some fluff for understandable reasons

tagging @natsora and @1esk19 for more fluff

this is from a one shot set in The Scenic Route’s timeline, the one where they’re in the Milky Way, everyone’s alive, and there are no Reapers.

Lexi answered almost immediately. “Did you and Aella enjoy your time at the park?”

Thaia narrowed her eyes. Going to the park had been a spontaneous thing because her lab time had been usurped by some other ‘more important’ project. Instead of bothering with battling over a stupid power move, she’d opted to take her kid to Guildhall Park for a pickup skyball game and whatever else they could find.

Unfortunately, ‘whatever else’ had turned out to be trouble, which wasn’t an unusual occurrence when Thaia and Aella went places without, as Sula called it, adult supervision. But wasn’t that Thaia didn’t want Lexi to know what they were up to. It was because Lexi had been in a practical and Thaia hadn’t wanted to disturb her unless there was some kind of incident that required her help. If not, Thaia would simply tell her the entire story when she got home. Or someone else would’ve told her before she even got home because Thaia and her family knew way too many people in this part of Armali. 

Also, Aella had successfully scaled the monument to Matriarch Atapalai and her reward had been been them getting booted from the park and banned for the rest of the week and ‘maybe you should teach your child some decorum during that time.’

First of all, Thaia was pretty sure that the matriarch who’d had the tits to go out and find the first relay and then used the fucking thing within days because ‘fuck sitting around on my ass and being cautious like the rest of you’ would be completely fine with a kid climbing a statue dedicated to her. Cheer her on, even. 

Second of all, Thaia had wanted to see if Aella could get all the way to the top because it was pretty fucking high up. Then Aella had reached the top and Thaia had been too busy being proud as fuck to chase her down before a cluster of matriarchs got their panties in a twist over it.

So, to help them feel better after getting unjustly banned from the park for a week, Thaia and Aella had gone to the hobby shop. And now they felt better.

“Yes,” Thaia said to Lexi. “We did.”

Aella tried cramming a foot under the box. She immediately winced and went another route, trotting over to one of the trees lining the walkway. Little purple flower petals drifted down around her when she bumped into the trunk instead of stopping of her own volition like a normal person. Then she grabbed a good-sized stick, held it aloft with the petals still swirling around her, and ran back.

Lexi sighed. “I suppose I should be grateful no one was hurt.”

“I don’t know, Matriarch Agera got all worked up about a scuff mark on the statue. Maybe someone should examine her for a heart condition.”

“That mark was there before!” said Aella, working the stick under the box for leverage.

“It was.” Thaia shrugged even though Lexi couldn’t see her. “Anyway, I called to see if Harry was visiting Thessia and I didn’t know or if Karin was coming over at any point today.”

“I don’t believe so. Do I want to know why?”

“Nah, it’s fine.”

“Do I need to know why?”

“We’re fine, I promise. We just wanted to be sure. Okay, have a fun class, love you, bye!”

“Bye!” Aella echoed without interrupting her determined glare at the box. 

Thaia ended the call before Lexi could interrogate either of them since Lexi had gotten even better at interrogation since she’d started her clinical psych program and she’d already been phenomenal before that. Plus, neither Thaia nor Aella could lie to save their lives.

Thaia turned to her daughter, who’d given up on the stick and was now using all of her might to drag the box.

Successfully. Shit, her kid was strong. Freakishly strong, according to Celaeno. However, it was slow going and Thaia was admittedly excited about putting the model together with Aella. Sooner rather than later. And she hadn’t bargained on her kid being this fucking stubborn and being able to move the box enough where they were actually making forward progress.

Incremental forward progress.

“You sure you don’t want help?” Thaia asked.

Aella stopped, put her hands on her hips, and glared up at Thaia. “I can get it!”

“Okay, okay.” Thaia held up her hands in surrender. “I won’t ask again.” She also had to hide a laugh because for all Aella shared a similar bone structure to Thaia, that fucking glare had been all Lexi. Seeing it on someone so small was funny as fuck.

The next twenty-seven minutes—Thaia kept track—were spent with Aella grumbling and grunting as she pushed and pulled the box along the strip of sidewalk leading from the Kepeia District to Palla Square. During that time, Thaia also drew several amused or annoyed looks from onlookers and, really, the annoyed ones could just fuck off. Obviously, they’d never had to deal with spectacularly stubborn child. In the the stone-paved area outside the complex’s entrance, the sharp scent of ozone hung in the air. Thaia couldn’t hear the snaps of biotics or shouting that accompanied playing, so practice must’ve been over for the day.

As Aella stopped to catch her breath and Thaia silently wished she’d just give up and let her carry the box, members of Armali’s team began exiting through the complex gates, some pausing to sign autographs for enthusiastic younger fans. From behind a couple clusters of sizable backfielders emerged a comparatively pint-sized player whom Thaia and Aella immediately recognized.

Fejla Na’vis, who’d been their reliable source of skyball tickets for almost seven years; who’d obtained a pass for Thaia to attend a one week long pro-level skyball camp a month before Aella was born; and who, along with Harry, was Lexi’s best friend of decades.

The only reason Thaia hadn’t known about Fej during the two years she was being a dumbass about Lexi was because Fej was a pro player for Armali Union, Thaia’s favorite skyball team ever, and Lexi had—rightly—suspected that Thaia would  react with an undue amount of enthusiasm should she ever meet Fej.

She had. But during the months before Aella had been born and especially after their unintentionally galaxy-spanning misadventure shared with Nef, a black-market body part, and a stack of ancient krogan data-readers, they’d become excellent friends. And Thaia had mostly stopped being a completely over-enthusiastic fan. 

With the exception of playoffs.

“Auntie Fej!” Aella dropped the box and sprinted toward Fej, practically slamming into her for a hug and almost smashing Fej’s nose with her forehead in the process. Luckily, Fej was able to dodge the head blow.

Shit, if Aella’s forehead was a threat to Fej’s nose, that meant she was already catching up to Fej in height. Thaia did her best not to laugh. It wasn’t fair that Aella was on the ridiculously tall side for an asari six-year-old and Fej was on the decidedly small size for an asari adult. Given another couple years, Aella would probably be able to look her in the eye.

“What’ve you got there?” Fej asked, pointing at the box after Aella let go. 

“We got a model relay!” Aella ran back to the box and demonstrated her dragging technique. “Look, I can carry it by myself!”

After observing Aella move the box a whole-ass third of a meter in five minutes, Fej placed her duffel bag on the grass and smiled. “Wow, it’s almost as big as me! I bet you’re excited to get it home. Do you want some help carrying it? I’m going in the same direction for a bit, so I don’t mind.”

Thaia waited for the ‘determined Lexi glare’ to appear on Aella’s face like it had when she’d offered to help. 

It fucking didn’t. Instead, Aella grinned and said, “Yes, please!”

“What the fuck,” Thaia said, mostly under her breath.

When Fej stood next to her, Aella looked between her and the box and back again. Then she scratched her chin and did it again. After a third time, she said to Fej, “I bet I can pick you up.”

Fej opened her mouth, closed it, and then after thinking it over for a moment, shrugged. “You know what? Give it a try.”

Aella immediately crouched and grabbed Fej around the knees.

Fuck, she’d figured out the best method to pick up someone bigger than her. She might actually do it. Thaia hurriedly activated her omni. This needed to be recorded for posterity.

After setting her feet, Aella lifted with all her tiny might. Face flushed a darker blue and her legs trembling with the effort, Aella got Fej a good ten or so centimeters off the pavement before she lost her balance and fell backwards. Fej, possessing the body awareness and quick reflexes of a pro ballplayer, flipped in the air and landed on her feet while catching Aella with biotics the same time.

“I did it!” Aella announced, triumphantly raising her arms in the air.

The startlingly large audience they’d collected during Aella and Fej’s stunt gave the two a round of applause. Thaia had the best fucking kid.

“That was hard,” said Aella, shaking out her arms. “I don’t think I can carry the box the rest of the way home.”

Fej gave the top of Aella’s crest a fond rub. “I’ll still help you.”

“Good, because Daddy didn’t help me on our way here.”

Okay, maybe not the best kid.

“The fuck,” Thaia said, loud enough for the others to hear.

[mandelene]

If you feel like filling this: for the first time, Matthew and Alfred are left alone overnight and Alfred feels all grown-up and excited. Pity that Matthew had hidden he wasn't feeling well and he isn't getting any better... Thank you! ❤️

Torture Matthew? Sure thing! Haha. 😁 As usual, I got carried away. You can’t ask me to write a sickfic and not expect the word count to be high lol. I made it a throwback to my “Matthew has asthma” headcanon. Also, did you know many U.S. states don’t have a law for how old a child must be to be left home alone overnight? Same for the UK. Apparently, it’s generally recommended that the child is at least 14 or 16, so I went with Al and Matt being 15 in this one.  

The House Party That Never Was

Word Count: 1924 (I know. I’m sorry!)

10 AM, Friday

“We’ll only be two hours away, so if anything happens or there’s a problem, call and let us know, and we’ll drive back right away.”  

“Okay, Dad. We know,” Alfred groans. They’re not babies anymore—Mattie and he can handle being left alone overnight while their parents go to see the philharmonic orchestra in Philadelphia for their anniversary.

“There are leftovers in the fridge that you can have for dinner tonight. You can order pizza tomorrow if we’re not back by six o’clock,” Papa reminds, just as worried and over-protective as Dad is being. “Make yourselves breakfast and lunch. We have plenty of fruit, cereal, bread, cold cuts, yogurt—” 

“Yes, Papa. We’ll make sure to eat,” Matthew interjects with a soft sniffle. “It’ll be fine.” 

Dad immediately notices said sniffle and flips out. He puts his duffle bag down and presses a hand against Matthew’s forehead, feeling for a fever and not finding one. “Are you all right? You aren’t coming down with something, are you? We can cancel the trip and—”

“No, no. It’s just allergies.” 

“…Okay, take an anti-histamine from the medicine cabinet.”  

“I will.” 

“In case of emergency—"

“Call 911. We know, Dad. We’re fifteen, not five!” Alfred sighs, tempted to physically push his parents out the front door at long last. 

Dad struggles to find something else to lecture them about and pushes his sunglasses farther up his nose before deciding, “All right…Behave and don’t get into any trouble. We love you.”

Dad and Papa exchange hugs with them before they finally cross the driveway, get into the car, and drive off, disappearing down the road. 

“Woo! Freedom! God that took forever!” Alfred exclaims as he locks the door and turns around to look at Matthew, who is standing by the stairs with his hands stuffed in the pocket of his navy-blue hoodie. “Our first time home alone for a whole night! We’ve been living sheltered lives, Mattie, but not anymore. Today, we’re men. So, who’re we inviting over?” 

Matthew clears his scratchy throat and gently rubs at his nose with his sleeve. “Umm…I’m pretty sure Papa and Dad said we’re not supposed to have any friends over…” 

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them.” 

“Al, they’ll find out.” 

“No, they won’t. Come on, Matt. Don’t be lame.”

“Yeah, they will. If not tomorrow, then eventually, and I don’t wanna break their trust. If we worry them or make them angry, they’ll never leave us home alone for more than a couple of hours again,” Matthew argues, and if this stupid cold would just leave him alone, everything would be peachy. He rubs at his chest, which feels a little tighter than usual, and takes two puffs of his inhaler. 

Alfred glowers and slumps his shoulders. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. We have to prove we can handle it at least once…You okay, bro? Your asthma’s acting up?” 

“It’s just from my allergies,” Matthew repeats because he has to keep up the lie. It’s spring, so it’s believable enough. To be entirely honest, he’s been feeling terrible since last night, but he didn’t want to give their parents a reason to cancel their trip. He doesn’t have a fever, so it can’t be that serious...It’s just a cold, and he doesn’t want to be an inconvenience. Their parents deserve to enjoy their anniversary without interruption. “Wanna play Smash?” he asks, changing the subject. Alfred doesn’t have the greatest attention-span, and he’ll hopefully forget all about this.

“Okay, sure. I’ll set up the Switch and the controllers. You should go and take your allergy medicine.” 

“Cool. Yeah,” Matthew replies. It’s the perfect opportunity to go upstairs, blow his nose without witnesses, and take some cough medicine…And another two puffs of his inhaler.  

He refuses to be a bother. He knows how to take care of himself. 

--------------------------------------

7 PM, Friday

Alfred has eaten enough mesquite barbecue chips to feed their entire block, and Matthew is genuinely astonished that he hasn’t been sick yet. How can so much junk food fit into one stomach? Now that no one is around to stop him, Alfred has devoured half of the fridge, and he still doesn’t seem to be totally full, even after dinner. 

Papa left them blanquette de veau, a French veal stew. It soothes Matthew’s throat and warms his chest, which feels lovely initially, but then the steam breaks up some of the mucus in his lungs and leaves him suffering through several coughing fits. Fortunately, Alfred is in the bathroom for the worst of it, and doesn't hear him hacking. 

They’ve been playing video games for hours now, and Matthew can feel a low-grade fever settle into his body. Every time he inhales, he can hear his lungs give off a tiny wheeze. 

When Alfred goes off to get some juice to drink, Matthew discreetly takes yet another two puffs of his inhaler. 

“This is getting kinda boring. Wanna put on Netflix? We can binge-watch Avatar: The Last Airbender.” 

Matthew would rather lie down in bed with his tablet or phone, but if he doesn’t join Alfred, he might grow suspicious, and then he’ll worry, or he’ll call their parents.

“Sure. Let’s do it…” 

--------------------------------------

1 AM, Saturday

 “Matt...? Matt? You’re falling asleep on me, bro.” 

Matthew is startled awake and fixes his glasses, which must have tilted awkwardly to the left while he was sleeping. He doesn’t know when he dozed off on the couch, but it was sometime during Book Two of Avatar. Dad and Papa called around 9 PM to check on them, and Alfred did all of the talking. He reassured them that they’re both alive and haven’t broken any part of themselves or anything in the house.  

Matthew squints at the clock on the wall. “It’s late…”

“Yeah. We should go to bed,” Alfred agrees, and he must be tired as well if he’s not insisting they pull an all-nighter. 

“I’m gonna brush my teeth.” 

“Okay. Have fun. I’m gonna live on the wild side and not brush ‘em,” Alfred says with a grin and a wink. 

“Wow, so edgy,” Matthew says, poking some fun at him before heading upstairs with a giant yawn. He’s exhausted, and the wheezing is back. He takes the nightly dose of his steroid inhaler and stares longingly at his nebulizer. He could do with a treatment, but it’s so loud, and then, Alfred would know something’s not right.  

So instead, he brushes his teeth, quietly takes some additional puffs of his rescue inhaler, and burrows under the covers of his bed, hoping this will all have blown over by the morning.

--------------------------------------

3 AM, Saturday

He can’t sleep. He can’t breathe. He needs a nebulizer treatment. Now. But it might wake Alfred. 

He risks it. There’s no other choice. 

And sure enough, five minutes into the treatment, Alfred plods into his room with drowsy eyes, and asks, “Mattie, what’s going on? You’re sick, aren’t you? Hang on. I’ll…I’ll call Dad and Papa, don’t worry.”  

“No!” Matthew shouts, surprised by the strength of his voice given the state of his lungs. “You can’t…It’s their anniversary…I’m fine.” 

“Matt, I’m pretty sure this counts as an emergency, bro.” 

“It’s not!”

“It’s the middle of the night and you can’t breathe—that’s an emergency, dude!”

“I’ll be fine after the nebulizer treatment is done,” he assures in a breathless rush around the nebulizer’s mouthpiece, but he’s not so sure he will be. 

“Well, we’ve gotta tell somebody!” Alfred shouts back at him before coming closer and touching his clammy forehead. “Dude, you’re burning up. What the hell? Why didn’t you say anything all night?”

Ignoring Matthew’s protests, Alfred makes the call. 

This isn’t going to be good…

--------------------------------------

5 AM, Saturday

“Matthew!”  

Dad and Papa burst through his bedroom door, and they’re by his side in a flash, fussing over him and acting as though he’s on the verge of death. They’re still dressed in the clothes they probably went to sleep in, and before Matthew can say a single word, Dad has his stethoscope on his chest and is listening to his lungs. He then clamps a pulse oximeter on his right index finger, waits for a reading, and frowns severely. 

While Papa strokes his head and asks him why he didn’t let them know sooner that he wasn’t feeling well, Dad disappears and then returns with three small pills and a glass of orange juice.

“Take these,” Dad instructs. 

Matthew wrinkles his nose as he puts the pills in his mouth and swallows them. The bitter aftertaste makes him shudder—prednisone. 

“Is he going to be all right?” Papa asks, squeezing Matthew’s hand.

“I’ll keep an eye on him. He should feel better once the steroid starts to work. We leave you boys home alone for one day, and you try to hide a medical emergency from us! What were you thinking?”

“It was very irresponsible,” Papa adds. 

And here he thought that Alfred would be the one to ultimately break their parents’ trust. 

“I’m sorry…I didn’t want you to have to cancel your trip. You’ve both been looking forward to it for a month,” Matthew timidly explains, breaths still shallow. 

“A trip can always be rescheduled. Your health can’t be,” Dad says sternly. “You had us worried sick. I was debating whether or not to tell Alfred to call for an ambulance. You should know better than to ever allow yourself to silently deteriorate like this!” 

“I’m sorry…” 

Dad sighs and rests a cold compress on his forehead. “We can decide on a punishment when you’re feeling well again.” 

A punishment? Really? Not fair.

Now is not a good time to argue though, so he lets Papa and Dad fret over him some more—they fluff his pillows, and force juice, water, and medicine for his fever down his throat. He feels awful knowing they lost sleep over him and had to hurry home, but at the same time, he’s grateful that they’re here, tending to him and monitoring him in case he gets worse. As much as he’d like to be regarded as an adult, he still wants his parents around when he’s unwell.  

“I’m really, really sorry…I feel terrible for ruining everything.” 

“Stop that,” Dad insists, shaking his head admonishingly at him. “We’re not upset with you for being ill—anyone can fall ill at any time and it’s out of one’s control. We’re upset that you tried to hide it from us, even if you thought you had the right intentions.” 

At that moment, Alfred peeks his head into the room, revealing that he’s been eavesdropping, and says, “I’d just like to point out that I did the responsible, mature thing, and called for help for my dearest, darling brother in his time of need. Very grown-up behavior—totally wise beyond my years. And because of that, I think, I deserve to be able to go to Six Flags next week with my friends.” 

Papa laughs heartily while Dad rolls his eyes. 

“Oui, you did the right thing, Alfred. But the greatest reward for helping your brother should be a sense of pride,” Papa notes.  

“I mean, yeah, but a physical reward would be kinda nice, too.” 

“Alfred,” Dad says with a warning tone. “Not now.” 

“All right, all right. I know. Just food for thought, you know? Glad Mattie’s okay, of course.” 

How in the world did Alfred come out on top? He’s a better adult? There’s no way! 

Okay, next time they’re home alone, they’re definitely throwing a party. 

That’ll show him. 

[cartoonfangirl1218]

3 times Bette was afraid to touch Barry and the one time she wasn’t

Obvious AU where Bette is still alive. I felt that there was some potential with her so here it is.

Their was a loud crash bang, but Bette didn't even look up. Probably another brawl between the new recruits. No one wanted to use the tazer less they accidentally shock themselves when she tried to head butt them.

It had been days since she been in the normal world, and she was slowly accepting this was what her life was going to be like until she died or until she gave in.

She had been dead for precisely a day before returning back to life. According to Eiling, she had been shot and blown up. But with the help of a man named Savage, they connected to a group called the Time Masters and hired the Pilgrim.

The Pilgrim was a woman able to stop time, another meta-human of some sort, and she went to the split second after Flash had run off and she blew up. Retrieved her body and with some extensive bomb-detonations, DNA analysts, and other stuff that Eiling didn't comprehend well enough to explain to her, she was alive.

Bette couldn't really wrap her mind around the whole Time Masters thing, and Savage or the Pilgrim but she chose not to dwell on it. After all she could make explosives with everything she touched who was she to judge.

The one thing Eiling made sure to keep were her powers. Unpredictable as ever. She had been too dazed and confused to really fight back when they brought her into the room.

The room was large, probably ten feet wide, ten feet in length. All white with padded grey walls and a large see-through window spanning the front next to the door.

They put her in the middle of the room. Strapped her to two chains hanging from ceiling into a elevated T or crucification-position. It prevented her from being able to move her hands around to touch the chains on her wrists or touch anyone/thing else.

She was hanging with no firm grip on the ground and she teetered on the toes of her boots. Preventing her from getting enough leverage to make a proper kick or at least that would make an impact.

She stayed in this position for hours on end, her back straining and arms aching from being stretched as her body longed to touch the ground. They wouldn't even let her eat with her hands, they spoon-fed her and gave her water. She was only unstrapped to go to the bathroom.

Which was a toilet and sink located at the upper right corner of the room. She was thankful that no perved had decided to look but it was still degrading. Treated like a wild animal, and going without the privacy of a stall.

Eiling was determined as ever to make her into a weapon, and he hadn't let up his threat that he would force her. Every day she would be tazered, hit, kicked, and water boarded.

This wasn't new for her, she had dealt with this while she had been serving on the Gulf Cost. Interrogation techniques and pain and she had become immune to most of them. She took comfort with the fact that they wanted her alive to be their living weapon so as she gasped and panicked for breath as the water bag placed over her head, suffocating her. She remembered they wouldn't go that far.

Although sometimes she wanted to give in, such as the nights they tried the sleep deprivation tactic, brights lights, loud noises, cold water splashed over her every time she was about to nod off. What would happen if she said yes?

Maybe they would finally unstrapped her? Maybe they would let her go into a regular room and sleep for once and maybe get a home and call me and special missions? Finally know what the date is?

Those thoughts were quickly pushed out when she reminded herself that as a living weapon, they wouldn't see her as a person.

Only a fighting machine. They wouldn't let her go back to her old life nor help her control her powers. It wasn't worth losing her humanity and independence to fight enemies if she didn't get a say in it.

She had joined the army to fight for the American way, but fighting for the government. She had a feeling fighting solely for the government might be killing more than terrorists but more anyone who tried to fight against it's precious leaders. Her stubbornness kicked in and she used all her will and tactics she learned at training to refuse.

"One thing different in this scenario," Bette snorted to herself, "There's no army to come looking for me. No one even knows I'm alive."

The crash sounded again, along with Eiling shouting and Bette curiously looked up.

She saw a red blur rush through the facility and Bette gasped. The familiar red blur, who had tried to help her all those days, possibly months ago.

He had honestly tried to help her with her powers, and one of the only ones who didn't look at her with absolute fear when he found out about her powers.

Flash looked through the window at her. He knocked Eiling's head against the glass and kicked open the door.

"Flash" she whispered, horsely. She jingled the chains uselessly and cringed as her torso recoiled in pain.

"Bette you're alive!?" Flash asked incredulous.

"Clearly," Bette snapped, Flash unsnapped the chain and she fell to the ground.

"Let me help.." Flash reached for her hand.

"Don't touch me," she hissed, scorching away from him, "I can handle myself."

She gripped her hands tightly, making sure not touch the floor, and pulled herself up by her elbows. Then promptly felt a searing pain in her ribs and buckled to the floor.

"Bette, we need you to get you out of here. You can't walk." Flash insisted as she crawled on her elbows and knees to the door.

"I don't have gloves on. I don't want to hurt you." Bette hissed.

"I can handle this, come on" he tried to reached under arm and attempted to get her to standing position but she kept squirming out of his grasp.

"Trust me." The speedster said with urgency. Bette looked at him, and relaxed her muscles. If anyone would get her out of this. He would.

She offered him her wrist. He took it and took her to the outside world in a woosh of air.

She found out it was 2016, she had spent two years in that place and has sustained from 7 cracked ribs, a severe concussion, a slight fear of water, broken ankle and dislocated knee cap.

There had been other people kept captive at the place, but she had been the only one to stick around with Team Flash.

Caitlin offered her a new set of gloves and although she couldn't participate in missions until she was healed, she helped out the Labs with random jobs and surveillance.

It had been quite dull, but once she was fully healed from her injuries, Cisco suggested as a professional trained solider, that she could teach them to fight better.

She had been training them but Caitlin and Cisco soon ducked out after the first session, claiming that their expertise lied behind the computer screen and they rather be able to sit on their chairs without sore butts.

Barry, she learned his name was, continue to train with her since he was the one doing most of the fighting. She had to admit, despite some posture and technique problems since he depended on his speed, but he had the basic skills down and the superspeed reflexes helped him a lot.

"Okay Bette, stop I'm woah" he ducked her roundhouse kick "I'm done."

"It's only been 20 minutes," Bette protested, taking another head-butt at him. It felt so good to be exercising again.

"Can you let it up a little?" Barry asked.

"Do you think Zoom would let it up a little?" She elbowed him in the shoulder.

"Fine," He panted, and aimed another upper cut at her. It would have been an easy block, but she hesitated and he sent flat on the ground.

"What happened there, bombshell?" Barry asked as she got up. She smirked, Cisco had started to nickname her Bombshell after she explained that one of her best talents in the army was as a bomb detonator.

"Nothing. I mean.. I would have blocked it, but you know...hands. I'm so used to touching myself." She cringed, "Sorry that sounded so wrong."

"Well you have your gloves now. So come on throw something at me. Punch.” "I'm okay, really." Bette wiped her pants.

"Oh come on punch me. You've got to get use to touching things again, so try to hit me." Barry insisted.

"It's fine, I'll stick to kicking."

"Bette," Barry whined, exaggeratedly "Punch me. It's not hard. I won't even defend myself. See" he clasped his hands behind his back.

"Even more of a reason not to," Bette protested with the image of his head exploding into a thousand little pieces.

"But I'm use to it. It'll be fine. People punched me lots of times" He grabbed her wrist, and attempted to squash it against his face.

"Then have them do it. I'm not going to," She pulled her hands back. "You can't fight without punching people" Barry chided, shoving her backwards.

"Really? Because I was beating your ass two seconds ago." Bette snorted, dogging another swipe at her. She tried to flip his legs with her own when he grabbed hers midway and threw her over.

"Oh look who's beating your ass now," Barry taunted, as she tried to up kick him again, once more with the same results and again.

"Damn Bette, keep fighting like this and we'll have your butt imprint on the floor." Bette growled in frustration.

He kept knocking her over and circling around her with his damn superspeed until she finally snapped and sent a smooth undercut to his jaw.

He fell to the floor with a thud, Bette bend down to his side,

"Oh my god, Barry I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it so hard!"

"You did it" he cheered with such a happy grin that Bette had to laugh "Great job," He reached for a high five.

"'Another time" Bette glanced wearily at his hand and cracked her knuckles -

Eight weeks later, Barry had taken to what he called Operation Touchy and Bette sincerely wished he would choose a new name.

Ever since the punching incident he felt that she had to get acquainted with physical contact again and every week, after training he would "introduce" her to a new sense of touch. After punching, it had been slapping, after that it had been handshakes. It was sort of ridiculous and unneeded if you asked her but he kept trying.

There was another factor too.

The more time she spent with him, the more she came to admire him. She didn't want to admit it, but she was starting to get a small crush. At first she had tried to convince herself it was a misplaced feeling and that she only was grateful for helping her, no love whatsoever.

Besides he was dating Patti, she was not that kind of girl to ruin someone's relationship. He would be better off with Patti, she was as normal and awkward as he was. They were perfect together.

But then they started to get to know each other. That was one way not to get over someone. He started to tell her about his mother and how he had come to live with the Wests. He talked about his bio-engineer dreams, and school and how he used to get bullied when he was younger.

He also introduced her to some of his favorite shows, and after he found out she had no idea who Dan and Phil where they spent the entire afternoon looking up videos. He would send an occasional but very energetic email, saying "THEY POSTED A NEW ONE? IT'S HILARIOUS GO LOOK? LOL FUNNY!"

She admired his optimism very much, she never met anyone so happy, and it brightened her day to hear him crack a joke in midst pressure. One time he had sent a Dubsmash of him dancing to Gangam Style/Harlem Shake/Whip n Nae Nae and she almost collapsed on the floor, laughing.

She had never seen anything like a grown male attempting whip Gangam style then do the worm and trip over a bowl of popcorn.

Today he "introduced" her to poking. Which she was pretty sure just an excuse for him to annoy her.

Afterwards he invited her to watch Mean Girls at the Lab because Patti was working a night shift.

"Isn't this a chick flick?" Bette asked as he placed a bowl of popcorn on the desktop.

"Well, yeah but it's written by Tina Fey!" She looked at him blankly "And stars Lindsey Lohan" he added like those two names would be an obvious answer to why a PG-13 move from the early 200s would be so awesome.

"Watch and you'll understand," He sat on the rolling chair beside her and accidentally knocked his knee against hers. An act that shouldn't have been so electrifying for her but it was. She blushed and grabbed a handful of popcorn.

Bette felt a little disappointed that he didn't seem to have noticed their knees touching but she hissed at herself, "Patti Patti Patti Patti.” "What was that?" He asked her.

"Nothing" Bette chirped, and blushed again.

Eventually she fell asleep at some part about a Halloween party and she thrashed restlessly. She had been having nightmares ever since she got her powers, usually world-about-to-end-all-thanks-to-her-types but sometimes she had general ones of fallen friends as their body parts were sent flying fifty feet in the air or when they were beheaded and militated by the Taliban.

Currently it was a flashback to being water boarded, over but this time Eiling wasn't letting up. She felt the burn of his bullet going into her chest.

"Wake up!" A disembodied voice called and she woke up. Barry was holding her by the shoulders and shaking her awake. "Are you okay? You were about to fall off your chair."

"Uh yeah, a nightmare. Regular PTSD stuff, ignore me." Bette waved him off and tried to settle herself back into a comfortable position.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked.

"No. I'd rather not, I, Eiling that..um. Death hurts nothing much you can say about that.”

"Right, I get it" Barry nodded sagely. He reached his arms around her and she stiffened, unsure what to do.

"Now this is called hugging" Barry said, soothingly, stroking her hair. She felt her heart flutter a bit as his warm chest rested against hers, with his soft even breathing.

Slowly she put her hands around his back and rested her chin in the crook of his neck. He was so warm and so soft.

But like all things it had to end, and Bette wanted to slow the rapid flutterings in her stomach. "It meant nothing, just friend hugging a friend. He has a lovely girlfriend of his own who deserves him" she thought to herself.

But "I think I like hugging the best so far" she added shyly Barry grinned, "Me too, it's a lot less painful than slapping." ————

She had been about to leave S.T.A.R. Labs after Barry had returned from saving the subway when she spotted him, sitting melancholy on the patient table.

"Hey Barry, are you okay?" She asked him softly He sat silent.

"Did someone die? Do you want to talk about it?" She asked. "Patti," he sighed deeply.

It had been a month since Patti broke up with him, but he still had hurt feelings. She couldn't blame him, he had been over the moon with her but all the secret keeping and lies took a toll. Despite her feelings she hadn't want them to break up because of it. She actually encouraged him to tell her but it all came too late.

"Sometimes I feel like, I won't be enough for anyone. I'm too secretive. My intelligence scares them off. I'm too much like one of the girls. I've always been friend-zoned." Bette frowned, he must not only be talking about Patti,Iris was in this too.

"And then, I always make such lame excuses and jokes." This was more than the break-up, this was his whole self-esteem in the balance.

"Every time I try to find someone, I do but I end up losing them or endangering all the rest of the female population finds me utterly disgusting!"

Bette couldn't stand to see him like this. He resembled a symbol of hope and life to almost everyone in Central City, and although he couldn't save everyone he tried. He cared and he should know this.

"Barry, I want you to listen to me. Although it feels like it. You can't hold all the faults of the relationship on your shoulders. It's a relationship, a bond between TWO people. So for every mistake you made she made one too, it's not entirely one. Furthermore you're an amazing person Barry Allen.

You have more sense of fairness and justice in you than most people have in their pinkie. You want a fair trial, and you always put 110% in what you do. Believe me, people appreciate that. And in terms of people you care about. Barry you are the sweetest being in the universe. You cheer people up, you reason and sympathize with their troubles. What woman wouldn't love that about you. Know what else they would love about you, let's review" she started counting off her fingers.

"Singing voice is angelic, body 12 out of a scale of ten, your intelligence is outstanding and there is nothing cuter than when you start talking about what you love, you put your friends before your self and that's always very admirable, and most importantly you never stop being you. Which is what every girl looks for. That's true honesty."

Barry looked at her, mouth agape. "You're talking about me?" "Of course I am.” And for once, Bette didn't think about her hands or touching or anything else in the world. She only saw him and all the traits she had described. The incredibly smart, geeky man who saved the world on a daily basis. The man who had helped her in the darkest time and always looked at her with a smile.

She pulled his head closer to hers, gently caressing his cheek as she stared into his piercing brown eyes, and kissed him.

She pulled back, looking at his face for his reaction. "Thanks for what you said" Barry said, looking away.

Bette felt her heart dropped down to the floor, he didn't feel the same way, this was so embarrassing. Even if she had been gone for two years she doubted that people suddenly kissed to cheer friends up. She moved to leave.

"Now may introduce you to French kissing?" he asked. Bette turned back to him, and saw his eyes shining. "Yes" She pulled him closer, and fell into a tight, comforting embrace.

[yes-i-am-happyaspie]

Just Sit Down!

I know in the USA that some states are starting to pull back on their self-isolation orders but Please, I’m begging you to listen to the science.

This isn’t over.

We need to continue to flatten the curve.

STAY AT HOME.

__________

Summary: Peter Parker is a man... well, teenager of action. Therefore he and 'social distancing' don't exactly mix and he's about to drive Tony up a wall. The good news is he's able to come up with a plan that will undoubtedly wear his kid out.

Tags:  social distancing, Pandemics, Peter Parker is Going Stir-Crazy, Tony Stark is Being So Patient, Superhero Tag, Raising Morale, Staying Positive, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure... ...

Word Count: 3202

Warnings: None   Rated: G

Link to Post on AO3[2020-3-21]: Just Sit Down-happyaspie

 From the moment the virus, the pandemic, hit the United States, May immediately started talking precautions.  One of which was making sure that Peter was being careful while on his patrols.  No diving into crowds, cleaning his hands regularly and washing his suit after every single use.  Peter complained that she was being overprotective.  Insisting that they had no proof that he could get sick at all but being a nurse, she didn't relent.  They didn't know enough about his immune system to be sure that he couldn't catch this particular virus and even if he couldn't, he could still spread it.  Being cautious was the best course of action.  

Later when things began to spread, the local and national governments decided that social distancing was the best way to slow the progression and prevent the healthcare systems from being overwhelmed.  That meant that events were being canceled, the schools were being closed and businesses were beginning to move towards a 'curb-side pickup model'... it not temporarily closing their doors altogether.  

At that time, May was the first to volunteer to take on extra shifts at the hospital. Especially as some of her co-workers began having to navigate through a sudden need for child care or had fallen ill themselves.  She didn't mind the extra work, it was hard but it was also fulfilling.  The problem was that it didn't take long after the first major influx of patients for the hospital's supply of personal protection equipment to begin to run frighteningly low.  That didn't stop her from pressing forward. She knew she was part of the frontline.  People's lives were in her hands.  That wasn't to say that she wasn't worried.   In order to prevent the possibility of bringing the virus home to Peter, she did the next most responsible thing she could think of.  She sent him to stay with Tony and she knew she was extremely lucky to have that sort of an option for her nephew.  Many families didn't.

Having Peter stay at the tower actually eased most of May's major concerns.   Not only did it reduce the possibility of her passing the virus on to him, should she be directly exposed, it also meant that he would be well fed.  Getting enough supplies to properly feed an enhanced teenager during a time when people were buying in bulk out of fear was difficult.  That wasn't a problem for Tony.  He always had a large supply of everything stocked up at the tower.  It came from housing several heroes, including a super-soldier.  However, she also relieved to know that the man would be available to make sure that Peter didn't try to sneak out as she knew he was itching to do. 

Tony was, as expected, quick to accommodate.  He even made sure to have May's kitchen stocked for her. She tried to refuse but he simply waved her off.  Saying that he'd already made several large donations to various community food pantries and created a few helpful programs of his own to support the at-risk communities.  Supplying her with two weeks' worth of frozen dinners and canned goods that he already had laying around was nothing.   "Besides, you're really helping me out.  The team is sort of spread out across the country, Pepper's stuck overseas for the time being and the penthouse is entirely too quiet.", he said, not really knowing at the time, what exactly he'd signed up for.

~o~o~o~o~o~

By day five of being completely banned from Spidering at both May and Tony's insistence, Peter was starting to go a little bit stir-crazy.  He'd not used his web-shooters or any of his spider-powers during that entire time and he had so much pent up energy that he could feel himself vibrating.  "I need to get out.", he randomly jumped up and announced after having been jittering in place for the past twenty minutes while Tony watched the news.

"No, you don't.  Sit down.", Tony casually stated before flipping the channel to something a little more upbeat. 

"I can't sit down.  There're... things I could be doing out there.", Peter retorted as he began to pace.  

Tony hummed in response.  "Like what?", he asked despite knowing the answer.  He knew the kid was going nuts from sitting around.  A daily jog at the nearby park wasn't enough.  Not when he was having to go at a leisurely human pace.  

"I don't know!  Things!", Peter snapped but felt instantly sorry for having done so.  Taking a deep breath he looked longingly out the window and sighed.   "Stopping crime.  The usual."

"There's nobody out there, kiddo.  ...and the police are already taking precautions to help handle any kind of mass panic.", Tony helpfully supplied but the boy didn't look convinced, instead, he went back to pacing the room and periodically sighing.  

Eventually, Peter paused in front of where his mentor was sitting and began to chew on his thumbnail.  "Maybe I could help buy groceries for the elderly or something.", he suggested because that sounded reasonable.  He could swing around the city and deliver necessities to people who otherwise shouldn't be out.  That would allow him to really move while helping the community. 

"Stark Industries funded an emergency drone delivery service for that very purpose. It's free, highly advertised and my understanding is that it's getting a lot of use.", Tony replied and steeled himself for an argument that never came.  Instead, the kid when back to pacing.  Then, the pacing turned into digging around in the kitchen and before he knew it, the boy was back in front of him.

"We're out of pudding, Mr. Stark.  I should go out and get some.", Peter stated matter-of-factly, shifted his weight as he spoke. 

"Pete... I have enough food to feed me, you, May and a small army for the next three months, you'll be fine for the next two or three weeks.", Tony said in exasperation.  A lack of pudding was not even slightly on his radar.  Lack of coffee might have gotten his attention but he knew better than that.  The coffee he liked was delivered to his door, in bulk, on a monthly basis.  Not to mention the backup supply he kept in the back of the freezer.  "Don't you have some homework you can sit down to do?"

Midtown had turned to digital learning for the duration of the preventative period and posted assignments daily.  Extensive ones.  Yet, Peter had managed to blow through them in record time.  "I finished it already.", he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

Throwing his hand up in mild annoyance, Tony rolled his eyes.  Of course, the kid was done with his homework.  "Well, call Ned or do that Discord gaming thingy that you do.  Just sit down, kid!"

"We did that already today", peter complained as he began to absentmindedly bounce on his toes.  "You can only play so much Minecraft, Mr. Stark."

Tony huffed a laugh.  "Really because it wasn't that long ago you were all, '...but there are bees now, Mr. Stark...', when I asked you put the game down for ten minutes to help me with something in the lab.", he playfully mocked.  He really didn't understand the fascination with the game and this was coming from a man who's entire generation had thrived on clunky plastic cartridges and boxy eight-bit characters.

Crossing his arms in front of him, Peter, sighed and then reluctantly plopped down into a chair only to then relentlessly tap his foot on the hardwood floor.  "I have a short attention span, Mr. Stark.  The bees are no longer of interest.", he proclaimed and then immediately stood up to continue his aimless wandering.

"Do you want to go down to the workshop?", Tony asked next.  Even if they had run out of things to do as far as Spider-suit updates go, there was always an abundance of half-finished projects down there to look at.  He sort of hoped that he could get the kid's brain working and that would, in turn, temporarily cease to the whining.  "We can do whatever you want as long as you stop pacing.  You're going to wear a hole in my carpet.  Sit down!"

"Why can't I go out as Spider-man, Mr. Stark?", Peter pleaded, not really expecting any kind of surprising answer.  He'd already asked that question multiple times over the last few days and the response wasn't likely to have changed. 

"You know why, kid.", Tony warningly returned causing the boy to grunt in frustration and then turn back towards the large windows.  It was as though the sly line was calling his name.  No screaming.  The skyline was screaming his name.

"What if I just swing around for like, an hour and then back.  No direct peopling.", Peter begged, hoping that was enough of a compromise.  While he missed talking to his many neighbors, shaking hands and playing with all the children in the streets but he did understand.  He was just aching to get out.  Like he would suffocate soon if he didn't.

Rolling his eyes, Tony sat up taller in his seat and pointed an accusatory finger towards the pouting teenager.  "Right.  Do you think you can just sit there and lie to me like that?  I've met you and there is zero chance of you going out in that suit and not talking to every single person you come across."

"I promise, Mr. Stark!", Peter nearly shouted but his mentor remained placid.

"Nope.", Tony causally countered but when it looked like the kid might actually start to cry he relented.  Just a little.  It wasn't that he had any real problem with Spider-man going out to swing the afternoon away.  The problem was he didn't trust the teenager behind the mask to not dive right into the middle of the first crowd he spotted.  He required supervision and he supposed that technically he could offer that.   "What if I go with you?", he proposed.

Narrowing his eyes, Peter tried to decide what the man had meant by that.  "Like... as my sidekick?", he asked, feigning confusion. 

"Iron Man is nobody's sidekick, Spider-boy.", Tony impassively asserted. "I'm going as your--"

"--Equal?", Peter pipped up with a wide smile.  He knew that was definitely not what the man was going to say either but he was sure his mentor's reaction would be nothing less than entertaining and he desperately needed some entertainment.    

"That's cute, Pete but no.", Tony said with a smirk.   "I'm going as your Superhero mentor or what have you.", he flippantly declared before turning the television off completely.  Apparently his spider-child required another, more vigorous walk. 

Peter stood by the window and quietly contemplated the offer.  It didn't really take that long for him to decide that the plan, though vague was good enough for him.  If it meant getting to use his web-shooters, that was all he needed to hear.  That didn't make him any less curious about what the man had in mind, though.   "That's cool.  What are we going to do?"

"Oh, I have a few ideas.", Tony said with a grin.

Within the next thirty minutes, the two for them were suited up and on top of the building.  While Peter hopped in place Tony stood there rapidly typing something into his phone.  "What are you doing?", Peter asked as he tried to see over the man's shoulder.  "I thought we were going to actually do something."

For several seconds the man didn't dignify the question but when he did he was smiling triumphantly.  "There we go.  ...Now you can swing around and get your crazies out while doing something nice.", he stated before turning his phone so that Peter could read his latest tweet.  'Bored inside? Spider-man and I are about to hit the skies for some practice.  Enjoy the show from your windows.', it read and tagged several specific locations including the nearby children's hospital.

"That... is a really cool idea, Mr. Stark!", Peter giddily exclaimed.

"It was one of my more genius plans.", Tony said with a flourish of his armored hand.  "Now, let's get going, that's a lot of ground to cover.", he added, engaging his faceplate and then subsequently shooting a mild repulsor beam directly between the kid's feet calling out, "Tag, you're it!", before taking off into the sky.

"Hey!  I wasn't ready, Mr. Stark!", Peter laughed as his mentor hovered tauntingly above him.  Though, before he had the chance to gather his thoughts or shoot a web towards the nearest building the man was swooping back towards him.

"You coming or what, Spider-kid?", Tony said, holding out his hand with the intention of taking another shot but before it could go off, Peter managed to get his wits about him and shot a web towards the man's outstretched hand.  Completely undaunted by his now web covered palm, Tony didn't change his position.  Instead, he raised his face-plate and smiled.  "Nice try, Spiderling.", he calmly replied right before the repulsor went off, burning right through the webs and hitting peter right on the heels as he had already begun to run towards the edge of the rooftop.

They continued to soar through the city, playing their superhero version of tag while people cheered them on from their windows and balconies.  Some of them wearing their hero of choice's colors while others held up signs to show support.  Although, Peter's favorite part of the entire chaotic outing was climbing up the side of the children's hospital and waving to the kids as they sat up in their beds giggling whenever Tony would zap him in the rear.  It was probably the most fun he'd had in a really long time.

By the time they had hit all of the spots that Tony had promised they would appear in, Peter was actually tired.  Not exhausted but comfortably worn out.  So, when the man told him it was time to head back to shower and eat he was more than willing to go.  

"That was really awesome, Mr. Stark.  Like, I can't remember the last time I've ever been able to play with anyone like that.", Peter sighed out as they sat together at the kitchen counter eating dinner. After the spider bite, any and all rowdy antics had come to a rapid halt.  It wasn't like he could wrestle around with Ned.  He had super- strength and didn't want to hurt him.  Yet, it had never crossed his mind that maybe Tony or even Steve would willingly rough-house with him.  Sparring, jogging, team practice, those could be fun sometimes but they weren't the same thing.   

"Yeah?  Well, I'm glad you had a good time, Buddy.", Tony said.  He'd not really considered that end of the exercise.  His goal had been to allow the kid to wear himself out using his spider-powers without putting himself or others at risk.  He'd had no idea that when he'd chosen to turn the whole thing it into a game, that he'd be filling a hole that he never knew existed.  "I think the people watching had a good time too."

Nodding his head, Peter smiled.  He thought about all the families that had come outside to see what the ruckus was about then stood on their balconies laughing and yelling, back and forth towards each other as they watched the action.  He thought about how they were enjoying each other's company without going against any social distancing suggestions and how happy everyone looked while doing so.  "It was sort of cool to see everyone being excited together even though they were still apart.", he mused between bites of spaghetti.

"We gave them something fun to focus on for a little while.", Tony acknowledged.  He'd not expected the impromptu air show to go over quite as well as it had but then again people had been confined to their homes for a while at that point.  No school, no concerts, even the libraries were off-limits.  They'd needed a pick-me-up beyond a computer screen.  An excuse to interact with their neighborhood at a distance.  

"Can we do it again, Mr. Stark?", Peter asked as he began to clear the table.  He wasn't sure exactly how much longer they would have to all be inside but he hoped to have the chance to lift the city's spirits again.   That and the game had been fun.  Laughing, goofing off and scuffling without having to worry about hurting anyone had been amazing.

"At some point.", Tony agreed with a smile.  He could handle that and honestly, he had already decided that after everything had settled, that he would occasionally take the kid out just to play around as they had.  Peter had made it very clear that having someone to horse around with had been something he'd been missing and it had been fun for him too.  It would also come off as good publicity.  Two superheroes working in tandem to brighten the lives of the people around them but mostly the former.  "In the meantime, what do you want to do now?  Lab or movie?"

"Movie.", Peter readily replied as he darted across the room and flipped solidly into the large chair beside the window. "They released some new ones to digital early since the movie theaters are closed.  Like Onward, Frozen Two and most importantly, the newest Star Wars movie."

 "Of course, Star Wars.", Tony replied with a roll of his eyes but settled down on the couch all the same. 

 They sat on the sperate pieces of furniture for the duration of the first movie but by the time they had started into their second, Peter was growing tired.  Eventually, he got up from the chair he'd been curled up in and wandered over to sit directly beside Tony on the couch.  That way he could stretch out a little more. Though as more time passed he found himself leaning more heavily into the man's side and his head resting snuggly on the man's shoulder.

 Looking down at the kid who finally seemed to be more at peace than he had been for the last several days, he smiled.  "You know we're supposed to be practicing social distancing.", teased said while nudging Peter's head with a shrug of his occupied shoulder.  It wasn't that boy had never sat with him like that before or that he really minded, so much as he just wanted to give him a hard time.  It was fun.

 "I live with you.", Peter reason, without bothering to move an inch.  He was comfortable and sitting closely beside someone that you were actively sharing space with was to be expected.

 “You live with your aunt.", Tony counted with a chuckle.  Though he did realize that the kid spent more than a good bit of time living with him as well.  Even before the short term change in his primary residence.  

 Peter looked up and grinned.  "Not right now I don't.", he sing-songed before pulling the blanket off of the back of the couch.

 "Whatever.", Tony returned with a fond roll of his eyes.  "At least your sitting down."

[thebrochtuarachs]

The Making of Outlander: The Series Author Tara Bennett on Why She is Thankful for What Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe Shared

By Paulette Cohn

The countdown to season five of Outlander continues with three months left to go until the Feb. 16 premiere on STARZ. But in the interim, author Tara Bennett has a little something to help the time pass more quickly and provide you with an Outlander fix. It is her new book, The Making of Outlander: The Series: The Official Guide to Seasons Three & Four, which takes a deep dive into the making of the series, and is now available in stores and online.

“We spent a lot of time on the first one trying to frame it with new voices and different ways of telling the stories, or with people that aren’t covered by typical press for the show, and it went over well,” Bennett tells Parade.com in this exclusive interview. “Because of that, we wanted the second book to look and feel similar, as if you were making a collection on your shelf, and so we kept the format, we kept the relative design, and then we looked into spotlights and head-of-department features, so we could change it out, so you didn’t feel like you were learning the same thing but for a different year.”

The Making of Outlander: The Series is a beautifully crafted tome, and what makes it a must-have for fans of both Diana Gabaldon’s novels and for fans of the Starz TV series – as well as a great holiday gift — is the large number of photos, many that have never appeared in print or online stories.

“I did a cross check of everything that was available to the public via press versus what was made available to us for the book,” Bennett says. “We tried to put in as much new stuff as possible, otherwise, why bother buying the book? I literally made a huge Excel spreadsheet of what was given to press, and then what was given to us, and then made sure that we leaned into those things. If there was a beautiful picture that STARZ and Sony gave the regular press, it was still nice to be able to find a way to feature it, so that you could really look at it in a different way than looking at it on your tablet or your laptop.”

Bennett was also able to coax some interesting tidbits that hadn’t been in print before out of series stars Sam Heughan (Jamie Fraser) and Caitriona Balfe (Claire Fraser), like what lengths they went to for season three and four to accurately portray being parents, as neither of them are in real life.

“They both spent a lot of time trying to establish and understand that dynamic and really create that rapport with their costars,” Bennett relates. “Sam has some really great stories about the hesitancy of that, working with the little boy that plays Willie, his son, and creating that rapport. Then several of the actors also talk about watching him with the young actor and how endearing that was. I think that’s just a nice testament to both of them as actors is the level that they go to, to try to create the authenticity with Jamie and Claire.”

You’ve told us what’s the same about this book, what’s different other than the seasons?

We went into a lot more, specifically, about the production design and visual effects, how they worked in tandem, which was a lot more subtle in the first two years. Then in season three and four, you had tall ships that had to be created in visual effects, you had shooting Scotland for the United States, so for a lot of the environment, they would have to use blue screen to create Jocasta’s plantation house in season four. That doesn’t exist in Scotland.

And so, they basically had to do a lot of visual effects to that house, including an entire second floor, and the environment around it to make it look like it was truly in Wilmington. We decided to peel back a layer with that.

We did a lot about the First Nations, basically, the big immersive sets that they created and then really tried to look at some of the new cast, so that we could give them time in the sun. So, it’s people like Ed Speleers, who played Stephen Bonnet, and, of course, giving much bigger spreads to Sophie Skelton (Brianna) and Richard Rankin (Roger), because they’ve been bumped up in terms of presence, especially by season four, so they equal Sam and Caitriona now in terms of the spreads that they get in the book.

To me these are special coffee table books. I keep mine out, so I can flip through it any time.

Yes. That’s nice. That’s why we try to make sure when we play around with the color and the brightness of the pictures that you’re really getting the best possible version of the picture on the page, so that you really get to look at details that your eyes will get a little tired from looking at on a computer.

In the first book, there was a story about Caitriona’s casting, which was something that I didn’t know before I read it there. Do you have stories like that in this book? Is there one you could share?

David Berry, who is Lord John Grey, is a character that the book readers really, really love and that TV fandom has embraced. He’s Australian, and the story that both the casting director and he tell in tandem — she in her section and he in his — is that he was really part of a wide net that they put out for the show, because there’s so many television shows being produced now that even since the first season of Outlander, it’s harder to find actors who aren’t already engaged in something. So, what they used to do was just look in England and Scotland, but now they have put it out to the world when they’re doing a new casting call for a major character.

So, David Berry has a good story about how, in a casting sense, they went to Australia and were really starting to look for Australian actors who are very good, and then about how quickly his turnaround was. He had to deal with playing that character on the fly the entire first season. He’s been intermittent in the show, so his stories have been really fun about trying to get into character, but really not being with the show very much so that’s been a challenge.

How involved were Sam and Caitriona in the second book?

I have to thank them. It’s been a benefit that I’ve been able to cover the show as a reporter and then also be able to do these books. I first started covering Outlander for print and online outlets, and so, they’ve known me. Then when I started doing interviews with them for the book, there was already a recognition factor. The really great thing is that over a span of — now they’re into production for season five, they know me even more.

As it is with all lead actors in a television show that’s over four seasons, it gets harder and harder to get them, because they’re really busy, and when they’re on breaks, they’re doing other projects. But they have always made time to say, “Yes, I’m going to talk with Tara,” and so I’m always super grateful because, at the end of the day, there is no companion book of value without the two of them. Claire and Jamie are the books, and so, I would’ve really been devastated if we hadn’t gotten them. I ended up sitting on the phone with each of them separately.

In some instances, Sam was in a car literally heading to LAX, so a good way to combat traffic is to talk to me. With Caitriona, she was on a break from shooting, and so, we talked when she was doing a little bit of other press for season four and so it ended up being really great.

I always try to approach their interviews, in particular, as they’re covered a lot by mainstream media, so I try to talk a little bit more thematic and about the work that they do to progress the characters from year to year. I think they really appreciate that kind of deeper conversation that they don’t always get when they’ve got 10-minute hits with media outlets. So, that was always my focus and they were always really gracious. I always know that they really get thoughtful and dig deep to think about those moments that mean a lot to them and how they progress the character.

Any conversations about working with Rollo or the horses?

All those animals make noise and create problems and they’re never fun, so they look like they’re happy around them, but John Bell, who plays young Ian, is the only one that really likes Rollo because he was the one that had to, basically, help train him from its youth, so that he would respond to him.

Everybody else had had enough of those animals. There are good stories about how Matt Roberts, who’s the new show runner who took over from Ron Moore, had to go around the globe to find those animals and bring them back. They would basically make a global search for multiple puppies and other animals that would fit what the readers’ expectations were, so it’s not just going to a shelter and yanking an animal, it’s this whole thing that the book explains as well, which was surprising to me.

And this coming season, they had to look for Adso, too.

Adso will be, hopefully, in book five and six if people buy this book.

Did Diana participate at all? I know she’s been busy working on the next novel in the franchise.

For the first book, Diana, obviously, was establishing the transition, and so, she did the foreword. Then she also was a cameo actor and she also wrote episode 211. So, for season three and four, because of her own book deadlines and production timing, she didn’t end up doing an episode for either season three or four, and we wanted to leave her alone. We didn’t really want to bug her unless she really had free time, which she didn’t.

So, we asked the foreword go to Matt Roberts. So, she isn’t present but she’s been super gracious in terms of doing book signings and with approval, saying she appreciated what we did with the companion for the seasons.

But the nice thing is, she announced that she’s going to be doing episode 511. She’s writing that one, so I have a hope that if this book does well, then she will be back in the next tome, which is great.

In addition to photos, there’s sketches of some of the different sets.

We were able to get some sketches from Jon Gary Steele, who is the production designer, and then we were also able to get sketches from Terry Dresbach, who was the costume designer through the middle of season four.

That was something I wanted for the first book, lawyers sometimes don’t always make that easily happen, and so, because we knew we wanted them and could get the request earlier for this book, we were able to get the sketches directly from Terry and from production design to be able to give a flavor of some of the things that they built. So, you get a general idea of mood board things, which are very important for Terry in coming up with the overall ideas of what a character looks like, especially as they progress through the eras.

Then, for Jon Gary Steele, who really uses the facilities of the warehouses in Glasgow to basically repurpose, he’s a fun part of the book. He really explains when you see a new set what it came from, why he created something so that he could easily retrofit it to something for the next year, and there’s always a sense of they are borrowing from last year to use the footprint for what they’re going to need to do for the next year. So, there’s basically a taste of everything that came before and everything that he builds going forward.

[euphoriarps]

❊ ◜ORLANDO.// weather

general //. those who have never made the great pilgrimage to florida often associate the sunshine state with, well, sunshine. they imagine a tropical paradise where they can frolic through disneyworld, contentedly eating a mickey bar and taking wall pictures for the `gram. the reality of the matter is, florida is not the paradise that so many think it to be. and those cute disney instagramers? they thank god for face tune to hide just how fucking awful they feel. the moment you leave the orlando international airport, it feels like chuck norris became the human embodiment of heat and punched you in the face. while there are occasional periods of reasonable temperatures, they are punctuated by a lot of rain and devestating heat and humidity that leaves many a newcomer experiencing this lovely thing called heat stroke. let us dive further into florida's imaginary "seasons." hurricane season //. hurricane season runs from june the first to november the thirtieth. it is during this time that florida's weather is the true embodiment of hell's front porch. on a normal day, temperatures can range anywhere from the high eighties to the low one hundreds with humidity that leaves things feeling like it's twenty degrees hotter than they actually are. those that have keyless start up for their cars are thankful during the summer time, as they can get the a/c in their car going before they get in. for the plebs that do not have those privileges? they have to hachachachacha their way into their car and start the car and get their seatbelt on without burning off all of their skin. and for those of you with leather interiors? you're basically fucked. june and july are certainly hot, but they're not unbearable. morning time is reasonably comfortable, and you can almost certainly guarantee that there will be an afternoon rain storm sometime between the hours of 1PM and 4PM. the period fo time in which it rains varies, it can be anywhere from downpouring for fifteen straight minutes or raining light enough to be an inconvenience for four whole hours. it is a truly floridian thing to place an umbrella into your car, and then to never actually use the umbrella because it rains so frequently that you give up on lugging the umbrella everywhere. during the more dramatic of thunderstorms that occur during the summertime, the thunder can get so intense that it can shake houses and apartment buildings. roads will flood, and everyone will mysteriously decide to turn on their flashers and drive thirty miles over the speed limit on the interstate. because for being a state where it's always raining, nobody actually knows how to properly drive in the rain. most of the tropical storms and hurricanes that form in the atlantic end up affecting florida in some way, shape, or form. in instances of the outer bands brushing up against the state, it'll prompt the usual amount of rain. nothing too shocking or devestating. life will go on as it usually does. if a category 1 to a mid tier category 3 storm threatens to hit the state, floridians will rejoice as work and school are cancelled and go buy out the entirety of the liquor aisle to ride out the storm. "hurricane parties" are a legitimate thing in florida. no exaggeration. for an upper tier category 3 storm to a category 5 storm, floridians will act like it is the appocalypse and will effectively buy thousands of dollars of supplies. for those non native to florida, they typically fall into the "act like it's the appocalypse" category no matter what the level of storm is. they'll barricade themselves in their house or their apartment until after they've done the hurricane thing a few times and then it becomes normal. if you thought the heat before the rain was bad, the heat after the rain is exponentially worse. the humidity increases tenfold and you're not only wet from rain, you're wet from sweat that largely feels you leaving like a drowned rat. the worst of the florida summer is august and september. the heat and humidity can get so bad that it feels like you are venturing outside into soup. the air is thick, and sticky, and forget looking cute because you are guaranteed to have swamp ass two seconds into leaving the air conditioning. influencers and beauty gurus have to pump hundreds of dollars into luxury setting sprays to keep their faces from melting off, and frizzy haired chic may as well become a trend during this time of year. the recommendations for surviving the heat, the rain, the hurricane season? drink water. now drink more water. now drink even more water. find a hurricane buddy, someone that has grown up in florida and can recommend the best brand of tequila to make hurricane margaritas with. keep several changes of clothes and shoes in your car for the inevitable downpour, maybe consider using that umbrella for a change? who am i kidding, we all know it's worth it. and, of course, drink . fucking . water. sfall and swinter //. the end of hurricane season (october and november), and december through february be labeled sfall or swinter ... essentially, slightly less bad summer punctuated by occasional and surprising cold fronts. if the temperature drops below seventy five degrees, that is when you'll see floridians pulling out the knit sweaters, thick hoodies, and the uggs. non-floridians will question what on earth is wrong with them as they are standing their in their t-shirts and flip flops enjoying the fact that they don't feel like death for once. these tiny dips in temperature, however, will typically last all of two to four days before it spikes right back up to being eighty five degrees with humidity making it feel like it's ninety eight again. you see why it's sfall? because it's still summer. late december through february can get a little more brr. temperatures will briefly drop anywhere from the low fifties all the way into the upper twenties depending on the cold front and where it is coming from. the orange groves will threaten to ice over, floridians will descend upon target to purchased puffed jackets to insulate themselves, and the non-floridians will once more question their sanity levels. florida cold should be identified as a wet cold, the humidity having a similar effect to the cold as it does with the heat. it makes it feel colder. factor in the fact that the cold times are also windy with a wet sort of wind chill and it goes highly recommended that you at least wear a light jacket. florida does sometimes have bizarre cold fronts where it'll be thirty eight degrees at 8AM and then by 2PM it is in the mid-eighties. it is always recommended that you plan your "warmer" outfits with layers that can be taken off to reveal layers more suited for the summer. or just carry a change of clothes and shoes in your car. and drink . fucking . water. the pollening //. march begins the season best known as the pollening. the temperatures are finally manageable, ranging anywhere from the high sixties to the low eighties with the bare minimum in humidity. when it is humid, there is typically the presence of a nice breeze to cool you off and keep you from getting too sweaty. so while you're comfortable physically, if you are one of the many to be afflicted by seasonal allergies then your sinuses will be making you miserable. there is only so much that one can do to enjoy the weather when they have a stuffy, runny, crusty nose and watery, itchy, eyes. invest stock in claritin and tissues, my friend, because that pollen is going to fuck you up. the pollening typically spans march through mid to late april. it's gonna be may //. late april through may is the most ideal time to be living in florida. there is some heat and humidity, and there are occasional days of on and off thunderstorms ... but it these times when you need to make the pilgrimage out to cocoa or clearwater for a needed beach day. it's sunny, it's comfortable, there is a breeze, and a distinctive lack of pollen. it's not the best time for theme parks because it's spring break season and everyone from other states are there, but floridians will take advantage of the good weather for barbecues, picnics, and beach days. it does get notably hotter very fast the later you get in may, and the last two weeks of may start that late afternoon rain that you can set your watch by; foreshadowing the june through november misery that is hurricane season. conclusion //. florida, like most places people live, is an acquired taste. there is very little that can be done to warn you about the actuality of the weather. with temperatures that can range anywhere from the hundreds to the high twenties, and a sticky humidity that can make you question all of your life choices ... there is only one thing that can be said about surviving florida: drink . fucking . water.

[haveyouseenthis]

GO生, Stray Kids | Review PART II

Pt. II

“...’God’s Menu’ was born”

Every second of the song captivated me. Every scene in the M/V was intriguing and sucked me in. I never rewatch M/Vs - ever. I’ve never been one to stream it a million times for the view count to go up. No way. My attention span is waay too short for that

“God’s Menu”, though. 

Wow.

I’ve had to have watched it 40 times since it came out, at least. And the thing is, it’s not my STAY self trying to accumulate views for the boys (although they do deserve it). It’s myself watching it just to watch it. It’s so good. I know exactly what scene is coming, the exact part. I know how the music is about to change and who is going to be center in the next shot, but despite this, it still gives me chills every time.

I think there are a couple reasons for that. One obviously being the song itself, but the other being the phenomenal camerawork. The cameramen and editors have always been the unsung heroes of k-pop and M/Vs in general, but they really outdid themselves this go-around. All the transitions were heavenly. You can tell they didn’t just throw them in there for shock value, but truly thought about where they would have the most impact.

The sets are also amazing. Somehow a transition from kitchen to construction site not only works, but is seamless. All the racetrack scenes also fit in perfectly. 

I started to ask myself why these sets worked so well together. What did a master chef’s kitchen, a construction site, and a racetrack have in common? Anything?

Well, maybe more than you think.

All around the world master chefs retreat into their kitchen to experiment with new recipes and cook up ones never seen before. At construction sites blueprints drawn up by architects are used to build amazing towers are intricate buildings. At the racetracks, old stars and rookies are holding onto their fame or making a name for themselves, fighting for the lead on every lap.

Stray Kids are cooking up their hits in the kitchen, laying the foundation for their success with their hardhats on, and then accelerating past all the competition.

As previously stated, “God’s Menu” is their best song, hands down. But every song on the album brings something to the table. Because of this, GO生 might just be their best release yet… 

My Top Five:

神메뉴 (God’s Menu)

Easy

비행기 (Airplane)

청사진 (Blueprint)

일상 (Another Day/Daily Life)

“God’s Menu” was hard-hitting hip hop in a way I haven’t heard or seen before from SKZ. As I’ve already said, it’s easily the best song they’ve released, including B-sides. Every verse is well crafted, the pre-chorus is catchy and serves as the nice mellow tone the song needed for the vocalists to really shine, and the chorus is a masterpiece of simple onamonapia and tangy flavor (see what I did there~) with strong choreography. The song is shockingly short, especially considering it’s a title track. However, it still feels solid. It’s a full course meal in less than three minutes. That’s so impressive, to me at least. I can’t be the only one who feels like the song is much longer than it is because it’s so immersive.

My favorite parts include Changbin’s “Yes, sir and ma’am / welcome” intro,  the first verse, and the second verse. Changbin’s intro sets the tone immediately. The “sir and ma’am” is almost sassy in context. It’s like he’s truly welcoming us into a restaurant, but there is that eerie undertone of “you don’t know what you’re in for”. I love that Han gets to rap the entire first verse. Not only does it make sense because he is a main rapper, but it sounds better than if it has been split between several people as verse 2 had. There is a clear split about halfway through the first verse where they could have switched to another member, but they stayed with Han, and I think that makes the song so much more powerful, especially since it comes at the beginning. Unlike verse one, verse two splits its lines between five different members. And it works perfectly. I wouldn’t have changed anything at all. Felix’s low voice oozes charisma and is the perfect way to pull listeners deeper into the song after the chorus, and Seungmin and I.N.’s cocky, drawing sound pairs perfectly with that. Chan’s voice and attitude fits wonderfully for his “자물쇠 따 싹 다 unlock / Idea bank 머릿속을 털어 털어” (“All the locks unlock / Idea bank, empty your head, empty it”) part. It’s also a fitting part for him as the main producer of the group. Hyunjin is the perfect person to wrap up the verse. His demanding attitude paired with his visuals as he says “비밀재료가 궁금하다면 / 사실 우린 그딴 거 안 써” (“Wonder what’s our secret ingredient / We don’t use such a thing”) deliver the line in a way no one else in the group could.

And, can we talk about that line for a minute, T? What a statement. It’s on the same flex level as “Daechwita”. “Oh, how are we so good? What’s our secret? How are we cutting corners to get here? We aren’t.”

I also really like that “Go Live,” “God’s Menu,” and “Easy,” feel like a trilogy. It’s a nice way to start the album because it gets the listener immersed immediately.

To have“Easy” follow “God’s Menu” is maybe the best decision made on this tracklist. Still just as proud and cocky as its predecessor, “Easy” talks about how Stray Kid’s don’t just turn the tables or meet expectations, they flip the table over and exceed the expectations - all with ease. 

My favorite part in “Easy” is the bridge, and I’ve found a few different translations of it:

Zaty Farhani’s “Easy” lyric video translates the bridge as “Showing off is all for show, what are you doing getting all scared? / The brave ugly-duckling turns the table / Let’s raise the stakes as you’ve wished / or do it my way”

Color Coded Lyrics’s (CCL) blog translates it as: “What’s the point of being braggy / When you’re just eating up your fear / A loser with courage will turn the tables around / Let’s make it to the next round, as you want / Or I’ll mess around with my own way”

Genius Lyrics translates the part as: “Your words are just bragging / What are you doing while being all coward? / A brave loser has overtook everything / Let's make this game even more big as you wanted / Or just screw it and do it my way”

All of them amount to about the same thing: “You have to show off and brag to prove your worth and rise to the top but we don’t. We know where we came from, and we know what we are, but we will go farther because of this. We’ll take over the world our way,”.

“비행기 (Airplane)” ends the “Go-God’s-Easy” trilogy with it’s lighter hip-hop sound. It’s a love song. The narrator speaks of taking an airplane to a vacation spot with his girlfriend as a metaphor for the two of them traveling to their own world where they can be happy together. What really draws me to this song is its style and sound. The track reminds me a little of “Mixtape : Gone Days”,  with it’s lighter feel. It’s a nice example of a lighthearted love song. I don’t have as much to say about this one, I just really like it. There isn’t any deep meaning in the lyrics for me to dive into (unless you’re into speculating the composer's relationship status. Bang Chan and Changbin wrote “Airplane” in collaboration with others so it’s possible the lyrics came from them or one of the other three composers. Maybe all of them are just good enough at imagining situations to write things like this. We’ll never know.)

“청사진 (Blueprint)” comes in 4th for me, but really 3rd-5th place may as well be equal. The three songs have the same energy to me, especially “Blueprint” and “Airplane”. I like “Blueprint” for its folk-inspired pop sound. It reminds me of AKMU, which I’m sure T digs. It’s not SKZ’s usual sound, but they sing it well and have made it their own. I smile every time it comes on. The lyrics have a wonderful message about overcoming and accomplishing your dreams despite the odds and the people out to get you. Very sweet, and the message reminds me of that of many of their old songs.

“일상 (Another Day/Daily Life)” is the closest thing to a ballad we’ve gotten from the boys.

The beginning count reminds me of NCT 127’s “Boom” and the overall sound reminds me of NCT Dream’s “Puzzle Piece”.

While the first time I listened to it I could easily tell it was a sad and mournful song about something, I wasn’t expecting to tear up while reading the lyrics on my 3rd listen.

It hurts so much. It’s so beautiful. The song tells the story of the narrator (Han wrote it, it’s absolutely about him and his anxiety) as he reflects on himself and his situation, wondering if he’s the only one feeling the way he is, wondering if he is the only one putting on an act every day, and wondering if it’s evening convincing.

But I guess that painfully beautiful tune fits with the message. The notes are so sweet they make you want to cry. And that’s how it feels to go through what the narrator is dealing with. Everything you’re doing looks beautiful. You seem perfect, but if anyone really takes time to listen, they will hear your hurt.

He was a young teenager and was forced to deal with so many pressures (“I’m still so young, but I have so many worries”/”So much worries for such a young child”) during training, and then debut.

After that line, we get to the hard truth of the industry. Of course companies care about their idols, but only to a point. After that, it’s “Just do what you're supposed to be doing well” and “Just do your job properly”. In other words, “Okay, great, you’re going through something. Get over it.”.

CCL translation: “When I pushed my way into this dark room / Did anybody bother to look back at me? / I barely managed to make it through this hard day / How many times did I smile, and were they genuine smiles? // I find the way I’m trapped in my thoughts funny / I’m still so young, but I have so many worries / Just do what you’re supposed to be doing well / Nobody knows anything about how empty my heart feels / And I hate how / All they know how to do is laugh it off”

Genius translation: “The day I forced my way into the dark room / Would at least one person have turned to look at me / Me, who barely lived through another day / How many times have I laughed, but were those sincere? // Myself deep in thought looks funny / So much worries for such a young child / Just do your job properly / Without knowing about my empty heart / Just laughing over it, I don't like that”

I think it’s fitting that the only parts Han gets opens and close the song. It just draws more attention to the fact that it’s his story. He’s opening the door for him and others to talk about their feelings, and once they’ve covered it all, he closes it back up. 

I don’t have too many complaints about this album. A couple, maybe.

One would be that  “TOP”, “SLUMP”, “Mixtape : Gone Days”, and “Mixtape : On Track/바보라도 알아” were released separate from this album, so they stick out from the other 10 tracks. I’m glad they were all grouped together at the end and not sporadically placed between songs like “Easy” and “Pacemaker”. 

“Gone Days” sticks out the most because of its playful hip-hoppy sound that is reminiscent of previous tracks such as “Awkward Silence” and “Get Cool”. I’m not particularly fond of the fact that it is the only one that sounds as it does, but I suppose it is just the same thing they did with “Get Cool” and “Awkward Silence”’s respective mini albums. Both songs were the only ones of their kind on their albums and feel a little out of place. I think I was able to get accustomed to it quicker as being on mini albums there was a smaller tracklist, therefore drastic tone changes between songs weren’t as novel. 

Go Live’s sound alternates (mainly) between two different styles. There are louder, harder hip-hop songs like “God’s Menu” “TA” and “Pacemaker”, and then we have what I’ve dubbed “The Quiet Trilogy” with “Airplane”, “Another Day”, and “Blueprint”. Songs like “Phobia” and “Haven” seen to sit solidly in between the two styles.

But “Gone Days” and “On Track” don’t sound like anything else on this tracklist. “Gone Days” has an over-saturated upbeat take on hip-hop, and “On Track” has a ballad inspired sound (honestly it vaguely reminds me of OSTs for dramas…) to it. This makes the transition from beginning of album to end shocking, and I’m not overly fond of that.

My other issue is that the rest of the track-list simply pales in comparison to its title track. “God’s Menu” was so powerful, so overwhelming for me that it made the rest of the album underwhelming.

Maybe that’s a compliment, actually? At least as far as “God’s” is concerned. I don’t know…

I think I’ll get used to it after a few more listens. (Future Kasin: I did and I love it <3)

One thing is for sure: if they master making every song deliver the same punch as “God’s Menu”, I’ll be done for.

I can’t wait to see what they do next.

Go Live on Spotify

Links PT II:

神메뉴 (God’s Menu) Lyrics (Han/Rom/Eng)

“Easy” lyric video

Color Coded Lyrics Stray Kids Discography

Color Coded Lyrics Stray Kids “Easy”

Genius Lyrics Stray Kids “Easy” English translation

Color Coded Lyrics Stray Kids “비행기 (Airplane)”

Genius Lyrics Stray Kids “비행기 (Airplane)”

Color Coded Lyrics “청사진 (Blueprint)” 

Genius Lyrics “청사진 (Blueprint)”

NCT 127 Boom

NCT Dream Puzzle Piece

Color Coded Lyrics “일상 (Another Day/Daily Life)”

Part I

[sueniia]

He pulled into his restaurant parking sooner than expected and after parking the car, walked around to the back entrance of the restaurant and entered inside.

Sanji’s restaurant served as a cafe during the morning, a restaurant at lunch, and occasionally as a bar. The interior was designed in deep red colors that spanned the entire wall area from the front entrance around the areas designated for the customers to sit, the display cases for their pastries, and the area for the register.

The bar was located upstairs but it was only opened on the weekends but never on Sunday, as that was the store’s general day’s off. Sanji always arrived first and took care of the morning’s shift food and today was no different.

Sanji arrived and soon after entering and turning on the light, he went to change and remove any non-essential clothing in case it were to get dirty or worse. He left them in his changing room locker and went to begin cooking the day’s pastries.

An hour or so after his arrival, Sanji was called up by one of his waitresses and he ignored it and washed off the bits of dough stuck to his skin before exiting the kitchen and heading to the front door to unlock it and let her in.

Sanji, when he’d hired his staff, had told them in case of the keys being misplaced or something happening to either them or the store he was going to always arrive first and they were to call him to inform them when they were outside for him to let them in. Sanji knew it was a weird request and he could just unlock the door when he arrived so he didn’t have to go through the process of walking to the door and unlocking it each time, but it was what he preferred as it provided an albeit peculiar, sense of comfort.

He moved aside and let her walk in and closed the door behind her before greeting her cheerfully.  “Good morning, Rebecca!”

Rebecca began removing her bag and her outer coat and taking it to the changing room but not before replying to Sanji’s enthusiastic greeting. “Good morning to you too, Sanji-san!”

“Ah~” Sanji swooned and pretended to faint. “You look wonderful today as well, Rebecca!”

Rebecca put away her things and changed into the black and pale pink colored top designated for work before returning outside to the eating hall. She giggled at Sanji’s comment and said, “Thank you, Sanji-san.”

“Has no one else arrived yet?” Rebecca adds and Sanji shakes his head. “Not yet. You’re the first one here.”

Rebecca glances at the dark brown watch latched onto her wrist and nods. “Well, I am a bit early today. I’ll begin cleaning the tables downstairs first. Is there anything you need me to help you with?”

Sanji shook his head again. “No, I’m good on my own. Thank you for asking.” He begins heading back to the kitchen and adds, “I’m hoping you’ll open for the other when they arrive.”

Rebecca flashes a smile and Sanji swoons again. “No problem, Sanji! Get back in there! It’s going to be time for us to open soon.”

Sanji laughs and goes back inside the kitchen and continuing with the pastries. Eventually, he hears the bell fixed on the top of the entrance door ring once while he was doing the finishing touches on a cake.

The second ring follows soon after the first and Sanji assumes it was half of his morning shift staff. His assumptions are confirmed when he hears the clicking sound of Shirahoshi’s shoes on the tiles. She pops her head in the kitchen and sends him a quick greeting which he returns with almost as much flare as he did for Rebecca.

Caimie, his last waitress does the same and is rewarded with the same reaction. Sanji’s shower of praise and adoration is interrupted by Rebecca calling out for the two women and is closely followed by a threat from Rebecca for him to finish his work soon or they were going to be late.

Sanji took all the pastries he’d made and neatly arranged them in the display case. He made sure they had enough drinks and materials for the customers that would order a drink before giving Rebecca the okay signal and watching as she flipped the “close” sign outside to “open.”

LINE BREAK

Their morning rush was surprisingly more manageable than they all thought and they soon found themselves either resting on one of the empty chairs whilst waiting for either a customer or busy cleaning the bottom half of the restaurant for the umpteenth time.

The bell rang again but when Sanji looked up to see, he found out it was just his second cook arriving in time for work.

Sanji had hired several waiters and waitresses because he knew to manage the register, serving people, and making the food, although not impossible, would be tricky for him to do. So, he hired an extra chef to handle the lunch rush and sometimes the night one as well. It worked out well for him because he found a capable cook which meant he could relax and take a couple of minutes to himself.

“Hey guys,” Hatchan greeted when he entered, and like Rebecca, went inside to change out of his normal clothes. “Business is slow again?”

Shirahoshi nodded and lifted her head from where it rested against her palms on one of the empty tables. “The morning rush is getting slower and slower every day.”

Rebecca added, “I mean I’m happy I don’t have to deal with some annoying customers, but when it’s this slow, I would honestly prefer every annoying customer.”

Hatchan laughed. “Then, move your shift over to lunch. There’s more than enough annoying customers at that time.”

Rebecca and Shirahoshi simultaneously shook their heads. “No, thank you. I’ve seen how haggard Coby and Helmeppo look after.”

Sanji greeted Hatchan with a head nod and moved aside for the older man to begin cooking. He went back to the changing room and dug around in his coat before pulling out a small white box, barely past the length of his wrist to where his fingers ended, his phone and a gold and white lighter.

Sanji passed by the front again and interrupted their mini argument over which rush, morning or lunch, was worse to deal with. “I’m gonna be outside for a bit.” Sanji lifted the box up and tapped it with his finger once before heading outside and closing the door behind him.

LINE BREAK

Sanji’s life had been exciting, or extremely busy depending on how you looked at it. As a child, he had a dream to run his own place and make his own food for whoever wanted to eat, and as he grew up and became a teenager, he enrolled in his first-ever cooking school and spent four years, studying and learning, from some of the best cooks in their country.

When he graduated with flying colors, Sanji seeked tutelage. He had learned a lot being in the school but he doubted all he learned in class would be quite the same as being in a restaurant. He searched for someone capable, someone he would grow to admire and respect, someone that would help him further his skills, and fortunately enough, he was lucky to find someone he considered the best.

Throughout his life, post-graduation, Sanji spent it working under that man and although Sanji still considered his methods barbaric and boorish, he had enough pride to admit that he did learn something. That the five years, he spent there was the backbone holding his own restaurant in place and keeping it afloat.

Sanji pulled out one cigarette from the white pack and flicked open his lighter, and lighting his cigarette. Sanji took a deep drag from it and held it inside, letting the smoke swirl with his insides and nestle deeply inside his lungs before exhaling slowly and blowing it out.

Sanji repeated the action four more times, and each time a bit more of his cigarette burned closer and closer to where his slim, bony fingers rested. Sanji was about to take another drag when he felt a low vibration in his back pocket.

Someone was calling him.

Sanji took his phone out and almost immediately, his face contorted when he read the name at the Caller ID. Sanji sneered at his phone and considered letting it ring until the phone call ended automatically but knew that wasn’t ever going to be enough to stop his insufferable elder siblings.

“What?” Sanji asked, his tone highly acidic and abrasive.

A harsh and cruel laugh sounded in his ears. “Is that how you greet your brother now, Sanji? I’m hurt.” His brother finished with a mock gasp of pain.

Sanji rolled his eyes but didn’t let up. “You are no brother of mine, Niji. What do you want?”

Niji simply laughed again and said, “Those are our words, dear brother. A failure like you simply cannot be one of us.”

Sanji grits his teeth and dug into the filter part of the cigarette. His grip on the phone tightened to the point Sanji wondered if it was possible to break a phone with his bare hands because right now, it felt like he could.

“What. Do. You. Want?” Sanji spat out each accentuated word and was punished with another sound of Niji laughing.

“You’re so tense, little brother.” Niji mocked. “It’s not like I want to talk to you either, you know. But because our father is becoming old and disgustingly sentimental, he wants to see you.”

Sanji scoffed and threw down the cigarette and stomped on it, the tip of his shoes digging into the earth. “He’s never wanted to see me for the past twelve years, what does he want from me now?”

“Ooh!” Niji made a sound and said, “You spent all that time counting if Daddy was ever going to come and get you back, Sanji?”

Sanji growled angrily and barked out. “If you don’t tell me what the fuck you want, Niji, I will hang up on you.”

Niji whistled and laughed again. “Okay, okay. No need to get your panties in a twist.” His voice became serious. “Dad wants you home for the Christmas holidays.”

Sanji scoffed again and shook his head. The outright audacity of his family, if he could even call them that, never ceased to astound him.

“No fucking way am I returning back to you and that man.”

Niji laughed again but it was filled with scorn and hate. “It’s not up to you, Sanji. He wants to see you, so you better be here before Christmas.”

“Listen to me very well, Niji, and make sure you tell this to that man as well. There is no fucking way I am going to come back there. You can all go and fuck yourselves.” Sanji hanged up after saying that and made sure to block that number.

His nerves were agitated after nearly a minute spent talking to one of his elder siblings and Sanji pulled out two more cigarettes and smoked them down to the end.

Sanji takes a bit longer to cool off before heading back inside and returning his phone, cigarette box and lighter into his coat. He exits the room only to bump into Shirahoshi.

“I’m sorry about that, I wasn’t looking where I was going,” Sanji said but it lacked the usual enthusiasm and vigor. “Are you alright?”

Shirahoshi nodded and waved off Sanji’s concern, “I’m fine. I was just a little bit dazed.”

Sanji offers a smile but even Shirahoshi can see it’s forced and weak. He turns, about to walk past her and back to the kitchen when she grabs his arm and halts him from leaving.

Sanji turns to her and looks at her expectantly and Shirahoshi flusters and lets go of Sanji’s arm, crossing her own behind her back as she hurriedly spits out a lame excuse.

“Uh…I was talking to Rebecca and Caimie,” Shirahoshi began, “And since Christmas is in two weeks, we were talking about our Christmas plans and…”

Sanji tensed at the mention of Christmas but kept his face blank and neutral.

Shirahoshi, “I wanted to ask if you had any plans for Christmas, this year. Last year you stayed here by yourself, so I wanted to know if you had planned anything  this year or not.”

Sanji could tell Shirahoshi’s question came from a good place and he did appreciate her worries for him although he felt bad for making a woman, especially a young woman like Shirahoshi worry about him, he couldn’t really tell her the truth about his family and why he was so adamant when it came to this specific holiday.

Sanji smiled at her again and did his best to make it look natural. “Unfortunately, I’ll be staying home this Christmas, Shirahoshi. Thank you for worrying about me though,” Sanji rested a hand on Shirahoshi’s shoulder, “I appreciate it.”

Sanji walked past Shirahoshi and went back to the kitchen and wholly immersed himself into making food in the desperate hope that the scathing words that were already etched into his skull from his elder brother would dissipate if he ignored it hard enough.

LINE BREAK

The next day, fortunately, was a Saturday, which meant Sanji only had to work for half a day and it was at night. Sanji groaned and turned over in bed, burying his head deeper into the pillow. He was about to fall asleep when he felt a vibration to his left and soon a ringing sound filled the room.

In his sleep-dazed state, Sanji groaned again and reached out for the noisy device. He felt his fingers around the small rectangular shape and grabbed it, his fingers automatically sliding the green caller icon to the right and answering the call.

Sanji slapped the phone onto his ear and made a weak sound into it that he assumed sounded like “What?”.

Sanji expected several different people that weren’t his sister to be calling him so when his sister’s stern yet kind voice filtered through to his ears, he immediately shot upright and grasped his phone in hand.

Sanji pulled the device away and looked at the ID and it was, in fact, his elder sister calling him at 7 in the morning. Sanji returned the phone to his ear and hesitantly responded, “Reiju…?”

Reiju scoffed and said, “Do you know anyone else called Reiju, Sanji?”

Sanji shook his head then remembered she couldn’t see him. “No, it’s not that. It’s just you almost never call me. Is something wrong?”

“I don’t call you because you’re never there to pick up my calls!” Reiju bit back and Sanji winced. She was right.

“I’m sorry…” Sanji replied meekly and he heard Reiju huff into the speaker. “But you didn’t answer my question. Is something wrong?”

Reiju paused for a moment before exhaling heavily. If Sanji wasn’t sure about there being a problem before, that sigh definitely confirmed it.

“Are you really not going to come this time as well?” Reiju asked, her voice uncharacteristically small and timid. 

Sanji hesitates and runs a hand through his messy morning hair. “I...don’t know, Reiju... I don’t want to be anywhere near that man, not after what he did.”

Reiju sighed. “I know, Sanji and I don’t want to be there either. But you know how bad he can be if you don’t come. I told you what happened last time.”

Sanji, “I honestly think the little tantrum was worth it. I can’t stand to be there knowing how much sick pleasure he gets from seeing me angry.”

Reiju, “It wasn’t just a tantrum, Sanji! Tantrums are what Yonji does! What he did was attack everyone that came within a meter distance of him!”

“He’s done worse and we both know it, Reiju.” Sanji countered.

Reiju huffed again and Sanji could see her running a hand through her hair frustratedly. “Anyway, will you come? Please? Don’t leave me here alone with them again, Sanji.”

Sanji faltered. He absolutely did not want to step a foot in that building his siblings called home, nor did he want to see that man he was supposed to call his father but he couldn’t stand to leave Reiju alone. He already felt guilty for doing it to her last year, doing it once more would be an asshole move even if it meant seeing his siblings and birth father in the flesh.

He sighed and said, “Okay. I’ll come.”

Reiju’s tone immediately became vibrant and happy. “Really? Thank you, Sanji!”

“Yeah, yeah.” He waved off his sister’s comments but a smile pulled on his lips. “But don’t tell the others I’m coming yet. I need to sort things out here first.”

Reiju agreed and after a few more words the call ended and Sanji sat there in silence. He looked down at his phone and cursed himself. He had just willingly doomed himself to almost a week in his elder siblings and father's presence. Reiju was a blessing and would definitely help to ease some of the animosity flying between them but Sanji couldn’t count on her to be there always. He considered getting Ace or Brook to come along but he knew they both had to already have plans for Christmas.

Sanji groaned and fell back onto the mattress. He covered his face with the bedsheets and blanket and tried to fall asleep. After all, he still had two weeks to try and come up with a solution. For now, he was going to sleep and internally wish he woke up when it was the new year already.

[queenmorgawse]

bang bang, there goes your heart

here’s some modern / espionage au sangcheng as a somewhat belated birthday gift for @hua-lian !! once again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JY, ilysm and i hope you enjoy this. <3 ( read on ao3 + end notes )

For the eighteenth time in the span of twenty-four hours, Jiang Cheng asks himself how the hell he ended up here — stuffed in a janitor’s closet, with his heart racing in his chest and about two inches of breathing room between his face and Nie Huaisang’s.

It begins, as all disastrous stories do, with a dare from Jiang Cheng’s idiotic brother.

“You wouldn’t have the guts.”

“Like hell I wouldn’t.”

In retrospect, it really is laughably easy to get Jiang Cheng to do anything, especially when your name is Wei Wuxian and even a slight smirk from you can be enough to send him spiraling downward into an ocean of spite. It’s like they’re eight, not twenty-eight.

The mission isn’t even anything complicated. Get in, socialize, wheedle the right information out of the right people, plant a few cameras and microphones here and there, get out. ( Wei Wuxian is not actually dumb enough to suggest they pull this kind of stunt during an assignment that requires their full focus, much as Jiang Cheng hates to admit it. )

“You’ve got to go together anyway, don’t you?” His brother flutters his lashes at him, and any charitable thought towards him Jiang Cheng might have entertained immediately vanishes from his head. “Why not as a couple?”

“What am I getting out of it?” Jiang Cheng grits out. After twenty years of knowing each other, he’s learned to exploit an opportunity when he can.

“If you do it, Lan Zhan and I will do it next time we have to be undercover together,” Wei Wuxian declares, and Jiang Cheng snorts.

“With you? Like he’d let you.” If he’s being honest with himself, he’ll admit that one was mostly to get a rise out of the other. Lan Wangji will definitely let him pass as his fake boyfriend, fiancé, husband, whatever he asks of him, a fact obvious to all but the interested party.

Whatever. It’s not the point. If they go, Wei Wuxian might finally clue in on Lan Wangji’s feelings, and then Jiang Cheng will (hopefully) be free of his oblivious pining. What’s one evening of pretending against that?

“Fine!” he snaps, and Wei Wuxian’s face lights up. “I’ll do it, but only if Nie Huaisang agrees.”

“I doubt he wouldn’t,” the other retorts, intently checking out his own nails. “You’ve got to change your personality for this thing, which is clearly your most disagreeable trait, so once that’s done, anyone would jump on the chance of going on a not-date with you.”

Jiang Cheng launches himself across the desk at him.

-

The evening even started out well. No one even glanced twice at their forged invitations, the appetizers weren’t half bad, and Nie Huaisang clearly charmed at least one of the targets they were supposed to. Everything goes exactly according to plan, until Jiang Cheng spots an unfortunately familiar set of faces across the room and swears under his breath.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he says with the most convincing smile he can, crossing the room and tugging at Nie Huaisang’s elbow. “Darling,” the pet name leaves a strange taste on his mouth, though not an unpleasant one, “can we walk out for a minute? Family emergency.”

The lady across from them makes sympathetic noises and waves away Nie Huaisang’s apologies. Jiang Cheng watches him deliver a few more carefully chosen lines about how sorry he is and how he’ll be delighted to bask in the light of her company again when their business is taken care of before he lets himself be led away.

“What is it?” Huaisang asks the moment they’re out of earshot.

Jiang Cheng jerks his chin towards the entrance, where a commotion is visibly kicking up some metaphorical dust. “Wen Chao, some new girl of his and Wen Zhuliu just got here.”

Nie Huaisang’s eyes widen. “What? Qishan didn’t notify us.”

“When do they ever tell us anything important?”

“...Good point. What do we do?”

Jiang Cheng only hesitates for a fraction of a second. “Lie low, tell the boss so they can take it up with Qishan themselves, and follow what they’re doing on the cameras we already placed. Wen Chao won’t give a shit about the Five’s agreement, he’ll definitely be an asshole and expose us if he recognizes us.”

He doesn’t voice the more pessimistic possibility : that this is indeed something none of the other four central offices know of, and Qishan Wen has its own agenda in sending its own agents here without warning them. It could be nothing, just Wen Ruohan’s usual pride in assuming he doesn’t have to notify anyone else of his will if he doesn’t want to, or - knowing the Wen patriarch - it could be suspicious.

It’s not Jiang Cheng’s place to decide. The best he can do is not compromise their mission, report to the higher-ups, and comply with what they’ll do.

“I hate them so much,” Nie Huaisang sighs, and though his tone is merely annoyed, Jiang Cheng is reminded of Nie Mingjue’s usual fits of rage whenever Qishan’s central office is involved.  

“Ditto,” Jiang Cheng echoes. They exchange an exasperated look, several years’ worth of disagreement flashing through their heads, before Jiang Cheng sighs and offers Nie Huaisang his arm again. Together, they sweep out of the ballroom unseen.

-

For such a majestic place, the museum certainly lacks spacious, empty rooms. Oh, Jiang Cheng does not doubt that there are offices aplenty in parts of the building that aren’t accessible to the public, with locks that would be laughably easy to pick, but the only cameras they’ve managed to place so far have a ridiculously small range. Which leads them here, now ⎯ crammed together in a closet, with the light of Jiang Cheng’s phone between them and not much room for anything else.

He’s uncomfortably aware of Nie Huaisang’s presence, from his quiet breathing to the flowery smell of his cologne. When he tries to move, they knock together once again, an awkward tangle of limbs in the dark.

Nie Huaisang takes a sharp breath.

“That is indeed a gun in my pocket,” Jiang Cheng hisses before he can add anything.

He must have gotten it right, as in the glare of his screen, the other’s mischievous look turns into one of disappointment. “Jiang-xiong, if you ruin my jokes before I even get the chance to tell them, what am I to do?”

“Get a better sense of humor,” he snaps back, ignoring the flush creeping up his neck at the way Nie Huaisang’s lashes cast delicate shadows on his cheeks.

“How rude.” Jiang Cheng can feel him tilting forward. Deliberately closer, he tells himself. He’s just teasing you. Still, it’s hard to keep his thoughts in order when Nie Huaisang quite literally leans on his chest, his face now just a breath away from Jiang Cheng’s. “Don’t I even get an apology?”

Maybe it’s because of his nerves. Maybe tension has been running through him like electricity through a wire for the past hour, and something had to take the edge off. Or maybe it’s the warm weight of the arm Nie Huaisang has slung around his neck, his general proximity, and the fact that Jiang Cheng has kissed him once at a drunken college party and lived from that point onwards with the knowledge that perhaps, just perhaps, he wanted to do it again.

Regardless of the reasons why, here is what happens : Jiang Cheng tilts Nie Huaisang’s chin up and presses his mouth against his.

Nie Huaisang makes a little surprised noise and goes boneless in his arms. It only lasts an instant ⎯ before Jiang Cheng can overthink his decision and jerk away, Huaisang is the one grabbing him by the collar and bringing their lips together again. They crash against the back wall of the closet, Jiang Cheng’s arm coming up around the other man’s waist to brace the fall.

“Jiang Cheng,” Nie Huaisang breathes, like he’s discovering it for the first time. Jiang Cheng finds he likes the way it sounds on his tongue, soft and breathy, like something to be held dear rather than carelessly thrown around.

He should say something. Explain. Ask him, is that alright?, even though it must be, given the enthusiasm with which Nie Huaisang reciprocated, tell him he’s been thinking about this an embarrassing lot. But Jiang Cheng has never been good at juggling with words, especially when they matter as much as they do now, so instead, he runs his fingers through the loose strands escaping from Nie Huaisang’s bun and kisses him again.

He loses track of time ⎯ the only thing that matters then is the warm touch of Nie Huaisang’s lips on his jaw, on his neck. He makes a sound he would be way too embarrassed to let anyone here in different circumstances, but Huaisang doesn’t point it out, only seems to take it as encouragement.

Then Jiang Cheng’s earpiece, so far carefully tucked under his hair, crackles, and both of them are brutally jerked back to reality.

“A-Cheng?” Jiang Yanli’s voice on the other end of the line instantly sobers him up. “Are you alright? We reached Qishan’s office and demanded an explanation, they should be removing their agents now.”

Next to him, Nie Huaisang has also recovered, as straight-faced as someone who was not making out in a random closet just a few seconds ago. He swipes Jiang Cheng’s phone out of his hand and flips through the cameras before nodding his assent. “Gone,” he confirms. “Or at least I can’t see them anymore.”

“Good. Do they know we were there?”

Jiang Yanli chuckles. “Not your names, no. I wish I was there to watch them try to figure out which of the guests were Lotus agents.” She pauses before her voice turns serious again. “Coast’s clear. Go do what you have to do. I sent Nie Huaisang some convenient excuses in case you need to explain what took you so long.

“Thank you, A-jie,” Jiang Cheng says, just as Nie Huaisang echoes with thank you, miss Jiang.

“Good luck, you two.” He can almost feel the smile in her voice before the earpiece goes silent again.

The atmosphere is awkward as they step out of the closet into a mercifully deserted corridor and fix up their clothes. Jiang Cheng’s collar is somewhat rumpled, and he knows without looking his hair must be a mess.

He catches Nie Huaisang looking at him, an amused glint in his golden eyes. “What?”

“You’ve got lipstick on your neck,” Huaisang says dismissively. “Better clean that up quickly.” He taps a finger against his lips (now somewhat smudged themselves), then seems to take pity on Jiang Cheng and pulls a packet of wet wipes out of seemingly nowhere.

“Thanks,” he mutters. The first wipe comes out stained with a dark shade of red.

If he’s blushing, and Nie Huaisang is watching, he might as well end himself here and now.

“We are not talking about this,” is what Jiang Cheng finally settles on. He pairs it with a withering glare, for good measure.

“No, we’re not,” Nie Huaisang agrees, then winks. “Not before I take you out for dinner for real.”

Not for the first time tonight, and - he has a feeling - probably not for the last, Jiang Cheng is left speechless.

[crqstalite]

pt. 1, unforseen (felix && naji)

this turned out so much worse than i wanted it to.

i was actually kind of worried to write this chapter because while i did have the headcanon that force-sensitives could sense their children’s presences even before they were born, but by the time i wrote this chapter i was so absolutely done with trying to characterize the crew right that i just gave up. ;-;

also like?? there are no felix fanfictions anywhere n im so disappointed. even compared to like, torian, felix has like, none. so i guess i gotta write em’ all lol.

enjoy if you can. it does get pretty depressing near the end though :/

written: 7.28.19. word count: 2,686

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

character song: imagine, ariana grande

character file: naji iresso, barsen'thor, felix iresso, lieutenant

-

there’s another presence on the ship.

she feels it washing over her, whether she’s meditating or relaxing alone in her quarters. it’s there, it’s warm and beautiful. it’s much like felix’s, like the sunshine on voss, with a bit of a cooler tinge. but it wraps over her like a blanket or a hug, which is comforting in the dark nights aboard the defender.

while it is wonderful, naji is beginning to think there’s an intruder on the ship who’s really, really good at hide and seek. naji has hunted every single corner of the ship, even getting her husband and other crew members involved, but she can not find it. whatever is causing the extra presence, is either invisible or very, very small.

nadia mentions that she doesn’t sense it when she’s alone, only when she was around. and naji trusts she does meditate on her own, which she finds odd. she can’t ask any one else, because no one else on the ship is force sensitive in the slightest. thank god it’s not a cold aura, because naji may have had to fight herself (preferably with a blanket) to ward it off.

she’s reading a holonovel when she hears her name being called from outside her door. it’s…holiday? for a moment, naji forgets she was given access to the ship, and often appeared wherever she pleased except for their quarters. it was a tough week or so before she buckled and allowed tharan to install sensors in the defender for her to appear where she chose. there was one event in particular that lead to naji and felix making a rule that holiday wasn’t allowed to enter unless they gave her explicit permission, one she’d rather not remember right then.

“i’m alone, you can come inside, holiday.” she says softly.

holiday’s slim pink frame shimmers into view as she smiles to the jedi. naji isn’t very good at reading the hologram’s emotions, but she has a mischevous grin that reminds her of tharan’s when he has some sort of new project he’s working on. she’s up to no good, and she refocuses on her reading. “jedi, i may have found the answer to your…‘force presence’ issue!”

her capacity for not only sentience but a real voice box is amazing as she shrills the last part of her sentence (she didn’t ever tell tharan that, his ego would inflate further than the ship could handle, but she was in awe of his work). “is it a good thing?” she asks, as she continues skimming the holonovel. she’d read this one before, a published diary by an old war hero, and was just getting to the mid-climax of the book. “there are no intruders aboard the ship, i hope.”

“not exactly…” she clasps her hands together as she disappears and reappears into view, sitting on the bed next to naji. she props herself up on her elbows next to the barsen'thor, who turns some of her attention to the hologram. “you did say you wanted kids one day…”

“that is true, holiday.” naji smiles to herself as she flips the page. it was a dream she’d had since she was young, but given her position as a warden of the order, felix and her had pushed it back as far as they could. in the prime of their lives, neither was exactly ready to have to resign themselves to the ship or an apartment to care for a child just yet. home was where the heart was, and her heart was with felix iresso. naji wasn’t ready to share it just yet with a baby. “why?”

“well, where do you think that force presence is coming from, if only you can sense it?” holiday purrs, rolling onto her back.

“i’m not sure, holiday.” she answers absentmindedly as the other female groaned. “why, where do you believe it’s coming from?”

“naj, you’re a great person, you’ve helped tharan day in and day out and are even the warden on the jedi order. but could you please listen and think for just a second?” she nearly begs the woman. “why else would i ask about a force presence and then kids within the same span of five minutes?”

“i’m not su-” she pauses for a second, halfway in between flipping another page without even thinking about holiday’s question before the realization sinks in. the force presence was relatively new, and while small, it enveloped her in a way she’d never felt before. only before when she’d reached out in the force for a younger being, such as nadia or the younglings at the temple. innocent, full of life and a passion for adventure. a fire that couldn’t be quenched, but a soft, warm feeling that left you feeling euphoric.

but…

turning slowly to the smirking hologram, she puts the holonovel down on the opposite side of her, trying not to show the anxiety pulsating through her veins as she continues thinking, running a hand through her hair. “holiday, what are you implying?”

“i think you know exactly what i’m implying.” she grins, but her face drops once she sees that naji hasn’t broken into a smile yet. “naj, you do know what i’m implying, right?”

naji stands from the bed, holonovel forgotten as her eyes darken, her hands becoming sweaty and heart rate increasing. “h-holiday-”

“naj, aren’t you happy?” holiday asks, disappearing and reappearing next to her. a panic attack is creeping up, as her chest tightens, her hands wrapping around herself, tears begging to fall from her eyes as the pink woman is trying her best to comfort her. “i’ve heard most women are excited at the whole 'expecting’ part. i’d never be able to bear my own children.”

“holiday, get. out.”

“naji-” the hologram knows she can’t touch her, as her hands phase through her as the jedi flinches away from her, a fearful look her eyes. “it’s going to be okay-”

“holiday i said GET OUT.”

holiday pauses for a moment, as if she’s run into a malfunction or a bug, before lowering her head and shimmering out of her room. she’s shivering, as if it’s too cold in the room as her vision blurs. she can’t help but panic, she’s afraid. it was bad enough she’d gone behind the council’s back and married not even another force sensitive, but a solider. something she’d sold out another padawan for while she was on tython.

and now what?

she was already carting felix off on mission after mission to save the jedi from utter destruction, attempting to keep the republic in one piece. she was trying to be her best, she wanted to be her best. she wanted to be the padawan everyone saw when she arrived to the temple, the one they could rest all their hopes and dreams for the future on.

what would they think of her then? she’d broken the jedi could already, passion was something she fed off now. was she dipping into the dark side already? naji never felt darkness around her, and nadia admitted her force aura was like the suns of tatooine.

and now she was possibly dropping a baby on him as well?

staring at her hands through teary eyes, she couldn’t help but think,

'where did i go wrong?’

-

felix knows something’s off as soon as he boards the ship after a particularily harrowing supply run (imps, stars they’d be the death of him). usually naji always greets him when he arrives, or eventually comes out of the cockpit or from below deck. he doesn’t immediatly panic though, possibly she’s meditating with nadia, and he wouldn’t want to bother his wife if that was the case. she’d get so wrapped up with her padawan some days that she’d be in a trance for maybe an hour afterwards until the bond was severed for a bit.

but, the ship is oddly quiet. zenith sits at the table near the intercom, in his own world of politics and freeing refugees (all very admirable), so other than an offhanded wave from the sandy colored twi'lek, he heads belowdeck.

what’s off is that there’s hushed whispering. qyzen is tinkering with something near the ship’s engines when he checks that room, and that nadia is nowhere to be found in the medbay (where she usually resides), and he picks up his wife’s name from holiday’s voice in the cargo bay. it’s too quiet, but the female hologram sounds concerned.

“holiday! you know she’s sensitive, why would you do something like that behind her back?” nadia asked hushedly. “you didn’t even offer to help her, you just dropped it on her like a bombshell!”

“i’m sorry, nadia. but it was either that or the multitude of other things that could happen if you ignore it for too long. after a bit of research on the holonet, i found out that using the force extensively can endanger not only her but-”

“yes i know that!”

“you didn’t know that beforehand, did you, nadia?” holiday sounds exasperated as he creeps further and further down the stairs and near the cargo bay’s doors. “i thought she’d be happy, i know i’d be!”

“holiday, dear. our fair nadia is correct in her assessment of your actions. this shouldn’t have been taken so lightly. you are aware of her and lieutenant iresso’s position on the matter.” tharan says, as he catches felix’s eye as he steps into the cargo bay, shifting awkwardly as neither woman meet his gaze. “lieutenant, you’ve arrived back to the defender in one piece.” tharan welcomes him back in a slightly standoffish manner.

“that’s right.” he says, raising an eyebrow. “what exactly did you drop on naji, holiday?”

if a hologram could seem embarassed, holiday did in that moment. she flickers in out of existence, hiding behind a curtain of hair as she frowns. she still freaks him out a bit, with the increased sentience. he keeps thinking she’s a real person, just halfway across the galaxy. she lowers her gaze, not meeting felix’s. “where is she, anyways?”

“she’s in your quarters.” nadia answers quietly, arms crossed. less being threatening, but a stance he often noticed was the product of anxiety from the younger woman. “holiday, you tell him. it’s your fault we’re in this mess.”

instead of answering, she shuts off completely. tharan sighs, and felix knows that there’s no way he can get her back. forcing her back into a holographic form causes some uneeded technical difficulties, including being shocked with a low-voltage electric shock if she was feeling particularily mischeveous. “do i have to ask one of you?”

nadia and tharan share a look before turning back to him. “i feel it would be impersonal if we tell you. you may be more inclined to ask your fair jedi.”

“what’s so wrong? is she okay?” he pauses for a moment before almost rolling his eyes at the two. “if you two keep trying to communicate through your eyes i will eventually get an answer from one of you.”

“of course, felix.” nadia says, twisting her robes in her hands. her haphazardly cut hair does nothing for the sad look behind her eyes as she excuses herself. tharan busies himself with something else in the cargo bay before scuttling out to speak with qyzen. out of sight of the others, he does try to keep from bolting up to his quarters, concerned for his wife’s safety. had she fallen ill without him ever knowing? naji did have a tendency for hiding her own pain in favor of healing his. while not a sage, she was was capable of healing faster than tharan could, even though it took a toll on her force abilities and health.

“naj?” he asks, knocking on their shared quarters’ door. “you alright?”

no answer. maybe she’d headed planetside for the night, but he found that unlikely. “i’m coming in.” he said softly, before unlocking the door.

as always, it’s dark. neither of them do much work here, so they have no reason to really keep the lights up that high or that bright. stepping inside, he can’t hear anything, and can’t see her either. however, she gives her position away as he hears shuffling from the bed. he can just make out her form underneath the rose gold comforter, and after slipping off his armor and boots, goes over to sit opposite to her. “naj, i know you’re there.”

“go away, felix.” he’s only getting more concerned, as her voice sounds hoarse.

“naji, did you get yourself sick?” he asks, turning to face his wife. he catches a glimpse of her puffy red eyes in the dim light before she rolls over to face the wall. she’d been crying, for whatever reason. or, she’s caught herself a nasty cold. placing a hand over her shoulder, she flinches before curling into herself. “don’t be like that, please. you didn’t even come to greet me when i got back.”

“i didn’t want to.” she mumbles, pulling the blanket over her head.

felix knows better than anyone that his wife has secrets, enough to fill one of those boxes and then some. he doesn’t know enough of them to pull one to memory just like that, only that she’s been relatively sheltered within the temple since she was child, and that he was in absolute awe the first time he met her. but, something’s eating at her, and he’s not sure what. and seeing his wife in any sort of pain drives him mad, and not in the way he wants to be either.

wordlessly, he pulls the blanket back just enough for naji’s face to be facing him now. “naj, if something’s bothering you, you don’t have to face it yourself. we’re a team, remember?”

her hair pools around her in a blonde ocean as he brushes damp strands of it out of her face. she must’ve been crying while he was on the ship, and a part of him wishes he’d ignored tharan and the others and come straight here. “what’s bothering you?” he whispers as he helps her sit up against the headboard. she slumps further onto him, a few quiet hiccups escaping her.

“h-holiday-”

“i already know she told you something. she didn’t elaborate.” he answers, smoothing back her hair before she looks up at him, blue grey eyes red and shiny with unshed tears.

“i-i’m so sorry, felix.”

“for what? you never did anything wrong.” he responds. “naj, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

“i should’ve been more careful, this was never supposed to happen, and now…” she trails off into silence. “the force presence i felt, it wasn’t an intruder.”

“okay?” he asks, before she cuts him off.

“felix, it-it’s a child.” he can almost hear her tears rising up again as he tries to take stock of the situation. “i, i messed up. i’m..pregnant.”

felix iresso hates one thing (well he heavily dislikes quite a few things), and it’s when she cries. he doesn’t like it when anyone cries, but when naji breaks down, something in him shatters.

he lets her cry, because there’s no stopping her when does. she’s not a loud crier, but her weeping is enough to make anyone shed a few tears. given, they had both been extremely careful since their first time together (and one of the few times they were every together in such a manner), as she’d expressed her concern of ending his career early (though he’d assured her he was her lieutenant first and foremost) with the prospect of a child. as the warden of the order, he could only imagine how disappointed and crushed she’d be to lose that position that she’d worked her whole life for.

“naj, you don’t need to cry over something you can’t control.” he says quietly, as she shifts herself to rest her head on his chest. “it would’ve been nice to wait a while,” a long while, “but whatever you want to do, i’ll support you through it. whether you don’t want a baby around, or you do, i’ll always be here for you.”

naji’s content to stay with him for the rest of the night. they don’t talk, not about anything. their impending future or her breakdown earlier in the day. the one thing that he does intend to ask her in the morning, as she reads in his lap, is that she wasn’t going crazy. felix had felt that presence too, though he figured not nearly as a strong. he’d thought she’d been running a fever everytime he’d even grazed her skin. but as he adjusted his grasp around her waist, he smiles. deep down, he does hope naji keeps their baby. something with such a bright presence couldn’t be anything that bad.

-

i really hope i characterized felix right. he and andronikos are my favorite romanceable companions.

[mebertolini]

Field Notes from 25 years of Teaching Writing

Think like a reader, writer, and teacher.

Fifty years ago this September, I stepped into a high school English class and attempted to teach writing. I am going to tell you a secret that I wish someone had told me 50 years ago when I was so afraid of making a mistake that I carried a pocket dictionary every time I walked into a classroom.  Here is the secret:  You already know more than you think you know.  So, take a deep breath, and concentrate on three main things:  You as a reader, you as a writer, and you as a teacher.

Be a reader.  

Start with yourself. Think about what you value in writing, any writing. Before you are a professional, you are a reader.  Write for about three minutes about what is important to you as a reader. If you are with others, discuss with a few people, and then share with a larger group.  You have just defined some writing goals for your students. You will need to have general writing goals and then particular writing goals for the class you are teaching and for the assignment you are giving. Goals for a first-year class can be more general than goals for a second or third year class, which is going to reflect readings and protocols in your discipline.  Your goals for your first assignment and your second or third papers, also, should be different because you want to increase the difficulty or complexity of your assignments.

None of these goals matter unless you communicate them.  Your students are not on the psychic hotline with you. It is unlikely they will magically sense what you consider important unless you communicate with them. When you convey this information—whether through speaking or writing—and the best approach is through speaking and writing, you are modeling good communication skills.  Writing is communication between one mind and another. Writing is the conduit, which makes the ideas of one mind transparent to another mind.  Whether what is in one of those minds is worth communicating or not is something, we will have to consider.

Be a reader is important when you are setting your goals, and it is important when you read your students’ papers as a reader. When I do not understand what a student has written. I write, “I don’t understand.” “I’ve lost the thread of the argument.” Or, “Do you have evidence to back up this point?” or “What is the point?” I always respond to papers as a reader. I also respond as a writer—“You might try so and so,” and as a teacher “Remember, we discussed xyz in class.” Nevertheless, responding as a reader comes first. Transparency and clarity in writing are two of my biggest goals.  My college acting teacher used to say, “If you are going to make a mistake, make it big enough for me to see it.”  How can I begin to help a student if I do know what the student understands?

Be a writer.  

You know you need to communicate your writing expectations, yes, but you also need to be aware of yourself as a writer—to think about your own process.  In order to teach writing, you need to think about how youwrite.  How you revise. How you move from an idea to publication. How might that process vary from project to project?  Think about your own writing process, and if you are with others, share your thoughts with them. What did you learn about yourself or the process of others?  When you think about your process, you are really thinking about how you manageyourself as a writer.  

How do you help your students have a process? You can talk to your students about your own process—how you manage yourself as a writer. How you break down your process. You can be honest, and admit that writing is messy and hard. Thank about what resources you have. Consider what resources your students have. Do you direct them to the Writing Center to the Library, to other support services?

Teaching your students to manage themselves, as writers, is one of the most important things you can do in helping them become better writers. Not always, but frequently, the paper your students hand you is a first draft—or not even that—what I call a discovery or exploratory draft. They are thinking, “What do I know about this subject?” Rather than thinking, “How do I communicate what I know to another person?” Consider how much time you give your students to write. Is it enough?   Do you budget a week for every 5-7 pages you assign? When I teach a writing course, my students write three drafts of every paper. Along the way, they receive feedback from their peers, peer writing tutors, and from me—a process that spans several weeks. This has worked beautifully, but it may not be realistic for you in your course.  So, I invented the 30-minute writing process, which I will unveil shortly.  

Be a teacher.  

Do you remember the old question, “What are the three most important things in real estate?” The answer, of course, is “Location. Location. Location.” Your location is your classroom, or your office or your desk. Whatever you do, face to face conveys importance. So, use the classroom, or your office to convey your expectations, to share writing management, to discuss the assignment. To say what it is your students need toknow to complete the assignment. Here is the 30-minute writing process: When I give out paper topics, I spend 15 minutes in class discussing the assignment.  I might have three or four possible prompts. I discuss each one, discuss how a student might approach each one, and discuss what the student needs to know to complete each one. Then I ask students to eliminate one right then, to draw a big X through that topic. I ask them to spend another 15 minutes of their own time that day or the next day looking at and thinking about the assignment, and choosing one.  Even if they never look at that assignment again until the night before the paper is due, it has been sloshing around in their brains for a bit, and they will write a better paper.

You have all heard by now of “Flipping the classroom.” It’s hot. It’s the new thing.  Teachers of writing smile “about the “flipped classroom” because we’ve always flipped the classroom.  We have always workshopped student work. We do not ask students just to comment on how they like a student paper, and we do not ask peers to fix semicolons. Instead, we workshop student work in a very directed way.  To write well, students need to read well and perceptively. This can happen in directed workshops, where students learn first to be readers and editors of each other’s work. I’m always frank with students about the benefits of the workshop—that they will, at first, learn more as a reader/editor of someone else’s work, then as a writer, but soon, they will learn to be perceptive readers of their own work. Maybe you do not have time for that. Maybe your class is too big. You can bring in examples of opening paragraphs from a previous class and discuss.  Or before your students hand in their own work, you can ask them to read their own papers silently in class—and make changes.

As a teacher, you should be asking yourself, why you are assigning a paper. What is the point? Is it to know if your students understand the content?  Is it to see if they can use concepts you have taught them on new content? Is it to apply theories to new situations? To recognize and understand the research knowledge in the field?   Is it to use key terms or theories in your disciple? If you cannot answer these questions, or if you are not conveying this—how can your students write well?  As a teacher, you have to answer these questions:  

What do your students have to know or understand before they write?

How well do your students understand your content?

How well have you taught them about this subject matter before they write?

Two experiences molded me as a teacher before I taught writing to college students. First, before Middlebury, I taught in suburban, rural, urban, and inner city high schools, and I attended a private high school—all, vastly different experiences.  When I taught English in a NYC high school, I taught 150-200 students a semester. When I began teaching at Middlebury, I knew my students had had vastly different educational experiences before they arrived at Middlebury. I have tried hard not to make assumptions about what they know or do not know, and I have sought to normalize what they knew or did not know. I often introduced a skill with the words, “As you may have already learned or not.”  

Second, for five years, I was “just” as a stay at home mom. Those five years taught me more about teaching than I learned from any book, or that I learned in the other 45 years of my teaching life. My two same gender children, from the same gene pool, learned completely differently. One remembered most what she saw.  The other remembered most what she heard.  One wanted to learn with me sitting next to her. The other wanted to try things on her own. Because students learn differently, I have tried to teach a variety of ways.  I create opportunities for students to listen, to read, to write, to speak, to act.  I encourage students to share things with others, and to try tasks own their own. I share important instructions in class, on paper, and online on a course website.  Always, I direct students to resources.  What you might change in the way you teach writing? Take a few minutes to write or think about this. For now, keep this information just for you.

Finally, what have I learned most in 25 or 50 years of teaching writing?  

Humility, Patience, and Faith

Humility: You cannot teach everything there is to teach about writing from one paper. You cannot even do it in one course.  You are one stop—one important stop— on a writer’s journey.  Many people set your student on this path, some well, some not so well, but you are not the only one.

Patience: not only with your students but, also, with yourself. Take the time to know what you expect, and spell that out.  Respect where your students are in their writing journeys.  Give your students good directions. Take the time to prepare your students. Give your students enough time to write well and to revise– week for every 5-7 pages, and throw a weekend in there.  Give your students support, and direct them to the Writing Center, Learning Resources, and the Library for more support.

Have Faith: pass your students on to the next stop in their writing journeys, and have faith that the next person on that journey will care as much about your students’ writing lives as you do.  

Mary Ellen Bertolini

[quicksilversquared]

Ladybug: Superhero, Savior of Paris, and.... Window Washer?

Superpowers are normally meant to be reserved for, well, superhero-y things. Like saving the city, or rescuing people from an accidents, or fighting evil. But sometimes...well, superhero powers can make normal life easier. Like when Marinette needs her windows cleaned.

Still, superpowers have never guaranteed that things will go smoothly.

(ao3) (ff.net)

Overall, Marinette liked her new apartment well enough. Sure, maybe it was sometimes a little cramped with her living room area converted to her sewing room and with her dining room table shoved up against the wall to make space for her fabric collection. Sure, her neighbors in the next unit over could sometimes be a little loud when their arguments got out of hand. And sure, maybe she had to be careful not to jump around too much whenever she danced around to Jagged Stone's newest songs because if she did, her downstairs neighbors would complain. But her apartment was much closer to her job than her parents' place was, it was on the top floor of the building and had a balcony (perfect for heading off as Ladybug), and it was an end apartment, which meant that she got one less neighbor and an extra wall with windows to let in plenty of natural light, which was perfect for when she worked from home and was sewing in her living room.

But there was one problem that just really bugged her. The windows were filthy, and no cleaning that Marinette did from the inside could fix that. So, like a good renter, she went to the landlady and asked when the window cleaners usually came.

"Oh, we don't have any, dear," Mrs. Taylor told her. She reached around to rummage for something in her desk, pulling a piece of paper out of a file folder she pulled out. "When I had this building renovated, I had windows put in that can be cleaned from the inside so that I wouldn't have to deal with scheduling cleaners. Here's a sheet for how to pop the glass out so you can flip it over and clean it. Is that everything?"

Marinette could only nod as she took the sheet of paper from Mrs. Taylor.

"You can pop the windows out?" Tikki asked in amazement as she and Marinette headed back up the stairs to the top floor. "That sounds dangerous! What if they fall?"

"I know storm windows and screens can come out, and I've already removed those. Or at least the screens. The storm windows were already out." Marinette glanced down at the sheet that she had gotten. "So maybe this will be similar?"

It was not. Even once Marinette had gotten upstairs and had properly read through the sheet, she was no more clear on what she was meant to do than before.

"So I'm meant to slide the bottom open partway, then somehow pop the top out and swing it down," Marinette said, frowning over the instructions. "And then the upper part comes down, and the top pops out for that, too. But how?" Marinette asked, frustrated. "It just says 'push in frame'. But the frame is wood! How am I meant to push that in?"

"It says at the bottom here that it can be hard to get the windows back in properly," Tikki pointed out. "That's not a good sign!"

"No, it's not," Marinette agreed. She glanced from the sheet to the windows again, nerves building in her gut. She didn't want to break anything in her apartment accidentally, and especially not a window. It would create a mess, and it would be expensive to replace. And getting something like that repaired was not in Marinette's budget.

She also didn't want to get a reputation as a terrible renter that broke stuff this early on.

"Maybe your dad could do it," Tikki suggested. "You know that your parents said that you could ask them if you needed help with anything."

"I'd just be worried about him forcing it and breaking the window, then. Papa is really strong from all of the kneading he does. It wouldn't be hard for him to be too strong." Marinette sighed and glanced out the window at the splotchy view. " I just- I want to be able to figure out some things on my own, you know? It feels like I just keep going to my parents for everything, even things that I should be able to figure out. I should try to puzzle it out on my own first, I think."

Tikki looked uncertain. "But Marinette-"

"I should at least try to do it on my own," Marinette decided, stubbornly determined. "I mean, I have an instruction sheet right here. How hard can it be?"

  The answer, apparently, was very hard.

"This window sticks," Marinette grumbled as she tried to wrestle the upper pane of glass downward. The lower one had been easier to move, but only just, and she still hadn't been able to pop it out of its track. She could pull harder, but it felt like if she did, something might break.

"Maybe you could ask the landlady to demonstrate how to do it," Tikki suggested, giving the window a little tug of her own. She phased through the glass to give it a little push from the other side, then came back in. "Maybe there's some trick that we're missing?

Marinette didn't even hear her, suddenly struck by a new idea. "Oh! What if you clean the outside? I can pass you some rags to clean with, and we don't have to risk breaking any windows."

"Ooh! I like that idea!" Tikki zipped around, excited. "Let's do it!"

Grinning, Marinette led her way out onto her balcony, snagging her window cleaning supplies on the way. She stepped around the pots of plants that she had crammed onto the balcony on her way to her table, setting the pile of rags and bottle of window spray down before picking a rag up and spraying it, passing it over to her eager kwami. Tikki took it and zipped off towards the closest window. Once she was there, she pressed the rag against the glass and scrubbed as hard as she could.

It...didn't do much. Which really shouldn't have been much of a surprise, really, considering that Tikki was small and could only really apply pressure to a very tiny point.

"I think the window is actually getting more streaky," Marinette told Tikki with a sigh after she had gone to watch from inside after five minutes of enthusiastic scrubbing. "Maybe it's just because there's so much crud built up on the windows, though. I'm willing to bet that the last people who lived here didn't clean them at all while they were here, and there was all sorts of construction going on in the buildings nearby and up on the roof." Even if the landlady didn't normally use window-washers, it would have been nice to at least hire one after work was done on the building. Marinette was sure that she wasn't the only one with awful-looking windows- unless, of course, other people had figured out the secret to popping out the windows to clean them.

Tikki floated back over to the balcony with the rag hanging from her paws. "Maybe it'll just take a few rounds of wiping. That's going to take a while, though. I can't get much of the window all at once."

Marinette made a face. She knew that Tikki was likely right about needing to take several layers of crud off before the window could be properly cleaned, but that would take forever at this rate. As enthusiastic as Tikki was about helping... well, her kwami just couldn't work anywhere near as fast as she could.

"What if I do it?" Marinette asked as another, much more practical idea hit her. "If I transform, I can use my yo-yo to hang from the side of the building like the pros do. Then I can clean a lot faster than you can."

"But what will you say if people ask you why Ladybug is washing your windows?" Tikki wanted to know. "I know that Hawkmoth is in jail, but you still need to keep your identity secret from Paris in case anything else comes up!"

Marinette giggled and tickled Tikki, making her kwami giggle. "I would go out at night! We already know that there aren't any security cameras up here, and I could watch out for traffic down below. If anyone goes by, then all I need to do is zip up to the roof so that no one sees me. Or I can go over to the balcony, if I'm on this side, and just lie down."

"Oh! That could work!" Tikki considered the idea for a moment more. "But what if Chat Noir sees you and wonders why you've been hanging around in one spot for so long?"

Marinette just snorted. "Oh, come on, Tikki. It's not like he goes out every night to patrol. I know his schedule. He won't notice a thing."

  Ladybug looked both ways before hopping off of her balcony, swinging around to the big picture window in front. It was the filthiest of all of her windows, since the roof drained right down onto it, and so it made sense to start there.

Ladybug really, really hoped that it wouldn't take that long to finish. She had had to wait until it was fairly late for the traffic- both vehicle and pedestrian- to die down enough that she could actually go out and have a relatively low chance of being sighted, and that meant that she was already tired.

Maybe it would have been a better idea to wait for a weekend, but then people tended to be out even later, and then she would throw off her sleep schedule even more.

Bracing herself with one hand wrapped around her yo-yo and both feet against the bottom of the sill, Ladybug pulled a wet rag out of the pouch that she had attached to a belt wound around her waist and set to work, trying to wipe off the topmost layer of grime. Before she could even completely blacken the first rag, the rumble of an approaching car sent Ladybug zipping up to the roof for cover. She crouched there, waiting for the car's headlights to vanish into the night before swinging back down.

"Oh, come on!" Ladybug complained when the same thing happened twice more in the span of five minutes. "It's late! People should be at home and sleeping by now, not zipping around the city. It's the freaking middle of the week."

Not to be discouraged- she had started this project and she wasn't about to quit, darn it- Ladybug swung back down, returning to her work of scrubbing at the window. It was hard to tell in the low light how much of a difference she was actually making, but she could tell that her rags were getting progressively filthier. Each smear of dirt and grime meant that much less on the windows, which had to be a positive thing.

When the flash of yet another car's headlights filled the street, Ladybug took the opportunity to swing around to her balcony to swap out her supply of soiled rags for fresh ones and hide out there until the car vanished down the street.

Swing back. Wipe and scrub. Get a fresh rag. Wipe some more, until most of the grime was gone. A few spritzes of glass cleaner went on the window once the majority of the grime was gone, and then Ladybug carefully worked it across the glass. It was slow progress- especially since the streets of Paris apparently never slept- but steady, with more and more of the glass looking properly clean in the moonlight.

Ladybug moved around the side of the building, cleaning the window next to her dining room table next. It wasn't as large or as dirty, so it didn't take her as long to clean. Her kitchen window overlooked her balcony, which meant that she had already cleaned it as herself earlier on in her time at the apartment, and that only left the larger window in her bedroom. Ladybug was about to finish up the window she was on and move there when there was a muted thud on her balcony that made her freeze.

"My Lady, what are you doing?"

"Chat Noir!" Ladybug exclaimed, turning towards the familiar voice and trying to look like she wasn't wishing that he wasn't there. Her partner had parked his furry tail on his balcony (without knocking over any of her plants, thankfully) and was standing there, leaning on the railing while he gave her a puzzled look.

She should have listened to Tikki and at least consulted her yo-yo every once in a while to see if her partner was out. Then they wouldn't have this problem, where she would have to explain herself to Chat Noir.

Chat Noir, who knew her probably better than most anybody else despite the masks, and who was ridiculously good at figuring out when she was lying to him. How was she meant to get out of this?

"Are you washing Marinette's windows?" Chat Noir continued, sounding puzzled. "Ladybug, why-?

"I'm doing it as a favor," Ladybug blurted, mind racing as she tried to come up with something that would actually be remotely plausible to persuade Chat Noir that-

Wait. Had he said Marinette's windows? Chat Noir knew that she- well, her civilian self- lived here? How? She floundered a little bit more, properly thrown off guard, and ended up trying to go for something as close to the truth as possible. "Marinette moved in recently and they don't have window cleaners here, but the windows are filthy and it's insanely difficult to get the outsides cleaned. So I'm cleaning them in exchange for. Uh. Some bakery leftovers."

Almost immediately, Ladybug could have smacked herself. She knew that Chat Noir had a huge sweet tooth and absolutely adored baked treats, and in particular baked treats from the Dupain-Cheng bakery. He absolutely would want to know if he could help out and therefore share the goodies, which would mean that she would actually have to obtain some. Not that it would be hard- all Marinette would have to do would be to ask her parents and then swing by shortly after closing- but it was just one more thing to remember.

Bugger. Besides, what if she started having a certain cat hang around her apartment, looking for ways to help in exchange for future baked goods? She knew that Chat Noir wouldn't make a nuisance out of himself if she told him no, but she always had been weak for kitten eyes.

As expected, Chat Noir perked up, ears pricking in interest. "Bakery treats? Aw, why didn't she ask me? I love the stuff her parents make. Can I help?"

...well, she supposed that it couldn't possibly hurt too much.

"We're getting the bulk of the gunk off first," Ladybug explained, quickly finishing off the window that she was on and hopping over to join Chat Noir. She pointed at the pile of dirty rags. She would go inside to search for more or at least rinse out some of the used ones, but that would just leave to more questions. "Normally windows aren't quite this bad, but they haven't been done for forever."

"Oh, yeah, I can tell," Chat Noir said, clambering over to the last window with a rag in his hand and attaching his baton to the side of the building, perching on that to clean. "Even in the dark- eep!" Chat Noir suddenly dropped the rag in his hand and slapped his hand over his eyes, turning away into a crouch. "She doesn't have her curtains closed, and that's her bedroom! My Lady-"

Ladybug was torn between laughing at how dramatic he was being and touched by how courteous her kitty was. No matter what, no one could deny that Chat Noir was a proper gentleman. "She's sleeping at her parents' house tonight, I think. Because she knew that I would probably be making a bit of noise as I moved around, and that wouldn't make it easy for her to sleep."

The hands promptly came off of his eyes. "Oh! Okay, then. That's okay." He scrambled several stories down to retrieve the rag from where it had landed on a balcony. "So what were you saying again?"

Ladybug tried to show Chat Noir how to clean the window, she really did. But no matter what she said, Chat Noir's attempts ended up streaky and smudged. He was obviously trying his hardest, too, his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth and his brow furrowed as he tried and failed to get the glass properly clean.

"I can tell that I'm doing it wrong, even in the dark," Chat Noir complained. "I'm going to just have to give this back to you so that we can finish before morning. It's getting late- car!"

They both dove for the balcony, flattening on it while the car passed by. Ladybug winced as she watched one of her pots wobble, cringing until it settled back down. Chat Noir's head popped up once the car passed. "What are people still doing out? They should be in bed!"

"Some people work night shift," Ladybug reminded him, ignoring the fact that she had been saying much the same thing earlier in the night. "Or other odd hours. But I do wish that there were fewer people out. If someone saw me up here cleaning windows, they might come to some, uh, incorrect conclusions."

"I was thinking the same thing," Chat Noir agreed. "Marinette is so sweet, I would hate for her to be in any danger. Even with Hawkmoth gone..."

Ladybug ducked her head, trying not to blush. Chat Noir knew her civilian self well enough to call her sweet? That was- well, very sweet of him.

It also really made her wonder how often he interacted with her when they were both civilians, since he knew both what she was like and where she lived.

"I can keep an eye out for traffic if you want to finish up," Chat Noir prompted when she didn't take the rag from him. "Since I did kind of keep you from your job for a bit."

"Sweet kitty." Ladybug gave her partner's bell a little jingle as she maneuvered around him. "That would be great. I'll share my treats when I get them."

(She had to muffle a laugh at Chat Noir's little cheer, his tail flicking behind him in excitement. Really, sometimes her kitty was just too eager to please.)

It didn't take Ladybug long to finish, even with the size of the window and one more interruption. It was hard to tell if she had gotten the windows completely streak free- after all, it was dark both outside and in- but they were definitely better than they had been before (and better than what Chat Noir had done).

"Time for bed," Chat Noir announced with a yawn as Ladybug tidied the pile of rags on the balcony table. "I can't wait."

"You didn't have to come out," Ladybug pointed out with a laugh, ducking down automatically as a car went by. She checked her yo-yo. It was well after two in the morning. "Why did you come out so late in the first place?"

"Couldn't sleep."

"And going out for a run was going to fix that, definitely."

Chat Noir laughed. "Maybe not so much. But hey, I got promised pastries, so it's all worth it."

"Please don't trade sleep for pastries. It's not a healthy life decision."

Chat Noir stuck his tongue out as a response, then yawned widely.

"Time to go," Ladybug prompted, giving her door a longing look- her bed was calling her name, so close but so far- before jumping to the roof to lead the way away from her apartment. "C'mon, kitty kitty."

"D'you think Marinette would mind if I just curled up and took a little cat-nap on her balcony?" Still, Chat Noir followed her, clearly covering another yawn. "Oof, that just really hit like a brick. I was perfectly awake up until just now."

"I think this kitty has to go home for bed, or else he might have people looking for him in the morning," Ladybug teased. "Unless you're going to set an alarm on your baton."

"Nah, I'd probably detransform before morning and then Marinette would come home to find me passed out on her balcony like a weirdo. " Chat Noir stretched, then waved to Ladybug. "Well, good night, my Lady. I'll be going home now."

Ladybug nodded, waving back until Chat Noir had vanished over the skyline. Then she dropped back down onto her balcony, gathering up all of the supplies and heading inside. Everything got dropped on the door mat to be dealt with in the morning.

"Well, that could have gone smoother," Marinette told Tikki as she dropped her transformation. "Now I owe Chat Noir pastries tomorrow night- or I suppose later today, technically."

"But your windows are all nice and clean!" Tikki cheered, zipping towards the closest window. "They're lovely, Marinette. You did a good job!"

Marinette glanced out her window. Even though it was dark outside, she could tell that the view through the window was much clearer. "I did, didn't I? It was all worth it in the end. But now, I think it's time to go to bed, Tikki. We can admire the view in the morning."

  Three Years Later

"Okay, all clear," Adrien called to Marinette as he came back into their apartment. He took the pile of rags from her and ducked back out the door to deposit them on their balcony table. "Ready to transform, bugaboo?"

"I can't believe that this has become a tradition," Marinette said with a laugh. She closed the last of the blinds and called for Tikki to transform. "And that this building doesn't have normal window washers, either. What's with that?"

"I can't believe that it's been three years and yet neither of us can figure out how to wash the windows the normal way," Adrien joked, calling on Plagg. He transformed in a flash of light. "I mean, we almost got it that one time. That counts, right?"

Ladybug snorted, remembering their latest attempt to get their windows washed entirely from the inside. Adrien had managed to pop out one of the smaller windows as the instructions told him, but after they had finished cheering in triumph and getting it cleaned to perfection, they couldn't get it back in. No matter how they pushed and shoved, the window only pushed in so far. When they had tried sliding it up, it had only stayed in place of a fraction of a second before slipping right back down. Marinette's father had to come over and snap the window back into place to get it to work again.

After that, they had just decided that cleaning as their superhero selves was easier, even if it required staying up crazy late.

Chat Noir got to work on the first window, wiping a rag across the glass. He had gotten better at not making smudges across the glass once he had gotten a bit of practice in during the day, when he could actually see what he was doing, and even more so after he decided to go out and buy the same sort of squeegee that professionals used. She would have been exasperated about the purchase- rags worked too, after all!- except it did make the work go by faster and when they were working at night, speed was kind of important.

"Remember when you told me that you were doing your own windows as a favor?" Chat Noir asked with a laugh as he exchanged his rag for the squeegee. "And I totally bought it, too. I don't even know how. Looking back, it seems so obvious. Why would Ladybug agree to lose sleep to clean a complete stranger's window?"

"For pastries," Ladybug reminded him, jumping to land behind him on the baton sticking to the side of the building. She pinched his side, making him squeal. "And might I remind you that as soon as you heard about it, you got all pouty that you hadn't been asked?"

As she had expected, her kitty just ducked his head and muttered something incoherent, a blush gracing his cheeks. Ladybug grinned.

No matter what form her boyfriend-slash-partner was in, he was adorable.

They had done the reveal after Master Fu and their kwamis had finally determined that there was nothing coming in to replace Hawkmoth as a threat immediately following his defeat. While there could be problems in the future- there were always people who wanted power, after all- there was no point in the two of them continuing to keep their identities secret from each other for all eternity.

So they had met up in Master Fu's shop and detransformed in front of each other there, exclaiming once the light died away and they actually recognized each other. They had stayed there for hours, chatting and catching up and exclaiming over all of the signs that they had missed until Maser Fu kicked them out so that he could actually meet with one of his clients. Then they had headed back to Marinette's apartment to hang out some more, and by the end of the evening, they were officially dating.

Now they were living together, and could tag-team on the window cleaning without any secrets or excuses between them. It made the whole thing a lot more fun.

"Oh, look, there's Felix," Ladybug said with a giggle, pointing to their small black kitten perched in the windowsill, an equally small black paw trying to bat at the squeegee as Chat Noir dragged it past. Chat Noir grinned when he noticed the cat, focusing even more on that little bit of window so that he could watch the cat.

It was very cute, Ladybug had to admit. But it was also very late, and they could play with their cat at literally any other time. Right now, she just wanted to get the windows done and go to bed.

"Focus, Chat," Ladybug reminded him as she wiped down the rest of the window. "Felix is cute, but it's late and we both have work tomorrow."

"Oh! Right, right, of course, my Lady." Chat Noir gave one last swipe for Felix to bat at, then moved his attention to the rest of the window. "I'm focused, I'm focused!"

Aside from a few more distractions (Felix was really insistent on following them around, and naturally Chat Noir had to tease their cat at least a little), the two of them worked together like a well-oiled machine, working their way around the outside of their apartment as fast as they could. Their neighborhood was a little quieter than where Marinette had been before, which meant less traffic and fewer interruptions. Still, it was Paris, and they still had to hide a few times when cars or pedestrians passed by below.

"Good job, team," Ladybug said tiredly as she and Chat Noir finished up the last window. They exchanged a fist bump and then jumped back to the balcony. "Now we have our clean windows, and we can go to bed."

"Someone is a grumpy bug when it gets late," Chat Noir said fondly, reaching over to ruffle her hair as they set things down on their lovely, large balcony. "All right, my Lady. Let's go to bed."

[nunaya-business]

There Have Been a Few Times When My Dad Has Left Throughout My Life...

Some for normal reasons, others for mental illness reasons. All of them have left their mark on me and my brother especially.

To begin, my father has not had a good life. He was brutally physically, and I believe sexually, abused throughout his entire childhood. His mother is a munchausen bitch, his brother a psychopath, and his father an asshole. Mental illness runs in the family on both sides, though it's hard to tell which side it effects the most. My father started out with ADHD, or that's what the doctors have said. He got heavy into drugs when he and my mother first got together, and of course the mental problems plummeted from there.

Both parents quit drugs before I was born, and my father went overseas to Iraq. He was there when I was born to give me my name, and left a few months later. I didn't meet him in person again until I was nearly 2 years old. I didn't walk until then either, but that's from a birth defect.

I don't remember much of my childhood with my father, because he either stayed inside at home or he was overseas. Having a parent or both parents in the military is shit, and in my opinion, abuse. Psychologists are always saying that both parental figures in a child's life is extremely important and, when both aren't present, whether from abandonment, death, or lack of interaction, it effects a child greatly. What they refuse to consider in my opinion, is parents who go into the military. That's abandonment. Period. I don't care if that parent is doing a deed for their country, you're risking your life, and deliberately not there for your children in the way you need to be. That's the tea sis.

My father broke his back twice in Iraq. Once when I was a toddler, and once when I was around 8 years old. The things he's seen and done mixed with his childhood traumas turned this man from mentally ill, to mentally unstable, to mentally insane is the span of nearly 10 years. The last time my dad came home from Iraq, he had gone up the scale of insanity to the brink. In case y'all didn't know, the brink before complete legally recognized insanity is Paranoid Schizophrenia.

Every. Single. Year since I was 8 years old, my father had mental meltdowns. It started with yelling, to throwing things, to leaving for days (and one time a whole month and my mom had to pick him up at a bar and send me and my brother to my grandmother's house for a week), to an incident in 2016 when my father officially snapped.

In 2016 only a few days after New Years when he came home from a doctor's appointment, he went into our kitchen, downed half a bottle of straight vodka, and started screaming at my mother. She told me to take my little 2 year old brother into my room, shut the door, and put on a movie. I did. I was 12 years old, and it was about 16 days from my 13th birthday that j was really excited for. I remember because one of my friend's birthday's is only 12 days before mine, and I asked mom to go to her birthday party that Tuesday.

I put on Disney Pixar's Cars, because that was his favorite movie, and turned the volume up all the way so he couldn't hear anything. I stood by my door, and quietly opened it enough to see because I heard my dad shouting and things crashing. I don't remember what exactly he was flipping out about, but I remember him throwing a wrench at my mother's head. He missed, and it hit the wall above the kitchen window, making a hole that we had to patch up later. My dad got the vodka bottle, and some guns from our gun cabinet, and tried to get my dog Krypto, a Rottweiler, to go with him. I though he was going to kill him, and the other dog we had, which was the last thing I had inherited from my grandfather.

He kept telling Krypto to come and help him kill the neighbors, but Krypto was hiding behind mom. Dad was scaring him. Since he didn't go with my dad, he tried to beat him, but my mom was on top of Krypto trying to protect him. I don't really remember much after that moment, I think because I either changed or replayed the movie for Little Brother, but I do remember dad stomping back the hallway towards my room, and mom yelling something like, "Don't you fucking dare!" And Krypto running after him, so I got my pocket knife from my desk and stood by the door ready to kill my dad to protect my brother. He stopped though, and I remember listening to his fading, pounding footsteps as he slammed our door shut to go outside.

At the time, my room was at the back right of the house, straight back through the hallway. I only had one window against the wall opposite from my door, facing the back of the house and the woods, but I still saw the brightness of the fire my dad had set on the neighbor's weekend cottage at the front of the house, across the driveway. I remember my mom going into what was the spare room (now my parent's room) with Krypto, crying, and talking to the police. When she knew for sure they were coming and my dad was outside emptying the guns into the surrounding trees and the cabin, mom came back, told me to open the door and gave me a hug. We were both crying, and my brother was asking what was wrong with us. She told me to stay in my room with Little Brother, and that she would come get us when it was ok to come out, then went back into the spare room.

My dad came back inside drunk and crashed onto the couch. It was quiet, and my mom had snuck outside to meet with the police to describe that she wanted him taken in as a mental patient, not a criminal. I had to pee really bad, so I knocked on the door five times because I didn't know where mom was. Dad thought someone was at our door, and told whoever he thought it was to go the fuck away. I snuck put of my room as fast as I could, went to the bathroom, and when I came back, the movie was halfway over for about the 3rd time, and I sat on my bed to finish it with my brother.

I don't remember what time it was, and I don't remember how close the movie was to being over, but I do remember men yelling to "get down", and, "come out with your hands up" outside the window. Someone looked in the window with a flashlight, so I took my brother, and hid under the top bunk of my bunkbed. I covered his ears and hid him under my blanket so no one would find him. The entire state police department came from around the state hours away, to my home in bum-fucked Egypt (aka a small hick town). My mom came in after a couple of minutes with a shaky voice and said "Todd, get up, and go outside now."

He replied with something like, "Christ woman", or "here we fucking go", and I peeked out my door one last time, to see my dad put his hands up, go outside and yell, "HERE I AM MOTHER FUCKERS AND IM GOIN DOWN IN A BLAZE OF GLORY". They gazed him, got information from my mom, and left.

The whole ordeal that Thursday, or maybe it was Monday, night lasted 7 hours, and I think it was 2 in the morning by the time the police left, and we were allowed out of my room. My first question when I hugged mom was, "where did Dad go?" To which she replied, "the police took him."

I didn't go to school that week, dad went to prison for 2 years instead of a mental institution like he was supposed to, my mother was put on antidepressants, I was put in counseling in three places, (the pediatrician's office, a professional office, and school counseling) for severe depression and anxiety, my brother developed an antisocial disorder in addition to pre-diagnosed autism, and I was now in charge of taking care of the house along with my 2 year old brother like an adult. I didn't really have time to be rebellious, having only a short few months when I turned 13 where I "hated" my mother. But how the hell was I going to rebel? Not do the dishes?

... yes actually. I didn't do my chores around the house for a few months as a sort of rebellion. What else was there to do? There was nowhere to go, no one to run to, and Mom wasn't home long enough to fight with so... yeah, refusing to do chores was my way to rebel against my parents.

My dad's mom, the bitch in forced to call a grandmother, called child services more than 5 times while Dad was in jail for no reason. They blocked her number. She got ahold of dad's disability checks and used them for herself, and we nearly starved because of that, and from that fateful night on, I was labeled a psychopath by my peers. Good. I don't like those retards anyways.

That's the story of why I'm not very close to my father, why I believe going to the military is the appraised way of abandoning your kids, and how the military also fucked up my Dad. Because, if they would've done their job of an actual mental evaluation on their soldiers when coming home from war, my father would have gotten the help he needed, and lastly the reason why I believe in gun control. And with that, I bid you guten nacht.

[forgottenrealmsrp]

Hello, I am very new to DnD and I would really like some tips on how to play and roll for certain things (Im not too good with examples) etc. etc.

Howdy! Mod Nate here coming at you with some Tips for Beginners. There’s a hell of a lot to cover that I cannot fit into one post (because, let’s be honest, that would be a nightmare), but I will try my best. So, without further ado, hold onto your butts.

The Three R’s

I find there are three main aspects to remember (and master!) when starting off in DnD or other such TTRPG’s. You can sort them into three categories: 

Rules,

Rol(l/e)s, and

Roleplaying

Of course there are heaps of other things to consider in game, but for a beginner, it can get overwhelming very quickly, so we’ll just stick to the Three R’s for now.

Rules

What better thing for a game than rules! The first thing you hopefully would have done if you were gearing up for your first game is to get your hands on a Player’s Handbook (For DnD 5e), or your RPG’s respective rulebook. Hobby stores, book stores, libraries, even video game shops might stock a physical copy of our favourite WotC volumes, but you can also secure them online wherever you may find them. 

Once you have your grubby little goblin hands on a handbook, give it to a friend, and have them read it to you. If that gets too boring, have them explain the rules in detail - you’ll need a pen and a notebook! If that is too time-consuming or - more likely - you don’t actually have any friends, you’ll have to settle for a hurried and often last-minute explanation of the core mechanics of the game, the finer details of which will be left unaddressed until you get your creative spirit crushed by your mean Dungeon Master, or local rules lawyer. 

(Remember kids, if you aren’t sure of where to locate one of these “rules lawyers”, simply talk out loud about your homebrew weapon or Pathfinder game, and they will be sure to find you!)

In this fabled Player’s Handbook you will find a fun breakdown and walkthrough of the game’s races, classes, and backgrounds, all of which you will need to read through several times and then immediately forget. Only after you have asked yourself “Which Bard School is going to make Sildaar Hallwinter not a steaming pile of crap?” for the fifth time in 10 minutes, can you move on to “equipment” and “rules”. Make sure to read these thoroughly, because you’ll learn them pretty quickly after your party’s Paladin once again forgets how many d10s to roll. It’s two, Derek. You asked the exact same question last round. 

Idiot. 

Rol(l/e)s

Once you manage to wrap your head around the rules, you get to the meat of the sandwich - rol(l/e)s. Whoever came up with this idiotic word hybrid (me) needs to report to their editor (also me) and get his ass whooped (still me). 

Now, I know you’ve gotten this far and thought “Wait, Nate, that may have rhymed but you haven’t actually given any tips yet?!??!?!?!!/1!?!?!?!?1?!???????????”. To that, I say yes (or no?), I have(n’t?) given you tips for how to play and roll for certain things, because the biggest tip I have for you is coming right up.

Wait for it.

You cannot build a dragon’s tower without strong foundations. 

Meaning: Only once you have “mastered” the rules and basics of roleplaying (and rolling!) will you be able to spread your beautiful dragon wings and soar as a damn good DnD player. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you will have to learn and remember every single mechanic or rule in the book! Because that would be a nightmare and if you can do it, you will be God. No questions asked. But hey! People make mistakes, or remember things wrong, or guess incorrectly, or even make it up as they go along. Having the handbook or Dungeon Master’s Guide on hand for these occasions will save everyone’s sanity at least once, but knowing when to draw the line between fairness and fun will make everyone’s play a whole lot better. 

So! Now that you’ve become God, rolling and role-ing (not a word) are your new best friends. And you know who makes the best friends? DICE! Just google it and have fun, kids, but remember that you have to eat and sleep somewhere warm and cozy tonight, so try not to build your hoard of shiny forbidden snacks too quickly, now. All you will need for starters is your standard 7-dice set: d4, d6, d8, d10*, d12, and d20.

*The d10 often comes in pairs to act as a percentile dice. The die with the ten’s (00, 10, 20, 30, etc.) will act as the ten’s place, and the other die will act as the one’s place. So, if you roll a 60 and a 9, you get a really funny number. If you roll a 00 and a 0, that’s 100! If you roll a 00 and a 1, however, that’s a 1. You die in game and you die in real life. Goodbye.

The handbook will tell you all the dice you will need to roll in order to both run the game, and make your character! That’s right! Maths begins even before the game does. Even Death themself cannot escape the point-buy system. Just submit. 

Stats are fun. 

What do they mean? What do they do? Who even knows what Constitution does?! I certainly don’t! But that’s where you’re in luck, bucko.

This post is already long enough without getting to the good stuff, so I’ll keep it simple. 

Strength - a measure of how well you can do stuff with your muscles. Skills like Athletics (aaaaaaand nope just athletics, huh, really? No fish-lifting skill? Huh? Cowards) will benefit from having some damn good muscles. Also you can stab stuff real good.

Dexterity - a measure of how deft, nimble, and stealthy one can be. Contributes to skills like Acrobatics and Stealth, unsurprisingly. If you can move good, you can groove good. I’d add a skill for dancing if I were you, WotC. 

Constitution - I lied before when I said I had no idea what constitution does, but it was only partly a joke. Constitution contributes to skills like not dying, staying alive, and stopping being dead. Sometimes it determines how much health you have. Sometimes it means you can drink an entire frog. Don’t ask.

Intelligence - Are you a smart cookie? Can you learn languages fluently in a short span of time? Can you destroy scores of defenceless troops with a single pillar of flame? Can you read? Are you kept awake at night by their screams? Intelligence makes you good (or not) at skills like History, Religion, Arcana, and being a nerd. Oh wait. No one is good at being a nerd. Sorry nerdlord. Also, if your intelligence is under 10, you can’t read! Just like me.

Wisdom - Not the smartest cookie in the shed? Like to eat leaves? You and me both, kid! Wisdom is a measure of your STREET SMARTS! so you can throw those nasty pervert kobolds off their rhythm. Unfortunately, starting equipment does not include a money clip. It makes you good at eating dirt and walking through forests and stuff. Also I think you can pet dogs really well?

Charisma - If you’ve ever played a bard, you would know what this is. If you haven’t played a bard, it’s not too late! Quick! Choose a Warlock or a Cleric if you want a Charisma based build! Choose the entertainer background if you must! -sigh- but if you insist, charisma is a measure of how easily you can quite literally charm the pants off a dragon. Also, sometimes you can roast people really well?

Having high skills is all fine and dandy, but the next tier of DnD player character power is owning your low skills. Have low constitution? Your tiefling is sickly or has a weak stomach! Low intelligence? Your character can’t read or write! Low charisma? You cause every single npc interaction to end with you being punched in the face. There is colour and interest in every aspect of your character, so make sure to let your character sheet represent your character as well as you can!

But how do you determine these stats?

Looking in your class description, you will see under the ‘Quick Build’ section the recommended stat scores, backgrounds and/or spells for that character. These are NOT mandatory, but I find them to be a helpful guideline for how to keep your character functional and, well, alive. Stat scores themselves can be determined a few different ways: Point-buy (I have no idea how this works but it looks like a lot of maths and that’s homophobic, so); Cascading, and rolling. 

Cascading (or at least that’s my name for it, I have no other way to describe it) is where you take the values 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8 and assign each to one of your stats. For example, before adding racial stat modifiers, I could assign my barbarian’s stats as follows:

STR: 15, DEX: 13, CON: 14, INT: 8, WIS: 10, CHA: 12.

I may have a character-based reason for assigning my barbarian a relatively adequate Charisma score. Maybe he was a particularly intimidating character, or perhaps his iron-will makes his Constitution a 14. Maybe he likes to dance. You could have a particularly burly mage with a strength score of 15, just because you feel like it. Maybe your cleric is part of team sweet-flips? Or your monk could study tomes night and day to get her Intelligence to a lofty 17 points post-modifiers. Balancing stat scores so that you don’t die is awesome, but having a change to shout “YOU DO NOT SEE GROG!” and win 9 times out of 10? Priceless.

Rolling your stats is perhaps the most widely-used way to determine stats, but to be safe, ask your DM (or get crafty if you’re the DM!) about their preferred method. It’s pretty simple: roll 4d6 (the six-sided dice four times), noting down each individual roll. After four rolls, you cross out the lowest roll, and add the remaining three. Repeat five more times and you have some good good stats, bro! Don’t forget to add your racial stat modifiers before you assign your stat scores! 

Modifiers seem pretty confusing as a newbie, but there is a handy table in the PHB to help you keep track. Alternatively, you could subtract 10 from your score, and then half what you have left, making sure to round down! A score of 19 would have a modifier of +4 (19 - 10 = 9/2 = 4.5 ≈ 4, rounding down). A score of 8 would have a modifier of -1 (8 - 10 = -2/2 = -1). Pretty simple, right?

So now I think I can finally address whatever the F*$# I mean by ‘Roles’. What the heck is a role? Do you mean roleplaying? No, dear reader, I do not. A ‘role’ is what I like to call your position in the party. Because yes, on the unlikely occasion that you do manage to wrangle a group of people willing (or able) to play DnD with you, you still have to play with other kids, Derek. That means that the typical balancing applies. You cannot just have a 7-person party filled entirely by bards. Or bees. Though I would prefer the bees. Who would want 7 bards? That sounds like the start of a bad joke. 

A good rule of thumb is to make sure you have enough bases covered in the traditional party makeup that you won’t die immediately, but you also don’t have to deal with 7 goddamn bards, Derek, I swear to God-

You’ll want someone to hit stuff, someone to get hit, someone to help those who get hit, and someone to hit things when you don’t want to get hit. This could be solved any number of ways. Get creative, go hog wild. But not buck wild, Derek. I will not have the “Seven Buskateers” at my table again, do you hear me?!

This brings us to the finale. I’ve been writing this post for half an hour, and we’re finally getting to the good stuff. Thanks for stick with me so far. How about dropping your favourite stardew valley bachelor/ette down in the replies if you’ve read this far? Mine’s Elliot, because he’s beautiful and I love him, just like I love you. :3

Roleplaying!

It’s in the title! The very mechanics of the game! So, the question you’re asking me is: “Nate, how the Flippity Doo Daa do you roleplay?????????” 

And I reply, “How are you making those noises with your mouth? Where am I?! Who are you? Why can I hear each individual question mark even though they shouldn’t have a place in the mortal coil? What are you?!”

And then I tell you about my favourite thing to tell my own players. 

The easiest character to play is one that exists. So? What does that mean???

It means that YOU, my dead, dear nerd, can’t just pull a self-insert every single dang game, Damn it Derek! No one LIKES YOU! GO HOME! You have this opportunity to think of a fun, unique concept, and roll with it. So, how can you create the next Taako, or Nott, or Yashee’rak or Caduceus? 

If you have a concept to work from, that’s great! If not, start from the ground up. Who is your character? What are their likes, dislikes, loves, hates, loyalties, vendettas? I often like to establish both a backstory and a goal for them to accomplish, the simpler the better, to get you on the right track. Perhaps a Neverwinter begger wishes to open their own tea shop in Ba Sing Se? A cursed child of an angel and a demon takes it upon themself to avenge their brother’s death? A simple farm girl falls in love and follows her princess Buttercup across Faerûn? You name it!

Some good questions to ask yourself about your characters personality could also include:

What would they kill for?

What would they die for?

What would they watch someone else die for?

What are some rumours your party members would have heard about your character?

What would they think of your favourite meme?

How do they treat their mum? How would they treat your mum?

Do they have any recurring nightmares? Why?

Etc. Etc. Think of them as a real being, with thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams and fears! The more detailed you can get in theory might help in the long run. If you find yourself deviating from these details, however, don’t sweat! That’s a character’s natural development and progression as a character! In fact, if things don’t change as you play, you might have to have a look at your play style. Loosen up. No one is one emotion their entire lives. Characters lie! They hide things and change details and cheat and steal! But they also act kindly, even randomly, and change and grow. Encourage that. Let them grow. They (and your party members!) will thank you for it!

I think that’s all I have in me for now, and oh man there are so many more things I could mention. DMing in itself will have to wait for another day, of course, but I hope this helped! I’m going to die now.