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tearsofsyrup · 4 years ago

Text

half-silvered

— With all the time that has passed since your endless fleeing began, some part of you seems to have forgotten that you are running away from actual people and that there is an actual possibility that they might catch up to you.

pairing. kwon soonyoung / reader

genre. space pirate au, exes au, sci-fi au, romance, angst

word count. 4k

warnings. brief violence

notes. part of @merakiiverse‘s collab! happy holidays, honeys.

Your heartbeat is steady. And unsettlingly silent.

The darkness stretching from wall to wall, blanketing the rooms and corridors in a thick black only interrupted by the round stream of your flashlight which creates distorted shadows before you, does not make your blood pump faster anymore. A thrill you faintly remember from past times in this career is but a stale taste in the back of your throat now, its tang long since eroded.

Skimming over the numbers on each crate with heavy-lidded eyes as you proceed, your free hand digs in the pocket of your coat to retrieve a small list. You cannot bother to count the rooms you pass until you find the box with a code matching the one on your piece of paper, dismissing any distant thud that might reach your ear. Even the thought of one of the thugs you passed on the street before entering the warehouse following you inside, does not alarm you. You trust it would be different if a thirty-seven thousand credit blaster - stolen, naturally - wasn’t fastened to your utility belt, but you cannot be sure anymore.

You shove the end of your flashlight in your mouth as you crouch before the targeted crate and pull out your cloaked mobile to hack the heavy lock sealing the lid shut - a fruitless attempt at keeping your kind out. And with nothing but a few taps and a few beeps more, the lock slides open.

The list feels amateur to you despite its ambition; two whole pairs of di-blasters, no less than three Caratian batteries and one weighty pouch of crystal powder. You're aware that this used to be exhilarating, the thousands of credits worth of cargo you are currently tucking in your backpack - multiplied with a one point two by your buyer. However. You suppress a yawn as you check the list again, before closing the crate with a loud boom.

And wandering back the way you came is just as uneventful as you remember it.

Until you hear a door shut somewhere behind you, not far away.

Instinct is what swings you around, arm steady with experience as you shine your light forth and around, other hand ready on the handle of your blaster. You see nothing but shelves and crates and more crates as your light scans the room, penetrating its dense shadow. Your heartbeat is picking up, but shyly so, your breathing yet even.

Silence. Similar to the one that often creeps inside your skull and lays its eggs of isolation and loneliness in your dreams when you try to sleep during some nights. You gulp, slowly releasing the grip on your blaster.

So you turn back around, quietly and carefully-

A face.

Halted breath.

Soonyoung?

Everything burns, lightning setting fire to the bones beneath your skin and squeezing your lungs of their air and-

...

A piercing headache is what coaxes your consciousness, eyes yet closed. Piercing, as though you are being slammed in the head with the handle of a blaster over and over, the resulting groan that crawls its way out of your chest almost causing you to jump in surprise. Attempting to pry your eyelids open only seems to worsen the incessant pounding, so you let them remain shut, slowly realizing that you are slouched on the ground, back leaned against a wall of some sort. You move to push yourself forward.

But your wrists are tied behind you.

It hurts when your breath hitches.

You force your eyes open then, despite it seemingly grasping your brain and ripping it apart, the instinct to survive activating and tingling within your muscles.

A disorienting blur is all you see through your squinting, a distant canvas of blacks and greys and biting lights. You think a monotone whirr surrounds you but cannot be sure if its a figment of mere imagination through the painful pounding in your ears.

As your vision slowly steadies and your heartbeat’s speed increases, you see that someone sits before you. A face. When your eyes close, Soonyoung’s face flashes across the insides of your lids and you feel fluster burning beneath your cheeks, remembering. Soonyoung?

With a sharp sting, you blink and blink away the dim coating your pupils. It isn’t Soonyoung.

“Ji- ugh... Ji-...” Jihoon, your sore throat won’t let you say.

Jihoon?

His glare is pointed, willing everything in its way to turn to stone. Just like how it used to be. But filled with more hatred, directed at you now. And you can barely comprehend that it is really him.

The inside of a ship surrounds you when you look around, a grey and matte metal, various large crates - one of which Jihoon is seated upon - rucksacks and blasters and canisters and multicolored lights crowding the space. It is bigger than the ship of theirs from your memories.

Jihoon’s all but predatory gaze is still waiting when you return to it.

You try to clear your throat, wincing at the painful pounding that follows and echoes between the walls of your skull. Fingertips tingling, you remember being knocked out, in the warehouse. The fiery burn. Electricity.

“Ji-” you begin, voice raspy but Jihoon stands with a sigh and walks away, out through a doorway and presumably into another room.

You are left stunned, feeling abandoned, body aching. The chill he meets you with after all these years, without even as much as a word, squeezes around your heart in a most discomforting way, despite being expected. Despite him clearly having a hand in your current physical state.

But you ignore that pain and will your eyes to scan your surroundings, your instinct to survive muted but present, searching for any way to escape and run.

With as much power as you can muster in your unwell state and vulnerable position, you jerk your wrists against the cuffs tying your hands together. An electronic lock, you guess, definitely attached to the wall somehow. Inconvenient...

You swallow around slimy saliva, throat so dry it almost feels like sand on its way down. And Soonyoung’s face flashes behind your eyelids when you blink again.

Your eyes are fixed on the doorway now, somehow sensing exactly who will soon enter, rhythmic thuds of footsteps approaching.

But expecting his appearance does naught to calm the heat his presence spreads throughout your body.

Soonyoung.

The same Soonyoung but with grimmer eyes, a stronger build and a missing smile.

Your throat squeezes, feeling as though your heart has jumped up and plugged it shut in an attempt to leave the painful constraints of your chest. Feelings you have tried to keep hidden for so long. Nails bite into your palms where your hands form tight fists behind you.

He walks with steady steps, sharp eyes narrow when they meet yours, Jihoon stopping to lean against the doorway while someone unfamiliar follows behind Soonyoung.

It hurts to breathe as heavily as you are now but you cannot stop.

Soonyoung stills before you to sit where Jihoon had, the stranger standing behind him scrutinizing you. But you don’t pay the latter much mind.

“Soonyoung...” you sigh, but an injured whisper, something salty burning distantly behind your eyes.

He watches you silently, eyebrows twitching slightly at the utterance of his name.

“Why-” you begin but stumble on a cough.

Soonyoung reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a small flask, unscrewing the lid and guiding it to your mouth, helping you drink. If he were anyone else, you would give the offer a second guess. But he’s Soonyoung.

Yet here you are, captive in his ship.

“You never were good at being taken by surprise...” His voice resonates within the deepest parts of your chest and you choke slightly on the water, fists tightening impossibly when his sentence his followed by your name. The familiar vibrations in your ears are too shocking and it somehow scares you, a feeling you do not experience much of.

Soonyoung retracts the flask and flashes you a strained smile, eyes remaining dull. “That’s why we made such a good team.”

A stab in the heart, is what that sentence feels like and you cannot help but shift your eyes to the floor, your dirty boots. Unearned, since you were the one holding the knife back then.

You test your voice with a careful hum, lifting your eyes to meet Soonyoung’s returned frown. “Wh- uhm... I- You electrocuted me... Didn’t you?”

He nods, something pained in his stare. Freezing compared to how Jihoon made you feel. “Yes.”

“Wh-” A cough. “Where’s my ship?”

“We’ve parked it in a private haven. It’s ours now.”

Your gaze shifts from Soonyoung to the stranger behind him, his expression inquisitive, then to Jihoon, glare heavy with unmistakable anger. A swallow tightens your throat.

“You- Why am I here?”

“We want credits,” Soonyoung says and you frown. “A desire you must be pretty familiar with...”

Your heartbeat freezes for a second and something stings somewhere behind your eyes again. There is venom in his voice that never used to be there before. But you are who poisoned him so the hurt you feel is unearned, you remind yourself.

“So, then just take-”

“We want credits,” Soonyoung repeats, interrupting you and resting his elbows on his thighs to lean closer. “... but not yours.”

When your eyes stray due to puzzlement they are only received by Jihoon’s still hateful glare, therefore returning to Soonyoung quickly. Even though his hostility hurts you more.

“Then... What will you do with me...?”

The man before you shrugs, head jerking when black strands of hair catch on his eyelashes. “Nothing much... We’re not gonna kill you or hurt you any more. But I can’t make such promises on the Chancellor’s behalf.”

Your jaw drops along with your heart, and probably your temperature too.

“You’ve pissed a lot of people off, y’know?” Soonyoung continues, leaning away. “The bounty on your head only keeps increasing, especially alive.”

“Y-... You’re fetching me for the Chancellor...” Your voice is significantly weaker now.

And it seems to reach Soonyoung differently, because the chill in his gaze turns glum, a poignance in the way he observes your deflating form on the floor of his ship. Which only seems to worsen the pain viciously clawing at your insides, like your body is only just realizing that it is really him. He found you, after so long. And he is sending you to your probable death.

“Soonyoung...”

He purses his lips, as if biting back an apology of some sorts that he knows you don’t deserve. A nod is all you get before he stands again.

“Jeonghan, upload the route and start the ship,” he commands, seemingly to the stranger behind him. Then he is gone through the doorway again, what remains of your heart merely left to soak in self-inflicted misery.

...

They decide to watch you for one shift each whilst you travel toward your pending doom, a wise decision considering your track record of escaping sticky situations. Coupled with the fact that you do not want to hurt either Soonyoung or Jihoon anyway, despite phantom heat still tingling throughout your limbs from the earlier electric shock and heavy handcuffs digging into your wrists.

Jeonghan, the stranger, is the first to watch you. He is surprisingly nice to you, offers you water and even bread, initiating small talk - something you cannot remember when you last did without an ulterior motive.

“So, you used to know Soonyoung and Jihoon, right?” he asks at one point with an encouraging smile, making you wonder how much he knows. The weight of the question rings quietly in your ears.

“Uhm, yes... Yes, I used to know them...”

When you say no more, despite Jeonghan’s patience, he clears his throat. “Did... you guys have a falling out?”

You scoff upon reflex. “Yeah, you could say that...”

Jeonghan squints. “What happened?”

A heaviness brews within Jeonghan’s eyes and suddenly you feel like he knows everything, like he is just asking to confirm what he has already been told. To decide if you really are the vile monster he thinks of you as.

The darkness of the cargo hold turns colder suddenly and you look away. “I’d rather not talk about it...” you squeak as your heart thuds painfully.

Jeonghan’s all but invasive stare fades and he changes the subject then.

...

The next shift is Jihoon’s and you have never felt as naked, vulnerable and guilty as you do under his burning glare.

He doesn’t utter one single word. Only sits in front of you and stares, seemingly trying to summon your death with nothing but one long look and a chilling quiet. And you are terribly surprised that it doesn’t work.

Not even sleep is worth attempting in Jihoon’s silence as when your lids fall shut Jihoon’s loathing expression is imprinted behind them, slowly morphing into Soonyoung’s instead. It only makes your heart jump and eyes itch, so you endure Jihoon’s invisible knives with an increasingly parched throat for the duration of his shift.

...

Despite how unsettling being watched by Jihoon proved to be, when it is Soonyoung’s turn you almost ask Jihoon to stay.

Your body has grown heavy with fatigue but your mind awakens painfully when Soonyoung approaches, bringing a tension so thick it makes you sweat with him. Therefore his first action of offering you water is appreciated. But the way there’s a permanent frown weighing at the corners of his mouth makes the water taste bitter.

You break the silence after moisturizing your vocal chords, speaking over the consistent beeping sounds in the background.

“I think Jihoon wants me dead,” seems like the only thing you can think of saying. Even though there are so many words boiling within your chest with Soonyoung’s name written all over them, you feel like you do not have the right to their utterances.

Soonyoung’s lips purse, slanted gaze serious. “You’re probably right.”

It hurts, though you have not earned that pain. Only caused it.

A quiet that lasts a forged eternity proceeds, until the tension turns deafening.

Soonyoung sighs, a slow hand combing through his hair. “Jihoon used to like you more than me, y’know? You were always his favorite...”

It really hurts.

“Until you fucked us over,” Soonyoung finishes.

Averting your eyes you swallow around slimy saliva, a cold knot twisting in the pit of your stomach. And there is a burn behind your eyelids you are afraid will boil over if you meet Soonyoung’s stare again. The cognizance of your weakness that washes over you and makes your hairs stand on end is unpleasant, mercilessly corroding the strong image you’ve built of yourself.

“You-you gave up everything we had for... money,” Soonyoung continues when you can’t, the weight of his tone increasing. “You left us, you left... me. You left me for fucking credits...” His voice wavers and it’s a dagger in your heart, a sting behind your eyes.

Your memory is as clear as if it had only just happened. Seeing the offer that had been sent to you. Considering and considering and considering, all those credits that could be yours if you just made the right choice. Lying sleepless next to Soonyoung that night, palm flat on his naked chest. Getting dressed quietly, leaving the ship with the emptiness of an unspoken goodbye in your stomach, one you convinced yourself wasn’t real. Giving away the ship’s location to the bidder, knowing the trouble it would bring your friend and your lover. How salty the countless credits tasted once yours. You still taste it now.

Though you cannot be sure of how long it takes for you to notice that you are crying, you find that your will to save face has run out. You break at last.

Ugly sobbing bounces between the metal walls of the ship, worsening with each breath as you keep remembering that you are not the one who should be crying. Your lungs burn painfully, Jihoon and Jeonghan surely waking upon your horrid weeping. It feels as though your heart is melting, running down your cheeks and dying as the droplets flatten across the floor. In only moments, you are reduced to nothing. Nothing but shame. And the man whose heart you battered witnesses it all.

Eventually, there are no more tears left to cry and silence thrives again, save for the rhythmic beeping.

“I’m sorry,” comes the apology that is long overdue, as raspy as it may be.

Soonyoung’s expression is blue, eyes glazed over with a sadness you only recognize now when yours are too. “It doesn’t matter,” he reminds you, though his tone is not as dismissive as the sentence it offers.

Your head shakes quickly, strands of hair sticking against your tacky cheeks. “I know it doesn’t. You’ve always been a man of your word Soonyoung, and you will turn me in no matter what I say now...” you concede and Soonyoung’s shoulders slump. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. I-I-I was greedy and selfish and only cared about credits, about feeling strong and independent and invincible-... Or so I thought. Or wanted to, I-... I cared about you two...” Your throat tightens, but you force your words out anyway. “I loved you Soonyoung and I- It wasn’t fake, I was never lying, I just-... I wanted to feel like I didn’t need you... And there will never be a time when I won’t regret what I did...”

Tears descend the expanse of your face again, but silently this time. And Soonyoung’s stare is filled with something warmer now, despite his steadfast sorrow. And you can only think about the hugs you left behind, the kisses, the smiles, the laughs.

“You’re an idiot.”

Your chest jumps at the new voice, blurry stare shooting to where Jihoon is leaned against the doorway again. He sounds the same after three years. And some of the hatred in his glare has faded now.

You nod carefully, lip shaking. “I know.”

Soonyoung’s eyes remain steadily on you.

From where your limbs are slumped in a dead pile against the wall, they stiffen abruptly when there’s a sudden hand on your cheek and your attention jumps to Soonyoung again. He wipes your tears with gentle touches, warm thumb soft across your skin. Nails tickle your cheekbone lightly as he moves to tuck some stray strands of hair behind your ear. Your heart must be shuddering.

“I missed you for a long time,” he tells you, pupils tracing the shapes of your features along with his finger. “And then hated you for even longer.”

Your lips purse, sour accord pooling in your eyes, his touch leaving a trail of pleasant tingles. “I hate myself too, and it’s due time I get served my share of consequences.”

Soonyoung’s lids become heavier and his gaze darkens. “You should get some sleep now,” he mutters.

And the temperatures within and around you drop when his hand leaves your face.

...

Despite Soonyoung’s request and your extreme fatigue, sleep did not come easily that night. Likely due to the knowledge of your approaching punishment - though it is hard for you to imagine feeling any worse than you already do.

The guilt that you postponed for the past years weighs uncomfortably on your shoulders as you now stand by the still sealed ramp, and so do the electronic cuffs around your wrists along with the hanging shadows beneath your eyes. A sickness is brewing in your stomach, made up of shame and hunger, but you somehow like it in the same way that you deserve it.

You can sense Soonyoung’s presence behind you as much as you can hear it by his footsteps, and turn around slowly. Jihoon and Jeonghan stand idly in the background, also awaiting your departure. Though there is seemingly something sour in the curl of Jihoon’s brow, and something hesitant in the stiffness of Jeonghan’s lip.

But undoubtedly, the grim matte of Soonyoung’s eye is worst of all.

His face hasn’t been this close in years and the longing ache his proximity offers feels as undeserved as his frown. You threw him away and he is still the victim, despite the handcuffs trapping you. Soonyoung is still the good one.

“It’s time,” he says, voice steady and breath fanning your face. He really is close.

You nod, "it’s time.” And the silence that has plagued your chest for too long only deepens then, cold within the confines of your ribs.

A smile is what the grimace you present is meant to be, eyes piercing his own, desperately trying to remember his exact shade of brown and the charming tilt encasing it. What you fell for, what you betrayed and what put you in your place. This is right, as much as it hurts and as dead as it renders your barely beating heart. The goodbye you have earned.

But a fire is rising in Soonyoung’s gaze, even though it’s not supposed to.

And then he is grabbing your face, gloved palms flat against your cheeks, and kissing you. His lips are soft and plump, his pace is hard and reckless, his taste is warm and familiar and your whole body is frozen. Until your heart bursts with something so loud it feels like it hasn’t made a single sound in forever.

Coming to half your senses, you kiss Soonyoung back with as much fervor as you can manage, tied hands tingling with an insatiable desire to touch him and hold him closer. As if hearing your silent plea, he pulls you in, leaving no air to breathe between you. You distantly imagine Jihoon’s head turning away and Jeonghan’s unreadable expression but cannot find the will to care.

Soonyoung pulls away far too soon and his serious yet heavy-lidded gaze pierces you still.

“Listen to me,” he starts, chest heaving in time with yours, grip meaningful on your shoulders. “Get out of there as quickly as you can, and come find me.”

Your whole body is shaking under the impact of your heartbeat.

“Understand?” Soonyoung’s brows shoot upward.

The demand is unrealistic. You have not heard of anyone escaping the captivity of the Chancellor and know that the odds are positively against you, no matter how skilled you might be. Your death is surely ready to welcome you with open arms, as soon as the ramp is lowered.

Yet, you nod. Knees quivering.

Faintly, you register something beeping.

“Soonyoung,” Jeonghan calls.

You don’t know what to make of the man’s expression when you turn to look, nor Jihoon’s.

Soonyoung’s whisper of your name brings your bug-eyed stare back to him. Those deep brown, fiery eyes.

You nod again.

He sighs, carefully.

Then steps away to push the button that opens the ramp.

Cold winds rush inside the ship and tousle your hair, worsening the shaking in your limbs. But all you feel is rhythmic exhilaration pumping from your heart.

You turn around, met with the sight of the Chancellor’s guards standing in the midst of a snowstorm, waiting for you. Nearly stumbling while descending the ramp’s tilt, the guards grab you and begin searching you immediately, while one of them relays a message to Soonyoung that you can’t seem to hear.

Your neck twists, eyes looking up and meeting Soonyoung’s from where he stands at the top of the ramp. Something in your chest is screaming and it’s deafening.

With guards’ hands patting you down, Soonyoung smiles and his eyes do too. And you are immediately infected, mirroring his expression instinctively, aware of how little you deserve him. In the chilling temperatures of this weather, your blood is warm. Soonyoung presses the button.

When the ramp seals shut, you are left knowing that Soonyoung will be there and he is left wondering if you will ever come.

#caratwritersclub #svtsource #seventeen imagines #hoshi imagines #soonyoung imagines #seventeen scenarios #hoshi scenarios #soonyoung scenarios #seventeen x reader #hoshi x reader #soonyoung x reader #seventeen angst #hoshi angst #soonyoung angst

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fleckcmscott · 4 years ago

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Another Year

Summary: Arthur’s birthday is coming up. Y/N wants nothing more than to make it great.

Warnings: Swearing

Words: 3,892

A/N: This request came from the one-of-a-kind, fabulous @sweet-nothings04! Thank you for asking for this. I enjoyed writing it a lot!

If you have any thoughts or questions, please comment, feel free to message me, or send me an ask. Requests for Arthur and WWH are open! Keep them coming!

Y/N hadn't realized how much she'd missed putting together birthday celebrations. Not until the unexpected serendipity of falling in love again. Her ex-husband had preferred not to make a big deal of them, had stated he hated getting older. (Considering he'd been in his twenties, she'd found that assertion silly.) As her father had slipped away, special events and gifts had gone by the wayside to focus on routines that wouldn't throw him off kilter. She'd been invited to her sister's and brother-in-law's parties but had only stayed for the hour or two she'd hired a sitter. And while she wasn't the most attentive aunt, she always ensured her nephews and nieces at least got a card and money for a treat.

From what she'd gathered, birthdays had never been an important facet of Arthur's life. That had become obvious upon learning his was 11/21/1946 by reading documents instead of from him. When she'd discovered he'd turned thirty-five and hadn't even told her. But unlike her ex, it wasn't because he didn't want them to be. It was due to neglect, isolation, and the inability to connect. As much sympathy as she had for Penny, for her own illnesses and suffering, for what had been done to her, the wounds she'd inflicted on her son hurt Y/N’s heart. There were so many lost years. She was determined to make-up for them by spoiling him.

The diner where Patricia and she often met for lunch was halfway between their two offices. A five- or six-minute walk for them both. Y/N arrived first. She sat at the white and gold Formica counter and perused the menu. (Though she'd already decided to get her usual pastrami on wheat, garlic pickle, and coleslaw.) Patricia strolled in as the waitress jotted down Y/N's order, and told the young lady she'd have whatever Y/N was having.

They caught up quickly. The Wayne Foundation case was going to have a preliminary hearing in three weeks. Y/N couldn't have rolled her eyes harder. ("Thank god I won't be there. They'd have to drag me off the stand.") Patricia listened with interest while Y/N went on about a dispute involving break violations at Ace Chemicals. And Patricia invited her to stop by the office soon, claiming Matt had realized he'd been stupid to let her quit. ("I'm sure he misses me being a pain in his ass.")

Y/N was picking at the crust of her sandwich when she changed the subject. “I need a favor.”

Patricia arched a brow at her. “Is this going to involve me lugging boxes of files to your apartment?”

“Only if you want the workout.” Chuckling, Y/N shook her head. “Arthur’s birthday is next Saturday. You bake the best cakes. If I’m left to my own devices, he’s going to get something out of a Universal Foods’ box.”

“Mine are out of a box. I just modify the directions and make my own frosting.” Patricia used the rest of her bread to sop up her coleslaw’s dressing. “How old did you say he’s going to be? Thirty-five?”

“Thirty-six.”

Swallowing her last bite, Patricia quirked up the corner of her lips. “I still owe you for running those supplies to the office when my foot was broken. What kind does he like?”

Y/N hugged her tight across the shoulders. After a short discussion, they decided on chocolate with vanilla cream frosting - a safe choice. It would be small, since it was only for the two of them. Arthur had a job the day before. That would allow her to take it home without him seeing. She’d just have to keep him away from the fridge the rest of the evening.

They talked about the other things Y/N had in-store for him, the reservation, the gifts. She giggled, pleased at having successfully hidden it all from him so far. “You’re putting a lot of work into this,” Patricia said. “What did you do last year?”

“I didn’t know about it last year. He didn’t mention it.” Though Patricia was already aware of some of Arthur’s past, Y/N had kept the details to a minimum. She tried to think of an elaboration, one that respected his privacy but was honest. She started in on her pickle. “With Penny being sick - with everything he was going through...”

Sipping her coffee, Patricia spun her stool to face Y/N fully. “You don’t need to say anymore. I remember. It was hard for you both.”

The empathy in Patricia’s gaze prompted a smile. And reminded Y/N how grateful she was for a friend who was frank but unjudgmental. “Back then, he thought needing or wanting anything from me was a bother. But he’s getting better at letting me love him.” Y/N put a hand on her chest. “And now he’ll never need to mention it. It’s locked in here for good.”

~~~~~

Yesterday had left Arthur in a funk. One that showed signs of adhering to his brain the way flies had stuck to the tape he’d had to hang from the ceiling of his old apartment every spring. He’d spent close to twelve hours dancing and waving a “Store Closing! Everything 50-70% off!” placard in front of Dave’s Pleasure Emporium in Gotham Square. (The city must really be fucked if its denizens’ finances were shitty enough that adult shops were shutting down.) It had been his least favorite gig in months. But the slow season was coming on, and the pay had been decent.

The dull ache in his lower spine, radiating to his hip, had made it harder than usual to sleep. And soreness was seeping from familiar spots to sinews he’d forgotten were there. Even the tips of his toes hurt. Two more ibuprofen tablets and acetaminophen went down easily. Carefully, not wanting to rouse her, he removed Y/N’s hand from his stomach, wincing as he shifted onto his left side to alleviate the pressure on his right.

Thirty-five was too old for this. While he loved performing for children, he should have made it as a comic by now. And he should have finished school. He’d be able to do more than be on his feet all day, then. Have more options. Opportunities...

Or maybe he simply shouldn’t have taken that particular job.

The ability to stop catastrophizing, adjust his way of thinking, was new. And rare. He made a mental note to write today’s accomplishment in his journal and share it at his next appointment. The therapist would be impressed with him. Dozing, he thought his funk might abate after all.

It could have been five or fifty minutes later when he felt the comforter being dragged down. Heard the zip of the shades being rolled up. But he was in that snug state between wakefulness and slumber and refused to react. Then there was a pinch on his chin, a light weight on his scalp. “What are you doing?” he mumbled gravelly.

“It’s someone’s special day today,” Y/N said.

Oh. That’s right. He was thirty-six now.

Squinting in the bright sunlight filtering through their sheer curtains, he propped himself on his forearm. She was half-reclined next to him, draped in a short, black nightdress. The one she found a tad tawdry but he liked. He rubbed his eyes, his forehead. Thin cardboard stopped him when he reached his hair. His fingers followed it, found it tapered into a point.

A party hat. She’d gotten him a party hat. He couldn’t hold back his snort.

In his line of work, birthdays were for kids. He’d stopped caring about his own as a teenager. Penny had seemingly been glad he was around. But she never remembered. Hell, he’d had to remind her of her own. But the last acknowledgment of it, the last one before meeting Y/N, had been by a teacher. He’d gotten an extra five minutes of recess and escaped punishment for inappropriate laughter for the day.

This was his first birthday with a person who saw and loved him. Understood who he was. Knew he was more than some image projected onto him. A person who appeared thrilled he existed and to be in his life. As a husband. Every sit-com and film he’d watched had clued him in: wives deemed them important. They hid gifts, cooked special meals, sneaked around arranging parties. There hadn’t been any sneaking on Y/N’s part, none that he could detect. He wondered what she could have planned.

The kneading of her thumb in the hollow of his hip, briefs slung too low as usual, gave him a good idea of her plan for this morning. The entangling of their legs confirmed it. “I got donuts. Coffee’s ready.”

“You, um-“ He cleared his throat, closed his eyes at the brush of her thigh against his length. Which was getting harder with each touch of her lips to the crook of his neck. “You didn’t make breakfast?”

“No.” Her chuckle was throaty, full of desire. “I wasn’t going to torture you with burnt eggs.” She was pulling at his biceps, trying to get him to settle over her. “Let’s work up your appetite, Mr. Fleck.”

But he flinched and halted her movements. The painkillers hadn't kicked in yet. His muscles burned. "We'll get to it later," he promised between languid, lingering kisses. The kind that made him feel safe. Loved. Famished for her. She guided him onto his stomach, stroked him affectionately. Breaths mingling, they chatted lazily until they both cooled off.

Once his stomach started rumbling, Y/N insisted they get up, despite his protestations that he wasn't hungry. That staying under the covers with her for hours would be fun. That they could eat in bed, crumbs be damned. His back would get worse if he continued laying like that, she told him. He needed to stretch and move. Although he grumbled, his experiences with injuries, whether from overwork, assholes, or sleeping on a couch most of his life, had taught him she was right.

Following a cigarette on the fire escape, he went to the kitchen, grabbed a mug, and did a double-take at the round table in the dining nook. He approached it in disbelief. He tensed as he ran his hand along the rectangular gifts and their shiny red paper. Squeezed the puffy, tan winter coat. Fingered the silver ribbon tied to the chair, dangling from an aluminum helium balloon. The lump in his throat forced a short laugh. But he didn't cover his mouth, not having to hide from her. He shook his head, wiping at the sudden wetness in his eyes. "All this is for me?" He did his best to sound normal.

"No. They're for my other husband, Carnival." She came behind him, hugged him around his torso and splayed her fingers on his chest. "You may have met him. Has a penchant for making balloon animals? Wears pants with the cutest patch on his bottom?" He grasped her forearm, held her tight to him as his shoulders shook with mirth.

It wasn't yet eight o'clock. And the day was already shaping up to be one of his favorites.

~~~~~

At the vanity on Arthur's side of the bed, Y/N was attempting to create the perfect oval eye with brown liner. The wide smile creeping onto her face wasn't making it easy. But it couldn't be helped. Everything had gone wonderfully so far. Had more than met her expectations. She hoped his had been met, too.

She'd been badgering him to get a winter coat since last Christmas. (His teeth had chattered almost the entire time they'd stood outside to watch Gotham's Christmas parade. The hot chocolate from a vendor hadn't done much good. A long bath had been necessary to finally warm him up.) The one she'd picked out fit him well, and he'd seemed to like it, hanging it by the door next to his tan jacket. And she'd known he was attached to his trusty, foil razor. But it was over fifteen years old, taped together, and on its way out. The new one had a rechargeable battery. He wouldn't be tethered to the outlet over the sink if he wanted to move around a bit.

The twitch of his nostrils, his hitched breath as he'd whispered, "Thank you," had compelled her to kneel next to his chair. The poignancy of his reaction had affected her keenly. Hollowed out her core and filled it with compassion and love. He'd frowned and wiped his nose with the back of his knuckles. "Sorry," he'd scoffed, glistening eyes darting to hers. "I don't mean to be weird."

"You're not, Arthur." She'd gently removed his black and red polka-dotted party hat, set it on the table. "You're being you."

After a quick lunch, they'd leisurely strolled arm-in-arm through the neighborhood, including a visit to the nearby park. Arthur had wanted to stop into the used record shop three or four blocks away. She'd caressed up and down his back, observing his content visage as he flipped through the LPs. It was lovely to see him treat himself to a couple without hesitating to worry about the cost for too long. At home, he'd settled on the floor by the record player and put them on. He must have been feeling better, because he'd kept his earlier promise: they'd made love on the carpet. Unhurried, sweet, and giggling like idiots.

The opening of the bathroom door broke her out of her reverie. She started blotting her darker-than-usual red lipstick with a tissue. "It was nice of Patricia to get me aftershave," he said.

She smoothed the lines of her champagne color, mid-length dress, adjusted its petal sleeves, then twisted around just as he entered the bedroom. Her movements halted. Would his handsomeness, his beauty, ever fail to stun her? Gaze roaming his slender form, she stared at him. He'd only worn his black and brown oxfords seldomly, saving them for special occasions. The wrinkled white socks didn't match his black pants, but they paired well with him.

It was the teal button-up, patterned with white circles of various opacities and sizes, that caused her to need a few seconds to process his remark. It'd hung in the corner of his old living room; she'd eyed it in their closet since he'd moved in. It was such a contrast to his usual conservative clothing. Quite unlike him, she'd assumed. But seeing him standing there in it, the way it complimented his lithe figure and brought out the light green of his irises, made him look a little less withdrawn, she realized she'd been mistaken.

"She thought it'd suit your new shaver." He gave a gentle hum in response, bashful smile appearing. Such gestures were unfamiliar to him. Eventually, they'd become such an integral part of his life he'd grow tired of them. Y/N would make sure of that. The idea prompted a grin and she stepped around the bed to approach him. "You look great. Are you ready?"

“Yeah.” The crook of his mouth, the furrow of his forehead alerted her to his nervousness. He rubbed the back of his neck, flitted his look to hers. “It sounds fancy.”

She kissed him soundly and he eased into her embrace. “You don’t have to impress me,” she said. “You already did that. Use whichever fork you want.”

The restaurant was in Gotham’s Little Italy district, only a block or two from Chinatown. Y/N had never been to Bamonte’s but her colleagues had given it good reviews. (One had said he and his wife went there every anniversary.) Arthur gaped when they went inside. She watched him survey the lavish, red curtains decorating the walls; the dim lanterns suspended from the ceiling; the faux-marble floor. Huffing, he turned to her, concern clear on his face. She grasped his elbow. “It’s all right. You belong here as much as anyone else.”

The maitre’d led them to a secluded table, behind its own drawn back drapes in the rear corner of the smoking section. Arthur traced the edges of the three lit, tulip-shaped votive holders. Caressed the cream color tablecloth as he sat in the fabric covered chair. An anxious chuckle left him and he smoothed his palm over his thigh. “I hope I don’t spill anything.”

Y/N assisted Arthur with the menu, explaining some of the more exotic-to-him dishes. He was interested in the antipasto, which wasn’t unexpected, since he always kept a jar of olives in the fridge. The gnocchi with tomatoes, spinach, fresh basil, and mozzarella was what he thought sounded best. She chose an old favorite, chicken in a mushroom and white wine sauce and a Caesar salad on the side. Arthur picked the least expensive Moscato on the wine list. When the bottle was opened and left on the table, he blinked at it, then shrugged and filled their glasses.

After a couple of sips, he crossed his legs and puffed on his cigarette. “I wrote a new joke. Well, I really just changed an old one.” He reached across the table to graze across the back of her hand. “Why didn’t the old man like having insomnia?”

Her eyelids fluttered, his gossamer touch setting her aflame. She ran her toes along his calf, his resulting twitch causing her to giggle in delight. “He wanted to sleep with his wife?”

Dark brows shot up in surprise, his eyes lighting up. Their fingers laced together. “How did you know?”

Leaning forward, she traced his crow's feet, prominent due to his beaming smile. Then her touch drifted to his jawline. “It was the first joke you ever told me," she murmured. "How could I forget?” Clutching her hand, he pressed a kiss to her wrist. He held her to his lips, hard enough to feel his teeth. And he grew quiet. “What is it?” she asked after a minute.

His eyelids shut. She could feel his pulse quicken together with hers. “I- I wanna sleep with you forever,” he breathed.

Out of anyone else’s mouth, she would have taken that to mean sex. From him, however, she knew it meant mountains more. Adoration welling in her chest, her fingertips weaved into his loose, chestnut curls. “You will.”

~~~~~

Once, in high school, Arthur had gotten a hold of some grass. It was supposed to induce giddiness and euphoria, make a person relax. God knows he could have used it back then; Penny had started declining and he’d had to learn to run a household. Plus, he’d thought at the time, it’d make him one of the guys. All the cool kids were doing it. Maybe he’d be able to connect with one and learn how to be popular. But all it had done was make him nauseous and paranoid. There hadn’t been one iota of the “high” he’d imagined. He’d thrown it out and never tried it again.

Now he wondered: was it possible to be high on a person? To be drunk on their presence? To feel their essence down to the cell? Necking on the sofa with Y/N, their coffee forgotten on the coffee table, he figured it must be. Enraptured, he wanted to capture her ragged breaths, take her into his lungs, make her a perpetual part of his being. Perhaps he’d stay happy naturally, then, like everyone else. Even if that didn’t work, she’d always be close.

Giggling, she pushed him off her and headed towards the kitchen. “Wait here. No peeking.”

Laughing softly, Arthur pushed his hair out of his face. She’d already gotten him gifts. Let him make love to her. Taken him to an eatery where he was totally out of place and managed to make it comfortable. What else could she possibly do? Luckily, he didn’t have to wait long. He eagerly followed at the call of his name.

The loveliest cake he’d ever seen was on the counter. Dark chocolate shavings embellished its round border. And it was the perfect size for the two of them. Y/N was rushing to light a mass of candles on it. “Quick, make a wish before wax drips onto the frosting.”

He mused for a moment. He no longer needed to pine for daydreams and delusions of companionship - he had Y/N. In spite of the icons his mother had had in every room of their apartment, he’d long ago stopped praying to what he suspected was nothing for his conditions and illnesses to go away. Then it occurred to him. Bending to blow out the candles, he wished for his innate comedic gifts to be recognized. To be validated as the stand-up he knew he was. And to provide for Y/N. To be what she needed. To make her happy.

Although he was grateful for Patricia’s thoughtfulness, and he knew Y/N’s baking wasn’t better than his own, part of him had wanted her to be the one who made the cake. But he tried to push that aside and appreciate it regardless. The slice she gave him was far too generous. He ate it all, anyway, because it was delicious. The sponge was fluffy. And the chocolate could actually be detected, instead of a vague, sugary flavor. The frosting tasted finer than that on the grocery store bakery cupcakes he’d sampled in the past.

As he was rinsing off the cutlery, Y/N saddled up beside him and held out a bright purple envelope, inscribed with “Happy Birthday!” in her pretty longhand. He leaned his hip against the counter as he grasped it, intentionally brushing his hand against hers. Gingerly, he lifted the flap and pulled out the card.

The cardstock was a vibrant gold and white. Two mugs, one green and labeled, “Yours,” one pink and labeled, “Mine” sat on sketched coasters. The shiny purple letters underneath proclaimed, “You get me. I get you.” Pressing his thin lips together, he opened it. And sighed when he read the rest: “Hope you know how happy that makes me.”

One of his wishes had already come true.

The elation coursing through his veins made him shudder. He nearly missed the stiff papers that fell from the envelope. Y/N retrieved them and gently placed them in his palm. A wide smile spread across his cheeks as he read aloud. “‘Gotham Pops presents A Night with Gershwin?’” He double-checked the date. “These are for New Year’s Eve.”

She nodded. “I snagged them as soon as they went on sale. They’re orchestra seats.” Then she squeezed him flush to her side, bumped her nose to his. “Don’t think I haven’t heard you sing to yourself in the tub.”

“Oh,” he chuckled, eyes tracing the diamond pattern of the grey, linoleum floor. “I thought I was quieter.”

“I’m glad you weren’t.” Enthusiastically, her lips pulled at his before she grinned up at him. “Did you have a happy birthday? Was it worth getting older?”

Arthur’s answer came without delay. “Yes.” There wasn’t a way to explain what it meant to him, to explain that she helped him feel good to be alive. How full his heart was. That she patched cracks in his soul he hadn’t known existed. He longed to do the same for her. He cupped her jaw on either side, guiding her to his mouth and rasping, “I don’t mind getting older with you.”

~~~~~

Tag list (Let me know if you want to be added!): @harmonioussolve @howdylilflower @sweet-nothings04 @stephieraptorr @rommies @fallenstarsabyss @gruffle1 @octopus-plasma @tsukiakarinobara @arthur-flecks-lovely-smile @another-day-in-chuckletown @hhandley80 @jokerownsmysoul

#arthur fleck #arthur fleck fanfic #arthur fleck x reader #arthur fleck x female reader #arthur fleck x ofc #joker 2019 #watchwhathappens

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mamabearcatfanfics · 5 years ago

Text

More Than Words - One

“Please, please, please, please, please Kagome!”

She looked up from her laptop to roll her eyes at the dark haired man leaning over her desk, his violet eyes beseeching, hands together as if in prayer.

“You would think by now Miroku, that you of all people would know that when a lady says no, she means no”, she said dryly, dropping her attention back to the computer screen in front of her. It was boring work, but if everything wasn’t just so, the tender documents could be rejected, and she really didn’t want to open that can of worms with her project manager.

“But Kagome”, he continued pleading. “She’s amazing, gorgeous, an angel!” His eyes misted over as he gazed off into the middle distance. “I think it’s her. I think I’ve finally found the love of my life.” Kagome snorted, and his eyes flicked back to hers. “You don’t believe me?” he said with a wounded expression.

“Miroku”, Kagome sighed, “you probably spoke to her for a maximum of what, two minutes, tops? And that was to order coffee. How is this girl any different from the temp secretary you took out on a date after the office Christmas party three weeks ago? Or that girl you abandoned me for last Friday night when we went out to karaoke? I’m not going to hound some poor woman minding her own business into giving you her number just because you have the unfortunate habit of falling for every pretty face you see!”

Miroku shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. This was different. When my fingers touched hers, it was, like, I don’t know, a spiritual connection.” He sighed, leaning against Kagome’s desk, his hand over his heart. “She owns me, body and soul.”

“Oh my god Miroku,” Kagome chortled, pushing his hip off her desk. “If you were any cheesier I’d need to run out and buy wine and crackers! You do realise that you sound like someone out of one of those trashy romance movies on daytime TV? Next you’ll be writing sonnets and saying you were struck by Cupid’s arrow.” She got up from her desk to move over to the filing cabinet, rifling through the files. “I still don’t see why I need to be involved anyway - just ask her for her number herself if you’re so desperate!”

Miroku sighed, hanging his head despondently. “I’ve been banned. By her guard dog.” Kagome looked at him questioningly. “The barista.”

“You got banned from a café by the barista? What on earth did you do!?” She held up her hands, the file in them covering her view of Miroku as he opened his mouth to explain. “No, don’t tell me, on second thoughts, I don’t want to know!”

“Kagome, I’m begging you! Just talk to her. If she doesn’t want to give her number to me, I’ll admit defeat. I just need to know! What if I did all your filing for the next week?”

Kagome shook her head. “No way! I’ve only just got all my files back in order from when you meddled with my stuff when I was on leave.”

“I’ll walk your dog.”

“I have a cat.”

“I’ll do your tax return for you.”

“I’d like to stay out of prison, thanks very much.”

“I’ll, I’ll… “ Miroku looked around the office, as if searching for inspiration, his eyes alighting on Kagome’s much loved pink coffee cup, sitting empty and forlorn on her desk. “I’ll buy you coffee for the next month!”

Kagome stared him. “You’re offering to buy me coffee for a whole month?” He nodded. “And this is whether she gives me her number or not?” Miroku nodded again. Kagome bumped the filing cabinet drawer shut with her hip, then placed the folders on her desk, turning back to him with a gleeful expression on her face.

Miroku’s face fell when he realised exactly how much that this might cost him in monetary terms. Kagome loved her coffee; she was rarely seen without her favourite coffee mug in her hand. And she did a lot of overtime, often working back late at the office, weekends too when a tender was due.

Kagome grinned even wider and slapped him on the shoulder. “Miroku, my lovestruck friend, you’ve got yourself a deal!”

☕💘☕

Kagome walked towards the tiny hole in the wall coffee shop a few blocks away from the office. It was literally only a door and a window wide, the exterior painted in matte black, with a white awning shading the customers waiting outside in the hot Australian summer sun. The business name adorned the glass window, a simple red circle with black text in a strong block font - Black Dog Coffee.

There was a line of people heading out the door waiting patiently, some chatting quietly, but most looking down at their phones. As she got further forward in the line, she was amused to notice that everyone followed the same pattern – a step towards the woman taking orders, stating their name and order and paying, then two steps to the left while they waited for their coffee. The woman at the cash register didn’t take another order until the first one had been filled, yet no one complained. That was kind of odd, but the line was moving fairly swiftly, so she guessed it worked, even though it wasn’t how cafés usually took their coffee orders. It was hard to see what was going on from her position in the line, stuck behind a tall guy in a business suit. She decided to look up reviews for the coffee shop online while she was waiting.

‘This coffee is the absolute bomb, but don’t piss off the barista!’

‘Was recommended to me by a friend. Coffee is amazing.’

‘Kinda weird. They only sell coffee, roast their own beans I think. The barista is something else!’

‘Would wait in line all day for this coffee!!’

‘Worst experience ever. Got BANNED because I tried to order more than five things. And they have no food, just coffee. WTF! Pretty sure the barista was in the yakuza – that guy has tatts for days! 0/10 would recommend.’

‘Follow the ordering protocol and you’ll be sweet – best coffee in the downtown financial district.’

‘OMG – best coffee EVER! I’m now a daily customer.’

Hmmm. She tried to peer around the tall guy in front of her, but she couldn’t see anything; the afternoon sun was reflecting off the glass covered office building nearby, getting in her eyes and making her squint. She fanned her face with her hand. Man it was hot. You could fry an egg out here on the cement. She hoped the coffee was worth the freckles she was probably getting on her nose right now. The tall guy stepped forward to make his order, and she caught a glimpse of the woman behind the cash register.

Long glossy brown hair with thick bangs, and a bright smile. Her brown eyes, highlighted by bright pink eyeshadow, sparkled with warmth; she was giving her total attention to the current person she was engaging with. She wasn’t much taller than Kagome herself and the tight black t-shirt she was wearing with the name Sango embroidered on the pocket accentuated her generous curves.

Kagome sighed. Miroku was nothing if not predictable – he loved curvy ladies. But how was she going to ask for this woman’s number without causing a disruption – everyone seemed to be on board with the ordering system, and if the coffee was as good as the reviews promised there was no way she was going to get herself banned from coming back.

She glanced down to the time on her phone, and then to the opening hours printed on the tiny shop window. It was almost closing time. Maybe if she hung back for a little while and caught the woman after they’d shut up shop? She groaned internally, trying not to think of the work still waiting for her on her desk. She should have held out for two months of coffee.

The tall man stepped to the side. Crap, she needed to order.

“Good afternoon ma’am. What would you like?” The woman’s smile was wide and welcoming.

“Uh, a large latte please, no sugar”, Kagome said, holding up her credit card ready to tap payment.

“Name please?”

“Kagome. That’s K – A…”

“That’s okay, I know how to spell it.” Kagome watched with interest as the woman wrote her name on the coffee lid in curving characters. Was that hirigana? She vaguely recognised it was her name being written from the two terms of Japanese she did in high school. A grunt came from her left, and she realised with a little start that she was meant to move to one side.

She stood in front of the gleaming commercial espresso machine, eyes closing as she savoured the rich coffee aroma. It smelt amazing, rich and full. Not burnt. It was a little hard to see the barista; her view was blocked by towers of takeaway coffee cups in various sizes. But those reviews that mentioned him had made her curious now. She stepped to the side a little more. Ah, there he was.

He was taller than her - she guessed she’d come up to just above his shoulder, but then she wasn’t exactly tall herself at 5’2”. He had long dark hair, looped back in a low ponytail, with a choppy fringe and slightly longer forelocks on either side of his face, tanned skin that was complemented by the white collarless t-shirt he wore under a denim apron. His expression as he looked downward to make the coffee was stern, but she didn’t see what he had to be so grumpy about. Maybe he was just hot? Maybe he just took his job very seriously? He moved out from behind the coffee machine and her eyes widened at the sight of his forearms, revealed by the shirt sleeves pushed up to his elbows. They were covered in tattoos from the wrist; dark sleeves of swirling black water flowing up his arms, broken only by pink and red cherry blossoms, with a hint of green and yellow. Then he looked up.

His eyes. They were hazel, for want of a better description, but such a light hazel that they almost looked golden. With the late afternoon sun behind her, lighting his face, they almost sparkled like citrine quartz. He placed the lid on her coffee, then set it down in front of her.

“Kagome.”

He’d pronounced her name right. Ka-goh-meh. She was so used to the way most Australians butchered her Japanese name, a way for her parents to honour her Japanese grandfather, that she was immune to its mispronunciation, but he’d said it just right. Just. Right. His voice was deep and a little husky. He made that small grunting noise in the back of his throat again, his strong dark brows lowering a little, and she realised in embarrassment that she was staring at him.

“Uh, yes, I’m sorry, yeah that’s me! I’m Kagome.” Idiot. Of course he knew that, it’s not like there was anyone else standing right in front of him waiting! She reached out for her coffee where he’d placed it on the edge of the counter, and then backed away, pink cheeked, as another person stepped to the side to wait for their coffee.

She moved to stand in front of the shop next door, taking out her phone for something to do while she waited for closing time, slowly sipping her coffee, which was glorious by the way. But she couldn’t give herself over fully to her enjoyment of the taste, unable to control her wandering eyes.

‘Oh my god, he’s gorgeous! I’ve never seen anyone with eyes that colour before. And that’s so much ink on his arms - that must have hurt like a bitch! I never would have picked that a guy would get cherry blossom sleeves, but they don’t look girly on him at all - the exact opposite really. I wonder if they go all the way up his arms? God, now I’m imagining him with his shirt off - bad girl, Kagome! Maybe the cherry blossoms are a cultural thing? I think he’s Japanese, and I’m pretty sure that’s my name in hirigana on the coffee lid, but I don’t want to make an assumption just based on that and his looks. I wonder what he’s thinking about? He doesn’t look unhappy or angry exactly, just… determined? Maybe he just has resting bitch face.’ She snorted a little at that thought, then sighed. ‘His movements are so graceful and fluid, it’s like watching someone do tai chi or something. Oh, he has such nice hands - strong fingers. I could watch him make coffee aaaaall day.’

She gazed dreamily, sipping at her coffee slowly, the phone in her hand forgotten. Golden eyes suddenly met hers, one eyebrow raised in a puzzled expression. ‘Oh shit, he’s looking this way. He’s noticed that I’m looking at him. Abort! Abort! Oh fuck�� This is all your fault Miroku!’

She turned tail and fled, almost running back to the office. The reviews had been right. The hot coffee was amazing, but the hot barista? Yeah, he was definitely something else. She knew she would be back first thing in the morning to get another coffee. And it wasn’t just because the coffee was amazing and that he was beautiful to look at. There was something about him. She wanted to get to know him better.

Miroku was waiting for her out the front of their office building. “So, did you get it?” he asked eagerly.

“What?”

“Did you get her number. Sango’s number?”

“Uh…” Shit. She’d been so flustered when he had suddenly looked up and met her gaze that she’d turned tail and fled without remembering why she was waiting there in the first place. Damn. Heat washed across her cheeks, and she flicked her gaze away from Miroku’s.

“Our calm and collected Kagome blushing? Oh, there must be a good story behind this – do tell!”

“No story. You’ve ordered coffee from there before – I didn’t want to do anything to upset the system and get banned like you did! There just wasn’t an opportunity today – I’ll try again tomorrow.”

Miroku poked her in the ribs. “But surely that wouldn’t make you blush Kags! C’mon, spill.”

“There’s nothing to tell!” she spluttered.

Suddenly Miroku burst out laughing. “Oh ho ho, I get it. You were so busy perving at the guard dog making the coffee that you forgot what you were there for.”

“Shut. Up.”

Miroku grinned at her. “Aw, little Kagome finally got a crush on someone. Were you struck by Cupid’s arrow?” he teased, throwing the phrase she’d used before back at her with a note of triumph in his voice. Kagome squirmed under his knowing gaze, and he chuckled. “Looks like Cupid’s been pretty busy with his arrows around that coffee shop, huh?”

Kagome made a growling noise in the back of her throat, then the corners of her lips curled up in a knowing smile. She blinked at him innocently, raising her takeaway cup.

“You may be right Miroku. You may be right. And I’m thinking the best way to get to know him will be to buy coffee. Lots of coffee. I hope you’re ready to pay up, buddy!” She sipped her coffee and patted him on his suddenly slumping shoulders as she walked past him into the foyer of the building and back to her desk full of filing, savouring every last drop.

☕💘☕

Inuyasha pondered as he polished the already gleaming coffee maker. Sango had just left for the day, after balancing the till, and he was doing a final clean up, ensuring everything would be ready for 7am opening.

That girl. Kagome. She’d been staring at him. Usually that made him feel intensely uncomfortable. Growing up in an orphanage had internalised that being stared at was a bad thing, because pain caused by kids much larger and stronger than him usually followed close behind. That was until he’d been there so long that he was the large and strong one, handing out punches to anyone picking on the tiny ones. But he hadn’t got that uncomfortable feeling from her when she’d stared.

He knew he was considered attractive by some people. But her looking at him hadn’t given him that slimy creepy feeling that being ogled purely for looks gave him either. She had looked at him like he was a puzzle she wanted to work out.

He tried to picture her in his mind’s eye, but all he really remembered was dark shining hair like a corvid’s wing, and very blue eyes. She’d been small too, very petite. He rolled her name around in his head, as it tugged on a memory, and he suddenly thought of the rhyming game from his childhood about a bird caught in a cage. It was fitting – her mannerisms reminded him of a little bird - a wren, with bright inquisitive eyes. And when he’d looked up at her and caught her staring, she’d flapped her wings in fright and flown away. He chuckled. He hoped she wasn’t caught in a cage of some sort. No one deserved that.

He shut off the lights to the tiny shop, and walked into the studio behind it, flopping down on his bed with his laptop, ready to spend another evening struggling through his online English class. A little orange fluffball of a kitten jumped on to his lap, trying to sit on the keys, and he pushed it off.

“Shippou! Dame!”

The kitten settled down next to his thigh, snuggling against him and purring, and he turned his attention back to the screen. It was hard, learning a language this way, but he was determined. He had escaped his own cage, and he was never going back.

☕💘☕

PART TWO

#Bearpluscat fanfics #inukag fanfic #inukag modern au #inukag coffee shop au #I'll be posting every couple of days in the lead up to White Day!

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everythingoesnk · 5 years ago

Text

Good man

summary; you’re an angel (literally an angel) and the world needs you. what for? to babysit mclennon. spoiler: you cannot resist john.

word count; 3 248

disclaimers; i’m SO proud of this but give me feedback lol you just can’t imagine how much it helps and motivates to keep writing

warnings; cannot think of one.

********

Too many of yours had been killed. Many others were still held in custody, tortured for the sole purpose of unleashing a war your community had been avoiding.

The smartest decision would’ve been to end the nonsense and face the enemy head-on, but again, you were angels. Dialogue always came first.

You learned the lesson.

This last year you’d been training and developing physical skills that initially don’t belong to your committee. What you didn’t know was the irrefutable decision the Parliament imposed in one of their meetings that they later would communicate to the nation: put into practice, only if necessary, the fighting tactics that you acquired. Not here, but on Earth. Long story short, become guardians. A large number of people understand that as angels that’s what you are. They’re not wrong, in a way.

On a final note, the Parliament concluded that its best pupils would descend to protect humans from the vehemence of the Evil.

Each angel has two people assigned.

Yours are Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

18th of June 1967, 15:18 pm

“Today marks six months since we met, and on top of that, it’s my birthday. Have you bought me anything?” Paul inquired from the sofa, straightening his neck to get a better view of your face.

It was difficult with you staring out the window, scanning every inch of the street and skyline, never turning to show any interest in what he was saying.

Dropping his head backwards, he added quietly, “And nothing happened”

“Is that disappointment in your tone?” you asked impassively, still not turning.

“Disappointment is not the word”

“What’s the word then?”

Your eyes travelled to a different point. No longer on the clouds that ventured the signs of a storm but on your partner and one of the other three funky insects.

Matt was near the metal gate, keeping an eye on the vicinities and probably rolling his eyes at the fans’ screeches coming from behind the entry, crying for any sort of interaction with their idols.

Not far from there John was sitting on the hood of his car.

Something must have told him he was being watched because he put down the hand with the cigarette and looked up to the same window you were at almost instantly.

An uneasy feeling that you couldn’t quite describe expanded around your heart after his inquisitive stare settled on you.

Flustered, you looked coyly to the left and right, because maybe Paul shifted to your side and you didn’t notice.

That got a small laugh from John.

Paul wasn’t in the room anymore but on the bathroom taking a pee, you could hear him. Regaining your usual erect composure, your brows pinched in a frown.

John got off the hood and put out the cigarette on the sole of his shoe before heading towards the building, looking in your direction once more with hands in his pockets and a sinful smirk tickling his lips.

“No,” you told Paul, observing John until he couldn’t be seen no more.

He shot you a confused glance as he finished pulling up the zipper.

“Babe, be more specific”

“I didn’t buy you anything” you concretized, facing him, “but I’m here to save your life in case you need to be saved. And if the moment comes I will, I’m a good warrior”

Paul blushed. He flapped his hand at you.

“It was a joke”

“I hope you were joking too about ‘nothing’ happening. You should be grateful you weren’t in any danger just yet”

You swore you could boil an egg in his face.

18th June 1967, 15:39 pm

“We’ll be back before dinner” Matt informed, putting on a jacket.

“Do the wings break through the clothes when you… invoke them?” Ringo asked.

George and John didn’t make any witty remarks, wondering the same secretly.

You and Matt exchanged looks. He shrugged and you thought it wasn’t worth your time answering.

“We do not invoke them. They appear when we need them”

Ringo kept asking questions but you didn’t focus on them, after all he was Matt’s responsibility. He was taking them –George and Ringo– to pay a visit to their wives. Matt missed driving so they didn’t mind him taking the wheel.

In Paul’s case it was Linda and her guardian who dropped by every now and then.

Due to the first impression of them, you thought Paul and John would be more demanding, however, they didn’t bother you and mostly stuck to doing their own thing.

Paul was taking a nap in the room next door; John’s whereabouts were unknown. You had to find him for his safety.

Gliding down the corridor you bumped into him.

You folded your arms across the chest.

“Where were you?”

“A fan dodged security and was waiting for me in the lobby. We talked for a bit and snapped a picture”

“For the thousandth time,” you groaned, annoyance streaming through your body like lava, “do not speak to anyone if I’m not around! Why do you keep disobeying my instructions?”

“She looked regular” he justified.

You looked at him as you might a cockroach.

“Demons disguise themselves accurately to fool jerks like you” you spat out.

Pulling a theatrical painful face, he brought a hand down to hold on to his dick and testicles, simulating that your words kicked him just there.

“Lennon, do not make it harder than it needs to be. I didn’t choose to have to follow you around like a puppy”

“Alright, can you take a moment to try and understand how overwhelming the situation is for us as well?” he argued, putting on hold his reckless demeanour.

Rubbing your eyes you sighed, “Yes, I can, but—”

“Forgive me”

“I forgive you, but don’t do it again”

A tender grin formed on his face, content that you didn’t put up much of a fight.

“Before I got interrupted I was actually on my way to get you. I wanna show you something”

You rolled your eyes. He’s so random.

Back in the room, he went straight to the piano. After tuning it his eyes wandered to the empty space he had next to him on the bench, waiting for you to take it.

Your expression switched from curious to stupefied.

Following his command you sat down.

Your gaze flickered from his eyes to his lips and from lips to his fingers. He played so carefully and delicately in the beginning, introducing the prologue of his piece, that you lost yourself somewhere in the middle of it. Recalling the day you entered Heaven you shivered.

Music filled the air, hijacking every part of your mind.

The melody began to change, more macabre and haunting. It reminded you of everything beginning to fall apart, when the enemy showed no mercy and without guilt slayed the innocent.

You weren’t aware of how you were digging your fingernails in his leg, the shrieks of the victims ringing in your ear.

John stopped playing, placed his hand on top of yours and clasped it firmly, looking concerned.

You shook your head and instead walked away, needing space.

John squared his shoulders as he took a deep breath and sauntered up to you. Brows together, you shrank back.

“I didn’t want to upset you,” he said, respecting the distance.

You remained quiet, head buzzing.

He squinted at you and tilted his head.

“Talking about it might help you”

“Have you taken it on yourself to be my personal psychologist?”

He held your gaze. It was the pain talking, not you. He knew and he was going to be patient.

“It’s not your fault this is happening. Any of this”

“Stop”

“You need to hear it. You have this vast weight on your shoulders—”

“I could’ve done something!” you hollered, saturated with the remorse you’d been accumulating. You knew you weren’t responsible for the cataclysm. He didn’t… he didn’t understand. “Those monsters killed them in front of me! Marta, Norman, Charlie! I can still feel how my body jarred after witnessing every stab and poisoned bite. Blood was gushing out of their mouths and I did nothing!”

The image of you petifried watching them die and not being able to help repulsed you.

How could you have been so cruel?

John held his breath. That was what was torturing you.

“You aren’t responsible for their deaths”

“Aren’t I?” you fumed, the void in the middle of your heart widening. “You know nothing”

The bitterness in your voice made his nostrils flare.

Through his bones echoed the determination to cure your scars. However, he understood it wasn’t his job to heal you.

“And I’ll never get to apologize”

You could sense John’s question without him actually asking.

“Demons get to exist thanks to the souls they rip from their owners. The bodies vanished after that” you explained, feeling dizzy.

Throat dry, you brought a hand to your forehead.

Beneath your typical mask of coldness never would have John imagined you were battling against yourself.

It brought him back to when he felt like he could have prevented his mum from leaving the house, saving her life. He was seventeen. Seventeen, not three or four. He could have warned her about the insanity of driving under those conditions. The wind was brutal that day, and it rained cats and dogs. Instead, he kissed her cheek good-bye and went to his room.

He blamed himself too at first. It was a long and tormenting process, but he comprehended he wasn’t guilty. You’d get to that point eventually, he thought, you’d have only gotten yourself killed too if you’d have intervened.

The breeze that came through the window dried your tears and moved the hair away from your notable cheekbones. He attempted to reach out to you for the second time. You just stared at him, biting your quivering lower lip. He stood before you, eyes boring into your mournful ones.

Wrapping his arms around you, he pulled you slowly against him. You sobbed into his chest as you snuggled closer for shelter.

John pressed his cheek onto the top of your head.

“It’s not your fault” he repeated, emotion palpable in his tone.

It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault.

2nd of February 1968, 12:13 pm

Matt dug his elbow into your ribs.

“He fell for you,” he said with a huge smirk, and imitated your pose: hands laced behind the back, eyes closed and body toward the sun taking in its pleasant rays.

“Shouldn’t have” you muttered after a pause, forcing the letters out of your mouth.

“That card you keep playing of apathy is ridiculous”

“I’m not playing any apathy card”

“Pretending you have no feelings for John won’t make it easier tomorrow”

You blinked and turned to him. He opened his and fixed them on you.

“I’m simply prioritizing other things”

“What other things are those?”

He knew already.

He knew that the things you just claimed to prioritize over your damn feelings were nonexistent. Like always, he was right. You didn’t want to triple the suffering that implied separating from John by confessing.

War was over. Angels defeated the beasts and freed themselves and humanity; home awaited your kind.

“My dear (Y/N),” Matt laughed dreamily, “you have all the time in the world to wait for him. Find out if he will still love you then”

3th of February 1968, 18:21 pm

John lost track of the number of times he rehearsed the torrent of words he planned on telling you.

He raised his hand and put it in a fist. Up in the air, he couldn’t seem to bring himself to knock on the door. Explicit terms and a deep groan escaped his lips. He dropped it and inhaled deeply, heart pounding frantically.

When he thought he was ready to finally do it Paul emerged from the closest corner, sprinted and knocked four times, running afterwards to the room that George and Ringo shared before John could catch him. And he did try.

“Ay! You want a fuckin’ hole in your face, you punk?!” he banged on their door, getting angrier with their laughs.

He almost lost it when Ringo hummed ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’.

Nonplussed, you crossed your arms and stood watching John from your spot after opening the door.

Just like before, his sensor did not fail him. He stopped his actions shortly and whirled around. Reddening abruptly, for a second he was sure his face was on fire.

You cleared your throat.

“Well?”

Cautiously, his brain stuttering, he glided the necessary steps to be in front of you.

He opened his mouth but didn’t get to say anything because Matt appeared from behind you.

“Who is—”

Immediately after seeing John his eyes widened.

“Oh God! I’m sorry! Were you- Oh my God, I’m sorry! Shit, go on” he gasped, and literally hurried inside.

That only aggravated the layer of crimson sprayed in John’s complexion.

You wanted to laugh but didn’t, obviously he was there to make the first move. You flashed him a small smile for support. He smiled at you too in return.

“Follow me”

Imperceptible in his voice, he succeeded in hiding elsewhere he feared rejection.

You raised an eyebrow teasingly. He frowned then chuckled in realization.

“Please?”

You giggled, which sounded way too girly for your liking, and took his hand in yours.

John led the way to the rooftop of the hotel.

Garlands of white and pink roses decorated the space, and since the sun was setting, you got to see how the orangy golden lights ghosted over John’s skin which made him look not handsome but celestial. At the distance, a trail of a plain crossed the horizon. You admired the view for a few more seconds and then drifted your eyes back to him.

The kindness and love reflected in his felt as warm as a kiss on the forehead of your favourite person in the world.

“I have to be quick, you don’t have much time”

He wasn’t wrong. You had to leave soon.

“Here, take this” he handed you a paper folded in half. “Open it when you’re there”

You averted the gaze towards the sheet and nodded. His eyes desperately searched yours again. Every second counted.

“I love you” he blurted out, a bizarre combination of panic and hope evident on his face. Like a child who just confessed that he broke granny’s vase, praying not to be grounded. “And I really, really want to kiss you”

The longing in his request melted your heart.

When you were about to let him know that you wanted it too you felt it in your back. You felt the muscles pulling the skin, pushing to make their way through to the outside.

One moment they weren’t there the other your wings were now displayed broadly for him to see.

They raised themselves, ready for departure.

John’s mouth fell open.

Unable to stop staring at their grandiosity and splendour, heartbeat wildly pumping, he ran a hand through his hair.

“You’re fucking gorgeous,” he said breathlessly.

With tears in your eyes, you cupped his head in your hands and laid your mouth on his mouth without prior notice.

In that very instant, right there, the world stopped spinning.

He moved his silky wet lips against yours, pressing you further in until there was no space in between when the saltiness of your teardrops mixed with the saliva.

Your wings started aching awfully by now, and you knew what that meant.

Not wanting to, you pulled back from the kiss, lips burning.

“No” he purred, holding you in place, fingers gripping so tight around your upper arms that the skin beneath them turned white.

“John, it’s time”

Brokenhearted, you withdrew fully after rubbing your noses in an affectionate eskimo kiss.

You nudged intimately his chin up with your thumb.

John didn’t want to miss the opportunity to absorb your dazzling beauty thus he forced his eyes open.

“Part of my heart will stay with you. Remain a good man, Lennon, and return it to me. I trust that we’ll meet again in due course”

3th February 1968, 23:33 pm

Excitement throbbed in you. Seating cross-legged, you created walls with your wings to avoid snoopers and unfolded the paper.

It was a piano score. At the bottom of it, written in his handwriting, was a small note:

“I changed the ending. Now it’s about finding peace and picking up your broken bits to build a stronger armour. You’re a fierce woman, (Y/N), but whenever that feeling tightens and saddens your heart, play this”

Tangled in a mix of joy and sorrow, you half smiled as a tear rolled down your cheek and chin, landing in John’s signature.

8th December 1980, 22:50 pm

Everyone fell silent.

You noticed that all of your fellow companions and friends had their gazes bonded to the same spot. Slowly, you turned to check what they were looking at, and you nearly passed out.

He rarely visited. Only when he had good reasons to.

Gait steady, knowing very well what he was doing, he gave a quick look around as he paced.

His eyes found you.

Saint Peter offered you a reassuring smile, causing everyone to snap their heads at you.

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N)”

You swallowed.

“Y-yes?” you sputtered.

“I believe you’ll want to see this”

Uncertain, you joined him, not before sending Matt a doubtful look.

In any case, all your questions were answered when you reached the Gates and saw who was waiting for you. His wings were even more impressive, glittering and elegant than anyone else’s.

He was touching their feathers, inspecting them.

You ran to embrace him. Off guard as you took him, his arms were trapped under yours, preventing him from being able to hug you back.

“You shouldn’t be here. What happened, John?” you said, a million thoughts rushing through your mind.

“(Y/N)…” Saint Peter warned.

Under no circumstances it was allowed to ask for the reason behind someone’s death nor tell yours. It was the rules; the subject was forbidden.

You squeezed your eyes shut and nodded.

Taking a couple of steps back, you looked up to him. John bored his eyes into yours, lips stretching into a dainty smile.

“Hello, love. I took great care of the piece of your heart that you borrowed me” he said, twirling a strand of your hair between his fingers. “The time has come, I can give it back”

“It was for you, dummy” you answered with a laugh, voice cracking.

He dropped his head shyly to the floor, smile growing larger.

You followed where his eyes were pointing at, only to see his bare toes scrunching into the delicacy and softness of the cloud, getting familiar with it.

“I’m sorry you’re here” you whispered, honestly horrified that he didn’t get the chance to grow old.

“I was never scared of dying,” he spoke, slowly raising his head, “because I knew I’d be with you”

Staring at each other, none spoke for a moment.

“I love you too, by the way,” you admitted, pink arising in your cheeks. “I realized after I left that I didn’t say it back”

John smirked. He caressed your face and you felt the butterflies in your tummy flutter.

Love danced in the brightness of his eyes.

“Show me Heaven, (Y/N)”

#john lennon #john lennon x reader #ringo starr #george harrison #paul mccartney #the beatles #john lennon imagine #john lennon fanfic #john lennon fanfiction #angst #angels and demons #tayloredstarr

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 5 years ago

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halloween special 2019

(Or, Halloween Special 2027, because this is set immediately after Turnabout Academy but contains no reference to it besides the fact that Juniper exists.)

A Fae AU side story. A classic meme of the autumnal season gets a cannibal joke twist, and the real horror story is the friends we made along the way. Written with the profoundest apologies to the professor from whom I took an entire semester course on Edgar Allan Poe.

----

It still feels like the crack of dawn, after the week they’ve had, but dawn is admittedly later in late October, and the sun is already risen, so it’s not early at all. It’s no one’s problem but Phoenix’s own that his brain is still zombified. Trucy woke him up, flinging her things all around the apartment to get ready to head out: Juniper has joined her trick-or-treating group that already consisted of Trucy, Vera, Jinxie, Athena, and Pearl, and Pearl still doesn’t have a costume, and now neither does Juniper, and Vera hasn’t finished making hers, and it’s T-minus two days until Halloween.

So he scrambled some eggs for his daughter and ushered her out the door after making her promise to say hi to all of the other girls for him, and then he crawled back into bed. Barely three minutes after, his phone rang. That was marginally better than his phone ringing once he had fallen back asleep, but this deprives him of the chance of going back to sleep at all, probably, and actually it’s not better. Phoenix doesn’t know why he thought that. He squints at the tiny screen on his phone to see that an impossible amount of symbols, including what looks like some Japanese characters, a pentagram, and a simplified pixel art hand making a middle finger.

“Hello, Maya.”

“Niiick! I need you to settle a dispute!”

Phoenix groans. “Between who?”

“Hello.” Iris’ voice comes through as clear as Maya’s, clearer than humans ever are on phone calls. Magical speakerphone. Phoenix drops his face into his pillow.

“Iris says that the only one of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories to involve cannibalism was his one weird-ass novel that he never finished. But he’s gotta have had more than that right? He strikes me as a cannibalism kinda dude.”

“I don’t know,” Phoenix mumbles into his pillow, and then, resigned to his fate, he lifts his head and repeats clearly, “I don’t know. I’m not the literature guy.” He knows Shakespeare, and what he knows about Shakespeare is that he needs to keep Maya away from it, else she might decide that Puck is a role model. “Iris would have more of an idea than me.”

“Nick! You can’t take your ex’s side over me!”

Iris giggles in the background. “This is an argument about objective facts, Maya,” Phoenix says. “I’m not ‘taking sides’ personally.”

“Okay, but, Montressor was definitely saving Fortunado down there to chill him to a good eating temperature and then have him as a snack with the Amontillado. Like that’s gotta be why he killed him that way.”

That’s one of the few Poe stories Phoenix knows. He can answer this one. “There was no Amontillado,” he says wearily. “That was the whole point of the story, Maya. He lied about having the fancy wine to get Fortunado down to the catacombs because that was the best place to kill him quietly. There wasn’t any cask of Amontillado.”

Maya gasps. “What?” She sounds so betrayed that Phoenix almost laughs and almost feels bad. “He lied? He can’t lie!”

Now Phoenix does laugh. “What, did you think he was fae because elaborately killing someone for some unmentioned slights is a fae thing to do?” She sounds more scandalized at the lie part that the murder part, which, for anyone even slightly versed in fae culture, does make sense.

“Well—” Maya sputters. “Yeah!” She heaves an exaggeratedly loud sigh. “I guess The Cask of Amontillado really isn’t a story that implies cannibalism.”

“There was other wine in the wine cellar where he walled up Fortunado,” Iris says. “Perhaps one of those would pair with him just as well for Montressor’s meal as you imagine the Amontillado would.”

“You don’t need to patronize me,” Maya says, sounding less irritable than Phoenix expects. “But, oh, Nick, other question! Why would the narrator, obviously possessing greater strength and no morals, not simply eat the old man so as to get rid of his creepy staring eye and better muffle the treacherous tattletale heart?”

“Telltale,” Iris says. Maya groans at the correction.

“Bitch-ass snitch,” Phoenix says.

“No,” Iris says. “Definitely not. Now, to return to the heart of your question, Mystic—”

Maya and Phoenix both snicker. What follows is not a long silence, but it is a loaded one, and then Iris resumes speaking, her clipped tone betraying her annoyance with the inadvertent pun. “The heartbeat was not a real sound,” she explains, “but rather the psychological manifestation of his guilt at committing the murder.”

“Oh,” Maya says. “So it’s like when you want to get coffee you have to have a barista make it and hand you the cup because if you tried to serve yourself from a machine it always explodes back in your face. It’s not the machine that hates you, it’s you who hates you, and the machine is the expression of it!”

“That is…” Iris trails off, clicking her tongue in thought. “Actually, yes, similar, though no one but the narrator could hear the sound of the heart.”

“So he wasn’t fae either,” Maya says. “Otherwise the whole house would’ve been, ba-dum! That they all felt it! And then probably it would explode.”

“Y’know, if he had eaten the old man,” Phoenix says, because sometimes it is fun, a flex of creative muscles he doesn’t usually get to stretch, to play along with Maya when she has her inane musings, “he still would’ve heard the heart beating, right, because it was just in his head. But instead of yelling at the cops that it was under the floorboards—”

Maya knows where he’s going with it immediately; either he knows the way she thinks too well, or she knows him. “—dude woulda been yelling about hearing it in his own stomach. Man, can you imagine? You’re just some beat cop coming in to investigate and then the guy starts shrieking about killing a dude but instead of starting to tear up the floorboards to show you the body he starts trying to claw open his own stomach?”

Phoenix considers that. He decides that yeah, it would be pretty far over on the scale of fucked-up things he’s seen as a lawyer. Sort of like Matt Engarde tearing up his own face in despair and fury, but also way worse because it would involve definite cannibalism and possible disembowelment, depending on how far the narrator got in his attempts. “Yep,” he says. “That’d be fucked up.”

“You could write it,” Iris says. “Poe is public domain, is he not, and you an adult man who could get away with it under the name of ‘literary reimagining’ rather than it being called ‘fanfiction’.”

“No thanks,” Phoenix says. “I’m not gonna be the man who messes with the classics.” He’d pitch the idea to Larry if Larry made his name on literally anything other than wholesome life-affirming picture books. Actually, he still wouldn’t, because Larry is an artist as well as a writer and there’d be a chance that he’d turn it into painting rather than prose and that is a level of horror Phoenix doesn’t want to go to. Better just to stay on the level of Maya reading cannibalism into every horror story that crosses her path.

(Would Athena call that projection? He is not going to think about that any longer.)

“Glad anyway you could help with our dispute,” Maya says. “Cuz” - she’s never settled on one nickname for Iris, but cousin or a derivation usually means she’s not angry with her - “was getting wistful when Pearly went off to talk shop with all your daughters, so she wanted to get in the holiday spirit and it spiraled. I made it spiral.”

As tends to happen around there. As Maya is wont to do. Phoenix isn’t surprised. He also decides to ignore the “daughters” remark. It’s not worth arguing that Trucy is his only daughter, and okay maybe Vera half counts, but on the other end of the spectrum, he’s known Juniper for not even a week.

So instead he voices the matter that is bothering him. He’s afraid to speak it into the world lest she hadn’t thought about it, but he also needs to be prepared. “So, Maya,” he begins warily, “you planning on venturing out for Halloween?”

He’s dreaded this holiday ever since that first year, when she figured out what trick-or-treat meant and decided that this was the most fae of holidays, what with one being allowed to threaten and extort strangers for goodies. It’s more blatant than the fae usually are, even. That first year, he had to keep her entertained and distracted all night, with candy and other sugary sweets and campy movies, so she couldn’t go and fulfill her suggestion of egging Edgeworth’s car as revenge for him being “a huge douchebag to us in court”. She had gotten the eggs ahead of time and stashed them in his fridge so at eleven they made a run to the corner store for other ingredients to teach her how to make omelets.

“Nah, don’t worry, I’m staying right here. Pearly can have her fun. But you and I are totally on for our post-Halloween bargain bin on-sale candy shopping spree. You’re buying! It’s tradition.”

“Huh?” It happening three years in a row, and then not for the next seven years, does not a tradition make. “Objection!”

“Nope!” She sounds positively gleeful; he can picture exactly what her smile looks like, how wide and toothy. “Ignored! What’s it that judges say again - overruled! You are overruled! And your penalty is reading Poe for a refresher so we can talk about it more! We need to talk about the one with the cat because I can’t decide if the cat is fae! Or even if it’s one cat! I want everyone’s input!”

His phone display shows a pixel jack-o-lantern with a grin in a probable approximation of Maya’s. He drops his head back onto his pillow. “Goodbye, Maya.”

The second Halloween, they carved pumpkins in the office; Pearl demanded they not have scary faces, Maya ate half of the seeds even before they roasted them, and Phoenix tried not to think about how last year at that time Edgeworth was around that they could consider the prospect of egging his car. When they dropped pumpkin guts on the floor, Mia flung it right back at them to get it stuck in their hair. The third year, they brought Pearl along for candy shopping, too, and she sat in the cart atop a throne of bagged sweets and pointed out clearance decorations she wanted for next year. They’re boxed up somewhere. He should find them for her and the other girls. For next year, or seven years later, it’s not that much of a difference, is it?

“And,” he adds, “I’ll see you in November.” Start anew. “Tradition, right?”

#fae au extras #roddy fanfics #fae au tag #fic: the witches of los angeles #Wolf would you believe i had this concept BEFORE talk started of the poe musical in chat

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thatgirlonstage · 7 years ago

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Summary: Lance wakes up in a hospital on Earth to discover he has been missing for four months, with no memory of Voltron or the Galra. Drawn inexplicably to the desert where they found him, he discovers a hut full of research and notes that may provide the key to his missing memories. With secrets and conspiracies surrounding him, and the Garrison potentially hiding far more than he could ever have imagined, Lance grows to trust the notes in the desert - but he may not believe the person who claims he wrote them.

Chapter Eight:

Lance dreamed nothing coherent, only shards of purple light and the distant sound of someone shouting his name. He awoke with heavy eyelids and limbs, his head complaining of a lack of rest. Groaning behind his teeth, he buried his face into the pillow. He reached up one hand to pull the silent headphones away from his ears, tossing them blindly onto the sofa.

“Thanks,” Cal’s voice said.

“Mmf,” Lance groaned. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“My professor’s wife went into labor last night, so class is cancelled.” Lance lifted his head and looked groggily over at Cal. He’d set Lance’s headphones down on the table and was leaning back on the couch, a textbook dropped open on his lap. A pencil spun slowly through his fingers. His hair was damp from a shower. He glanced over at Lance. “What are you up to today?” Lance dropped his head back to the pillow.

“Gotta go to the police station,” he said, his voice muffled. “They want to talk to me about Pidge for some reason.”

“Want me to come with you?” Cal asked. “It can’t be more boring than my problem sets.” Lance shrugged, his shoulders bunching up the sheets.

“If you want, sure.”

“How was lunch with Louisa yesterday?” Lance groaned, wrapping his arms around his head.

“I forgot,” he mumbled. “I had a really long conversation with– Dr. Ito, and then I was exhausted and just got on the train without thinking.” Cal grunted.

“Dr. Ito was helpful, though?” he asked. His face hidden in the pillow, Lance gnawed on his lip.

“He was… different, for sure,” he said. His mouth was sticky and dry. A night of disturbed sleep and early morning hunger and nausea set his head and stomach rocking like a sea-sick boat. The taste of a lie to his brother crested the wave, sitting unpalatable in his mouth. If he gave it voice, it would make him ill. “He… I learnt more at the Garrison than I have been with my therapist here,” he said, turning his head to free his face and speak clearly. Cal looked sideways at him. Their eyes held for a moment before Lance rolled away, pushing himself up to sitting. “I need a shower,” he said.

The cracked linoleum of Cal’s bathroom was comfortingly clean and cool under his bare feet. He stood still under the showerhead for a long few minutes, the heat sinking relaxation into his muscles. His neck was bent, the stream of water breaking against the back of his head, soaking his hair, running down his back and cheeks, dripping down to his nose. Slowly, his mind cleared and the churning of his stomach quieted to complaining mutters of hunger. He rubbed the soap bar across his body, the habitual movement soothing. Its blank scent sank into his skin, chasing away the stink of the underground hallway.

The room was damp with steam when he stepped out, the mirror fogged over. He tucked a towel around his waist, water still running down his chest and dripping off his hair. He grabbed his toothbrush and scrubbed his teeth, washing out the dry stickiness. He left the bathroom feeling significantly lighter and calmer, the ends of his hair sticking damply to the back of his neck. He opened the door to the smell of eggs cooking. Cal glanced over his shoulder from the stove and Lance gave him a slight smile.

“You looked like you might need something more than just toast to get you going,” Cal said. Lance’s smile grew to a grin.

“Cal, have I told you that you’re the best brother ever?”

“Don’t get used to it,” Cal scowled.

“I won’t,” he reassured him, still grinning, sliding into a seat at the table. “I know you usually burn everything.” Cal sent him a glare that Lance returned mockingly.

The eggs were slightly over-salted, but he compensated by shoveling them onto buttery toast. Cal opened up a news stream on his computer while they ate. Lance pricked up his ears with interest.

“I’ve been so caught up in my own memories – or, you know, lack thereof – I haven’t looked at the news at all,” he said, swallowing a mouthful of egg. “What happened while I was gone? Nothing apocalyptic, I hope? Anything blow up?”

“Only Sony’s attempt at a horror franchise,” Cal said. Scenes from an earthquake in Japan scrolled across the screen. His eyes flicked over to Lance. “Nothing exceptional,” he shrugged. “A senator in Ohio got caught up in a sex scandal. Germany had an election. A Malaysian scientist discovered some new underwater plant that might help treat MS. There was a ceasefire negotiated in Sudan – or wait, did that happen before you left?” Lance creased his forehead and shrugged. “To be honest I wasn’t paying too much attention to the news myself.” Lance paused, fork still in his mouth.

“You?” he asked. “You used to practice English by reading the New York Times out loud every morning while Louisa and I were still on Green Eggs and Ham.” Cal ran a finger down the edge of his keyboard, his gaze following it closely.

“When someone you care about is in trouble, the world gets awfully small,” he said finally. Abruptly, he stood, holding out a hand for Lance’s plate. “I’ll take that if you’re finished,” he said. Lance, still chewing his last bite of toast, slid the plate over to him silently. Cal wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. “Shall we get going?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Lance said, swallowing his discomfort. “Let’s.”

The sight of Calixto Sanchez sitting cross-legged and scowling in the station lobby sent a jolt of déjà vu through Hopkins. Both Lance and Hunk’s parents had arrived within twenty-four hours after their disappearance, heedless of the cost of last minute airline tickets, but Calixto, much closer, had gotten there first. With the Garrison still on lockdown when they called to report their three missing students, not even Louisa or any Garrison personnel had been able to come to the station until late the next morning. During that first midnight scramble, Calixto had been alone, standing in the station wide-eyed and pale and lost. He’d called Lance, over and over and over, the battery on his phone running down until it died. He’d thrown it to the ground, collapsing into a chair and burying his face into his hands, shivering with unshed tears.

Lance, his long limbs folded into the chair next to his brother, dispelled the image. He was picking his fingernails, having an on-and-off conversation with Calixto. Spotting Hopkins, he shot up straight.

“Hi, detective,” he said.

“Hello, Lance,” Hopkins said. ‘How are you doing?” Lanced pursed his lips, shrugging.

“Okay, I guess,” he said. “You said you wanted to talk about Pidge?” His voice was inquisitiveness edged with hesitancy.

“Let’s go somewhere quieter,” Hopkins said. Lance got to his feet, glancing quickly at Calixto.

“I’ll be out here,” he waved him off. “Unless you want me to come in with you?”

“No, no, I’ll be fine,” Lance said. “See you in a few.”

Hopkins took him back to the same room as last time, watching Lance out of the corner of his eye. He seemed healthier and more animated than when Hopkins had last seen him, although there was a sting of nervousness in the way his fingers fluttered along the hem of his shirt and in the quick smile he gave as they sat down. Hopkins opened a folder and slid a photo across to him without comment. Lance glanced at it and then tilted his head. Confusion danced in his eyes.

“Yeah, that sure is Pidge,” he said. “…Why?”

“Can you identify the people in these photos for me?” Hopkins asked. He laid out three more photos. One of them was a cadet profile picture practically indistinguishable from the first one he’d brought out. The next was a newspaper clipping of the Kerberos mission crew. The last was a photo of a girl in a short green dress, grinning broadly at the camera. Lance frowned, leaning over them. He pressed two fingers to the two cadet photos. “Both of these are Pidge, or at least I think they are,” he said. He pointed at the girl. ‘I’ve never met her, but she looks like the girl in a photo that Pidge had. Hunk was pretty sure she was his girlfriend – but looking at it a bit closer, they actually look pretty similar, so… Maybe she’s his sister?” Lance shrugged. “Pidge never actually told us anything about her.” He picked up the newspaper clipping. “And that’s the… That’s the Kerberos mission. Takashi Shirogane, Commander Samuel Holt, and…” He trailed off, squinting at the photo. “Why is Matt Holt Pidge’s twin brother?” he asked. Hopkins sighed, taking the photo back.

“Pidge is no one’s brother,” he said. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Everything he and Cho learned about the case seemed like a completely new thread of questioning, taking them down a completely different track than the last. There were no answers, only ever stranger questions. He held up the second cadet photo. “This is Matt Holt from his first year at the Garrison,” he said. He pointed to the girl. “That’s Katie Holt, Matt’s little sister.” He picked up the first cadet photo. “This,” he gestured, “this is Pidge Gunderson’s Garrison directory photo. Except, Pidge Gunderson isn’t a real person. Pidge Gunderson is really Katie Holt.” Lance’s jaw hit the floor.

“Pidge is WHAT?” he yelped. His entire body had shifted forward on the seat, a breath away from launching to his feet. Hopkins sat back. The reaction was genuine, or he should hand over his badge. He had had no idea. Lance gripped the edge of the sofa. “Wait… Pidge was a girl the entire time? But he…” Lance was spluttering. “How? The Garrison runs background checks. How did Pidge—?”

“She constructed an exceptionally detailed false identity,” Hopkins said. He and Cho still couldn’t fathom where a fifteen-year-old had found someone to fabricate documents that fooled the Garrison admissions. They refused to believe she could have done it herself. True, her mother had insisted Katie was a genius with computers – “I don’t mean she knows how to use Photoshop. I mean she was proficient in five different coding languages by the time she was six years old” – but parents were prone to exaggeration. “However,” Hopkins continued, “when we started investigating Gunderson’s parents, the discrepancies started turning up. It wasn’t hard to prove they never existed. Mrs. Holt identified Gunderson’s photo as Katie. The timelines of their disappearances match up. It’s definitely her.” He ran a hand across his face. Lance had picked up Katie’s photo and was staring at it, his eyes fixed on her face with disbelieving intensity.

“Why did he – she – disguise herself?” Lance asked.

“We don’t know for sure,” Hopkins said. Mrs. Holt had told them, her face cold and still, that she would never have let Katie anywhere near the Garrison after losing Sam and Matt. It still didn’t explain why Katie wanted to go to the Garrison in the first place, or why she’d gone to such extraordinary lengths to do so.

After they’d talked to Mrs. Holt, Hopkins and Cho had called the Garrison. That Captain Seitz woman had turned up again. Telling her that Pidge Gunderson was really Katie Holt had finally cracked her stony calmness. She’d practically run from the police station as soon as Cho had run out of questions. Neither he nor Cho could fathom what that was about, except perhaps concern for the security of the Garrison background check if a fifteen-year-old kid had gotten past it. Still, evidently the Garrison was just as surprised as everyone else. Whether this had anything at all to do with her disappearance, it was impossible to tell.

“Um…” Lance said. Hopkins looked at him sharply. He was shifting, his eyes flicking across the photos, lingering on the picture of Kerberos crew. He clearly wanted to say something, teeth pressing into his bottom lip.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he answered, stilling himself with evident effort. “It’s nothing.”

“Lance, if you know something—”

“I don’t know anything,” Lance spat. The venom in his voice took Hopkins aback. Before he could recover, Lance had stood up. “Did you just want to find out if I knew about Pidge? Or, I guess I mean, Katie?”

“And if you have any idea about why she would have—”

“I don’t know,” Lance said shortly. “No. I have no idea.” Hopkins felt his shoulders droop.

“Alright, well, if you think of anything—”

“I have your number.” Hopkins nodded, pinching the bridge of his nose again.

“I’ll walk you out, then,” he sighed. Lance didn’t look at him, just kept pace as they returned to the lobby. On the threshold, he paused, turning back.

“You didn’t… find Keith, did you?” he asked. There was a terrifying hint of desperation in his voice. Their eyes met, and an icy spike of adrenaline ran through Hopkins’s spine, making him feel more awake than he had in days. There was fear welling in those deep blue eyes, dangerously close to overflowing. Hopkins almost grabbed his shoulder, marched him back into the room, and forced him to sit down until he talked. But Lance looked like a spooked animal, the terror in his eyes raw and helpless in a way that made Hopkins realize afresh how much Lance was just a kid, just a very scared and lost kid. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Lance how long gone Keith seemed to be.

“We’ve had some trouble getting in touch with him,” he said, trying to sound soothing, as if there was nothing wrong. “I’ll let you know when we do, alright?”

Those blue eyes darkened, but before he could reply, Calixto said from behind him, “Who’s Keith?”

Lance yelped, jumping and spinning in a circle to see his brother had stood up and walked over to meet them. Hopkins was left with nothing but his back while Lance stuttered an answer.

“It’s— He’s— He was in my class at the Garrison, he’s the one who got kicked out,” he squeaked. “I didn’t— I didn’t hear you come up,” he said.

“Why are you asking the police about him?” Calixto asked, frowning at Hopkins. He stood awkwardly in the doorway, unsure whether he should leave yet or not.

“I… I may have sort of… I think I remembered seeing him,” Lance muttered, looking at his shoes. Calixto’s eyes went wide.

“Lance, you remembered something?” he said. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I did! To the police. And to Louisa, eventually.” Lance still wasn’t looking, but Hopkins saw the briefest expression of hurt flick across Calixto’s face.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

“Because I wasn’t even certain it was real!” Lance shouted. His hands balled into fists at his sides. “Everything I bring up, you want to analyze and talk to me about endlessly, but I don’t have any answers, okay? I don’t know what happened to me.” His nails pressed so hard into his palms Hopkins was a little surprised they didn’t break the skin. “I don’t know what happened! So I had this one little half memory – barely more than a dream – and I just, I couldn’t deal with you trying to work out what it meant to me, okay?” Calixto was frowning.

“Wait— Keith— Wasn’t he the one that Beatriz was teasing you about—?”

“SHUT UP!” Lance said. Under his brown skin, he had flushed red to his ears. “Why are you even bringing that up? That’s not the—” He glanced back and saw Hopkins and fury spasmed across his face. “I’ll call you if I know anything,” he said. “But I don’t, I don’t know anything about where my friends are – or apparently even who my friends are – so can you leave me alone now?”

“Thank you for your time, Lance,” Hopkins heard himself say, unable to grasp a more delicate way to exit the situation. As he turned to go back inside, he heard Lance turn back to Calixto and speak in a blast of sharp-edged Spanish. When he glanced through the window a minute later, after returning to his desk, he saw Lance storming out on his own.

The hot air of the desert whipping across his face finally brought the tears spilling out of his eyes. By the time he got to Kent’s hut, he stumbled inside with tear tracks streaking down the dust on his face and collapsed to sitting on the floor in front of the sofa, drawing his knees up to his chest and burying his face on them, rocking slightly, trying to alleviate the roiling feeling in his stomach. He shouldn’t have stormed out on Cal like that, or on Detective Hopkins for that matter, but he couldn’t look them in the eye with Lotor sitting smiling in his brain. He couldn’t quietly sit in Cal’s apartment eating eggs like nothing was wrong. He couldn’t talk to the police and act like he knew nothing – even if, in some ways, it was true that he felt like he knew less than ever.

Pidge was a girl. The revelation had dropped from nowhere and Lance, already tense, had almost fallen from his chair in shock. However, the second he caught his breath, that knowledge had slotted into place like a puzzle piece. Just as he had known, with a certainty he couldn’t explain, that Lotor and Captain Seitz were telling the truth about the crashing meteor being a ship, or Keith Kogane being with him… wherever he had gone, the fact that Pidge was a girl felt undeniably and disconcertingly true. His fingers pressed against his knees, fidgety and tense, as half-remembered moments and conversations flitted across his brain. He’d wanted to tell Detective Hopkins that Pidge had been reclusive and too smart for his – or rather, her – own good. He’d remembered that she turned into a spitfire at the merest mention of the Kerberos mission. He’d remembered that she would linger at the doorways into teachers’ offices and that sometimes she would vanish behind them and catch up later, panting, with no explanation for where she had gone. He’d wanted to say that everyone at the Garrison gave each other sideways looks when the Kerberos mission came up, but that Pidge more than anyone seemed to actively disbelieve the Garrison when they talked about what happened.

“Do you think she knew, Kent?” Lance asked the empty shack. “I mean, if the Kerberos mission was really, uh, xeno-diplomacy, then the rest of the Holt family has to have known, right? The Garrison would have told them. But then, shouldn’t she have known her father and brother were really safe? Or maybe…” He ran a finger along the side of the table, dragging a line through the dust. “Maybe she didn’t believe they were safe, or, or, maybe she was mad about Shiro? Maybe she was trying to expose the Garrison? Like… she was looking for evidence? God, I just don’t… I can’t deal with this by myself, Kent. I’m not like you. I can’t come live out in a desert by myself and be okay. Well, as okay as you are, Mr. I-don’t-understand-what-vegetables-are. I need to talk to people, to bounce ideas around. I need someone to reassure me that I’m not going crazy.” He rubbed his temples. “I wish I could just tell Cal and Louisa everything, but what if they don’t believe me? And I mean… I’ve definitely broken more than one law just being in this shack. I don’t want them to… to…” He dropped his head back to his knees, tears pricking at his eyes again. “I’m scared, Kent,” he whispered. “I’m scared.”

He stayed there for a long moment before shaking it off with a shudder and lifting his head. His eyes landed on the conspiracy board. The circled “ENERGY SOURCE” on the map beckoned him, pulled at him insistently. Almost without noticing his body moving, he got up and crossed the room. He glanced back at the window. It wasn’t even noon yet. He had hours and hours, and he couldn’t go back and face Cal until he’d at least tried to sort some of this out.

He’d brought some snacks out to the shack to sustain him during his hours of sorting through Kent’s notes. Putting food in Kent’s cupboards had felt like another level of intrusion into his house, but Lance was quickly getting over any concern about that. Moving almost dreamlike through the house, he gathered a bag of some snacks, two big water bottles, and took the map off of the conspiracy board. He switched his phone off, ignoring a missed call from Cal. He paused by the hoverbike, worrying his lip for a moment, before throwing caution to the winds and climbing on.

He had to look at the map to get pointed in the right direction at first. However, once he started going, he just moved without thinking about it, working on instinct just as he had to find Kent’s hut. There was a strange faint pull that seemed to brush at the very core of his being, leading him forwards. It was barely noticeable – if this was the extent of the strange energy that Kent had talked about pulling him to this place, he must really not have much to do with his time. Lance was pretty sure he’d felt the same amount of involuntary pull to the prospect of 1AM chocolate chip pancakes at a 24-hour IHOP. Still, there was something unsettling about the sensation that made his hands clench around the grip of the hoverbike. It was just slightly too intense to be his imagination.

There were countless caves marked out on the various maps in Kent’s hut. Lance didn’t know how he chose the one that he did. He only knew, in a way he didn’t want to think about, that it was the right one. Something ached inside his chest as he dismounted, leaving the hoverbike parked outside. The pull that had led him here seemed to cut loose and leave him floating and empty, searching for the other end of a connection that simply wasn’t there. Gritting his teeth against the strange and inexplicable hollowness, he walked slowly into the dim and blessedly cool cave. The rock was sandblasted and worn down, but even in the dim light the carvings stood out clearly. He ran a hand hesitantly over one of them, a strange symbol that he half-recognized from Kent’s notes. As his fingers brushed the carving, it glowed an almost imperceptible blue. Then Lance’s head split apart with pain.

A thousand fingernails screeched down a thousand chalk boards. A hundred bows raked across four hundred violin strings. There was a thin scream somewhere in the distance that Lance only realized was his own when he ran out of breath. Blue and black stars burst behind his eyes as he went to his knees, gravel and sand digging into his shins, his hands clutching his head. He couldn’t stop screaming, the sound pale and weak. He bent double over his thighs, elbows and forehead digging into the ground. His fingers curled in his hair as he trembled uncontrollably. He couldn’t stand, couldn’t move, could barely breathe around the screams tearing apart his body. His head seared and broke and split, demanding every ounce of attention. The only thing he knew was that he wanted it to stop, he needed it to stop. Then suddenly, there were arms, hot and strong, lifting Lance as if he weighed no more than a doll. He had no time to be afraid before his eyes rolled back in his head and he lost consciousness.

He came to stretched out on some kind of cot, his mouth dry and dusty. His eyelids stuck together. The echoes of the sharp, splitting pain still rung in his head. As he laboriously pulled his eyes halfway open, wary of the rush of sunlight, he noticed a heavy weight on his chest. Then a bone-chillingly familiar voice hissed, “Kova! Bad kitty! Get off of him!”

Lance bolted upright, dislodging a cat with dark blue fur. It leapt to the floor, hissing at him, and trotted across the room to jump onto the shoulder of an armored and hooded figure standing in the corner. Lance recoiled as he got a glimpse under the hood: the figure’s skin was blue and it had no eyes. Lotor, who had shooed the cat away, was standing at the foot of the cot, no less unsettling for being familiar. His eyes were fixed on Lance, who curled his legs under him, not sure whether he was about to bolt or throw a punch or both.

“Are you alright?” Lotor asked, his voice surprisingly gentle. Lance choked on a response. “Narti!” he said, turning to the eyeless figure. “Get a glass of water will you?” The figure turned and left through a door. Lotor turned back to Lance, a slight smile on his face, and for the first time, there seemed to be some warmth in his eyes as well. Lance, feeling his heart thudding in his chest at maintaining eye contact with Lotor, glanced quickly around the room.

For one heart-stopping moment he thought he was somehow in Kent’s shack, but it was only the similarity of a somewhat rustic wooden shack and the hot smell of the desert that triggered the association. This place appeared to be some kind of guard outpost, with a couple army-style cots against one wall, a sleek modern desk with a bank of computers and monitoring cameras opposite. Narti reappeared in the doorway, the cat rubbing along her legs, holding a glass of water.

“Here,” Lotor said, gesturing her forward. She held the glass out to Lance, who reached up and wrapped his fingers around it slowly, still undecided whether or not he ought to just flee.

“Thank… you,” he managed. He paused with the glass at his lips, wondering if he ought not to drink, but then again, if they’d wanted to hurt him, they could have just done it while he was unconscious. The dryness of his mouth decided for him. He took a swallow of water. It tasted normal. He glanced between Lotor and Narti. “Um… what happened?”

Narti gave a brief glance at Lotor and then slid out of the room. Lance started at the sight of spotted blue tail sweeping behind her before dragging his eyes back to Lotor, who had pulled the desk chair up beside the bed and was sitting in it. “We saw you,” Lotor said, gesturing at the computer monitors. “You collapsed, so we came to help.” Lance took another swallow of water. He looked at Lotor for a long beat, and Lotor returned his gaze. Lance felt a shudder travel up his body, but grit his teeth. Might as well do it now, he thought.

“What is this place?” he asked. Lotor pressed his fingers together in a steeple.

“Lance, I need to admit, yesterday, at the Garrison, I may not have been… entirely honest,” he said. Despite his heart feeling like it might break his ribs, Lance held his gaze.

“Okay,” he said.

“You see, the Garrison is quite… reticent. They’re very nervous about public perception and what kind of information gets out. Once I heard about you, I managed to convince them that you needed to be told of the basics, at least, but they were still reluctant to tell you much of anything.” He sighed. “What I didn’t explain yesterday is the sheer scale of the Altean war in time. When I said that the Alteans had not been able to pilot Voltron since the deaths of the last Paladins, what I failed to mention was that most of those deaths occurred around 10,000 years ago.” Lance’s fingers tightened against the glass. The number 10,000 echoed in his head with a ring of truth. “When they realized that they were losing their greatest weapon, they hid the various lions on primitive planets to stop any other race from getting their hands on one. We had, in fact, believed the Alteans to be all but beaten for good. The return of Voltron and the witch-queen has been… traumatic.” Lotor sighed deeply, leaning forward over his knees. “When Shiro returned to Earth, it seems that he somehow tracked down the Blue Lion, which had been hidden here by the Alteans after the death of its last Paladin. No doubt he recognized the feel of its quintessence. You and your friends evidently went with him. But then Allura arrived to recapture Shiro, and, well, you know how that part of the story goes.” Lance felt something warm brush against his elbow and flinched, glancing down to find Kova curled up on the edge of the bed and watching him with bright yellow eyes. He hesitantly extended a hand, and she nudged at it with her nose. He scratched carefully between her ears. “The Garrison had long suspected the carvings here to be alien in origin, but the Blue Lion shielded itself from any instruments they might have been able to use to detect it, until you, its new Paladin, arrived to unlock it. They are not… eager, for this particular oversight on their part to become public knowledge.”

“Why is there a guard post out here, if they didn’t know about the lion?” Lance asked, withdrawing his hand. Kova stalked down the bed. Lotor shrugged.

“It’s less of a guard post and more of a… study outpost. The cameras were only installed after you disappeared. No one was particularly expecting anyone to come back, but it wouldn’t pay to be surprised again.”

“What are you doing out here, then?” Lance asked. He realized the glass he was clutching was empty and lowered it.

“I was hoping studying the carvings myself might yield some information about the Alteans or the lions that could help us combat Voltron,” Lotor shrugged. “So far, I have sadly been unsuccessful, but it remains a pleasant change from the underground bunker in the Garrison, and is isolated enough that I don’t have to worry about running into humans – at least, not normal humans.” He smiled again, though his eyes remained cold. “You must have been drawn back here by the residual pull of your lion.” Lance looked down, fidgeting with the now empty glass.

“Do they normally, uh, do the carvings normally make people collapse with the worst migraine they’ve ever had?” he asked. Lotor shook his head.

“No. I believe that was a residual effect of the witch-queen’s mind control. As is, I believe, your fear of me.” Lance looked up sharply and now Lotor’s eyes did look amused. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not offended. I’m sure she sunk some deep conditioning into you to fear my race.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

The instant the words were out of his mouth, Lance regretted them. He and Lotor both froze, staring at one another, Lance’s mouth still open around his last word. There was a flash of anger across Lotor’s face. Lance recoiled, hunching his shoulders, wondering how effectively he could use an empty water glass as a weapon. Kova, sitting on the end of the bed, swished her tail. Lotor schooled his features into stillness.

“I suppose I can’t prove it to you, not without taking you to space and showing you the destruction that the Alteans have wrought,” he said, an undercurrent of strain and anger stretching his voice. “Is it not enough that you have lost your memory, that you found this place and collapsed in pain? Is it not enough that your friends are missing, torn from their families without explanation? Would a benevolent force do that?” He shook his head, a strand of white hair falling of his eye. “They destroyed the Galra homeworld, Lance. An entire planet, simply gone, because they were afraid it was amassing too much powerful quintessence. Ten thousand years and the universe is still recovering from that. Have you seen the problems that refugees from wars in single countries cause across your Earth? Imagine that, multiplied to an entire planet. The Galra have been scattered, left homeless. We wander through the universe without roots, with nowhere to return to if we are scorned, and destined to never be anything but guests on another species’ world. I never got to see the planet that should have been my home. It was space dust centuries before my birth.”

“I’m… sorry,” Lance said. Lotor took a deep breath.

“No, I’m sorry, Lance. I shouldn’t have snapped like that. Of course you would be a bit… distrusting, with everything you’ve been through.” He pulled the chair slightly closer, sending Kova jumping off the bed and stalking around behind him. “I know I scare you, and that you’re trying to… come to terms with all of this. It can’t be easy. Still, I’m hoping that you will adjust to me, given time. I would like us to be friends, if that could ever be possible.” Lance bit the inside of his cheek, willing his heart to slow its frantic pounding.

“I’m pretty sure you did just save my life,” he said, giving Lotor a wry grin. “So I guess that means I owe you one.” Lotor flashed a real smile. Lance relaxed slightly against the wall behind him, swinging his legs out in front of him so he was sitting across the bed. “So… I should probably go, now, I guess?”

“If you want to,” Lotor said, standing up. “Although I’d be more than happy to talk without Captain Seitz peering icily over our shoulders.” A chuckle burst out of Lance before he could stop himself, and he jumped, stifling the sound. He stared at Lotor and nodded.

“Yeah, okay. I mean, are there more secrets the Garrison is keeping, or…?” Lotor waved a hand dismissively.

“The Garrison is keeping a plethora of secrets, most of which are ultimately inconsequential and certainly have nothing to do with either of us. I just meant— Well, I told you. I’d like to get to know you, Lance. I can’t help but be curious. Frankly, I’m enjoying the opportunity just to talk to any human other than some of the Garrison officers. You seem remarkably more… relaxed.”

“Yeah, well, military officers in general have sticks up their asses, I guess,” Lance said, grinning slightly. His eyes went wide and he waved a hand at the look of bemused distress on Lotor’s face. “That’s an expression! Sorry! It’s just a— it means that they’re over committed to rules and discipline.” Kova meowed from the corner and Lotor shot her a withering look. She stuck her tail in the air and stalked out of the room.

“Some factions of the Galra Empire are like that as well,” Lotor admitted, turning back to Lance. “My father’s high command is… Well, we’ve had our disagreements.” He gave Lance another smile, this one careless, sharp teeth gleaming.

“So your father is the Emperor?” Lance asked. A grimace flashed across Lotor’s face. He stood up and crossed to a bag sitting on the floor next to the desk.

“He is. Our relationship is… complicated. You asked me if I was set to inherit the Empire by right of birth, and, well.” He gave a short, sharp laugh. “Certainly not at the moment, no.” He reached into the bag and pulled out some kind of packet, which he tore open, and popped something that looked like a seed into his mouth. “Want one?” he offered, holding the packet out to Lance. Lance leaned back, eyeing it suspiciously.

“Uh… do you know for a fact that it’s not going to kill me? Or, like, turn me purple or anything?” Lotor laughed and shook his head, pulling back the packet.

“Fair point,” he said. “I don’t imagine corrufia seeds would do much to you, but I haven’t tested them, so perhaps better safe than sorry.” He considered Lance a moment, chewing on another seed. “What do humans like for snacks?” he asked. “I don’t generally join the Garrison officers for meals.” Lance shrugged.

“Human food is pretty diverse, man, you’d have to ask me to get a little more specific,” he said. Suddenly Lotor was closer than Lance had thought he was, looming over him a moment before dropping back into his chair.

“Well, what do you like?” he asked. Lance swallowed, fear sitting tight and jittery in his chest.

“Uh… I’m a fan of the sweet and salty, I guess, when it comes to snacking. Chocolate-covered almonds, stuff like that.” He realized he’d drawn his legs back up towards him and forced them to relax. Lotor watched him silently, tossing back another handful of seeds.

“The Garrison officers tell me that humans have no telepathic forms of communication. Is that true?” he asked suddenly. Lance blinked in surprise.

“Um… yeah. I mean, no, we don’t… telepathy is not a real thing. Not for humans, anyway,” he added hastily. Lotor finished the packet of seeds and crumpled it in his hand.

“Fascinating,” he murmured.

“Is that something common for aliens?” Lance asked. He was still holding his water glass from earlier, running his fingers absentmindedly around the rim.

“Oh no, not at all,” Lotor said, tossing the packet into a trash can. “Some species have it, but it is rare. But, if you managed to break the witch-queen’s mind control, I thought perhaps your species had some experience with mind-to-mind contact. It is truly impressive you managed to escape her thrall. You even hold your conditioned fear to my appearance in check. I was prepared for you to try and kill me on sight yesterday. You must be an extraordinary example of a human, Lance.” Lance shifted uncomfortably.

“I… I’m not… I’m nothing special,” he shrugged. “I mean, yeah, okay, I’d like to think I’m a decent pilot, and not just anyone can get into the Garrison, but still, Hunk and Pidge are both way smarter than I am, and so are Cal and Louisa.” Lotor tsked, distracting Lance for a moment wondering what sort of translation device Lotor was using and whether that sound meant the same thing to Galra.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Lance,” Lotor said. “I’m sure you were one of the best pilots in the whole Garrison.”

“I wasn’t,” Lance muttered, his eyes dropping as the vision of Keith danced in front of them.

“Would you like to let me judge for myself?” Lotor asked. Lance’s head jerked up.

“What?” he asked.

“Your piloting capabilities. Would you like to let me judge for myself? I mean, I heard tales of the expertise of the new Blue Paladin, but I have yet to confront the lions myself. I have a little ship outside from the Garrison that I used to fly down here. I would love the chance to see a Paladin of Voltron fly.”

“I…” Lance looked down at his hands, clenched tight around the glass. He should say no, he should say it was getting late and just leave, but… flying. He’d been missing flying ever since he woke up in that hospital bed. It haunted his dreams and made his fingers itch. His throat closed around the “No” that he should say. To be weightless, just for a few minutes, to be free and untethered by gravity once again, was a prospect he couldn’t bear to refuse. “A really, really quick ride,” he said, barely hearing his own words. “Just for like five minutes. Can’t hurt, right?”

“Wonderful,” Lotor smiled. He stood up and held out a hand. Lance stared at it for a long moment, struggling for the will to reach out and take it. Lotor had just started to withdraw it when his arm shot out and his hand snagged Lotor’s. The two of them looked at each other in surprise for a moment. Lance’s mouth went dry at the sensation of Lotor’s glove, soft and leathery and warm with body heat. Still, he let Lotor pull him to his feet and followed him outdoors.

The second Lance grasped the controls of the little island-hopper ship, he felt a profound sense of home. He belonged in this chair, behind these controls. Tension left his chest in a whoosh with his breath and he relaxed. Lotor was standing over him and watching as Lance flicked the switches to prepare for takeoff. Through the windshield, he could see Narti had come outside the shack and was standing by the door, Kova on her shoulder. He glanced over his shoulder at Lotor.

“Are you going to strap in, or—?”

“I’ll just watch from the ground,” Lotor told him, stepping out of the ship. “Enjoy.” Yet another bit of tension eased in his chest with Lotor out of the ship, and Lance let a grin spread across his face. Making a last check that everything was running as it should, he lifted into the air.

Every kid got to play with a simulator these days. Local arcades were dirt cheap, and even if their simulations were shaky and prone to crash, lines could run out into the street on a weekend. Lance had found his way to the simulator after looking into the sky and deciding that whatever it took to get to the stars, he’d learn to do it. But he hadn’t fallen in love with flying until the first time he’d done it for real.

He could still recall the pilot school ship in perfect detail – it was the smallest, slowest thing in the world. The switches were worn down by hundreds of oily fingers until their labels were almost illegible. The stick had been chipped, with one sharp edge that could catch on your ring finger if you weren’t careful. A hoverbike was probably a far more exhilarating experience, objectively speaking. But that first moment of liftoff from the ground, Lance had felt his entire soul lift into the air, and he wasn’t sure it had ever come back down. He belonged to the sky and the stars.

He hardly even noticed his own whooping as he ascended, flying tight circles above the caves. He could see his hoverbike where he had left it, a little distance away and around a cliff from the shack. He saw Lotor gazing up at him, and Narti standing stoically by the door. The grin he wore now could have cracked his cheeks. He decided, abruptly, to do something fancy, to really impress Lotor. He’d done it in the simulator, when Iverson wasn’t around to catch him – he was sure he could replicate it without trouble. He pulled into a loop-de-loop with a bit of an uncertain shudder and came out of it at an awkward angle, but he did it. Then, he did it again, slightly bigger, and it went off without a hitch. He shrieked with joy as gravity reversed, crowing triumph as he climbed into the brilliantly blue and open sky. By the time he finally descended, drifting slowly to the ground, he was sweaty and panting.

Lotor applauded when he climbed out and Lance felt himself blush, waving off the praise. “I was just goofing around. I haven’t gotten to fly – actually fly – in a long time.” Lotor shook his head, coming forward.

“That was fantastic, Lance,” he said warmly. “Truly.” Lance rolled his eyes.

“Keith did some pretty wild things whenever he got into the pilot’s chair,” he said, and immediately bit his lip.

“Well, he’ll have to show me what he can do after we rescue him and the others from Allura,” Lotor said. “Come on, you look like you could use another glass of water.”

Lance wasn’t sure how it happened, only that he and Lotor fell to talking, trading stories about Earth and other planets across the universe. As much as Lotor still sent spikes of nervousness through Lance, they began to abate the longer they talked, and he couldn’t deny he was dying of curiosity. An entire universe of planets out there that he could learn about was well worth a few reservations about the source of his information. Lotor proved a meticulous storyteller, painting pictures for Lance of planets with golden skies, forests made of metal trees, of fields of crystals as deadly as they were beautiful. Lance couldn’t imagine Earth being particularly interesting to him after all that, but he told stories about his family, about dreaming of the stars, and about the Garrison. It wasn’t until the grumbling of his stomach caught up with him that Lance glanced up and saw with a start that the sun had set.

“Oh, shit,” he said, leaping to his feet. “I have to go – that hoverbike should have enough battery stored but I really shouldn’t try riding it at night if I can help it – and I need to get to home to cook dinner – oh, God, Cal…” He bit his lip. “Cal is probably… Cal’s going to be so pissed. Maybe I should…” He patted his pockets. “Shit,” he swore again. “You didn’t drop my phone when you were carrying me out of the cave, did you?”

“Not that I noticed,” Lotor said mildly.

“Well, I don’t really want to go back in and have another episode like the last one,” Lance said. He shifted from foot to foot, feeling jittery. “God, I can’t believe I lost my phone and didn’t even notice – would it be possible for you to check for me?”

“I’ll go back and look tomorrow when the sun comes up,” Lotor said. “There’s no danger of rain and no person is going to come along and pick it up. If I find it, I’ll give it back to you on Thursday.”

“Okay,” Lance said. “Look, this was— Thanks again, for helping me out. And it was, uh, nice getting to know you. I’ll see you in a couple days.”

“Are you sure you’ll be alright on the hoverbike?” Lotor asked. Lance waved him off.

“Yeah, no, I’ll definitely be okay, we’re not that far from town. I just should really, really get back.” Lotor stood and inclined his head.

“It’s been a pleasure, Lance,” he said. “I look forward to seeing you again soon.” Lance gave him a brief nod before darting out the door.

As he eased open the door to Cal’s apartment, it looked dark, and for a moment he wondered if Cal had already gone to bed. But then he stepped inside and saw a single lamp by the sofa still lit. Cal had sprung to his feet at the door opening, and the moment he saw Lance, his face went dark with anger.

“Where. The hell. Were you,” he said, his voice flat with fury in a way that Lance had never heard before. Lance paused in the doorway, taken aback.

“Out,” he replied shortly, bending down to slip his shoes off.

“Out where?”

“Just out. In the town. Nowhere special,” Lance said. He heard Cal striding across the room and stood back up to find them standing nose to nose. Cal took a hand and brushed it sharply across Lance’s chest. A puff of dirt and sand came free.

“Out in the town, but covered in sand,” he said. He walked over to Lance’s laundry bag and upended it. The clothes dropped to the floor in a heap, followed by a small shower of sand. “There is sand on practically all of your clothes. It’s been in the shower. You’ve tracked it in here almost every day. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? At first I thought you were just going to that hoverbike place and riding along the edge of town, but I went looking for you today after the police station and they said they haven’t seen you in a month. So where the hell are you going?” Lance didn’t answer, staring Cal down. “Are you looking for Hunk and Pidge? Are you going back into that desert, Lance?” He stayed silent. “Answer me!”

“Why? It’s none of your damn business!” Lance shouted. “You’re my brother, not my babysitter. I’m almost eighteen years old, Cal, and I’m allowed to make my own decisions without you scrutinizing every single one of them.” He shoved him out of the way. “I’m tired, and I want to get food and sleep. Can’t you leave me alone for just one night?”

“No, apparently I can’t!” Cal said, throwing out an arm to block him. Lance stepped back, outrage growing on his face. “I called your therapist, and she says you’ve missed the last three sessions, and then emailed her yesterday to cancel all future appointments. You stood up Louisa for lunch yesterday. You remember something that happened but refuse to tell me about it. And now you just up and vanish for a day – apparently into the desert that almost killed you! Something’s wrong, Lance. Why can’t you just tell me what it is?” Lance felt cold all over, anger crystallizing in icy stillness, growing harder and harder with everything Cal said. He spoke slowly and deliberately, clinging onto composure.

“I’ve had something weird as all hell happen to me, and I am just trying to deal with that as best I can, okay?” Lance tried to lay a placating hand on Cal’s arm, but he flinched away. “But you’re being invasive. You don’t get to know where I am all the time!”

“You can’t go into that desert, Lance! That place is dangerous!”

“I can take care of myself!”

“But what if you can’t? Something could happen to you and I wouldn’t be able to help—”

“That still doesn’t make it your business!” Lance exploded. “Where do you get off telling me that I ought to, to provide you my itinerary or whatever, and—”

“I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!” Lance jumped, falling back a step, staring wide-eyed at Cal. Cal’s shoulders heaved with breath. “Do you understand that, Lance? Do you have any idea what that was like? I had to struggle to remember what the last conversation we had was, when was the last time I had seen your face, because I needed to know, I needed to fix it in my mind forever. I attended your goddamn fucking funeral, Lance. I thought I’d never get to celebrate your graduation, or watch you become a pilot, or hear one of your stupid jokes again. I thought you’d died without ever getting to the stars. I thought you were gone. I thought you were fucking gone. I can’t… I can’t tell you what that felt like. I thought I would have to celebrate every single Christmas, every single birthday, without you. I just felt… empty. I felt so fucking hollow. And then… And then a miracle happened. You came back to life. And I am so, so fucking scared of losing you again, Lance, because I can’t. I can’t do that a second time.”

In his entire life, Lance had only seen Cal lose his composure so badly that he lost his English once before. Cal had been ten, Lance just barely turned six. Cal’s appendix had burst after a long day of what they had thought had just been a bad stomachache. The image of Cal writhing on the floor, clutching his abdomen, his English cracking and breaking and failing him until he let forth a stream of Spanish invective so filthy that, in any other circumstance, their grandmother might have resorted to washing his mouth out with soap, was burned onto Lance’s brain. He had never felt so helpless and so horrified. He and Louisa had sat in the hospital waiting room all night, falling asleep and jerking back awake against each other’s shoulders. The relief when the doctors came back to say he would be fine had run through Lance’s entire body, so that he had practically collapsed with it. Only Louisa’s ironclad grip on his arm had kept him upright.

Cal was staring at him. Lance mouthed silently for a moment, scrambling for a response.

“I didn’t… I’m not trying to scare you,” he said. “Cal, I didn’t realize—”

“Why can’t you just tell me what’s going on with you?”

“I want to!” Lance said. “But I can’t, because… you wouldn’t believe me even if I could.”

“Try me. Please, Lance. I want to help.” Cal’s eyes were so earnest Lance thought they might tear his heart out.

“Aliens,” he blurted out. “Honest to God, Cal, I know how that sounds, but just, please believe me. I disappeared because of aliens, and the Garrison knows about it, and they specifically told me not to tell you, but I can’t keep lying, God, Cal, I just can’t.” Cal had gone still. His expression was unreadable in the dim light. Lance’s stomach sank into his feet as the silence stretched on.

“I’m calling Mamá and Papá,” Cal said finally, quietly. “You need help, Lance. You need to go home.” Lance grabbed his hair, his fingers curling and pressing against his temples.

“I’m not crazy! Cal, I swear, I know it sounds insane but please. I need you to believe me. Going home is not the answer.”

“I’m trying to help you. Please, please just go home. If you really believe aliens… abducted you, or whatever, then you need serious help. It’s obviously not safe for you here, wandering off into the desert.”

“Fine. Fine!” Lance tasted bile on his tongue. “It was a poorly timed joke. Aliens aren’t real. You got me.”

“I’m still calling Mamá and Papá.”

“I won’t leave. You can’t make me.”

“Like hell I can’t.”

“I’ll go to the Garrison. They can give me my old dorm room back and I can continue my sessions with Dr. Ito.” Lance gave him a steely glare. “But I’m not going home. You can’t make me, and neither can Mamá and Papá.”

“Fine. If you want to go to the Garrison, fine. I guess between them and Louisa there should be enough people to keep an eye on you.” Cal’s voice was flat.

“Don’t call Mamá and Papá,” Lance said, working to keep the desperation out of his voice. More than ever, he couldn’t go back to Cuba. It would drive him insane.

“Fine,” Cal said. “But I’m calling Louisa.”

“Fine,” Lance answered, hunching his shoulders. He started to move away, towards his air mattress, his appetite for dinner vanished. He paused, turning back slightly. “Cal? I… really am sorry. I didn’t realize how… I didn’t think about how it would have felt to you, I just—” Cal reached into a pocket and hurled something at Lance’s head. He dodged it just in time, and it hit the bookcase behind him with a clack, falling to the floor. Lance bent down and picked it up. It was a pill bottle, and he squinted to read the label in the dark. Startled, he looked back up at Cal. “Prozac?” he asked. “But… since when…?”

“When do you think,” Cal said. He stalked back into his room, slamming the door in Lance’s face.

#voltron #klance #lotor #lancelot #memory fic #written in sand #my writing #gah please just take this

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crsinclair · 7 years ago

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Dragon Age Inquisition!Voltron AU

@bluelioncub and I have been screaming at each other because of this Dragon Age Inquisition AU. We've got a hodge-pod plan to do some one-shots on all this, as well as maybe a few for Dragon Age Origins. Here's a bit of a teaser for what's to come (hopefully you're not all waiting too long) in the form of character headcanons!

Shiro:

The one who stepped out of the fade. The rumor going around after he got out was that Andraste kissed his head, turning his bangs white, and took his hand to guide him out, which gave him the Mark.

Trevelyan backstory: Was training to be a Templar, and spent a few years traveling around Thedas as a personal training mission. Spent some time in the Southern part of Nevarra helping his cousin Sven defend the ports from Pirates and bandits, thus earning him a bit of fame.

Legitimately wants to do good in the world. Josephine is so happy, he basically does all the work for her.

His one true wish in life is to have a Mabari pupper.

At the start of his part in the Inquisition, he believed that the Circles were a good thing and that they served a very definite purpose. Not to say that he believed that the Templars were doing things the right way in the Circles, but more that he had slightly blinded views of how good things actually were for the Mages. Over the course of his time as the Herald and later the Inquisitor, he realized slowly that things were NOT as they seemed, and made it a personal mission to try and change things – for the Mages and the Templars both.

Chose to recruit the Templars. More on that later. ;)

Seriously this boy just wants to help everyone, Leliana finds it simultaneously unrealistic and adorable.

Best friends with Cullen.

Best. Friends.

Seriously these two are so alike and get each other so well it’s insane.

Cullen also shares with Shiro his stories about how things actually were in the Circles, and that helps in Shiro’s view of things.

Actually doesn’t mind the Hinterlands. This earns him the ire of all his Inner Circle.

Keith

Joined the Seekers ASAP

He was actually left on the doorstep as a baby of the Seekers. He was raised by them (mostly because no one person knew how to raise him by themselves. “It takes a Village” was never more true…)

Even growing up with the Seekers he thought there was a small unit of them that went out and hunted for Cryptids.

He was so disappointed when he actually became a Seeker and found out no such unit.

(He plans on starting that Unit.)

Trained under Seeker Cassandra Penteghast. Turns out he’s one of the only ones who doesn’t really care that TECHINICALLY she’s part of the Navarran royal family.

He also adopted her taste in trashy romance novels.

He actually met Shiro when he was younger and. Very angry. His advise of “Patience Yields Focus” helped him in his career as a Seeker.

Up until Cassandra goes all “I see a problem and I fix it” on him and welp, conflicting advise. (This is the Keith we all know and love.)

Will fight all the bears. All of them. Single-handedly and unarmed.

Honestly he doesn’t care about where you come from or why just so long as you are there to help. That’s it.

“Shiro if you take me on another bull-crap mission into the Hinterlands, I swear to the MAKER – “

Pidge

City Elf!

Actually comes Denerim, but the family moved to Orlais. She worked very hard to NOT pick up the accent.

Joined the Red Jennies a few months before the Conclave exploded – her brother Matt went missing, and when no one of actual authority would help the “Knife Ear”, she decided to find another market of information. Her work with the Red Jennies eventually got her the information that her brother was taken by a mysterious group known as the Venatori – and they were bigger than the Red Jennies could handle. Luckily, the Inquisition was forming…

Has a very irrational hate of magic. Not of Mages, of MAGIC. There’s a difference.

Smartest cookie this side of everything. Makes very fast friends with the Alchemist of the Inquistion and with Dagna.

…Maybe a bit more than friends with Dagna.

The first time she stepped foot in the Emerald Graves she wanted to climb all the trees – seriously, she’d NEVER seen trees so big.

Turns out that the Red Jenny information network is more complex than Leliana’s, who knew

Does she lord this over Leliana? Yes. Pidge is probably the only person in all of Thedas that doesn’t have a healthy fear of Leliana.

Very Viscious Prank Master. Do not mess with her unless you want bees somewhere very unpleasant.

Was VERY SURPRISED when she found out that Shiro knew Matt.

It took Shiro a while to figure it out because Pidge only started going by Pidge after joining up with the Red Jennies – Matt would always talk about his sister Katie.

“WHAT THE WHAT YOU KNEW MY BROTHER!?”

“I will throw this bottle of bees at you, Shiro, don’t you DARE say we’re going to the Hinterlands – “

Lance

Mage from Tevinter!

Pariah of Tevinter – but due to plot can’t go too far into that. ;)

HAS THE BIGGEST CRUSH ON SHIRO. Followed Shiro’s adventures around Thedas as all the stories hit the news and developed a big Hero Crush on him.

Can’t tell you what they might’ve been talking about during the last serious meeting between the War Council and the Inner Circle but can tell you every single detail about the Pirate Battle of the 15th Ferventis 9:31 on docks of Cumberland down to the weather. This comes up entirely by accident when Josephine is asking Shiro about some of his exploits and Lance just…starts rattling off facts.

He was very embarrassed.

Really truly cares about Tevinter. He’s honestly a bit conflicted about fighting his fellow country men, but his belief in what the Inquisition is doing is stronger than his confliction. If he has a chance to try and talk to a Venatori instead of burst them into flames, though, he’ll take it.

Has a tendency to Fade Step when startled.

Like the warm rain of Northern Tevinter, not the cold, freezing rain of Fereldan, Keith, there’s a DIFFERNCE.

Took on all the bandits by himself in Crestwood for the promise of a warm bath.

When he came to Haven to warn them of the Venatori Mages marching, he barely got the warning out before near-fainting in Shiro’s arms. Near-fainting because Lance managed to squint an eye open and squeeze out a “Hey, are you my big buff savior? *wink*”

“Not the Hinterlands, not the Hinterlands, not the Hinterlands – *it’s the Hinterlands* *unholy screeching*”

Hunk

Qunari Warrior!

He’s actually pretty terrible at lying, but he’s reeeeeeally good at eavesdropping. So that’s how he ends up as a Hisrad wandering around Southern Thedas.

Came to Spy, Stayed for the Food.

At least, that’s the joke he tells Shiro when he joins up with the Inquisition. Honestly, after being away from the Qun for so long, he’s starting to see things from different perspectives than what he grew up with, and it’s…starting to get to him.

Has a small Mercenary Guild! The Yellow Lions. (He really likes those big cats, okay?) His main team: Rax, an Avvar Warrior; Shay, Rax’ half sister who has excellent control of magic but doesn’t call it magic; Nyma, an Elven Rouge that was abandoned by her Clan; Rolo, yet another Elven Rouge but from the City; and Beezer, the Dwarf who doesn’t talk but is great with Alchemy (specifically: BOMBS).

Lance gave him the nickname Hunk and it just…kinda stuck. Eventually he stopped trying to correct people on it and that was that, he was Hunk, end of story.

Actually really, really smart and a fantastic engineer. Happened to walk by when Cullen, Shiro, and Leliana were discussing how to make changes to Skyhold to be more defensible and he started rattling off a bunch of calculations on which areas would be best for renovations.

This led to an in-depth conversation that revealed how much Hunk knew about engineering specific weapons and within the week he became to go-to person to speak with about new designs for arms and weaponry. Gives Bianca a run for her money.

A few times literally.

He and Keith entered into the most uncomplicated relationship. It basically amounted to: “Hey you wanna be a thing?” “Sure, let’s be a thing.” And that was that.

Is probably the most un-Qunari like Qunari that ever Qunaried until there’s a dragon involved.

“Boss, I know you like doing things for the people in the Hinterlands but I’m starting to think I might be allergic to, well, ALL OF THE HINTERLANDS.”

Allura

Fanciest Maker-damned Apostate Elvhen Hobo

Like, she doesn’t even really have much in the way of personal belongings but what she has she makes SPARKLE.

Not an Egg.

Legitimately sad that the Elves of today have fallen to what they are; she attempts to lecture everyone about the way things should be. (Much nicer about it than an Egg ever would be.)

Honestly stayed with the Inquisition not because of the Anchor and what it could do, but because she’s grown attached to the members of the Inner Circle.

Cried by herself when she realized how much she loved these silly, ridiculous people that surround her, and what that might mean for her plans for the future…

Has a weakness for all the mice in Skyhold.

“I can hear them talk to me.” No one knows if they should take her seriously or not. She does, after all, regularly walk through the fade on purpose.

I repeat: NOT AN EGG.

Takes tea with Josephine and Leliana to talk fashion every once in a while. Vivienne de Fer took some doing to get her to join them for Tea – Vivienne didn’t have the best first impression of her, what with Allura being an Apostate.. But when Allura starts talking about fashion, well. Vivienne can put aside their differences to talk about the latest trends in boots and skirts.

“*silently threatens Shiro with fire when Shiro mentions going to the Hinterlands*”

Slav (THAT’S RIGHT, SLAV)

The Spirit in the form of a young man that saves Shiro from the Envy demon at Therinfal Redoubt.

(I’ll post a drawing of him later when I have time, it’s actually adorable)

Capable of seeing many realities and uses the ones with the highest “frequency” to decide on a course of action. Prefers the realities that involve the least amount of violence, but what needs must.

Shiro eventually teaches Slav to try and see around the most “frequent” violent realities and try to reach for the ones that lead to less violent. It takes some doing, since Slav is…Slav, but he gets there.

Eventually.

When scared will puff out of existence.

This happens a lot.

“Slav, what are you doing.” “In 72% of realities the fluffiness of these pillows will determine whether or not our Commander Cullen gets a headcold.” “…”

He is not invited to play cards anymore because most people think he’s cheating. Shiro and Allura assure everyone that he isn’t, he’s not that type of person.

He is.

Once got into a theoretical scientific debate with Hunk, Pidge, and Dagna about…something.

No one is really sure what, since most of it was spoken in pure numbers.

Every time Shiro approaches him about a trip to the Hinterlands he just disappears.

#dai!voltron au #alternately known as:#We Hate the Hinterlands #also this is a very shance series #shance #throwing that out there #heith #I am a heithen #allura is not an egg #all the voltron characters have their parts and you'll see them all eventually #seriously bluelioncub and I have been screaming almost nonstop since 8/9 #our chat has literally gotten pretty ridiculous it's pretty great #shiro is the inquisitor #he makes a pretty great one #keith is the seeker #seeker of cryptids #pidge is a red jenny #the scariest red jenny #lance is the pretty mage #and ho boi bluelioncub and I have fucked him up because what's a voltron series without some langst #(I mean seriously he's the dorian character he was NOT going to get fucked up a bit)#(don't worry there's some fun fucking in there for him too ;) )#hunk is the qunari spy #loveable and squishy and honestly he doesn't want to fight qunari spy #I repeat allura is NOT AN EGG #those of you who know dai know what i'm talking about here #she's amazing and so heartsick and honestly wants to bring the world peace #she's just...misguided... >_>;#and yes slav #slav is the spirit

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wavenetinfo · 8 years ago

Link

Bill Nye the Science Guy released the first installment in his best-selling middle grade series, Jack and the Geniuses, co-written with Gregory Mone, this past April — and now he’s gearing up for a second book.

Jack and the Geniuses: In the Deep Blue Sea follows Jack, his genius siblings Ava and Matt, and their pal, inventor Dr. Hank Witherspoon, as they investigate a project by tech billionaire Ashley Hawking and engineer Rosa Morris that’s mysteriously being sabotaged. While they meet a wide cast of suspects (including surfers and a cat-loving former Navy SEAL), they also learn all about the ocean and green energy.

EW can reveal an exclusive excerpt from this second installment, in advance of the book’s Sept. 12 release date. Check it out below.

Excerpt from Jack and the Geniuses: In the Deep Blue Sea by Bill Nye and Gregory Mone

Chapter 1

Inside the Underplane

The cliffs of Nihoa Island stood tall as we soared above the calm blue water. Nihoa means “toothed” in Hawaiian, but the jagged mass of gray-green rock jutting up out of the Pacific Ocean looked like the rotten molar of a sea monster. We were flying low in a small six-seater airplane, and I really, really didn’t want to crash into that tooth. For about the fifteenth time, I checked my seat belt.

Our pilot, the bazillionaire computer scientist Ashley Hawking, was rambling about the annoying birds that nested on the island. But I didn’t care about finches or swallows. An eagle could have chest-bumped my window and it would not have shifted my focus. If we continued on our current course, we were going to smash into the jagged wall like an egg launched from a slingshot.

The plane’s engine roared.

My stomach spun.

Next to me, my brother was staring straight ahead, eyes bulging, with his thin black notebook computer open on his lap. I grabbed his shoulder. His muscles were as solid as rocks and his face was a greenish shade of white. “Matt?” I asked. “Is she pulling up?”

His mouth barely opened. “I hope so,” he mumbled.

Our sister, Ava, was sitting in the row behind us, watching the flashing red and green numbers on the electronic control panel. A vein on the side of her head pulsed. She didn’t notice me staring back at her. Meanwhile, Ashley Hawking was grinning so wide I could see the edges of her smile from my seat directly behind her. Our mentor, the geek-famous inventor Henry Witherspoon, or Hank, glanced back at me from the co-pilot’s seat, his awkward smile flashing too many teeth. Was he trying to make us feel better? If so, he was failing.

Hank leaned over to Ashley. He held his hand out flat and swooped it up toward the roof of the cockpit. “Should we, you know, ascend?”

“What?” Hawking asked. “No! Of course not. Ascend? I thought you knew!”

“Knew what?”

Hawking let go of the controls and waved her hands in a sweeping motion. She sighed with disappointment. “This is one of yours!”

“One of my what?” Hank asked.

“One of your designs!”

Hank spun in his seat, scanning the interior. His mouth was all bunched to one side. He was squinting. And he was completely stumped. Only Hank Witherspoon would struggle to recognize one of his own inventions. His mind was so productive that he dropped out new ideas with about as much thought as a chicken laying eggs.

Matt reached forward with one of his long arms and pointed. “Ummm . . . cliff?”

“What was that?” Hawking yelled back.

We couldn’t have been more than a few football fields away from the rock wall. “I think he’s wondering if we’re planning to avoid that cliff,” I said.

Below us, out the left side of the plane and far from the island, a large dock with two boats tied to the sides floated in the middle of the ocean. The water was neon blue and smooth as glass. We probably could’ve landed on it, but I hadn’t noticed any pontoons when we climbed into the aircraft that morning. The thing clearly wasn’t a seaplane. So the only safe choices were up, right, or left. And if Ashley Hawking didn’t pick one of those soon, we’d keep heading straight. Into the cliffs. We’d be smashed to bits, and all the headlines would read, “Four Geniuses Die as Plane Crashes into Tooth.”

No, I wouldn’t be the fourth. That honor would belong to Ashley Hawking. The world would mourn the loss of the two accomplished adults and my brilliant brother and ingenious sister. Me? I might be mentioned in the story somewhere, but I’m no brainiac. I’m average. Maybe a little above, but not by much, and only through effort. I have to work hard, and read all the time, to keep up with the geniuses.

But anyway. Back to that nasty nine-hundred-foot-tall cliff sticking straight up out of the water in front of us. Maybe the Millennium Falcon could have made the turn, swooping up at the last second, but I wasn’t liking our chances. “Ms. Hawking?”

“Ashley! I told you already. Ashley. And not because I think of you as an equal. Not at all.” She laughed to herself. “I simply prefer the sound of my first name. Now, honestly, Hank, someone of your intelligence . . . I assumed you’d see.”

Hank was panicking now, his head turning from side to side in jerks, like a broken sprinkler. “I don’t . . . when . . .”

Suddenly my sister leaned forward and pointed at a large orange button in the ceiling, covered by a clear plastic case. “Are you serious?” she said with excitement. “Is this the underplane?”

“Yes!” Ashley fake head-butted the dashboard a few times, then looked up to the ceiling. “The child gets the answer. Finally!”

Although Ava was relieved, I found this news to be more than a little frightening. “You made a plane out of underwear?” I asked.

The moment the words escaped I realized I’d probably misunderstood. But no one noticed. Or at least no one bothered to make fun of me. Not yet, anyway. Ava and Matt were pretty skilled at remembering my mistakes, though.

“This is the underplane?” Hank asked. His eyebrows rose so high they nearly touched the top of his head. “You actually built it?”

“I did. But enough talk. You’re right, Jack,” she said, swiveling around to look me in the eye. “We are getting awfully close, aren’t we?” I nodded. The acknowledgment was nice, but I really wanted her to turn back around. “Are we buckled? Good. Would you like to do the honors, Hank?”

“You’ve tested it?”

“Of course! Once. But it worked beautifully. Go ahead. Press it. Do it. Now.”

“You’ve only tested it once?”

On the dashboard between them, a number in the center of the screen was blinking red and decreasing rapidly. “Yes, once, and a thousand times in simulation. Be confident in your ideas, Hank! Press the button already.” She pointed to the flashing red number, which just kept dropping. “Really. Now. Three hundred meters is pushing things. I haven’t felt this much adrenaline since I climbed Everest.”

Matt mumbled something about the cliff.

Hank hesitated.

Ashley had Manga eyes.

I don’t know what Ava was thinking or doing.

But this was no time to sit and wait. I slouched forward in my seat, reached up with my right foot, flicked open the plastic covering, and kicked in the orange button with the heel of my high-top sneaker.

Ashley let out a long, almost disappointed breath. “Finally,” she said.

Hank had his right hand out, three fingers extended. He counted down from three. A moment later, the engine stalled. The aircraft turned strangely quiet, as if we were suddenly flying in a giant paper plane.

“Now the chute?” Ava asked.

Before anyone could respond, something exploded behind us.

Yet nobody but me panicked.

Ava put her hand on my shoulder. “A rocket-launched parachute,” she explained. “Don’t worry. That was supposed to happen.”

Firing a parachute out with a rocket didn’t make sense to me, but the plane slowed, rattling like an old roller coaster, then began circling to the left. Away from the cliffs. So I exhaled. The lonely floating dock came into view ahead of us. Out through the window, I noticed two wooden boats rounding the corner of the island. Matt was staring at his computer screen again, mumbling to himself. He had a big test coming up, and he’d been studying constantly. One of the downsides of being a genius is that everyone expected you to ace all your tests. I don’t think Hank cared, though. Matt put more pressure on himself than anyone else did. But was this really a good time to prepare for an astronomy exam? No. So I reached across and closed his laptop. He didn’t protest, which was pretty much a thank-you.

“Wow, it works,” Ava said.

“I told you I’d tested it.”

“Yeah, once,” Ava noted.

“And a thousand times in simulation,” Hank added.

The others laughed. Apparently this was funny.

Normally I avoided asking for an explanation when everyone else understood. Hank was always saying there’s no such thing as a dumb question, but I was pretty sure I proved him wrong twice a day. And I hated reminding them that I lived on a lower level of the brain game. But there were times I needed to know. “What does ‘in simulation’ mean?”

Ashley looked back at me like I’d just asked the difference between salt and pepper.

“It’s a computerized version of reality, Jack,” Hank explained.

“It’s like the difference between Street Racer and an actual street race, with real cars,” Ava added.

Now I understood. She knew how to speak my language. See, I was actually kind of awesome at Street Racer, and I had this feeling that I’d be a sick driver in the real world, too.

A brown, wide-winged bird swooped in front of us. “Is that a petrel?” Matt asked.

“They’re frequent visitors to the island,” Ashley said.

Great. Now they were bird-watching, and yet we were still in a plane without pontoons, gliding over the ocean without any clear runway in sight. Sure, we were finally descending, but the underplane turned about as easily as the Titanic. As we swung closer to the cliff, I held my breath. No one spoke. I’m not sure anyone even breathed. Ashley and Hank leaned to their left, as if that might help, and the tip of our right wing passed within ten feet of the rocks. Next to me, Matt’s face was still that greenish-white color, and he was breathing carefully and gripping the armrests with enough force to dent them.

“That was close!” Ashley said, her voice more excited than relieved.

“So, umm, what’s next?” I asked.

“Well, you see, this is the first phase of the transition,” Hank said. “The first parachute allows for a more gradual descent, but there’s also a braking chute to slow us down further.”

“And then?” I pressed.

Hank’s eyebrows arched twice. “Wait and see,” he said.

Ava tapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I think you’re going to like this. It is called ‘the underplane,’ after all.”

I still didn’t get what boxers or briefs had to do with the five of us landing safely. But I wasn’t about to ask. “So, about that braking chute . . . can we use it now?”

“Not until we slow to thirty miles per hour.”

Hank cocked his head to the side, struggling for a view of the parachute suspended above us. “Amazing. Truly. I don’t know how to thank you, Ashley. I never thought anyone would ever build one.”

The plane soared through a wide loop. We were still about the height of a four-story building from the glassy sea. We swung toward the rock face of Nihoa again, only this time at half the speed and with much less chance of crashing. The color in Matt’s face had not changed, but I knew better than to ask him how he was feeling. When Matt was hurt or sick, he didn’t want anyone to know. He’d rather hide off by himself somewhere than let you see him aching.

The two boats came into view again. They looked like museum pieces. The masts were tall, the sails all rolled up, and a few people on either side were digging into the water with long black paddles. “What are those?” I asked.

Ashley Hawking squinted, gagged for a three-count, then breathed in, shook her head, and smiled. “Friends of mine,” she said. “They think we’re enemies, but as I’m sure you know, kids, those two are one and the same. As Sun Tzu said, you should treat your enemies as if they are your best friends.”

“Is he one of those jazz guys, Hank?” I asked. Our mentor had strange taste in music, but I was growing to like some of the tunes. I’d been trying to learn their names to impress him.

“No, that’s Sun Ra, and he only really began as a jazz pianist—”

Another jolt cut his answer short. Ava pointed to the control panel. Our speed was dropping rapidly. And we were circling closer and closer to the water. Hank turned. I thought he was checking to see if we were okay, but he stared out the small rearview window instead. His smile vanished. “You used a larger braking chute.”

“Yes,” Ashley said. “I had to. In simulation, the chute you suggested didn’t slow the plane quickly enough. Your design was completely inadequate. No offense.”

Hank paused before answering. “None taken?”

We were at least a few city blocks away from the island, gliding through our third full circle, cruising at the speed of a bike down a steep hill, when the plane finally skimmed the surface of the sea.

We bounced.

Hank whooped.

Ashley hollered.

Then we bounced again and again, lower each time, like a stone skipping across the water.

Ava quietly beamed, and my still-green brother relaxed his grip. When we finally stopped, my heart was thumping. My hands were cramped. Apparently, Matt wasn’t the only one squeezing the armrests. I looked out the window. We had to be a mile away from the shore. Was this really the right place to land? Were we floating? Or sinking? And what did all this have to do with underwear?

Ecstatic, Hank pointed to the button on the roof, then asked Ashley, “May I?”

“You’re the guest,” Ashley said.

Hank pushed the button with the heel of his hand. Above me, something clicked. A thud followed, somewhere behind us. Then two loud hisses on either side of the plane. Below me, I heard the sound of rushing water, like a quickly filling toilet bowl. Suddenly I needed to go to the bathroom, but there were more important things happening.

Glancing out the window, I noticed that the wings were dropping below the surface. The plane was sinking. And no one else on board seemed particularly bothered. “This is supposed to happen?” I asked.

Matt pointed his thumb out the window and swallowed. “Why not shed the wings?” he asked, struggling to get the words out.

“The aerodynamic profile of the wings is hydrodynamically efficient, too,” Hank answered. “In both cases, you’re just moving through a fluid.”

Ava put her hand on my shoulder. She wore several colorful beaded rings. “What he means,” she began, leaning forward, “is that you don’t need to drop the wings because—”

“I know,” I said. And I didn’t, really, but the geniuses are always explaining things to me, and I wasn’t in the mood for a lesson. So I pulled out my new notebook. Before we’d left for Hawaii I had a great idea. Or a great idea for me, anyway. Whenever the geniuses said something I didn’t understand, I’d jot down a little note about it, then do some research later and learn about it on my own. That way I wouldn’t have to admit it when I wasn’t following along. And sure, I could’ve checked on my phone, but then they’d notice. I held the notebook down in the space between my left leg and the side of the plane, so Matt couldn’t see, and scribbled “hydrodynamic” on a blank page. After a second, I added “Sun Something”—unfortunately, I’d already forgotten the name of the guy Ashley quoted.

The plane was sinking faster. The dock with the two boats was only a few pool lengths away; part of me wished we could’ve just swum over. But the blue water was already climbing up the sides. The surface reached the bottom of my window, then rose higher and higher until it climbed over the top. A few seconds later, the underplane dropped below the surface and began gliding down through the blue sea.

Oh.

Right.

The underplane. As in underwater plane. Not an aircraft made out of old boxer shorts.

Our ride had transformed into a six-seat submarine.

Since we met Hank seven months ago, I’d been introduced to all kinds of strange machines and vehicles and experiences. I’d been to the bottom of the world and fought off a crazy Australian and flown in an inflatable vehicle that wasn’t supposed to fly. I’d even had some experiences with miniature subs, since my sister had built one. But I’d never been inside an actual submarine. And certainly not in the Pacific Ocean, with who knows how much water or how many deadly creatures lurking below me. On the one-to-ten scale of soul-stretching, brain-twisting experiences, I’d give this one a fourteen.

The water was filled with specks that sparkled in the sunlight. A group of long silver fish darted past our windows. I’d always imagined that riding in a submarine would be like staring at the fish tanks in an aquarium. But now it felt as if we were the ones trapped in the tank. And I kind of wanted to get back to the air. “So that was fun,” I said, “but can we go back up now?”

My ears popped.

“Up? Of course not,” Ashley said.

The underplane nosed down in the direction of the island. But we weren’t going to Nihoa. Not yet. Far below us, an enormous, brightly lit underwater building hung below the dock. It looked like the headquarters of some kind of powerful secret society or nefarious villain. The outside was swarming with huge fish.

“You still want to go back up, Jack?” Ava asked.

I could practically hear her smiling. “No,” I said with a grin. “Not anymore.”

30 May 2017 | 3:06 pm

Isabella Biedenharn

Source : EW.com

>>>Click Here To View Original Press Release>>>

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