#( if anyone could maybe help me out im trying desperately to scrape anything i can together to help her . . . )

[wiredsmi1e]

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[doll-for-you-11]

This is a long one...

Its the middle of the night. 2 or 3am. Im bored and horny and its gotten to the point I'd do anything anyone told me to do.

I get a random DM some twisted message about wishing he could rape me in the middle of the street while all of my neighbors film it.

My cunt is dripping and none of the normal porn is getting me there. I decide to do something about it.

I strip naked. My pussy dripping down my thighs, I walk outside. My street only has one light, its dark and silent as I walk out to it. Sitting under the light, I close my eyes. Squeezing my tits, rolling my nipples, moaning softly as i trail a hand to my soaked cunt.

Its so wet I can hear it before Ive even pressed a finger inside. Knowing im outside, naked, where anyone could find me is making me hornier than ive ever been.

Just rubbing my slick around the outside of my hole, my clit throbbing, desperate to be touched. More and more slick seeping out, staining the pavement under me.

I slowly push a finger in, moaning at the feeling. My eyes still closed. I begin to pump in and out. Slowly but as deep as I can. Adding a second finger. All I can hear is the noise of my cunt gushing around them as I finger fuck myself in the street.

Just as I'm about to reach down and rub my clit as well, panting and moaning I dont hear the footsteps behind me.

My mouth hanging open, my head tilted back, Im about to cum when Im suddenly choking. My eyes fly open to see a blur of denim as a cock is forced down my throat. He holds the back of my head, forcing himself balls deep as I gag. Trying desperately to push him away but hes too strong.

He begins to skull fuck me. Ruthlessly ramming into my throat, using my hair to push and pull my head onto his cock. Forcing his full length to fill my windpipe with each thrust.

I try to focus and breathe through my nose. Just as I get the hang of it to keep myself breathing i feel the toe of his boot press roughly into my cunt. My legs spread around him, he pushes his foot against me. My clit rubbing against it painfully as he forcefully takes my mouth.

After what feels like forever he rips his cock from my throat, throwing me to the ground.

Dizzy, i try to catch my breath but before i can he's already on top of me, flipping me onto my stomach and kneeling on the small of my back. He pulls my wrists behind me and I feel something cold, wire maybe, being bound around them from wrist to elbow. Pinning them against my back, my shoulders pulled together painfully.

I feel his weight shift back so he's sitting over my knees. A hand forces its way between my thighs, thick fingers prodding against my fuck hole. I cant help but moan as two stretch my tight cunt. They feel so much bigger inside than mine did.

He grunts, his other hand reaching up and around my neck. Choking me as he fucks me with his fingers.

I still havent seen his face. I gasp as he hits a spot inside me I could never reach myself.

How have I gotten here? So desperate to feel something new I put myself in this situation. I went outside, naked to fuck myself like a pathetic whore. I wanted this. Part of me hoped this would happen. Id be manhandled and used out in the street like a prostitute.

But no, im worse. Im letting him do this for free. I wanted him to take me against my will. I wanted him to ruin me.

His hand on my neck gets tighter, he adds another finger. The stretch hurts but I like it. Its not long before I feel it building, my body tenses and just as Im about to cum, he stops. I whine like a bitch in heat. Waiting for him to flip me over and beat me or fill me with his cock but it doesn't come.

My arms are still bound but as I roll over I see no one. He got me to the edge and then left me face down on the pavement.

I wait a bit longer, but he doesn't come back. I force myself to get up and walk home. Spend the rest of the night getting the wire off my arms.

I look in the mirror, spit and tears coating my face, my body dirty and scraped from the ground. My cunt dripping down my legs. Im nothing but a disgusting whore. And all I care about is that I didn't get more.

I call out of work, spending the entire day fucking myself. Using every toy I have, the shower head, flogging my own cunt, but nothing is enough. I need him to use me again.

The next night I do it again. 2am, I strip naked and go out to sit under the street lamp. I sit on my hands and knees, ass in the air for what feels like hours, but he never comes.

The sun is rising by the time I give up and return home. It goes on like this for the next week. Fucking myself all day and sitting ready to be taken all night but it never happens.

Im exhausted by now, my body so desperate to be fucked that I cant take it. I try again, but this time the exhaustion takes over and I pass out.

I don't know how long I'm out, but I wake up tied to the lamp post, my tits being beat with a cane. I scream, but my mind is beyond excited. He finally came back. He's going to use me!

My cunt is dripping and ny desperation clouds the pain. I begin moaning as he canes my tits. He hits them harder and the pain makes me moan louder. I hear the cane drop as he straddles me and forces his cock into my mouth. Face fucking me again, slamming my head into the post im tied to.

I gag and choke around him, but my pussy only drips more. He pulls out, pumping himself, coating my face and tits in thick ropes of cum and I finally see his cock.

He's massive. So big I dont understand how he fit in my mouth. As I gape at his cock I hear him chuckle. He kneels down so we're face to face. "It only fit because I wasn't hard when I started. Id say you're in for a painful fuck, but you're such a little pain slut I bet youll love it." He slaps me accross the face.

"What kind of disgusting whore fucks herself in the street? Hmm? The kind that moans when shes having her slutty milk bags caned? The kind that's so desperate for my cock she sits out her every night with her ass in the air waiting to get railed? The kind thats so desperate to cum she hasnt slept in a week because shes been abusing her cunt all day every day?" He talks to me like a dumb puppy, pouting as he holds my chin, letting me know he's been watching me all week, letting me degrade myself for him.

"Tell me what you want my little rape whore" he coos, groping my bruised tits, making me wince and moan.

"I...I want you to make me cum" I moan quietly, grinding my hips, trying to press my legs together.

"You wanna cum?" He laughs. He bends my legs up, grabbing more rope and tying my legs bent and spread. My dripping, red cunt open on display for him.

"You dont get to cum. Whores dont get to cum. And youre a whore" he slaps my clit roughly, making my body jolt.

"See, if youd been a good girl and stayed inside. Not come back out here like a desperate little cumdump. I would have broken in, raped you properly, filled that little pussy up with my cum, and we both would have been happy" he says continuing to slap and flick my cunt.

"But you just had to be a disgusting dirty depraved little cunt" he says Slapping me accross the face to push each word "and dirty cunts dont get to feel pleasure, though you're so disgusting even hurting you brings you pleasure so Im not sure how to punish a slut like you"

The way he says it sounds like he's used to situations like these. It makes me wonder how many times he's done this. Raped and tortured little sluts on the street. It seems so natural to him. Tying me to a light post and abusing me.

The thought makes me moan and he laughs again. He stands and begins to walk away and I panic. He can't leave me without using me again!

"Please no! Please! I need you to rape me! I need you to use me! I dont care if I cum, but please I need your cock!! Ive been dreaming of it for the last week!"

I yell after him, whining and crying pathetically. He turns, laughing at me. "You really are pathetic. Ive never met such a disgusting cunt. I told you you werent cumming. But I cant pass up abusing a bitch like you. Sit tight my little whore, ill be right back."

I watch as he walks around the corner. A few minutes pass and a truck pulls up, the headlights blinding me as I hear the door open and he's standing in front of me with a duffle bag.

He opens it, digging around before pulling a cattle prod from it. My eyes go wide and I begin to shake my head, trying to get away but I can't move an inch the way im bound. He pulls out a self fucking dildo and some duct tape. Taping in in my mouth and turning it on, making me gag around it unable to scream as he turns on the cattle prod.

He leans close "im going to show you something even a pain slut like you wont moan about. Im going to make you regret asking for this, and Im going to make sure you dont enjoy one second of my cock when I get around to fucking you"

With that he presses the prod to my left nipple, the shock hurts so bad my whole body tenses in pain and before i can come down he hits the right one. Spit pours down my chin as the dildo fucks my throat, mixing with tears and staining my bruised tits.

He laughs as he shocks my tits and stomach, he hits my thighs and the bottoms of my feet. Telling me I should be thanking him for this. I asked for it.

Then he shoves it deep into my spread pussy. He makes sure to hit my clit and get it right in my fuck hole. Tears are pouring, im crying so hard im gagging harder than I ever have before.

He laughs as he holds it to my cunt, shocking over and over as my eyes roll back. I black out from the pain only to be smacked across the face hard enough to make me dizzy.

He throws the prod down, leaning down and grabbing my throat, I know he can feel the dildo as he squeezes. "You dont get to pass out cunt! Youre going to feel everything I do to you" he lets go and slaps me again before turning back to his bag.

The street light and his headlights create a spotlight over me in the darkness. My spread open abused body clear to see to anyone that looked out their windows. The later it gets the more cars I hear on the main road. I wonder if anyone will drive by and help me, or help him.

He comes back to me with a knife and laughs as i clench my eyes closed, but he only cuts my binds. My body so sore I cant try and run and he drags me by my hair onto all fours. Pressing my face to the ground, dildo still fucking my throat. He straddles my shoulders, facing my ass. His weight pushing my face and tits flat to the ground.

I feel something rough brush over my pussy lips, it feels like a course brush. "Dirty little whores need to be cleaned" he says, i can hear the grin as he speaks. "What better to clean you with than a toilet brush?"

My eyes widen as I try to struggle but I can't move as he begins shoving it up my cunt. My eyes water as he starts fucking my already abused cunt with the course brush.

He holds the handle with both hands, aggressively ripping it in and out of my cunt as he laughs. Calling me a disgusting whore that needs cleansing. By the time he stops I feel more than just slick on my thighs.

But he doesn't get off of me. Instead he says "next hole" and roughly does the same to my ass.

This time I do black out from the pain. I just can't take it. I dont know how long he rapes my ass for but when i wake up again he's standing over me with the cane, beating my ass black and blue.

He leans down pulling me to my knees by my hair and growling in my ear "i think its finally time to give you what you wanted"

Im so broken I can't focus on his words, my body limp for his control and he bends me over again and lines his cock up with my ruined pussy.

Despite the pain I sigh at the feeling. His cock fills my pussy so well. He rams into me as a bruising pace. It feels like he's going forever when he finally pulls me up, groping my tits and biting my neck, his cum exploding against my cervix. But again, just as im about to cum, he pulls out , throwing me to the ground.

"I told you, dirty rape cunts dont get to cum" he kicks my pussy and steps on my tits before dragging me down the street. He stops at my house and begins to tie me to the gate. Tits bound, arms behind my back and legs spread. He blindfolds me and leaves the dildo taped in my throat. I feel something long and wooden shoved up my ass, i assume it a broom or a rake and he slaps me again, something warm soaking my hair, his piss, as he slaps me with his cock and leaves.

I can see the light through the blindfold as the sun rises, i hear cars slow down as they pass me. People walk by taking pictures, playing with me. I couldn't tell you how long I was there before a car pulled up and i was cut down and loaded into it. Fucked mercilessly in the backseat.

I pass out before we stop but when I wake up im chained to a pipe in a bathroom, covered in cum and piss. A sign on the door says "Free for all Rape Whore". I guess this is my life now.

And all I can think is Thank you, to the man who showed me what a disgusting slut I was that first night.

[dxf]

dirty talk | oneshot.

pairing: im jaebeom x reader warning: alcohol use, dirty talk (lots of it), oral, unprotected sex words: 1.9k

you look at the time on your phone, realizing it’s getting late. your boyfriend of a year still wasn’t home so you began to worry. knowing jaebeom, he becomes restless when he doesn’t finish something. all you wanted him to do is come back to your shared apartment so you could cuddle again.

you left to get washed up, but then you heard your phone ringing. looking at the caller id, it was the one and only jaebeom.

“hey baby, did you miss me?” jaebeom says in a low and calming voice.

his voice is like music to your ears, quite figurative and literally. “yes jaebeom, i’m missing you a ton right now. do you have any idea when you will be home?” you ask.

he clears his throat before speaking, “i need your help with something. do you maybe think you could come over to my studio? i’m kinda stuck right now.”

“i’ll be over in 10.”

upon arriving to jaebeom’s studio, you could hear the relaxing r&b music he put on for inspiration. you see him in front of his computer, desperately trying to find more inspiration. you walk up behind him, lightly tapping on his shoulder before he turns around.

“hello baby, i’ve missed you so much,’ he whispers while he wraps his arms around your waist.

you giggle, “i’ve missed you too beom. how is work coming along?” 

“honestly, not too well. i’ve scraped so many songs tonight and i need something to showcase for next week,” he frowns. you run your fingers through his hair as he rests his head on your stomach.

jaebeom is a creative writer, his fans and you can all agree. it’s troubling to see him have writer’s block, but at the same time, you don’t know to exactly help him. “why don’t you call it a day babe? let’s go home and get some rest,” you suggest.

he shakes his head, not liking that idea. “baby please, i just need some inspiration.”

“well how exactly can i help jae?”

he stands up from his chair and goes to the mini fridge in his room. two familiar green bottles come out from the fridge. jaebeom makes his way towards you, handing you a bottle of soju.

“drinking? we still both have to drive home jae,” you say with a little worry.

all he does is shake his head and gives a tiny laugh, “don’t worry. we’re only having one bottle. gets the creative juices flowing.”

maybe he has a point, you thought to yourself. the both of you started brainstorming ideas, but nothing pleased jaebeom. he’s tried everything. looking through photos, listening to his favorite artist, but not one thing stuck in his mind.

just then, you had a brilliant idea. since he was sitting in front of his desktop, you sat on his lap before he could rebut. you open his soundcloud and start playing some of his music. jae’s face only had a look of confusion.

“why’d you put on my songs?” he asks.

“well i thought you could be potentially inspired by yourself. your soundcloud has pretty great songs, so maybe they could help you out?” to be honest, you had no idea where he was going with this.

eventually deeper came on. deeper was one of his prized masterpieces. he began writing down ideas feverishly. you were beyond confused, but you were glad you could help out.

“okay baby, you’re going to have to help me out with this one, alright?” you nod in agreeance and he takes charge. it’s not long before he begins recording. you glance at the notepad he was writing in and notice how horny he became while writing this. there’s so much dirty language in here, you’re not even sure if this could be released. 

time was ticking and all you wanted to do is go back home in your comfortable bed. the clock reads 11:49pm, almost midnight, but jaebeom is all energetic. you were starting to wonder what could you possibly be doing to help him. 

“are you ready to help me?” he asks. you nod your head and walk over to him. “you don’t mind me recording you, right?”

am i going to sing? i have never sung professionally in my life and he wants me to sing? your innocent mind thought. but jaebeom had bigger and much dirtier plans. he starts recording. the look on your face was full of confusion and you wanted to question him. with jaebeom being your boyfriend for so long, he reads your expression.

“relax baby, you’re not going to sing. well, not in that way at least,” he smirks. before you could say anything more, his lips meet yours. moving passionately and not rushing into things.

you couldn’t help but melt in his hands. jaebeom couldn’t be gone for that long, but you miss the way he holds you. his lips are unbelievably soft, making you want more of him. his tongue slips into your mouth with ease, dancing around yours. 

the both of you make your way to his couch, becoming more heated as time passes. slowly, clothes start coming off and small moans come out of your mouth. his lips latch onto your sensitive skin and makes his rounds to your sweet spots. he gropes your breast gently, messaging them as he continues to make marks.

“don’t be afraid to make some noise baby. remember i’m recording? i want to hear all of you.” you bite your lip at the sound of that. when reading his songbook, you thought that it was finished with just all the dirty lyrics. 

you start moving your hips in order to create some friction between you and him. jaebeom bites down at your collarbone from your sudden action, leaving you to yelp. you could feel him smirking against your skin. the microphone across the room is picking up all your moans. 

jaebeom lifts you off his lap and back on the couch. you can tell he’s becoming impatient from the way he’s taking off your pants. there’s an evident wet spot on your panties. his fingers start teasing you through the thin cloth. whimpers leave your lips, wanting more of him.

“you’re so wet for me y/n. such a dirty girl for me,” he whispers. you start moving against his fingers. jaebeom licks his lips, “do you want me to eat you out?’

you nod in agreeance, but he doesn’t like that. “use your words baby, do you want my tongue lapping your sweet juices?”you couldn’t believe the things coming out of his mouth. a smirk is plastered on his face.

“yes jaebeom, please eat me out,” you whine. jaebeom loves it when he makes you beg. 

he goes down on you hungerly, wasting no more time. if the microphone didn’t pick up your moans, they definitely were picked up by the microphone now. the way he moves his tongue makes it feel like you’re in heaven. he enters a finger inside you while he harshly sucks on your clit. you couldn’t make a coherent sentence if you tried.

another finger enters you and his speed becomes even faster. he lifts his head up to see your face. jaebeom loves seeing your face contort because of his actions.

“you love my fingers so much. do you want to cum on my face baby? i know you do,” he lightly chuckles.

you couldn’t speak. the amount of pleasure he’s giving you is overwhelming. but jaebeom isn’t satisfied with that. he begins to slow down his rhythm.

“did you hear me y/n? your pussy is becoming tighter by the second. it would be ashame if you didn’t get to come.” an evil grin is on his face. he knows that would have to answer now. 

“yes! please jaebeom, i want to cum on your face!” you squeal. his pace returns to what it was originally. he leaves sloppy kisses on your clit in hopes to spur you on. your fingers run through his hands, tugging at the roots of his head. 

“jaebeom i’m…”

“cum on my face baby.” 

his voice was all that you needed to hear. you clamp down on his fingers, breathing heavily. he withdraws his fingers from inside you and instead replaces them with his mouth. his tongue darts in and out of you before he gives a few more licks.

“you taste so good y/n. i could stay here all day, just eating you out. i’m sure you would like that.”

“yes jae.”

“such a good girl for me.”

he starts taking off his own pants and underwear. the tip red and leaking for need. all you wanted to do is put your mouth on him, but he refused.

“i need you so badly baby,” he says in a low tone. he lifts your hips to be aligned with his, moving his tip to tease your entrance. 

“jaebeom! please, stop teasing.”

“how much do you want my cock baby? how badly do you want my cock inside you?” his mouth is dirty. 

“so badly jae, i need you.”

that was all he needed to hear. once he was inside of you, there was no stopping him. he loves seeing his cock disappearing inside of you. his movements are slow, thrusting with full force, then slowly coming back out barely having the tip inside you. it’s mesmerizing to him.

“have i ever told you how much i love the sight of you being underneath me? you’re so needy for me,” his hands run across your skin. hips to waist to breast. there’s no doubt that you love being underneath him as well. you love the way he manages to find your most pleasurable spot everytime. 

jaebeom manages to spread your legs even further. your pink folds tempt him even further. he spits on your clit and starts rubbing vigorously. you scream his name, not caring if anyone could hear. low grunts and moans are coming from him.

seeing your reaction only further spurs him on. “fuck y/n, you love this so much, don’t you?”

“yes jae, your cock feels so good,” you whisper yell. you could tell that your words turn him on as much as his words turn you on. his dick twitches, signifying he’s close.

he pounds into you like there’s no tomorrow, maintaining a fast speed. jaebeom once again finds your sweet spot, making you yelp in pleasure and pain. you grab onto his wrists, trying to keep yourself from squirming so much. 

“jaebeom, i’m so close! if you keep this up, i’m going to-”

he interrupts, “such a naughty girl. cumming two times in the span of an hour? well go on. i want your tight pussy clamping on my cock.”

a few more thrusts and he sent you over edge. a loud grunt escaped his mouth from your orgasm, but he didn’t slow down. he still needed to reach his high. he buries himself in your neck, giving you a few sloppy kisses before releasing inside of you. panting could be heard from the both of you. 

jaebeom caught his breath and pulled out of you. “i’ve made a huge mess this time. sorry baby.”

you just lay there, still trying to catch your breath. jae walks over to his computer and turns off the recording. 

“are you actually going to use that in your song?” you ask. 

jaebeom laughs loudly, “well of course baby! i’ll let the whole world know what bomb sex i’m having.”

you just roll your eyes and shake your head at him.

“next time, we should make a sex tape.”

[yourfaveisyanderematic]

im thinking about that trish/bodyguard so piece you wrote a while back, and all I can think about is trish being so desperate for any sort of affection that she’s just like “okay, time to fake my own kidnapping”

Hm.  I put my Narancia piece down to bang out something for this prompt bc this is, as the kids say, a mood.  Modified it just slightly though, because that’s how I am.

love is just another kind of greed.

Trish didn’t get the appeal of dogs.

They were cute, sure.  Little silky fluffy things that yipped and yapped and tolerated being carried around in purses.  They were also expensive as hell—hundreds of thousands of lire could be invested in premium shampoos, gold-flaked specialty foods, champion breeding (why, again?  You’re not taking this dog to any fucking show, Anastasia, you don’t need it)—and those two things alone should have had her clamoring to get one.

She didn’t want one, though.  Dogs were frail, frilly little things that cried endlessly when you kicked them (even if it was an accident) and whined for attention even if you were busy, and they couldn’t do anything, anyway.  They could posture, sure.  Strike a pose and bark and bark like the silly boys playing at being gangsters she had to tolerate every now and then, but if you pointed a gun at one and pulled the trigger, that would be that.  They’d fall over with a little sigh and get all still and silent, and then they wouldn’t be good for anything anymore.

The reason she was thinking about this, by the way, was because she was bored.  You were taking forever.  Weren’t you taking this whole kidnapping thing seriously?

“How’s your ankle, babe?”

Ugh.  Trish took a breath and pulled a smile onto her lips, gently tipping her head back to look up at the man.  Despite the coiffed hair and designer shoes, he’s nothing special; some dumb kid with good looks and soft hands, partying his youth away with cash that wasn’t his.  A drop in the bucket of young hedonists.  The kind who took a pretty girl’s smile as an invitation and the light brush of hands as a blank check.  More importantly, however, he was the kind she could lure in without too much effort, too eager to get into her pants to ask many questions.

She didn’t even remember his name.  

Trish raised her foot, a languidly elegant motion that let his eyes trace every inch of her delicate skin, and after a moment’s hesitation he rearranged the pillow to better cushion the black-bruised skin, one of a handful of trophies from an ‘accidental’ fall she took down the stairs here.

“I’m bored,” she replied, as if the pain thrumming through the fibers of her muscles didn’t exist (it was that easy to ignore; she’d endured worse for less) “don’t you have anything fun to do?”

He hummed back, delicately rubbing small circles around the site of the bruise, cushioning the movement by keeping his other hand on her heel.  She suppressed a laugh; were those tentative prods supposed to do anything?  Did he think she’d shatter if he touched her?

Despite his arrogance, Rich Boy here didn’t have much initiative; the only thing Trish didn’t have to prod him into doing was getting her back to his expensive loft.  Frankly, it was a miracle the two of them had managed to slip away from you at all.

I’d love to party with you, cutie, but first we have to ditch my chaperone.  Come on, let’s go before they notice we’re not at the bar anymore.

Throwing herself down the stairs in a tangle of Versace and toned limbs had been an impulse, but wasn’t everything tonight?  So what if she’d scraped herself up, or felt a horrible snap inside her leg as she plummeted to the bottom.  It’d all be worth it soon, once you’d realized she’d been made off with and had to go find her.

You really did need to hurry it up, by the way.  Eventually Rich Boy here was going to get his nerve up and actually try to touch her, and then she’d have to just kill him and wait for you by herself.  That would be boring, too.

He probably didn’t even notice she was getting impatient, honestly.  His eyes seemed to be on a rail, tracing a line from her plush lips to the delicate hollow of her collarbone to lower still.  Typical, really.  

Rich Boy starts to chatter, some fumbling innuendo about the things they could get up to with just the two of them, but she isn’t paying any attention to that.  In the space between heartbeats, the air changed, the stale conditioned air suddenly heavy with tension that only she could feel.  The storm had rolled in.  It was coming down the hall.

Rich Boy’s voice registered, asking if she was okay, and it was in that moment Trish realized she’d been sitting bolt upright, abandoning the discomfort of the expensively minimalistic couch as she waited for the storm to draw nearer.

It knocked on the door.  Three short, sharp taps that resounded in the relative silence of the loft, a muted thunder.

“Who could that be?” Rich Boy muttered to himself, and then “Stay right here.  I’ll get it.” as he wandered off.  She didn’t reply, just listened, heart in her throat as his footsteps echoed across the tile, undoing the lock on the front door and drawing it open to meet the interloper.

“Can I help—“ the words weren’t even out of his mouth as something—your fist, Trish thought with a thrill of delight, you must have hit him—connected with a hollow-sounding thud, and his body careened into the dining table.  

“Holy shit!”

“Where is she?”  In contrast to his own panicked scrabbling, your footsteps were slow and measured as you advanced.  You didn’t even shut the door behind you; there’s no need to.  Nobody stupid enough to try to help could stop you.

Trish considers throwing herself off the couch—she wants to watch you work, and maybe seeing her sprawled on the floor would make her seem more helpless—but you’re already in view, poking your head into the doorway after the Rich Boy who staggered back in, and she knows what you’re seeing: your charge, sprawled on some pervert’s couch, visibly bruised.  You opened your mouth to say something, but Rich Boy drew your attention.

“Jesus Christ—don’t come any closer, or I’ll—“ the gun he pulled was just as flashy as the rest of him, and equally worthless; under the gaudy gold plating and filigree was a waste of metal that wouldn’t be hurting anyone tonight.

If nothing else, because the safety was still on.

You didn’t even respond, except to sigh.  The invisible blades of your Stand sliced apart the gun and the hand holding it, showering him in splintered metal as he went down with a high-pitched shriek of agony.  You strode forward, stepping on his leg to hold him in place as he started to crawl away, already deaf to the whimpering babble that might have been bargaining.  Your head turned, pinning Trish in place with your stare.

“I wish you wouldn’t do this, Miss Una.”

Your voice was soft, but with an edge, the one that always gave Trish a thrill of joy when she heard it.  It was different from your normal tone, the indulgently subservient I’m your faithful bodyguard and nothing more mask you wore when other people were watching.  Different, too, from the terrified adoration you held for her in private as she did what she pleased with you.

This was your bite.  Incandescent rage, barely restrained in the taut coil of your muscles and your piercing glare.  It was hideous, savage, implacable, the look that heralded only pain and death as you obliterated anyone who even breathed a threat in her presence.

How dare you, you said with every movement as your Stand opened the man up in a shower of blood, how dare you try to steal her.  How dare you let her come to harm.

How dare you touch my master with your dirty hands.

No command she gave could ever get you like this.  You were a killing machine she could point at anyone she chose with only a glance; you would destroy yourself for her whims, if she let you, but there was no passion in obedience.  

Your voice has turned plaintive, almost hurt, and it puts her back in the moment.  “Do you doubt my devotion?  Were you just bored?  You could have just told me to kill for you.  Look, I’ve even let you hurt yourself.  How can I face your father now?”

Don’t look away, Trish wanted to cry out, seeing you turn your glare back toward the remains of your enemy, get angry with me.  Let me see how love twists your face.

These were the moments she knew you loved her.  The uncontrollable passion of your fury, for her and only her, only shone when something threatened to take her from you.  These were the moments that Trish Una well and truly and fully felt wanted, and they were getting addicting.  Was it cruel to do this to you—to drive you to this edge of madness, repeatedly and on a whim, purely to satiate her cravings?  Perhaps, but it felt good not to care.  

You drew near to her, taking another look at her injuries, and she breathed the smell of blood and smoke that hung around you like it was perfume.  Your touch was delicate, but not gentle, and after a few seconds you pronounced it definitively broken.  She wouldn’t be walking for a while.  She was fine with that.

“Then you’ll have to carry me everywhere,” she declared, crossing her arms.  You met her eyes, searching them for something, and then raised a hand to graze her cheek.  She leaned into it a little, sure that it was a caress, but your hand came away with a smear of blood; you’d been rubbing it away.

“If that’s your wish, Miss Una,” you murmured, and then gathered her into your arms.  Her arms wrapped around your shoulders as she relaxed into you, until her lips were inches away from your own.  You didn’t incline your head in the slightest as you carried her out of the loft, just let your breath ghost across her face until she finally closed the distance and kissed you full on the mouth in the elevator.

There wasn’t any appeal in dogs for someone who already had a wolf.

[dr0wning-in-hell]

Till You Go Nuts - Cisco Ramon

Summary : Y/N decided to tease her boyfriend at work by wearing her most revealing outfit and doing the most subtle things ever. By the end of the day, she’s given what she was craving for all day.

Word Count : 2.9k +

Warnings : smuuuttt, teasing, flustered!cisco, thigh riding, dry humping, fingering, oral, cursing, loottsss of dirty talk from both parties, just smut really

Pairing / Characters : Cisco Ramon x reader, Barry Allen, Caitlyn Snow, Iris West-Allen, Ralph

Prompt : “Okay Swoon killed me. Please forgive me but could we get another nsfw Cisco?? Like, maybe the readers teasing him all day at Star Labs in subtle ways but it drives him NUTS so he breached her home to be all dominating?? Ashdjgikrn im sorry I just loved your other fic and it made this pop into my head!! Tysm!” - anon

A/N : I had to rewrite this three times bc I’m stupid and accidentally deleted twice. :( but here it is, enjoy :)

new masterlist | requests | prompt list

Y/N woke up with a master plan on getting herself laid that day. No, it wasn’t going to be just by anyone, but by her long term boyfriend Cisco Ramon. He had teased her the week before with subtle ass grabbing and occasional slip ups of some things that only she would know about, leaving her flustered and angry for the rest of the day. Today it was her turn to get her revenge. 

She started off with a shower, using Cisco’s favorite smelling shampoo and body wash to get the show on the roll. After that she dressed herself in a leather skirt, paired with low cut band t-shirt that showed just a little too much cleavage. To finish the look off she slid on a leather jacket and some heels. Once she thought her outfit was finished she headed to S.T.A.R. Labs. Upon walking into the Cortex she sprayed Cisco’s favorite perfume all over herself. 

When the elevator door opened she strode into the Cortex, the sound of her heels clicking against the tiled floor grabbing everyone’s attention. Cisco turned around, his jaw dropping to the ground at the sight of his stunning girlfriend. 

“Wow Y/N, trying to outdress us much?” Iris teased. Y/N shrugged, a smirk growing across her lips. From the corner of her eye she could see Cisco gawking over her. 

“Well you’re just on time, we were just talking about our newest enemy.” Caitlyn began to explain the situation to her, Y/N, still going on with her plan now leaning over the desk and giving not only Cisco, but the newest member Ralph, a show. When Cisco caught Ralph looking down his girlfriend’s shirt he made sure to point it out.

“Stop starring down my girlfriend’s shirt, Dipney.” Cisco growled. The way Cisco was becoming possessive over Y/N turned her on more than it should have, but she couldn’t help that fire in the pit of  her stomach when he acted like that. 

When Barry and Ralph left to go fight their newest enemy, Y/N got extra close to Cisco as he talked to Barry through the coms. Y/N would lean in from behind him and place chaste kisses on the back of his neck when she knew Iris and Caitlyn were too busy focusing on the situation at hand. Cisco tried to his best to ignore his girlfriend, but with the way she was dressed and the small kisses it was getting harder and harder to ignore her. 

“Cisco! Cisco are you even there?” Barry yelled through the coms.

Cisco shook his head from his thoughts and replied to the hero, leaving Y/N smirking behind him. Her plan was working just like she wanted it to. She was sure that within maybe two or three hours tops Cisco would be putty in her hands. 

Barry and Ralph got back to S.T.A.R. Labs moments later, exhausted from the fight. They hadn’t apprehended the enemy, leaving them a little anxious and angry. 

“He’ll show up again, don’t stress about it. For now, you all need to get to work, Cisco and I can stay here.” Y/N said, patting Ralph on the shoulder and then looking back at her boyfriend with a certain gleam in her eye. “Right, Cisco.”

The meta human contained himself, only barely though and nodded at his girlfriend. “Yeah, right. We can stay back in case anything happens or this guy shows up again.” The rest of the team agreed and left to go to their separate jobs. Once everyone was gone Cisco shot a glare in Y/N’s direction. “What was all that earlier? Teasing me while Barry and Ralph were on a mission?” He growled. Cisco got up and walked over to Y/N who was waiting patiently at one of the desks. 

“Whatever are you talking about, my love?” Y/N smirked, “I wasn’t teasing you.” 

Cisco’s hands gripped his girlfriend’s waist, pulling her closer to him. He just wanted to feel her skin, feel her against him, and she wanted the exact same thing. The meta human’s knew separated Y/N’s, placing his thigh under her cunt. Y/N was desperate for any type of contact with Cisco, so when he started grinding her hips down onto his clothed thigh she couldn’t help the moan that escaped her lips. 

“Think you can get away with teasing me like that? What if Iris or Caitlyn saw what you were up to, huh? What would you have done then?” Cisco was moving her hips faster now, pressing her clothed clit harder against his thigh. Y/N moaned loudly, head tilting back. “That’s not an answer, baby, what would you have done if they caught you?” 

“I- I would have continued.” Y?N let out breathlessly, “I would have kept going.” Y/N was losing her leverage against Cisco, she had to get the game back in her control. Even though she didn’t want to, Y/N pushed herself off of Cisco’s thigh and away from him. “I’m not done teasing you yet, I’m gonna tease you till you go nuts. Till you can’t help it anymore, not being able to touch me, not being able to have my pussy wrapped around your cock. Baby, you haven’t seen anything yet.” With that she wondered off, leaving Cisco standing there with his mouth wide open, a wet spot on his pants from where her soaking cunt was pressed against him, and a raging boner. 

Y/N was not seen for another hour, she had started working on something in Cisco’s lab, a project they had been neglecting for a while now. Cisco went to his lab looking for her, and was happy when he saw her working on their project. “Damnit!” Y/N said angrily as she threw a piece of metal across the room. 

“Hey, no throwing stuff in my lab.” Cisco teased. He never liked people throwing things in his lab, but Y?N was usually en exception to that. “What’s the problem?” He asked as he walked to his girlfriend. 

“You know that piece we found the other day that we thought would fit into the machine? Yeah, doesn’t fit.” Y/N put her head in her hands, “I don’t think we’ll ever get this done.” She mumbled. 

Cisco rubbed Y/N’s back, trying to get her to calm down or relieve some stress. “We’ll get it done babe, it’s just gonna take longer than we thought it would.” Y/N nodded and got up from the stool and went to grab the piece that she had thrown across the room. Smirking, she bent over, her skirt rising and showing off her electric blue, lacy panties. She heard Cisco groan behind her, then the scrape of the metal stool against the concrete floor. 

Y/N was pulled upwards, her ass colliding with Cisco’s evident bulge. “I think I’ve had enough of your teasing, princess.” Cisco’s hands were everywhere, Y/N’s throat, her chest, her stomach, her legs, everywhere except where she needed him most.

“Then why don’t you do something about it?” Cisco smirked, one hand leaving Y/N and reaching out to create a breach. 

“I thought you’d never ask.” Cisco pulled Y/N through the breach that landed them straight into their bedroom. “Now baby, you are going to follow all of my rules, my commands, and if you disobey me at any time you’ll be punished. Am I making myself clear?” Y/N nodded furiously, her skin already heating up with he thoughts of Cisco may do to her if she disobeyed. In a way, she wanted to see what would happen. “Strip for me, love. Want to see what you’ve been wearing underneath this sexy outfit all day.” 

Y/N didn’t hesitate to get herself undressed, leaving herself in the electric blue set of lingerie. The way Cisco’s eyes were raking up and down her body cause heat to flush her skin, and pool in her lower region. She felt so exposed to him like this even though they had had sex so many times before. This time she felt like the prey, while Cisco was the hunter about to get what he wanted 

“So beautiful, and all for me.” Cisco stepped forward and stood in front of his lover, his hands reaching out to her hips and pulling her forward. His knee parted her legs as he seated her on his thigh. “You’re gonna ride my thigh until you cum, darling, want to see you get off on my thigh.” Y/N nodded and slowly started rocking her clothed core against the fabric of Cisco’s pants. The friction seemed to take forever to build up into something, but as soon as he started pushing her hips down onto his thigh harder it began to build up. 

The moans flowing from Y/N’s mouth made Cisco’s cock strain against his trousers, making the pain he had already felt worsen. As Y/N rode his thigh and chased her first orgasm, Cisco began to rock his thigh up into cunt, his fingers bruising her hips as he gripped her to keep her in place. 

“Ci-Cisco, baby I’m gonna cum.” Y/N whimpered, her hips stuttering against Cisco’s thigh. Once those words came from her mouth Cisco pulled Y/N from his thigh, and then pulled himself away from her. “What the hell?” Y/N screeched, her orgasm so close and now so far away. 

“You’ll get what’s coming to you, princess, just you wait,” Cisco stripped himself of his clothes, finally releasing the built up tension between his boxer briefs and his cock. “We’re gonna try something new, I want you to ride my face whilst sucking me off.” Y/N’s ears burned at the thought of Cisco eating the life out of her, while she gave him head. 

Y/N watched as he laid back on the bed, pulling his hair from his face and then looking at Y/N to beckon her over. She crawled over to him, heart hammering in her chest. “Sit on my face baby, then turn around.” She did as told, positioning her dripping cunt over his lips and then turning around to face his erection. “So wet,” Cisco mumbled, his lips ghosted her parted lips sending chills down her spine. “Go ahead and get started baby.” 

Dropping her head, Y/N licked at the tip, collecting the precum that was leaking from it, then slowly she began to ease her head down his length. The sudden connection of her warm mouth to his aching member caused Cisco to accidentally buck his hips up and force more of his cock down her throat. Y/N gagged, but stayed still and steady until she started bobbing her head. While she was sucking him off, Cisco had pulled her lace panties aside and was eating her pussy so right that she almost stopped breathing. His lips were sucking at her clit, flicking his tongue back and forth on the nub, then sliding it into her glistening hole. The sensation of the new angle was bringing Y/N back to the brink of her first orgasm. She was silently praying that he wouldn’t pull away again and leave her on the edge. 

Cisco began to eat her out harder, basically shoving his face into her cunt. After a while he pushed two of his fingers into her pussy, causing a delicious moan to leave her mouth. “Mm, you like my fingers in your cunt, princess? You like my mouth on you while I fuck you with my fingers.” Cisco felt Y/N nod against his member, causing a weird, but delightful sensation to run through his body. He got back to work at her core, sucking at her clit while shoving his fingers in and out of her, occasionally curling them to hit a that one spot inside her that sent her hips bucking down onto this mouth. 

Y/N pulled back from Cisco’s cock, a string of saliva following her plump lips. “Cisco, please let me cum, I need it, please.” She begged, her hand now jerking him off. 

“Gonna cum in that pretty mouth of yours while cum on my lips, you got that?” Y/N nodded, placing her mouth back on his tip and hollowing out her cheeks as she began to suck him off harder. Cisco’s fingers moved faster and harder in her pussy until she was gripping his fingers and she was screaming against his dick. Cisco placed his lips at her entrance just in time to catch the sweetness that came from her as she let out her first orgasm. Her hips stuttered and bucked, moans fell from lips and were muffled as she still had her lips wrapped out his dick. Not long after Cisco came after her, hot strings of his seed spilling into her mouth and down her throat. When they had both come down from their highs, Y/N rolled off of him, chest heaving as she caught her breathe. 

“Oh, don’t think I’m done with you yet, my love.” Cisco hummed, grabbing Y/N’s legs and gently dragging her across the bed to meet him. “You’re gonna get fucked so good.” The smirk on his face told Y/N not to doubt those words. Grabbing hold of his still hard cock, Cisco rubbed the tip through the folds of her pussy, collecting her juices and then pushing into her. The sudden stretch caused Y/N to let out a loud, high pitched moan. Every time Cisco entered her it was like the first time all over again.  His thrusts started out slow and steady, moving Y/N leg’s over his shoulders for a better angle so he could hit every right spot inside her. Y/N’s eyebrows scrunched together and she shut her eyes, the pleasure so overwhelming it put her mind in a thick haze. Cisco grabbed hold of her chin, causing her eyes to open and look into his. “Look at me while I fuck, love, want to see every single part of you.” Y/N struggled but did as told, not once closing her eyes. Her eyes stayed connected to Cisco’s, making the moment even more intimate.

“Feels so good, fuck.” Y/N reached up behind her to grip the sheets, her hands clutching the fabric. The feeling of Cisco’s thick cock feeling her insides grew her closer to her second release, but she knew it wouldn’t be long until Cisco pulled out and found a new position to torture her with. She was right, just as close as she was the feeling was gone and before she could ask anything Cisco had laid behind her, hiking up a leg and putting it over his hips so he could easily slide his cock back into her. As soon as he did the pace was now hard and fast, moving Y/N with every thrust. 

“Such a tight cunt, so perfect to fuck and fill. Love fucking you my love, all mine, all mine.” Cisco repeated as he continued his penetration into her soar center. Y/N clenched and unclenched her pussy around his dick, moaning louder and louder as she inched forward to her next release. “Gonna fill you up so nice with my cum, gonna make you full for days.” He growled into her ear, his lips ghosting down and sucking dark purple bruises onto her neck.

“Love your cum inside me, baby, feels so good.” Y/N mewled, throwing her head back. “Gonna cum again, fuck, make me cum.” Cisco grunted loudly, his hot breathe fanning Y/N’s skin as he fucked her until his hips stilled, slightly stuttering as he released his second load into her swollen pussy. The feeling of him pouring his seed into her pussy made her own release trigger, her ass pushing against his hips. 

When Cisco knew their orgasms had ended he gently pulled out of Y/N’s pussy, their mix of cum sliding out of her stretched out hole and spilling down leg and onto the bed sheets.

Now too tired to move and clean themselves up, the two laid on the bed together, breathing heavily as the tangled their limbs together and dozed off into a peaceful sleep. They both knew though that when they woke up, the second round would begin.

[megalony]

Liar- Part 3

Another part of my latest Roger Taylor series which I hope everyone is enjoying so far. Thank you for the feedback so quickly it is much appreciated.

Permanent taglist: @marshmallowmae @langdonzvoid @butlegendsneverdie @luvborhap @jennyggggrrr @radiob-l-a-hblah @rogertaylorsbitontheside @chlobo6 @rogertaylors-lipgloss @sj-thefan 

Series taglist: @caborhapch @im-just-a-musical-prostitute @scarsout

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Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Stop bloody asking." Roger snapped, his head twisting at an odd angle to look down at (Y/n) who was stood at his side. Her eyes widening at the rudeness in his tone that he had never used with her before. She couldn't help but ask if he was okay because it was clear there was something wrong with him.

Roger was getting angry. Even with the band, he snapped at the slightest little thing today which was noticeable since the moment (Y/n) walked in at lunchtime. Clearly seeing that Roger had been like this all morning since all of the band were now getting edgy with him. His hand was constantly scratching at his right arm so much he was leaving marks around the scar that he couldn't seem to get off his mind. He was more jittery than usual, Roger normally had that sense of hyperness about him which helped with drumming but today he couldn't sit still. His foot tapped up and down against the floor or the pedals so badly he was adding too many cymbal beats into the music.

Something was wrong.

"You've been pissy all morning and now you're snapping at me, what's wrong?" Something had happened last week for Roger to suddenly spike. His anxiety seemed to go through the roof and he couldn't keep himself calm or at ease, he was on a spring that was constantly going off.

"I'm just wound up." Roger sighed the words in a way that showed he didn't mean to be this rude. His head leaned back against the wall behind him as he continued to look down at (Y/n). His eyes pleading his case and saying a silent sorry as he leaned down to press his temple against hers as he closed his eyes for a moment or two. When he finally pulled back he looked over at the rest of the band. Seeing Brian was in the recording booth doing his guitar part for their latest song, John was sitting on the sofa in this room and Freddie was hanging around the controls. Just waiting to tell Brian to change his riff or tweak something here and there like he always did.

Moving his hand, Roger brought the cigarette clasped between his index and middle finger to his lips. Inhaling the calming smoke and nicotine as he went back to resting his head against the wall. His eyes intently watching (Y/n) as she wandered over to Freddie when she was beckoned.

One moment of solitude was all Roger was gaining right now. Just one moment to feel like he could calm down before he was sent reeling once again in the worst possible way. His head snapped to the left at an ungodly speed that made him feel as if he had just broken his neck. His blue orbs latching onto the redhead now standing on his right who had previously been sitting on the sofa with John.

She wore a smile that Roger could only class as devilish, and not in the good kind of way. The way that showed her thoughts were plotting something that could only be seen as bad and the true work of the devil. Her painted red lips parted just enough to show her pearl white teeth, an image that made Roger think of sharks. If she flashed her teeth at him any more than that her lips would curve in odd ways like her lips were crooked and resembled the smile of the grinch.

He could feel her fingertips dragging along his arm, her nails scraping ever so lightly he wasn't really sure if they were actually in contact with his skin or not. The feeling trailed right where he didn't want it, over the scar leading from his elbow and stopping just short of his wrist. The very scar that was now burning with the desire for Roger to scratch it raw until it bled. Her fingers didn't stop there, they trailed right up his hand until they were placed over his own that were holding the cigarette to his pale dusty rose lips. This was an action he was used to but one that he didn't like. She was always like this with everyone and Roger was the only one who didn't like it.

Her fingers delicately took the cigarette from his lips to place it between her own, taking a drag as she never let her eyes move away from his own. Her head cocked to the side as Roger clearly curved his lips in a way that resembled a sneer as if he was going to growl at her at any moment.

"Don't have your own?" Roger's tone was one that (Y/n) could decipher like it was an encrypted code as she turned her body around. Leaning against the controls so she could look over at her boyfriend in confusion and slight worry. He spoke the words in a tone that seemed almost playful, as if he was messing with the woman in front of him and (Y/n) could see that was because she and the boys were there. But if they weren't she wondered if he would have snapped at her too. Underneath, his words were spoken in a way that showed irritation. That gave away Roger was not fond of this woman who seemed to act perfectly fine and even a bit flirtatiously with him.

"You never used to mind sharing with me." She responded in a tone that was sultry. Her voice was coated in too much sugar that it would have tasted sickly on her tongue. She batted her eyelashes at the drummer who simply narrowed his back at her. His teeth rubbing against one another as the muscles surrounding his jaw pressed harshly against the skin confining them to the bone.

"Maybe I just didn't have a choice." Roger cocked his brow at her but his response was simply a puff of smoke back that was released from her slightly parted lips very slowly. The smoke whirling around his eyes and clouding around them as if they were trying to change his eye colour and darken it.

"Poor boy... does it hurt?" A violent shiver ran down Roger's spine when her fingertip went back to tracing his scar. Her head leaning to the side as she feigned innocence that had long been lost in the past. Her hand pressing that little bit harder into Roger's skin, dragging her nail down the crystal clear mark tainting him before his hand enveloped around her wrist with a bruising grip. He roughly threw her hand away from his skin before she could do any damage, feeling the overwhelming need to lash out and punch the wall or even push her down. But Roger would never have the bottle to do that.

"Does your head hurt?" Roger's comment was the one and only thing that allowed him to watch her dreadful blood-red lips falter in their broken smile that could put nightmares into the head of the bravest person on Earth. He didn't make a move to touch her or run his fingertip along her own scar like she had done him. All Roger did was glance to her temple where a small white slash mark was prominent.

Roger should have known he wouldn't have won that battle.

He never seemed to win. His eyes burned like the sun as he watched her take another, very slow drag of the almost finished cigarette before she leaned up to his ear. Breathing the smoke close to his skin to make him feel as if he were on fire or burning.

"You still haven't said sorry, Rog." Her words made Roger want to curl up right then and there and burst into tears. Yet the only thing he could do was stare into the carpet like his soul had suddenly become detached from his body. His legs slowly turning him around before he left the room in silence, his hand clamping down on his mouth to stop a scream from escaping. He walked like he was on his very last reserves of energy yet his body gave off an image of anger. The tension in his muscles stopped him from looking like he was about to collapse to the ground.

When he reached the back of the building outside, Roger leaned heavily against the wall, allowing it to support his weight that was becoming too much for him to handle. His head lolling to the side like his neck had been broken when (Y/n) appeared not a minute later.

"Don't." Roger couldn't be sure if he was warning her or pleading with her to drop the subject but either way Roger wasn't ready for this. When would he ever be ready to face these facts that were desperate to ruin his life?

"That's her, isn't it? Your ex who hurt you." The drummer wouldn't meet her eyes, he simply let his head loll down again giving the impression he had just been hung as he stared at the ground. Roger had told himself he wouldn't lie to (Y/n) and if he said no to her question he would be lying. It was clear to (Y/n) that the woman inside was one that Roger did not get along with. She touched his scar like it was personal as if she was happy about it or even proud and if (Y/n) thought that she was the one who did it then it made sense. She had left her mark on Roger and she was proud of that. And the way he spoke to her, he had never spoken to anyone like that before that (Y/n) knew of. The words he said and how he spoke them gave the game away.

"I said don't."

"But she's here! She's preying on you in there and she's messing with you because she thinks she can get away with it. Why is she even here?" Whoever the mysterious woman was, she had turned up at the studio before (Y/n) and she had only learnt the woman's name. No one said who she was or why she was here so (Y/n) guessed she was just a friend of the band like she herself was and had turned up for the music. She knew them all well enough but (Y/n) hadn't spoken to her.

"The boys don't know, what the fuck do you want me to do?" Roger snapped for the second time that day at (Y/n) in less than twenty minutes.

He couldn't say anything because the band didn't know Roger's history with the woman inside who acted like a flirtatious friend with him. He couldn't tell anyone and the very fact (Y/n) now knew who she was to Roger set him on edge because his secrets were beginning to unravel and he didn't like it. He wished now that he hadn't told her because he would have kept himself and his history safer that way if he'd only have kept his mouth shut and his secrets to himself.

"She's not doing this to you and getting away with it." (Y/n) wouldn't let this stranger saunter in like she owned the place just to torment Roger like this. He had clearly suffered and she was not letting her boyfriend get hurt anymore. She didn't care who this woman was or what she had done to Roger, she wasn't letting it happen anymore.

(Y/n)'s eyes locked with Roger's when he grasped her wrist tight enough to leave bruises. His form towering over her own as he pulled her to his chest to stop her from going inside. She had promised she wouldn't tell the boys and making a scene would get them suspicious. This was not (Y/n)'s mess to deal with and sadly it wasn't her place to intervene. Roger wasn't having her fight his battles and he wasn't having her destroy the life and the lie he had kept up for ten years. This was his life and no one was going to disrupt anything.

"She already has. Don't you fucking dare go in there and say a word, I mean it. You promised me-"

"Don't talk to me like that, I promised I wouldn't tell the boys what you went through. I never promised to stand by and let your abuser torment you. Give me one good reason not to go and kick her out." (Y/n) understood Roger was hurt and he was afraid but he couldn't just let this woman walk into his life and cause chaos whenever she so chose. It wasn't fair and (Y/n) did no promise to watch Roger get hurt, she promised not to tell his life to anyone because that wasn't fair. She could go and have a word with this woman and make her leave without causing a scene in front of the boys.

"She's Brian's sister."

[honeymoonjin]

Chapter Eleven

Summary: When you hear that your recently deceased grandmother left you her property in her will, at first you think that a dinky old cottage in the middle of nowhere isn’t going to mean much for you. But after spending a night there, you discover something far more valuable than the house itself: a hidden door that leads to another time, the same place but over 200 years in the past. In the late 18th Century, there is a king who will die before his 21st birthday unless you can save him. Will you help him, even if it means leaving your own life behind?

A/N: This chapter is a little different, it’s in Yoongi’s point of view. I was going to make it Chapter 10.5 since it kind of occurs alongside Chapter 10 chronologically, but I didn’t want anyone thinking it wasn’t necessary to the plot, because it definitely is. Let me know what you think!

--

"Can't you just let me go with you, hyung? I'll be good!"

This kid. Yoongi shakes his head firmly, hurriedly grinding some herbs together for a last-minute clarity charm. "You mess up enough here as it is. I can't leave something like this up to you. Besides, Y/n specifically asked for me to go, didn't she?"

The shaman tries to ignore the way Taehyung fixes his puppy dog eyes on his elder. "But what will I do when you're gone? I'll be all bored and alone."

Tipping the ground herbs into a small vial, Yoongi's voice is flat as he makes sure the vaguely green dust makes its way into the vessel. "Then go back to the palace and keep Y/n company. Make sure she doesn't do anything stupid. Alright, I need to leave. Be sure to leave the portal door open, but lock the front door with the hex charm; do you remember it?"

Taehyung seems affronted at the suggestion. "Of course I can do a hex charm, Yoongi. I'm not incompetent, you know..."

Yoongi straightens up and stares at the boy who's pouting in the kitchen. Feeling a sliver of guilt, he sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "Listen," Yoongi says, voice gruff but apologetic, "I'm just making sure. I'm trying to keep you safe."

"Forget about it," Taehyung mutters under his breath, studiously ignoring his elder as he grabs an apple for the road and shrugs on a coat. "I'm going, like you wanted."

Yoongi winces when the heavy wooden door slams behind his assistant, and he stands in silence, listening to the the light scrape of Taehyung’s fingernail against the door, paired with the muttering of an ancient Chinese spell. Most of the magic Yoongi used nowadays were more modern Korean methods, but for the more basic enchantments, it was common to use the original spells.

Finally, all was quiet again. Yoongi cleared his throat to try and break the melancholic gloom he had slipped into, and double-checked the minimal belongings on his person before he left. He was not going to be in the modern world long, would not even have to leave the confines of the house itself, but Yoongi never went anywhere without a small leather pouch of basic ingredients tucked into his belt, the glass vial of a clarity charm dangling on a cord around his neck, and a small blade in his boot. All things proceeding as planned, he wouldn’t need them.

The first thing Min Yoongi noticed about the future was how clean and bright everything was. Gone were his heavy curtains, dark walls and sooty hearth. He emerged out into a hallway (something only palaces were large enough to have in his time, but he was familiar with them nonetheless) with a strange spongy fabric floor and impossibly straight, flat walls that appeared painted uniformly. He couldn’t imagine the finesse it would take a painter to manage to evenly coat this expansive surface without leaving streaks. Perhaps magic was more commonplace in this day.

Yoongi had been here once before, to lure Y/n back to his time, but he had transformed into a cat, then, and it was the middle of the night, rather than the break of day. Unsure which direction to go, he followed the hallway left, until he made it to the very end. “She said the communication device was in her sleeping quarters. Here, she wrote down some instructions for its use.” Yoongi felt for the note again in his pocket, comforted by the crisp edge of the thick paper. He had read that note to the point of rote-memory, but was glad it was there anyway. All Yoongi had to do was locate a bedroom, and then the ‘phone’ would be on a wooden stand beside it. He was actually feeling some excitement unfurl within him to find this device; from Y/n’s description, it sounded like a very complexly enchanted item.

As Yoongi made his way from room to room methodically, ignoring everything that wasn’t a bed (even though he was desperately curious to try out the bath – something he recognised from his time, but seemed far more refined) he thought over his previous encounter with Taehyung.

Was there really such a need for Taehyung to take everything to heart all the time? That boy was too sensitive for his own good. It would get him hurt one day.

When Taehyung and Yoongi met, almost three years ago, the shaman wasn’t looking for anyone. In fact, he had sworn off ever taking an assistant again after… what had happened with the last one, but Taehyung was insistent. His parents didn’t want him working on their farm anymore, he had said, and the King’s Guard wouldn’t take him in. He would have nowhere else to go. Perhaps Yoongi should’ve seen that as a sign that the boy wasn’t a particularly capable worker, but instead he had opened his arms and welcomed him in. He never had been able to say no to a pretty face. Yoongi thought maybe that was his biggest flaw yet.

Behind the fourth or fifth door, past the small door in the wall from whence he came, Yoongi found a bed, wider and more lushly decorated than the modest shelf-and-blanket combination he had. Letting out a gasp of relief at the chance to distract himself from the memories of his assistants, he rushed forward into the room, scanning it for a wooden stand.

Directly to the right of the bed is a short, squarish cabinet. On top is a small metal box with glowing red numbers, a very glossy and crisp book, and a small black device. Yoongi consults with the slip of paper, and tentatively touches the tip of his finger to a protruding button. Gasping with wonder as the surface lights up, Yoongi realizes there are words on the screen, all gathered in small boxes. He takes the time to read some of them, having to re-press that button as the screen keeps going dark after a few moments.

   Jimin, 8:21pm: r you still busy at the house? can u please just text me back baby, if ur busy thats okay, im just a little worried out u, thats all… it’s getting late…

   Jimin, 10:49am: okay, im heading off to work, flick me a text when u get this xxx

   Jimin, yesterday 5:11pm:  we dont have to if you don’t want to

   Jimin, yesterday 4:28pm: date night tonight? xxx i feel like i havent seen you in ages baby xxx

There are more, but they disappear out the bottom. Yoongi frowns. He thinks he remembers this Jimin; if memory serves, it was the sleeping male curling up to Y/n when he briefly visited her dreamscape. Yoongi had been so caught up in making sure she fulfilled her end of the deal that he had almost forgotten she had a life outside of their time. Those messages were a sobering reminder of how much Yoongi was asking from her. How much she was giving up. He didn’t like that feeling.

Clearing his throat noisily in the early evening silence, he picks up the device delicately and places it on the bed, flattening out the note beside it. Y/n’s instructions make sense as he follows along, although it takes him a while to work out what she means by ‘text bubble icon’.

Once he reaches that screen, and clicks on the name ‘Jimin’, those same messages appear, but in a different format. “I’ve already seen these,” he tells the device. The device does not respond. “I seek to create one of my own.” He sighs. The magic on this glass apparently cannot react to voice, only touch. He reaches out and clicks on the small white box that says ‘iMessage’ in grey. “Yes, I do want to message,” he mumbles distractedly. A large array of small letters appears below. Y/n wrote down to tap each square to write the letter. It seems an awfully impersonal way of writing, and it takes Yoongi quite a long time to tap out what Y/n has asked him to write, as well as pressing a small blue arrow to the right, which pushes the message upwards, resting directly below those from the Jimin.

   omg im so sorry i missed these jiminie ㅠ ㅠ i hope ur not too worried.

   im ok, just not been feeling great so ive been sleeping a lot! im not sure yet if its contagious so pls dont come out, i know uve got that show coming up and i dont want u to get sick ok!

   love you lots baby!

Yoongi sighs once he finishes, resting back on the bed, but soon three bouncing dots appear in a box. He watches them dance, fascinated, wondering what this could mean, until they change into words. Y/n did tell him that Jimin would be likely to reply and had simply written on the bottom of the note, ‘no apostrophes, or capital letters, call him baby or jiminie, and make sure he doesn’t come out to the house!’

   Jimin: omg thank god ur safe i was worried!!! i can bring u round some fresh soup and we can have a night in xxx ive already had my flu jab so i wont get sick i promise lol xx

Yoongi swears, trying to speed up his reply, double-checking Y/n’s rules as he goes.

   thank you, baby, thats very kind of you. but please dont come out, im just going to go to sleep and hope that this sickness passes in time. i will notify you once

But before he can finish crudely dictating a message, a series of three hard raps echoes through the house. Yoongi stands up ramrod stiff. Surely the Jimin boy hadn’t arrived so soon? Although, Yoongi supposes transport must be more efficient in this time. He bites his lip nervously. Surely, it would be best to go ask him to leave. It was Y/n’s intention that Jimin did not come to the house, since she herself was absent, and Yoongi could not have the boy roaming around and discovering the portal’s entrance.

“Y/n?” a deep voice calls out, muffled through the walls. Yoongi swears under his breath and pockets the small device and the note, getting off the bed to go find the front door. “Are you there?” Hurrying faster, the shaman eventually locates a door with a clouded glass panel revealing a tall shadow. He fumbles with the doorknob, having to twist a key (thank God that technology hasn’t changed) to unlock it, and throws it open with a nervous huff. The man blinks once, furrowing his eyebrows. “Uh…hi?”

“Yes, hello,” Yoongi blurts out hastily, eyes roaming over the tall man. Although he saw Jimin in very dim lighting, it’s easy to tell that this is not the same man. “Who are you?”

The man is wearing rough-looking blue pants with a belt, and a tunic that’s cut at his hips instead of his legs. He holds a hand out to Yoongi. Yoongi stares at it until the man coughs and lowers it. “My name’s Namjoon. I didn’t mean to interrupt, I’m just here to speak to Y/n.”

“What-” Yoongi’s words catch in his throat when he lifts his gaze from the man’s odd attire to his face. It can’t be. A bolt of deeply-repressed hurt cuts through him. He recognizes those dimples, that smile, even the name is the same as his. It was a face he never thought he’d see again. But, no. It isn’t him. The more Yoongi looks at him closely, the man going a little red in the cheeks under the sudden scrutiny, Yoongi can see the finer details aren’t right. His Namjoon had a narrow nose, more delicate face. His Namjoon wasn’t as tall and was skinnier too. This man in front of him bore shocking resemblance, but it wasn’t him. It wasn’t his Namjoon. Sensing he had been silent too long, Yoongi blinks away the tears that threaten to well. “What for?”

“Oh, uh, it’s kind of private business, dude. Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Y/n’s sick,” Yoongi says instead, “so I’m afraid you can’t come in. I’m more than happy to pass on a message.”

The man who looks so much like his former assistant furrows his brows. “I’m sorry, who are you? I’d like to speak with her. I’ve been doing some more research for her, you see, really cool stuff on-”

“I’m her doctor,” Yoongi says instead, “I’m concerned she may be contagious, so I’ve advised her not to have guests. If you have the research with you, perhaps I can bring it inside. I’m sure she’d appreciate you coming.”

The guy laughs awkwardly, then digs into a bag at his side for a stack of pieces of paper bound in some floppy, slippery pink material. “I didn’t have time to pick up a ringbinder, so the photocopies are loose, but I managed to dig up quite a bit of the history on the Jeon reign, as well as all the following generations. It’s interesting! Hopefully she’ll get some use out of it.” The man hands the research over, craning his neck to try and glance down the hallway. “Can you tell her hi for me? And that I’m sorry for stopping by without texting ahead.”

Yoongi nods, half in a daze. He doesn’t know this strange feeling in his chest; does he want this Namjoon-not-Namjoon man to leave and never think about him again, or does he wish he would stay so that Yoongi can see just how much similarity there was? The thought comes too late, as the man turns and skips down the gravel path, getting into his car and pulling away without a second look back.

The shaman shuts the door, returning the key to its previous position, and sinks down on the floor. First Taehyung acting up, reminding him of his last assistant, and now this. The fates were being cruel today.

Forgetting about the small device still in his herbs pouch, Yoongi quickly returns to the hallway and crawls through the doorway and back into his own time, trying to ignore the hot tears that gather under his chin.

--

TAGLIST Message me or send an ask to be added to the taglist for Sovereign, and never miss a new chapter!

@sonyeonsideupsmile  @sweetcheeksdna (I can’t seem to tag you!)  @hoodiebangtan @mntchcchp @shay-the-turtle @under-dah-sea

[dr-gloom]

29 and 43 for analogical?

holy shit i got one lads!!!!

29. “What did you just say?” 43. “Can you be a good girl/boy and do that for me?”

Send me an NSFW prompt

Fandom: Sanders’ Sides

Pairing: Analogical

Tags/Warnings: this was inspired in part by an rp im in so uh, i hope you like it lol, smut (obviously), handjob, pain kink, praise kink, arguing in the beginning?, some begging

Virgil was getting annoyed. No, more than that, he was getting mad. How could Logan not see his point? Out of all of the sides, he at least expected Logic to see the reasoning in his argument. However, Logan was standing on Roman and Patton’s sides for once, and maybe if Virgil was calmer he’d realize that it hurt so much because it felt like it had before they accepted him, but right now he was just pissed that his boyfriend was opposing him when he was right, dammit. 

“You’re not listening to me, I-”

“Virgil, that is enough.” Logan says, his tone carrying an air of finality. “We have already decided on the matter, it is best that you move on.”

“Fuck you.” Virgil grumbles under his breath, hunching into his hoodie.

Logan levels Virgil with a look that has his heart beating faster. “What did you just say?”

“N-nothing…”

“Patton, Roman. Please excuse us; carry on with today’s affairs.” Logan turns to Virgil once again. “Room, now.” Logan sinks out and Virgil feels a shiver trail up his spine before sinking out as well. 

Virgil rises up in Logan’s room, looking around. He knew what came next, the most nerve-wracking thing was waiting for it. Logan comes up behind him, pressing against his back and placing his hands on Virgil’s hips. He leans down to whisper in Virgil’s ear, making Virgil shiver.

“Now, what was it you said to me?”

Virgil bit his lip, shaking his head. Logan tuts under his breath, squeezing Virgil’s hips. “Come now, use your words, be a good boy.”

Virgil takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “I-I said… I said ‘fuck you’.” 

Logan spins him around so they’re facing each other and pins Virgil to the wall, hands still on his hips. He kisses Virgil roughly and Virgil closes his eyes, melting into the kiss. Logan ground his hips against Virgil’s, making the slightly smaller side gasp. He takes the chance to lick into Virgil’s mouth, muffling his groan against Virgil’s lips. Virgil wraps his arms around Logan’s neck, whimpering softly and grinding back. 

Logan’s hands slip back to grope Virgil’s ass, using his grip to grind against Virgil roughly, making Virgil moan shakily into the kiss, rocking his hips into Logan’s. Logan reaches in between them to undo Virgil’s pants and push them and his boxers down just enough to free his cock before grinding against him again. Virgil breaks the kiss to let out a soft, shaky cry, clinging to Logan’s shirt. 

“Fuck, Lo, please!”

Logan starts trailing kisses from Virgil’s jaw down his neck, undoing and pushing down his own pants and boxers before grinding against Virgil again. Virgil whimpers, more pleas falling from his mouth as he pants right by Logan’s ear. Logan bites the shell of Virgil’s ear before muttering, “Oh, I’m not going to fuck you.” At the confused and desperate sound Virgil makes, Logan continues. “Only good boys get to ride my cock, and you’ve been very bad. Talking back to me in front of the others; you need to be punished.”

Logan builds up a rhythm, grinding against Virgil, listening to him whimper and moan as the feeling of not only Logan’s cock but the fabric of his jeans drags against his sensitive cock and drives him wild. When Virgil starts letting out little breathy gasps with each rock of Logan’s hips, Logan stops. Virgil makes a frustrated and desperate sound, trying to rock his hips, but Logan holds them in place. “Now, now, love. None of that.” 

Virgil opens his eyes, looking at Logan with flushed cheeks and mussed hair, pupils blown wide. “Lo, please, so close.” Logan hums, grabbing the lube from his back pocket and squirting some onto his hand before wrapping it around Virgil’s cock in a loose grip, moving his hand achingly slow. Virgil whines and looks at Logan, chest rising and falling with deep breaths; he knows what Logan expects. 

When Virgil seems to have calmed down enough, Logan steps closer, wrapping his hand around both himself and Virgil as he draws him into another kiss. Virgil moans into the kiss, rocking his hips into Logan’s hand, and Logan bites his bottom lip. Virgil gasps softly, his breath hitching, and Logan smirks. He pulls away from the kiss, his hand still stroking the both of them almost languidly. “You like it when it gets rougher, don’t you, baby?” Virgil nods, biting his bottom lip to stifle a whimper. Logan lets go of their cocks, nipping at his jaw. “You going to take over for me, my good boy? So I can make you feel good?” Virgil nods, wrapping his hand around both of their cocks and stroking them, rocking his hips into it. 

Logan’s hands move to cup Virgil’s ass as he draws him into another kiss, forcing his tongue past Virgil’s lips and making their teeth knock together. He scratches up Virgil’s ass as he massages it, making Virgil moan into the kiss and buck his hips, panting into Logan’s mouth. Virgil’s free hand comes up to grip Logan’s back under his shirt, nails dragging and no doubt leaving red lines in his otherwise pale skin. Logan groans, snaking a hand up into Virgil’s hair and pulling hard, forcing his head back and breaking the kiss. 

Virgil cries out, bucking his hips, his hand faltering on their cocks. Logan rocks his hips, mumbling, “Don’t stop, pretty one,” before biting down on his neck. Virgil lets out a shaky, desperate moan, squeezing their cocks before his hand resumes its movement. “Good boy.” Logan praises, nibbling at Virgil’s pulse point and tugging on his hair, getting a shaky gasp in response. “God, Logan.” Virgil’s hand speeds up and Logan grinds his hips as a response. 

“So perfect, so beautiful. My good, pretty little boy.” Logan mutters into Virgil’s neck as his free hand scratches over Virgil’s chest before pinching a nipple between his fingers. Virgil moans shakily and arches into Logan’s touch, eyes squeezed shut. “You look so beautiful, flushed and needy, begging for me with every sound you make.” Logan pulls on his hair again and smirks when Virgil’s hand stutters and he moans. Logan trails kisses and nips down Virgil’s chest, nibbling at the skin around his other nipple before licking the nub. 

“Fuck, Logan, p-please!”

Logan hums. “Tell me what you want. Can you be a good boy and do that for me?” He demands, teeth scraping over Virgil’s nipple as he pinches and tugs on the other one. Virgil cries out, rocking his hips into his hand. 

“Please, please l-let me come, need it s-so bad!” He gasps out. 

“Good boy.” Logan straightens up and kisses Virgil soundly, reaching down to help Virgil. “Come for me, Virgil.” He bites Virgil’s lip, speeding up his hand as Virgil’s falters. 

Virgil comes with a shaky moan, rocking his hips into Logan’s hand and riding out his orgasm. Logan thrusts into his hand a few times before he’s following behind Virgil, muffling his groan in Virgil’s neck. He slows his movements, working the both of them through their orgasms before letting them go and pulling Virgil into another kiss. 

When they break apart, both of them are breathless and tired. Logan grabs a towel from his nearby hamper and cleans them both up before redressing Virgil and then himself. Virgil gives him a hesitant, cocky smirk as he catches his breath, adjusting his shirt. “You think they got anything done while we were gone?”

Logan adjusts his glasses. “I highly doubt it.”

A/N: whoop there it is! my first smut for the sanders sides fandom…. i hope i did good? not gonna tag anyone cause idk if the folks on my taglist are ok with smut so *shrug*

[bigskydreaming]

I’m so mad, I’m so.....fuck. I feel like this doctor had no intention of ever doing this surgery because its like ever since I actually CAME UP with the money, its been one thing after another about why I need to do this still or that, and it feels like they kept stalling or trying to get me to give up, like....idk, nothing I come up with makes SENSE, all I know is they were perfectly fine and helpful in getting me a diagnosis and scans, and then sent me off after I did the final molds/impressions and said the only thing left was they couldn’t move forward until I paid x amount of money...and then I did, and all of a sudden its oh that’s not the right amount, I don’t know who quoted you that (umm you) but actually we need 20K up front because insurance claims can’t be submitted until after treatment and we might not be reimbursed (which again, then why did YOU make me wait to send my insurance preauthorization requests if your policy is to make patients pay in full upfront and wait for reimbursement which...what)...and THEN if there was STILL never a chance of me getting this surgery without paying in full upfront, why did they make me wait around for another week and a half while we waited on getting my insurance approve an access to care form that made this doctor in network (previously she was out of network for my insurance, but I had my insurance check for in network providers and there’s no one in network within a 100 miles of me who does this specific surgery)....like, if even being in network, they still weren’t going to take Blue Shield’s formal, written letter detailing what exactly was covered under my plan and they were intending to pay out....WHY WAIT FOR THIS FORM TO GO THROUGH AND GET THE LETTER BACK AT ALL????

It makes NO fucking sense. I feel like they never expected me to actually be able to come up with the money and idk what, like, she actually doesn’t know how to do the surgery or she doesn’t fucking doesn’t like me or want to or what like, lmfao I don’t even know, it MAKES NO SENSE.

But of course, its super obvious they were putting off calling me and hoping they could ride out the clock and I wouldn’t call today because I can tell the office manager doesn’t like being the go between and having to only give me bad news, but like, tough, that’s your fucking job, and maybe if you’d been a little less ‘gentle’ about it and just flat out admitted you guys were never gonna fucking do this surgery for me, I wouldn’t have WASTED an entire fucking month sitting on my ass, draining my account of money I can’t afford to waste, because my shitty jaw has progressed to the point where I can barely sleep, barely even eat because I have to manually fucking close it with my hand when I chew anything harder than rice, lmfao, and just....

God. The only thing I can think of to do now is try calling every other oral/maxillofacial surgeon in the county and see if they can do these procedures and accept my insurance. I know there’s no in network ones, and I already checked and my insurance can’t help me find a list of out of network ones, I have to basically just google every oral surgeon in LA and even though they’re all apparently out of network if they’re able to perform this surgery at all, I can at least probably get them in network by doing an access to care form again with them too, like since clearly this doctor turned out to not be a viable option? Idek man. Ugh. Jfc. And who knows how long this is gonna take. Ugh if they’d at least just fucking owned up to it and just called me this morning when they decided this still didn’t change shit, I could have had all day to be calling other offices instead of waiting for them to call and hoping this time at least they were aware enough of my DESPERATE FUCKING SENSE OF URGENCY BECAUSE HAVE I MENTIONED CONSTANT FUCKING OWWWWW AND ALSO HEY MY COMPLETE INABILITY TO FUNCTION IN ANY KIND OF MEASURABLY PRODUCTIVE WAY??? that they’d actually KEEP their word this time about calling when they said they’d call.

Now of course, none of these places are open on Saturday from the looks of it, so I won’t even be able to START calling around until Monday, and ugh. jfc. why. why the fuck did they string me along all fucking month if they knew at the end of it all no matter what, they weren’t gonna budge from trying to get me to pay 20K upfront, out of pocket, like I hadn’t told them from the START there was no way I could manage that, and hadn’t told them AGAIN when they TOOK my fucking money in the first place, when I paid them the $6,200 they INITIALLY told me would be my downpayment for this surgery, like I told them THEN that getting the loan for $10K in order to come up with the EXACT amount they specified took every bit of goodwill I could wring out of a lender with the credit I do have and there was ZERO chance of me coming up with ANYTHING more than that amount upfront....so why the fuck didn’t they tell me at least THEN when they ‘corrected’ me on the amount that it didn’t matter HOW MANY fucking hoops I jumped through with my insurance to try and get this doctor the reassurance or surety that they’d be reimbursed for x amount by Blue Shield...like....I COULD HAVE BEEN DOING ALL THIS A GODDAMN MONTH AGO. I’ve been waiting TWO YEARS for a fix to this shit that affects EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of my life, I FINALLY got a fucking diagnosis, a doctor who told me she could fix it, who said she could restore full function and wipe out the problems I have from it completely, no more headaches, no more pain, no more vertigo, no more nerve flareups....and now turns out I’ve wasted ANOTHER full month that got me not a single fucking step closer to this being DONE and FIXED and like.....

I’m so mad. And just. So frustrated. And SO. FUCKING. TIRED. Jfc. I hate them, I really fucking do, like they literally just fucking don’t give a shit no matter how many times I really fucking calmly and civilly lol tried to express how much it gets worse every single day like it has been CONSISTENTLY for the past two years, like never fucking plateauing, no matter HOW bad I think its gotten, it ALWAYS fucking manages to find a way to surprise me when I wake up the next day and yet AGAIN its somehow managed to shift so things are just enough different I NEVER get a chance to even get used to a ‘new normal’ and just fucking adjust to it, as shitty as it might be....ugh. God. I’m just.

LMFAO I honestly think right now I hate this doctor more than the fucking gay-bashers who caused this fucking drama by kicking me in the goddamn face over and over 15 fucking years ago and if THAT’S not hysterically fucked up I REALLY DONT KNOW WHAT IS.

Anyway. So that’s my mood tonight, how’s everyone else doing? LOL.

This might be a longshot, but on the off chance that ANYONE knows or is friends with or related to an oral surgeon or oral maxillofacial surgeon in the greater LA area, like, this specifically is what I’ve been told I need to get done:

I need a Mandibular splint, a Total joint surgery on the left tmj (Temporomandibular joint) and an Orthognathic surgery. They specifically ruled out that I didn’t need a jaw replacement surgery because I have enough of the original bone that goes in that joint like, still there, so I didn’t actually need to get a prosthetic joint or the jaw replacement surgery which is apparently riskier and less effective anyway? Idek. If I can even trust anything they told me at this point, lmfao, but let’s just assume I can because not sure this fucker’s depression hour can handle thinking I might have to start back from square one NOPE NOT GONNA HAPPEN NOT THIS GUY I FUCKING REFUSE.

LOL as though my objections have any fucking effect on any of this anyway. BUT I DIGRESS. So yeah, that’s what I supposedly need done, I actually have really fucking good and expensive Blue Shield insurance that I’ve gouged myself a new asshole getting and keeping this year, not to mention needed donation posts and help with that just to still ultimately scrape by and not lose it, all specifically because I knew there was not a chance in hell I could ever afford the treatment I was being told I needed, like, out of pocket, and the irony is due to how expensive living out of a motel is and how like, I couldn’t afford to take any money AWAY from my many doctor visits in order to at any point this past year come up with enough money to put first and last month’s rent down on an apartment (and I look too much like a tweaker apparently, with constant twitches and fidgets and fixing my jaw, for like, anybody to want to just rent a room to me apparently, and even giving them the full story ended up seeming like “im too much drama” hahahaha oh LA I fucking HEART you sometimes), so there was never really any fucking alternative TO living out of motels currently, at least not until I can manage to stay upright on my feet long enough to get a part time job and use that to get a permanent address around here.....AND bottom line is in order to take in enough money from work and then ultimately from help with donations too, in order to keep my motels paid daily and not get kicked out and still manage to eat at least every other day....that was just enough money that it looks from my bank account that I make too much to need or justify Medicare taking on all this for me, ruling that out as an option, even though none of that money in my bank account was ever fucking LEFT by the end of each day after paying rent/food, and I usually only had like three bucks in my account by the time I went to bed each night....doesn’t fucking matter because lolol all they give a shit about is your MONTHLY statements. And I’m well past the point where I can even manage busing all the way around LA to downtown and shit in order to make the daily trips required to get Medicare offices to eventually give enough of a fuck to hear me out, like...a five minute bus ride to Best Buy today to buy a replacement keyboard for this laptop practically wiped me out ahahaha.

Anyway, I’m just venting and purging like I do. Don’t worry, I promise not to actually go supernova and ignite the atmosphere like I threatened earlier, that was all for show, we all know I’m WAY too petty and spiteful an asshole to ever settle for anything less than full fucking victory here and then like...eventual world domination because lol not like I’m letting those frathole rapist gaybasher fuck-offs WIN, like, have you MET me? I have survived this long on ire and spite, I will make it as far as I need to its, just...

*pathetic whines*

I dont fucking waaaaaaaaaaaaant to, I’m tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired, I wanna go to beeeeeeeeed.

Anyway, yeah. So if anyone like, is related to one of those surgical types or KNOWS someone who is, like, my good fucking insurance is set up to pay for having the operation done at Cedars fucking Sinai no matter who does it, like, as long as the doctor has any kind of pre-existing relationship with them, enough to get them to book an OR for them, I guess? I still dont fucking know how all this works, apparently Grey’s Anatomy is not an accurate source, who knew, how dare.

Like but yeah, the endpoint of that particular stream of consciousness vomit was if anyone knows ANYONE who knows ANYTHING about ANY of that surgical medicalese blah blah blah that I posted, like...my anons are open, feel free to pop in with a name and number or suggestion or referral or whatever the fuck, I will take ANY connection no matter how flimsy if it exists at all, I don’t care if its your second grade teacher’s dog’s veterinarians second cousin by marriage’s roommate. That’s GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME.

[hybridequalist]

If you dont want to do this or if its not clear im sorry, but could you please do an eddy brock x sister reader where she broke into the lab and got her own symbiote (thats female? Granted idk how gender works for symbiotes just know most people refer to venom as male) and while eddy is freaking out shes totally calm + like "haha lol so this is happening now thats fun" and calls hers darling, sweetheart, love, etc. And is a major pacifist so they made a deal of no killing at day one, just fluff?

So I know this isn’t really what you asked for…but my brain just ran away with this. It’s looking to be 3 parts as it stands right now, so let me know if you’re interested in the rest or if you want me to try again.

My first request…*SQUEE*

    “When you asked me to help you with a ‘work thing’, I didn’t think we’d be breaking and entering.”

“It’s just to gather evidence. We’ll be in and out.”

    You rolled your eyes.

    “Edward Charles Allan Brock, that is a load of bull and you know it.”

    “It is not!” Eddie hissed at you, glancing worriedly at Doctor Skirth in the driver’s seat. “I just wanna expose Drake and that’s all.”

    “Like how you ‘just wanted’ to do a piece on Wilson Fisk’s paper trail back in New York?”

    “That was different!’

“As if!”

“We’ll be pulling up in a few minutes,” Doctor Skirth interrupted, glancing back at you and Eddie with undisguised anxiety. “Try ducking out of sight when we pass through the checkpoint, okay?”

You shot Eddie a look before jerking your head towards the trunk and unbuckling your seatbelt to roll under the backseat, willing yourself to become invisible.

This was not your first rodeo handling your brother and his many misadventures: you had grown up playing attorney for him whenever he got in trouble and honestly should have been paid for the number of close scrapes you’d gotten him out of. He’d promised when he moved in with you after the New York thing that he’d behave and for a while you’d believed him–especially after Anne hit the scene. But you should have known better: Eddie’s overwhelming sense of justice was his fatal flaw and was always bound to get him in trouble–and hurt those he loved in the process.

By some miracle, you all made it past the security checkpoint and into the main building without being spotted. You even got some nice backstory about alien creatures and a comet as the doctor lead you both from the parking lot and through the main building. But as the doctor was badging you and Eddie into the lab, someone called her name and you felt a spike of panic in your gut.

“Don’t touch anything!” were Doctor Skirth’s last words to the pair of you as you hurried into the laboratory.You hated that the second she said it, you immediately knew that your brother would be touching all the wrong things.

The lab was lit eerily blue, making it hard to see much aside from shadows of various unrecognizable scientific instruments. Eddie immediately took out his phone and began snapping pictures, leaving you to watch his back. You hardly breathed as you both walked past a wall of glass cages, some containing human figures. One of them caught your eye and you paused, looking at what seemed to be a mass of white, slimy tentacles. Somehow, you couldn’t take your eyes off it. It looked dead, but something about it–perhaps its alien shape or apparent lack of a real body–made you unable to cease staring. You felt at any moment it might twitch or give some sign of life…

A sudden thud jolted you from your trance and you whirled around to see that Eddie was as the far end of the hall, looking in horror as something clawed at the glass. He immediately reached towards the access panel on the door and you felt your heart drop into your shoes.

The alarms were immediate and the shift from the dark blue lights to vibrant reds left you covering your eyes instinctively. You faintly heard glass break and squinted just in time to see your brother tackled to the ground by a screeching figure with long, tangled hair.

“Eddie!” you screamed, sprinting towards him.

“Maria! Maria, stop!” you heard him crying out. You were only a few paces away when something large and black shot out from the attacker’s back, whipping around and launching you away. You felt your back slam against something initially solid that shattered out from behind you, the air driven from your body as you hit the floor. Something writhed underneath you and you lurched just enough to roll onto your side, finding yourself staring at the white-tentacled thing again. Except this time it was definitely moving.

You couldn’t scream–you were still trying to restart your lungs after crashing through the glass door. All you could do was watch as the slimy thing lashed out its tentacles, coiling around your wrist. The panic gave you enough adrenaline to push up onto your hands and knees, crawling away without a care as to how much glass laid around you. Most of the tendrils slipped off you as you flailed, but a few broke off the creature and coiled tighter, clinging desperately.

You heard footsteps through the screaming alarm and froze, whipping around to see shadowy figures rush into the lab.

HIDE!

You instinctively curled into a ball, hands clasping together behind your head. There was some shouting and then just as quickly as you’d heard them come in, you heard them leave, shouting something about “the asset” getting away.

GO QUIETLY!

You jumped to your feet and ran back out the way you’d come in, moving at top speed. Through the parking lot and straight out to the road, you didn’t let up on your wild sprint until you dropped to your knees, out of breath on the sidewalk.

WE NEED TO KEEP RUNNING!

In a minute. When I’m not going to vomit.

Remembering all your PE lessons from High School, you put your hands behind your head and shakily got to your feet, trying to focus on inhaling through your nose. When your heartbeat settled and the taste of bile retreated you heaved a heavy sigh. And then panic seized you.

“Eddie,” you breathed. “Oh no. Oh please…don’t be dead…”

EDDIE WILL BE FINE. HE HAS HELP.

You whirled around, looking for whoever had spoken, but aside from distant headlights there were no signs of anyone.

PLEASE DON’T PANIC. YOUR HEART RATE JUST SPIKED DANGEROUSLY HIGH.

Same voice. Slight echo. Feminine. And it definitely wasn’t coming from somewhere around you.

“…who are you?” you whispered. “Are you inside my head?”

IN A SENSE. AS FOR MY IDENTITY…I AM UNSURE. I’M…NEW.

“Then what are you?”

ALIEN. BROUGHT HERE BY THE HUMANS. I…I WAS NEAR DEATH. HOST-LESS. STARVING. THEN YOU CAME. OLD SELF TRIED TO GRAB HOLD. I AM THE PIECE THAT MANAGED TO STAY, MANAGED TO BOND. BECAME…ME.

You frowned. There was an alien inside you. Or some part of one. So far, though, you weren’t getting any bad vibes off this…being. All it had done so far was get you out of the Life Foundation’s labs and nothing in its voice and mannerisms. Wait, was it an “it”?

I PREFER THE FEMALE PRONOUNS, IF YOU DON’T MIND.

Okay. She.

She could hear your thoughts?!

WE’RE BONDED AT A CELLULAR LEVEL–OF COURSE I CAN HEAR WHAT YOU THINK. WE EXIST SYMBIOTICALLY, SO WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE AT ANY TIME.

Huh. Convenient.

MOST OF THE TIME.

Wait, so if you’re “new”, then how do you know all this?

ANCESTRAL MEMORY. INSTINCT. IT WOULD BE HIGHLY INCONVENIENT FOR MY KIND TO NEED TO TEACH ALL OFFSPRING HOW TO BOND, ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING HOW ALL SPAWN ARE JUST PIECES OF THEIR PARENT THAT BECAME INDEPENDENT. NURTURING ISN’T IN OUR NATURE.

That’s really sad, actually.

ONLY TO THOSE WHO HAD SUCH AN UPBRINGING. I AM RELIEVED THAT MY KIND DO NOT EXPERIENCE THE PERIOD OF HELPLESSNESS THAT YOURS MUST ENDURE–THIS “CHILDHOOD”–BUT I CAN UNDERSTAND YOUR SYMPATHY. YOU DID NOT HAVE MUCH OF ONE EITHER, AS FAR AS I CAN SEE.

Not after my mother died. My father no longer really cared…Eddie got the worst of it, though. I think our father blames him for mom dying…

That last thought jolted you out of the mental conversation. Eddie. Where was he? Did he make it out? Frantically, you scrambled for your phone and pressed the speed-dial for your brother. Every ring made your tension mount higher until finally you heard him pick up.

“Yeah?”

“Eddie! Where are you?! Are you okay?!”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Just feelin’ a little funny is all.”

He was slurring a little. Had he hit his head?

“I got home a bit ago. Called Doctor Skirth, but she didn’t answer. Been kinda woozy too. Maybe I’m gettin’ sick, I dunno.”

HIS SYMBIOTE HAS NOT REVEALED ITSELF YET, your alien commented. IT MUST BE SEEKING NOURISHMENT, TRYING TO HEAL FROM THE HARM THE LIFE FOUNDATION INFLICTED.

“But where…where are you at?” Eddie asked, still sounding almost drunk. “You’re not home, but you gotta be safe if you’re calling.”

You were about to answer when you heard the phone clatter onto some surface.

“Eddie?” you ask. No response. You tried again, but still no response. You could hear some rustling and what you recognized as the freezer being opened.

AS I THOUGHT. LOOKING FOR FOOD SO IT CAN HEAL ITSELF. HANG UP–YOUR BROTHER WILL BE UNAVAILABLE FOR QUITE SOME TIME.

Reluctantly, you followed the symbiote’s advice. Glancing out at the horizon, you noticed that the sky was getting lighter. Morning was probably only an hour away and you were beginning to feel the exhaustion of staying up as well as running all the way here.

It was time to go home.

You thanked your Uber driver as you stepped out from her car, suppressing a yawn as you climbed the steps to your apartment complex. Your symbiote had been fairly quiet throughout the drive, occasionally asking a question about the people and shops outside the window and you had tiredly tried to satisfy her curiosity. Now as you came to your door, you braced yourself for some kind of destruction on the other side. Your symbiote’s genetic memories had been full of violent scenes of her kind on the hunt and you didn’t know what to expect.

It turned out to be not nearly as bad as you’d feared: the fridge and freezer both stood open and a bag’s worth of half-defrosted tater tots were scattered near the kitchen island. There was no sign of your brother until you peered into the bathroom.

You weren’t sure what to make of his situation: he was passed out in the bathtub, toothpaste foam smeared on his bottom lip and the fallen shower curtain draped over his shoulders.

I’D SAY THIS IS A FAIRLY OKAY WAY FOR THINGS TO HAVE TURNED OUT, your symbiote commented with a mental chuckle. NO PILE OF BODIES OR PILE OF HEADS.

You rolled your eyes good-naturedly, trying not to imagine the gruesome scene as you stepped forward, reaching out your hand to shake your fool of a little brother awake.

It happened so fast you almost missed it: a black tentacle shot out from Eddie’s body, aimed straight for your head. Just as swiftly, you felt control of your body wrenched away from you, jerking your arm forward to catch the goopy tendril before it could connect.

“MINE.”

Well, it was definitely a symbiote’s voice, but this one was masculine-sounding and carried a far more predatory snarl. Yours sounded more…well, not necessarily human, but certainly more articulate.

YOURS, your symbiote agreed. NEST-MATE OF MINE. NO THREAT.

Her words seemed to calm the black alien down because the tentacle retreated and Eddie slumped further down in the tub, letting out a sleepy grunt.

WE MUST LEAVE THEM FOR NOW, your symbiote warned. YOUR BROTHER’S SYMBIOTE IS RECOVERING, BUT STILL WEAK ENOUGH TO BE IN HIS PRIMAL STATE. WE WON’T BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE WITH THEM PROPERLY UNTIL HE FEEDS AGAIN. YOU ALSO NEED TO REST–I CAN PROVIDE YOU WITH STRENGTH BUT NOT ENERGY AND YOU ARE DANGEROUSLY LOW ON THAT FOR SUPPORTING US BOTH.

You couldn’t disagree. While the shock of the black symbiote lashing out had jolted you into alertness for a short time, you were already feeling the exhaustion returning.

Promise you’ll wake me if you hear Eddie get up, you thought, meandering towards the bedroom.

IF YOU’RE RESTED ENOUGH…I PROMISE.

[anthropwashere]

Revive: maybe one day I’ll be home again

AO3 || FFN

(So glad I got something posted during Phanniemay! Here’s 3.6k of Danny having a bad time, which is like slipping on a nice pair of well-worn slippers at this point. Fic title comes from Skip the Use’s “Nameless World.”)

=

It’s a robbery. Just a plain old robbery at the 7-11 on the corner of Jacob and Marley, no ghosts involved at all. Just some guy with shaky hands and a gun. It’s like the opening out of one those crime shows there’s fifteen ripoffs of on TV; idiot teen steps in front of loaded gun in idiot attempt at playing hero. The pounding in his ears could almost be mistaken for the opening theme music.

“Oh, shit,” the guy says.

Danny’s mouth stutters, but he can’t push any words out. He can’t seem to breathe around the dull heat punched through his chest. His sneaker’s wet. The glass Coke bottle he’d been holding must have broken.

“What did you…?” The cashier shakes his head, eyes so wide Danny can see white all around his dark irises. “You shot him.”

“I didn’t mean to,” the guy blurts out. Like saying that will magically make it all better.

“You shot him.”

He can’t breathe. He’d just stopped in here for a soda and a couple protein bars on his way home from patrol. The guy had burst in waving the gun when Danny had been mentally calculating if he had enough for a bag of gummy worms too, stammering out hoarse demands without even looking to see if anyone else was in the store. It’s after midnight on a Tuesday though; who would be?

“Shit,” the guy says again. He looks terrified. He looks like somebody who’d be desperate enough to rob a corner store; gaunt and unshaven, stains and holes in clothes a little too big for him. He doesn’t look like a murderer.

Danny swallows. He finds the strength to lift his arm, to touch fingertips to the wet hole in his chest. They come away red. Way too red. He’d just touched it for a second, but his fingers are slick to the crease of his palm. He sways. One of the men shouts as his knees hit the floor, protein bars scattering from his other hand. Cold soda soaks his jeans; warm blood soaks his shirt.

He’s been hurt before. He’s been hurt bad before. But never when he was human. Never by another human, never with a weapon that wasn’t at least a little bit jury-rigged with ghost-fighting tech. This. He doesn’t. He doesn’t know what to do.

The guy’s hands had been shaking, but Danny had walked right up to him, overconfident and stupid. He’s been fighting ghosts long enough that he forgot humans can be just as dangerous. Shaky hands. Fear? Drugs? Doesn’t matter. The gun couldn’t have been more than a few inches away when it had gone off.

He can’t breathe.

“You shot a kid,” the cashier’s yelling. “Are you crazy? I was gonna give you the money!”

“He—he got in the way! He was trying to stop me!”

“So you killed him? Shit, man, put the gun down, okay? You’ve done enough.”

They keep yelling at each other, both high and frightened. The gun’s still in the guy’s hand, not like he means to shoot the cashier but. Still. It could still be loaded. The guy’s freaked out. What if this plays out like bad TV? No witnesses, trash the security tapes. The gun’s probably stolen already. The cops’d just have two bodies on their hands. Danny’s school ID is in his wallet. He wonders what the cashier’s name is, who this guy with the gun is too.

He slumps against a rack of candy bars, feels it bow under his weight. “Nnn,” he slurs. He can’t breathe. The pounding in his ears is hiccuping, hard and off-kilter, like he’s about to pass out. That’s. That’s not good. His shirt’s soaked. He’s shaking. All bad signs.

“Put the fucking phone down,” the guy with the gun yells, brandishing it at the cashier. Danny can’t see what the cashier’s doing from where he’s spilling across the floor. This is bad. If he doesn’t. He’s gotta do something. The guy’s gonna kill—

“St—” He chokes. Blood in his throat, filling his mouth. He drops his chin and lets it leak out, too weak to spit. “Stop.”

Incredibly, the guy stops. Stares down at him like he’d forgotten Danny was even there. Danny’s chest hitches pointlessly. Is it his imagination or can he feel the bullet, an alien lump of metal caught at a weird angle between his muscles, his organs? Don’t. Don’t think about it. Can’t breathe. Who cares. He doesn’t bother breathing half the time he’s Phantom anyway. What’s it matter now that he’s human?

“Luh. Leave ‘im ‘lone.” Ugh. Not his most eloquent. So sue him. “Drop it.”

“Kid,” the cashier says from somewhere out of sight. “Kid, hey, don’t talk. Just stay still. I’m gonna call an ambulance—”

“Like hell you are,” the guy yelps, not looking away from Danny.

“He’s gonna die if I don’t. I don’t care about the money, man, just let me help this kid before—”

“Stop.”

They stop.

Danny stops too. He forces himself slack, makes himself limp. Don’t struggle. Stop. Stop. He’s been hurt before. He’s been hurt bad before. This isn’t. This is bad, but he isn’t dying. He isn’t. He won’t die here. His lungs empty. His head lolls. The pounding in his ears beats once, twice, then stammers to a standstill.

“Oh god,” both men whisper feebly.

Oh. Hey. Hey. Now that his body’s not having a conniption, he feels—okay, good is maybe stretching it, but he feels better than he did a minute ago. He’s pretty sure he can stand up. It takes him a couple tries; he’s still feeling cold and weak, there’s not much leverage off the rickety shelves, and he’s a sticky mess of blood and soda. He manages it okay though, one elbow resting heavy on the counter, a slippery grin on his face, his knees shaking but keeping his weight.

Both men are screaming at this point, and the guys pointed the gun at him again. He huffs. It feels weird. He decides not to think about why it might feel weird. “Seriously?” It comes out phlegmy, or maybe it’s better to say bloody. Ugh. He swallows, grimacing. “I, nngh. I think you did enough already. Don’t you?”

“Wh-what the hell are you?!”

That’s a dumb question. This is Amity Park. He doesn’t bother dignifying that with a response. Instead he narrows his eyes, bares his teeth in a feral grin as neon green stains the flickering white lights overhead. “I think you should go,” he rasps. “Before I change my mind. Leave the gun.”

The guy drops the gun and bolts. The automated chime on the door sounds so absurd after everything that’s happened Danny wants to curl up and giggle. Maybe later. He swallows—guh—and looks over at the cashier. The poor man’s pressed up against the wall of cigarettes, gray-faced with eyes wide as saucers, his mouth a perfect O.

Nothing he says is going to make the man any less afraid. He doesn’t have a clue what he’d say anyway. He doesn’t have a clue what’s happened. He looks down at the spill of blood—his blood—across the tile, the candy bars, the counter. The broken glass, the spilled soda. What a mess.

Wait. Blood. Bad crime shows always do DNA tests, right? He doesn’t know anything about how that stuff works, but he does know he’s spilled… well. More than enough to stop his heart. A lot.

He looks back at the cashier, who hasn’t moved. The cashier swallows, stammers out, “Wh-what?”

He doesn’t say anything before he sets fire to the counter. More specifically he sets the blood he’s left smeared all over on fire, but the sudden green flare sure looks intimidating. The cashier whimpers. Danny, one hand clinging tightly to the counter, methodically melts down the entire rack of candy to a noxiously sweet-smelling slag, then burns the tiled floor black and bubbling. As an afterthought he runs a hand across himself, drying the blood on him in a wave of sour heat so he doesn’t drip anymore.

He bends down—whoa, easy there gravity—and picks up the gun. It’s heavier than it looks. He keeps the barrel pointed at the ground, finger off the trigger ‘til he taps the safety on. That’s about all he knows how to do with guns that aren’t meant for ghosts. It’s enough for now.

He should probably care about the security footage too. He takes an experimental breath; he’s almost positive he can feel the bullet shift. Yeah. Screw the footage. He’s got bigger problems.

“Sorry about the mess,” he says, and, since his cover story begins and ends with horrible 7-11 apparition, he vanishes. He stands there a minute longer to make sure the fire goes out; he’s not trying to burn the place down, he’s just trying to destroy any evidence he was there. The cashier watches the fire too, gaping like a fish. When it gutters out he sinks to the floor and buries his head in his knees, breathing wetly.

Danny phases through the door. Some terrible part of him wants to turn visible long enough to set off the automated chime to scare the cashier one last time. He doesn’t. He keeps walking, unseen, down the street for the nearest alley three buildings down. He can duck in there, have a minor panic attack because seriously, what, then he can call—

Call who?

Tucker can’t handle anything worse than a bad scrape without going gray and shaky. He’s got the steadiest hands out of all of them, sure—that A in Sewing isn’t a fluke—but this isn’t something he can bribe Tucker to patch up with puppy eyes and movie tickets. This isn’t something that can just be patched up, period.

Sam’s got the strongest stomach of the three of them and she’s a better liar than Tucker, but this is way beyond anything they’ve had to deal with before. They’ve smuggled a lot of medical supplies out of his parents’ basement, but they aren’t equipped to handle gunshot wounds. The bullet’s still in there. He can’t ask her to go digging around in his chest for it. Did it shatter? He could just phase it out. Maybe it’s better to leave it in for now. Less evidence to leave lying around—

His chest throbs. A low cry is squeezed out of him, more surprise than pain. He staggers, trips over his feet, almost faceplants on the sidewalk. His bloody hand jumps to his chest, fingertips pressed to the hole over his heart. He wavers in the middle of the sidewalk, in the relative darkness between two pools of yellow street light. What was that?

Another throb, as sharp as a knife, as hard as a kick to the ribs. He feels it under his fingers, feels something pulse under his skin. He doesn’t breathe. He doesn’t need to breathe right now. His jaw is clenched tight enough to make his teeth ache; his lungs feel like wet plastic bags. Throb. He curls in on himself, forcing one foot in front of the other. Throb. Stay invisible. There are cars passing by, people lingering at a street sign, looking around for whatever made that funny noise. Throb. Almost at the alley now. Almost there. Almost there.

He turns in and it’s mercifully empty. He staggers to the end of it, where dented trash cans and bulging black bags make a decent hiding spot. There’s a faint smell of old beer, old piss, something greasy gone to rot, all of it settling heavy on his tongue. He’s distantly glad he doesn’t have to breathe right now, more focused on the pulse beneath his crabbed fingers.

He turns visible again as he sags against the brick wall, grunts as another throb beats through him. There’s another one right on the heels of that one, and another after that. Something cool and wet dribbles out of the wound and he yelps, pulling his hand away.

Neon green paints his palm, filling the alleyway with dim luminescence. He’s gobsmacked, straight up speechless, even through the next hard throb of what can only be his heart trying to kickstart itself again. His heart, trying to pump ectoplasm, somehow funneled through that cold little spark in his chest that never leaves, that connection between his two halves, the reason he was able to walk away from being shot at all.

Okay. Okay. This. Uh. This is new. This is good? It hurts, but that makes sense. Maybe phasing the bullet out now is a good idea after all. He passes his hand through his chest, hears metal ping on the asphalt by his knee. Another pass to be safe. It’s probably enough. He’s more worried about the hole he can’t do anything about and the ectoplasm splurting sluggishly out of it with every beat of his inexplicably beating heart.

His vision blurs, dips, hazes over with unearthly shades of green. He swallows, blinking rapidly until he can see clearly again. Okay. Bad. This is bad. This is arguably worse, maybe. He doesn’t know. But he can’t stay here. He’s gotta get—where? Who’s closest?

...Valerie is, actually, but he doesn’t think this would go over well. He hisses laughter between his teeth. Home, then. Home, and Jazz. Jazz is gonna lose her mind when she sees him, and honestly? He’s not gonna blame her one bit.

Another particularly sharp throb makes him cough, hoarse and wet, and he spits out a glowing gob of he-doesn’t-wanna-know. His chest goes tight. Spots dance in his eyes the longer he sits there, rubbing at the slick mess all down his front. He spits again, wheezes on pure human instinct, and feels better.

Oh. Breathing. That’s a thing his lungs would like him to do again, apparently. He takes shallow, careful breaths. Guh. It smells nasty here. But he’s breathing, and it’s sore sure, but he’s breathing, and his heart’s beating, and while he’s not so sure he’d be able to stand at the moment at least he’s feeling pretty clear headed. All in all, he’s arguably doing better than he was ten minutes ago.

His hand’s wet again, cold and syrupy, like he stuck it in a can of paint. He wipes it on his jeans, leaving a huge neon smear. He peels his shirt off his skin, shivers when it sticks reluctantly, slips his hand under to palm the wound directly. Ectoplasm, at least, has a higher viscosity than blood.

He shivers again. Shock, maybe? He snorts, wincing when his chest protests sharply. Of course it’s shock, idiot. Each sluggish throb of his heart still feels like a kick to the sternum, green hazing his periphery. He breathes, putting as much pressure on the wound as he can. He breathes. He’s got to do more than this, but he doesn’t know what. Stop the bleeding—how? It’s his heart. If he plugs his chest, then he’ll have to deal with internal bleeding. Right?

...He’s definitely got to sign up for Anatomy next year. If he makes it that long. At this rate, he’s not sure if he’s gonna make it to school tomorrow—no, shhh, shut up, he’s gonna be fine. This is fine. He’s alive, sort of, right? He’s fine. He’s gonna be just fine. Somehow.

He knocks his head against the brick, looking skyward. From here he can make out a few twinkling stars, the dark gray smear of a cloud, the blinking red light of an airplane passing by. There’s always so much going on above the city. It’s not so out of reach as it used to be for him, but it’s all so still so impossibly far. Funny, that he finds some kind of comfort in that. Here he is, bleeding out for the second time in one night in an alleyway, and if he did die right here the universe would wheel on without him. It wouldn’t even notice.

He likes that. He likes that just fine. Sam’d call him morbid, and she’d be proud (and maybe a little worried), but hey. A guy’s gotta cope somehow, right?

...Huh. His heartbeat doesn’t hurt as bad now. Is that good? That’s probably not good. He takes a deeper breath, expecting splintered pain… and is surprised when there’s only soreness. He eases up the pressure on the wound, expects a fresh spill of cool ectoplasm, and yeah, there’s a little, but not nearly as much as before. What the heck?

The gun’s still in his left hand, nearly forgotten. He’s not willing to put it down, still uneasy about the bullet he’s left on the asphalt by his knee, glinting in the green light of his ectoplasm. He can’t forget that, just in case. This neighborhood’s poor, not dangerous. A trashed corner store and an alley coated in ghost gore not a hundred yards away is going to raise questions, even in Amity Park. His parents are going to be all over this place tomorrow with a fine tooth comb. His dad might miss the bullet, but his mom? No way.

Right. Gunshot wound. Not bleeding as much as it was just a minute ago. That should be concerning. That should be really concerning. But, funny thing, he doesn’t feel worse. He feels… better?

He prods at it experimentally, and his middle finger doesn’t slip through like it did before. There’s—muscle? Something that feels like the slippery firmness of exposed muscle, anyway.

“No way,” he whispers, wide-eyed. There’s healing quick and then there’s straight up video game logic. This shouldn’t be possible. But even as he’s thinking that he feels something shift under his fingertip, feels something grow. He twitches his hand away. When he dares to touch again, there’s skin. Raw, tender, like the skin under a torn off scab. He swallows, reeling, belatedly remembers to keep breathing. “Oh. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. Right.”

So. Not going to die. He wasn’t planning on dying here, no way, but. Still. Nice to have that confirmed. Uh. He’s maybe just going to sit here a bit longer. Give his body—his ghost half?—time to do… whatever it’s doing. No sense jumping up to head home just to bust his heart open again.

He grins weakly. “Oh man, this is nuts.”

But hey, if it works, right?

Mmm. Home. Right. He pulls his hand out from under his shirt, wrinkles his nose at the mess of blood and ectoplasm smeared up to his wrist. Gross. His left hand, the one holding the gun, is still clean. He eases himself cross-legged, places the gun on one knee, fishes out his phone and dials Jazz’s cell. She doesn’t pick up the first time so he calls again. She picks up the fourth ring.

“...’lo?”

“Hey, it’s an emergency.”

“Danny...? It’s the middle of the night. Where are you?”

“Yeah. Patrol ran long, then I, uh. Had some trouble. I’m gonna need your help when I get home.”

“Mm. What happened? Are Sam and Tucker—”

“They’re fine, probably home by now. I—” He swallows through a low throb of pain, tries not to think about what might be happening inside himself. “—I got hurt.”

“Hurt? What happened? How serious?”

“...Uh. Bad.”

“...Danny?”

He clears his throat, shakes off the cobwebs. “I’m gonna be fine. I just need to get cleaned up. Where are Mom and Dad?”

“Um, I don’t know.”

“Well find out.”

“Okay, okay. Just a sec.” Shuffling sounds. “Do you need me to come get you?”

“No. Just. I could use your help hiding some stuff once I get there.”

“Stuff?”

“My clothes are, um. Trashed. There’s a gun too.”

“A what?!”

“Yeah.”

“Where did you get a—a gun from?”

“Tell you later.” Ooh, he’s tired all of a sudden. He feels wrung out, sore, and starving. “Nnngh. Any sign of ‘em?”

Her voice drops to a whisper. “Looks like they’re asleep.”

“Mm. Perfect. Meet me in the lab with some clean clothes for me, okay? I’ll be home soon as I can.”

“Danny, talk to me. Tell me what happened. How badly hurt are you?”

“Told you, Jazz. M’fine. Just need to get cleaned up.”

She hums like she’s not convinced. “You sure you don’t want me to meet you?”

“I can fly faster than a car. M’not far, okay? Just. Fifteen minutes, tops.”

“That’s a long time if you’re flying.”

“I’m taking a breather right now, nosy.”

“Danny—”

“Jazz.” He sighs, almost rubs his eyes but remembers how gross his free hand is. “I’m… I’m okay. I just need a few minutes. Picked up a new ghost power, I think. I’ll explain at home.”

“...If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay. See you soon.”

“M’kay.”

“I mean it. If you’re not here in fifteen minutes I’m calling you back. You don’t pick up, I’m calling Sam and Tucker.”

He chuckles softly, too tired to laugh. It hurts, but not half as much as it did a few minutes ago. “Okay, okay. Fifteen minutes, tops.”

He hangs up after they exchange quiet goodbyes and he sets his phone on his right knee, opposite the gun. He takes a deep breath, wincing a little. Not too bad. Two more minutes. He’s going to sit here two more minutes, then he’ll get up and head home.

He rests his head against the brick again, watches stars twinkle impossibly far away. A thought comes to mind unbidden that has him biting his lip to keep from laughing outright. It’s so dumb, but it’s the middle of the night and he may or may not have just discovered he’s a little bit functionally unkillable. So sue him, he’ll laugh a little.

He can never go back to that 7-11 again now that he’s gone and haunted it.

[janeofcakes]

Chapter 102

(Sally Donovan presses the gas pedal closer to the floor as her car nears Tintagel and its cliffs. Ben Travers sits next to her in the passenger seat, giving her directions and short-cuts faster than any GPS is capable. John and Greg sit in the backseat speaking to each other rapidly about what they are heading into.)

G: Tintagel is small, John. They don’t have their own police force. A few of the Devon and Cornwall police are searching the cave as best they can. One of them is in scuba gear, but they haven’t found anything yet.

J: Jesus, Greg. How do they expect to find him with one fucking man in the water?!

G: They have limited resources. They’re doing their best.

(John covers his eyes with the heels of his hands. He presses hard before he pulls them away and looks at Greg’s worried face.)

J: God damn it. (glancing at Sally) Can’t we go any faster?

SD: Yeah, sure. (in a surly voice) If you want to kill us. Look, we’re close, John. Very close.

G: And they are looking. They’ll tell me as soon as they find anything.

BT: (shaking his head) This is all my fault. I should’ve listened to you in the beginning.

(Greg watches as his friend closes his eyes and bites his lip, already regretting his unguarded words and behavior. When John’s eyes open, they are focused and sharp. And, as only Greg can tell, is thankful for the distraction.)

J: You’re not to blame, Ben. Whatever Maggie told you, you couldn’t have known what Giles would do.

BT: He mistook Holmes for me and now he could be… (Ben trails off, his eyes staring out the windshield and curses himself silently for even beginning that sentence. He has caused John enough pain as it is without throwing Sherlock’s death in his face. He looks down at his hands resting in his lap and continues quietly.) I’m sorry, John.

(John’s mouth stretches into a thin line. He licks his lower lip and puts a hand on Ben’s shoulder. The younger man turns to look at him, his eyes full of regret.)

J: You’re a good man, Ben. You’re no more responsible for Sherlock than you are for Braeden.

SD: We’re here.

(Everyone turns their attention to where they are headed as Ben directs Sally to the cliffs - as close as they can get to the ruins and Merlin’s Cave by vehicle. A single uniformed policeman stands in the headlights waving his arm as Sally stops the car. They all climb out and approach the officer.)

PCG: PC Goody. The captain asked me t’walk ya down.

G: DI Lestrade. Inspector Donovan, Dr. John Watson, Ben Travers. (turning to Ben and Sally) You’d best stay here and direct the others when they get here.

SD: Right.

BT: You’re not serious.

G: Just stay here. We’ll take care of it.

(Greg and John start to follow PC Goody along the narrow stone pathways. The three men move quickly through the dark night sky with only their torches lighting the way.)

PCG: Takes ‘bout 40 minutes ta get down there. The Captain and Randolph are checking the water. It’s usually ‘bout 2.2 meters b’now, but we’ve ‘ad more rain. It’s probably deeper. Maybe 2.5.

J: (quietly) Jesus fucking…

G: It’s fine, John. Just keep moving.

(In the end, it takes them 45 minutes to reach the Captain and every moment feels like an eternity. John’s heart is burning like a painful ember in his chest. His eyes desperately search the water as they race for the man standing at the water’s edge, but nothing comes into view. The man nods to them as they approach.)

Capt: Cap’n Pierce. Just found ‘im. ‘E’s ‘olding to that rock wall across the way. Randolph’s under the surface cutting ‘im free.

(John and Greg can barely make out Sherlock’s pale face against the rocks.)

J: Jesus Christ.

(John throws off his jacket, wincing from the gunshot to his arm as he pulls off the sleeve. A firm hand claps down on his shoulder.)

Capt: Where the ‘ell ya think you’re going? My man’s already found ‘im.

J: I’ll help him.

Capt: No, you won’t. You’re wounded. The current’ll ‘ave ye.

G: (quietly) John. John, don’t be stupid.

(John glares at Greg and the Captain, but stands his ground. The Captain looks out across the water again. A slight look of panic flashes on his face.)

Capt: ‘E’s gone.

(With his words, all eyes fall on the rocks where Sherlock had been clutching at the cave side. Instantly, the beams from their torches begin sweeping the side of the cave and the water.

John can feel his heart beating in his ears. The sound of it is deafening. Sherlock has to be there. He has to be. He just shifted along the rock wall or slipped down a little and out of view. John casts his torch to and fro as slowly as he can manage. His heart thudding so loudly he can’t hear anything else.)

(John gasps when the edge of his torch beam catches something. He swings it back. The whole world has shrunk down to the end of that beam of light where it reveals a man in a dark scuba suit holding onto the lifeless form of Sherlock Holmes.

PC Randolph swims adeptly across the flooded out cave to where they stand. As he nears, PC Goody jumps in the water to help lift Sherlock out. Goody maintains a foothold under the water at the edge of the cave while the Captain holds tightly to a rope tied around Goody. If John and Greg were not so focused on getting their friend out of the water, they might have wondered how they failed to notice Goody making these preparations. In truth, the three officers with them are far more experienced with pulling a body from the water than they seem.)

Capt: Easy, easy, Goody. Up. Good. ‘And ‘im off slowly. Slowly, now.

(PC Goody lifts Sherlock’s torso out of the water and onto the shore, where John and Greg take an arm each. Randolph holds onto Sherlock’s legs to keep him from sliding back in the water, should anyone lose his grip.)

(After a couple minutes of struggling, Sherlock’s body lies safely on the shore. John quickly checks for a pulse and finds none. He begins compressions as the Captain pulls the PC Goody from the water.)

PCG: Tall bastard, innee?

PCR: (pulling the goggles from his eyes) ‘E is at that. Lost ‘is grip on the rocks just as I cut ‘im loose. Slipped right atop o’me. Wouldda taken t’long ta find ‘im otherwise.

(The Captain and PC Goody help Randolph out of the water while John puffs a breath into Sherlock. The tall man’s body jerks and water spurts out of his mouth. John quickly turns him on his side so the water can pour out freely. The flow of water is quickly replaced by gasping and coughing. John puts a steadying hand on Sherlock’s back.)

J: Keep coughing. Breathe slowly, try not to gasp. I’ve got you.

(Greg watches as John expertly calms his detective. He punches speed dial on his mobile and is greeted by Sally Donovan’s voice.)

G: We got him. He’s okay.

(Greg steps away to continue the conversation for a moment. With the coughing stopped and Sherlock’s breaths coming normally, John turns him onto his back and starts checking his body for injuries. He finds the wound at the base of his skull immediately and looks the the three officers.)

J: I need something clean to put against this wound. (PC Goody rushes off. John continues to talk while he examines.) Is there a hospital nearby?

Capt: ‘Fraid not. There’s a surgery, but the doc…

J: I’m a doctor. I just need the surgery.

Capt: Right then. I’ll get things ready to take ‘im up the path.

J: Thank you.

(John’s examination yields minor injuries, the head wound and concussion being the worst. Sherlock’s wrists are covered with bruises and small lacerations from where he struggled free of his bonds. John gets Randolph to cut the ropes around Sherlock’s ankles, which are virtually unmarred. Apparently, he chose to ignore his bound legs and work with his arms only.

PC Goody returns with a thick, white flannel and hands it to John as he finishes his examination. John lifts Sherlock’s head and places the flannel beneath, resting his head full of wet curls upon it. Next, John turns his attention to Sherlock’s white button-down. He quickly pops all of the buttons that are visible above the black trousers. Sherlock’s eyes begin to flutter open when John pulls the soaked shirt open to look at a chest of minor cuts and scrapes from the rocks. Sherlock turns his head to meet John’s very serious eyes buried under a furrowed brow and sighs deeply.)

J: Hold still. (resting his hand upon the pale skin of his forehead) Your head has to stay on that flannel. It’s bleeding.

(Sherlock’s lips curl a bit and his eyes slide closed. John checks the pulse at his neck again to make sure it has normalized. Greg squats down next to him.)

G: He okay?

J: He’s fine. More exhausted than anything. I’d like to get him to the surgery as soon as we can.

G: Captain’s getting some kind of transportation gurney. Should be along soon.

S: (barely above a whisper) John.

(Their eyes fall to the detective as his body begins to shiver. John acts quickly, throwing his own jacket over Sherlock’s chest and rubbing his hands up and down those lean arms. Greg takes off his own trench and covers the detective with it as well. John continues rubbing Sherlock’s arms.)

J: Sherlock, you’re going into shock. Talk to me. Talk to me!

S: (quietly) Dazed when I… when hit the water. I sank. Sank.

(His eyes close, voice fading away. John rubs harder and raises his voice.)

J: Sherlock! Sherlock, tell me what happened. I have to know now.

(Sherlock seems to force his eyes open and focuses them on John’s. He licks his lips and speaks a little louder than before.)

S: Got my arms free. I foun…found the cave wall and pulled myself up until I could breathe. God, it hurt. It hurt so much.

J: (with a smile) So you knew you were still alive?

(Sherlock lets out a short laugh and looks at John, his eyes brighter than before.)

S: I jus held on. The water dropped so slowly. But had to hold on. To… (He swallows hard.) I’m so tired, John. So tired.

(The Captain sets a lightweight, aluminum bed next to Sherlock. He and his officers begin undoing all its ties. John cups Sherlock’s face with both hands. His body has stopped shaking. John looks deeply into those silver eyes.)

J: Sherlock, we’re going to put you in this bed and carry you up the path. Tell me immediately if you get cold or dizzy, yeah?

S: Yes, John, I promise. (John nods and moves away, but Sherlock grasps at his hand and pulls him back.) I’m sorry.

(John pauses a second, surprised by his fiance’s words.)

J: We’ll talk later.

(The five men carefully lift Sherlock into the bed and begin tying him in. He closes his eyes and doesn’t open them again until long after arriving at the surgery.)

***

(Sherlock’s eye flutter open to a dimly lit room with white walls. Cabinets of various sizes, and things like eye and height charts, cover three of the four walls. The last holds a desk and a door to what is undoubtedly a waiting room. The clock near the door reads 4:30 and, judging by the darkness at the room’s window, it must be AM.

Sherlock pulls his hands from under a heated blanket to see bandaged wrists and recognizes John’s handiwork. He can tell there are a few small bandages on his chest, but does not try to look at them. His wet clothes are missing and have been replaced with a hospital gown.)

(He turns his head to look around the room, but stops before he has really started. His head aches and the pain stems from the base of his skull. Suddenly aware of a small bandage at the top of his neck, he moves his head much slower until what he wants to see comes into view. A beautiful, dozing John Watson sitting on a chair with his head leaning back against the wall.

Sherlock smiles to himself and watches John sleep. His mind falls back on those few dark hours when he clung to that cold cave wall, wondering if he’d ever see John again, his arms getting weaker and weaker, unconsciousness threatening to overtake him. But he is not there anymore. Sherlock lets out a sigh and smiles.)

S: (quietly) John. John.

(His doctor stirs and opens his eyes. He looks at Sherlock a moment and straightens up, scrubbing his hands over his face and through his hair. He stands and pulls his chair close to Sherlock’s bed.)

J: (sitting) How do you feel?

S: Better. (He reaches for John’s hand.)

J: You need to keep under the blanket. You were very cold and in the water a long time. Too long.

S: How did you find me?

J: Giles abandoned his rental in Wadebridge. We knew he’d come this way. He told us what he’d done with you when we caught him. (John pauses and pushes an errant curl from Sherlock’s forehead.) He mistook you for Ben when he knocked you out on the porch and once he realized his mistake, he just decided to get rid of you.

S: He’s being held now?

J: (nodding) Greg and the others will take him back to London in a few hours. (pausing and then standing) You should get back to sleep. You need to rest.

(John stumbles just slightly as he stands. Sherlock takes the opportunity to wrap his long, lightning quick arms around the small man and pull his off-balance body atop his own. John flattens his palms against the bed and presses down to keep his full weight from resting on the detective.)

J: That was a dirty trick.

S: (smiling slyly) I may be on the side of the angels, but I’m not one of them.

(The stern look on the doctor’s face fades into a small smile and a short laugh. Sherlock returns the smile and pulls John closer so their foreheads touch. A moment later, he tilts his chin up and kisses John softly. John kisses him back gently, almost lazily. Sherlock persists. He parts his lips and pulls John ever closer. His hands slide up John’s back until one creeps around the small man’s shoulder to rest against his chest. Sherlock’s long fingers enclose over a fistful of shirt and pull John’s full weight down on his body while his artful tongue wets John’s lips. The doctor cannot help but sigh and when his lips part, Sherlock’s tongue pushes its way in. It is as seductive as it is sweet, and it’s all John can do to press his hands on the bed again and wrestle his mouth away. He lifts himself off of the detective and gazes down at him.)

J: Sherlock, you need to rest. We can’t do this now. You’re exhausted. You nearly drown.

S: Then stay with me. I sleep better with you. Just stay. Like this.

J: I can’t. This bed is too small.

S: We can make it work.

J: Sherlock.

(Sherlock smiles at John’s warning tone and nips at his nose while the hand at John’s chest travels down to his waist.)

S: I’m cold. (he fake pouts) You’ll keep me warm.

J: (incredulously) You have a heated blanket!

(Sherlock slides his hand under John’s shirt and splays his warm fingers over the small of his back. He nuzzles John’s cheek and then meets his sparkling dark blue eyes.)

S: You’re better. (breathing hotly against John’s neck) Stay. Please.

(John looks into Sherlock’s eyes, his own softening. He shifts his body with a sigh and positions himself next to Sherlock. Leaning against his fiance’s side, he drapes his own injured right arm around Sherlock’s chest. The man’s eyes fill with concern as he watches, not failing to notice how gingerly John moves it. John shakes his head.)

J: It’s nothing. (Sherlock opens his mouth, but John hushes him with a finger to his lips.) You’re comfortable?

S: Very. (He kisses John’s finger and then rests their heads together, deciding to ask about John’s arm later.)

J: You are a criminal.

S: (giggling) I love you.

J: (with a affectionate smile) I love you too.

(The two men settle in to sleep, holding one another as tightly as their injuries allow, not wanting to ever let go.)

S: (whispering) John? Thank you for saving my life.

J: Oh, Sherlock. (pulling him close and sounding wistful) You’ve saved me in so many ways. I was so alone and you’ve given me so much. I’ll always be indebted to you. I owe you my life.

S: (shaking his head and meeting John’s eyes) You owe me nothing, John. You have given me just as much. You… you brought me to life. There will never be words adequate to convey my feelings for you.

(John smiles and kisses Sherlock softly, pouring all of his love into this one, single kiss. Sherlock shivers at its power. He feels as though John’s very soul has slipped right into his body. His fingers tingle with the feeling.

When their lips part, the two men look into each other’s eyes. A promise passes between them, quiet and solemn. They stay together in one another’s arms until both are sound asleep.)

[everyonesomething]

Session Eighteen

Capridi: "So is it time for a road trip?"

Edith Runekill: "Guess so."

Malkas: "Yep. Unless we can scrape together money for a flight."

Pepper: "We'll probably have better luck than the train trips we've had."

Edith Runekill: "Unless we run into the dreaded highway kraken."

Capridi: "What, did you hijack the trains or something?"

Pepper: "We only took over that one because the engineer got brain-jacked out the window."

Sydney Gaydos: "We then drove it into a Kraken."

Pepper: "We got on the news and everything."

Malkas: "Fewer Krakens on the road."

Edith Runekill: "Don't forget the last train, with the manticores."

Pepper shudders.

Malkas: "Oh, I remember the manticore."

I completely forgot to mention last session that Capridi is a full new party member and is played by Sewbro! Oops! I suck!

In this session we learn some valuable information. Then we teach someone a lesson. Then we do some more learning.

This write-up is pretty hefty because we got a lot of RP done.

The set-up: We're off to the Baldur's Gate museum for a history lesson on our lich buddy.

The Game: It's a somewhat relaxing morning back at the hotel, considering all of everything that happened to us the day before. Mal and Edith enjoy a nice breakfast in bed—Edith still feels awful about how things shook out between her and Grim—Mal reassures her she didn't do anything wrong. Syd and Pepper have their own conversation about how things shook out between Grim and the rest of the group—Syd is determined to have all her gumshoes get along, darn it.

Sydney Gaydos: "Hm." Thoughtful look. "Gaydos... understands the need to do one's job. So she knows where Grim is coming from. But on the other claw our newest Gumshoe didn't do anything."

Pepper: "She didn't do anything to us anyway. Except the whole 'kept us from not dying' thing."

Sydney Gaydos: "Rightly so. So conflict is very sure to arise. This is why Gaydos did this--" from her coat next to the bed as she's still in her pjs, Sydney pulls out her notebook. "--she wrote down a few ideas to better create harmony within our group."

Pepper tries to peer at the notebook--why are you so tall. "Anything good?"

Capridi lets out a jovial "GOOD MORNING" to Grim. She can't resist poking the bear.

Pepper: "'Don't shoot each other' better be high on that list."

Edith Runekill starts doing her makeup but she's very distracted and keeps on having to fix her eyeliner after she messes it up approximately 700 times.

Grim: "Mornin'."

Edith Runekill puts on a dignified dark grey dress with a white collar. She doesn't have a hat to wear. :C

Sydney Gaydos bends down and shows Pepper a few pages. "First, we will introduce ourselves and talk about who we are as people. This is Step 1 of The Great Detective Gaydos' Plan for Great Gumshoe Getting-Along."

Grim and Cap are waiting for us in the lobby, they're keeping a healthy distance from one another. For good reason, probably. We collect everyone in the hotel lobby and make our way to the museum—Edith and Mal are hoping someone will have information on where Szass Tam might keep a phylactery or at least some idea of his motivation.  He had been a high-profile public figure some centuries back, but then he disappeared from the historical record before showing up again the other week at the Fair.

An employee at the museum—Morvayn—greets us and starts talking shop with Edith. Their best guess is Szass Tam had been trapped under Thay, a city known for a large network of magical ley lines running through and under its foundations. The people in charge of Thay are wary of letting strangers dig around the city, so information is hard to come by. It's an outside chance, but if we could convince them Szass Tam is back, they might let us in to do some exploration.

Morvayn also suggests we stop by Prastuil University before going to Thay—it has a large library and more information about Thay in general than where we are currently. It's a long trip, Prastuil is far to the southeast, through Plaguewrought Land and past the Underchasm, assuming we don't want to drive through the middle of a desert to get there instead. Grim is concerned we don't have time for such a detour, but Edith assures her it will be worthwhile. Information on Szass Tam is hard to come by and any little thing could help.

Morvayn then takes us to the divination office to get our scry on.

Katalina Winemi'zer: "Do ya haff somethin' of the Liss's for me to focus on?"

Pepper: "I got a real bad first impression of him from when we met."

Katalina Winemi'zer looks at the bewildered faces.

Edith Runekill looks down, embarrassed. "No. We never got close enough to him"

Katalina Winemi'zer: "Is fine, is fine. I can do this without."

"Everyone hold hands pleass."

Malkas: "Why are your hands so sticky, Sydney?"

Edith Runekill gives Mal's hand a li'l squeeze.

Capridi sighs and holds out her hands for Edith and Pepper to hold onto

Malkas squeezes back. Saps.

Pepper makes a big show of wiping her hand off before taking Capridi's

Grim just takes people's hands jeez

Sydney Gaydos: "... oranges." She says simply.

Malkas: "Fair enough."

She scries for us a nice view of the lich flying the car, unfortunately there's few clues to be had since he's in the middle of the air. Edith manages to spot a blue shimmering reflection in the undercarriage as if he's over a body of water, but it's anyone's guess which body it could be. Our vision is cut short when he detects us and dispels the scry, leaving us with more questions than anything else but we do our best to puzzle through it.

Edith Runekill: "It could be the Sea of Fallen Stars?"

"If he kept heading east after he was through in Secomber."

Malkas: "But it could be the Sea of Swords. There's plenty of magical stuff left on the Moonshae Islands."

Pepper frowns. "I don't see what business he'd have going to the Sea of Swords."

Edith Runekill: "If he were trying to get somewhere else up or down the coast without attracting attention by flying over populated areas, maybe."

Edith Runekill: "Back to Waterdeep or Neverwinter. Further south to Velen or Tehtyr. North to Luskan or wherever."

"But-- I dunno. Heading east seems more plausible."

Grim: "He won't backtrack."

"He's looking for new sights. Doubt he'd waste his time."

Edith Runekill: "Yeah. But Secomber was a detour, remember? He might have had other business along the coast."

Edith Runekill: "I feel like eventually he's gonna be headed to Thay. But he's obviously got things he needs to square away first."

"Gathering resources for a takeover? Retrieving things he'd stowed away? I dunno."

Malkas: "Maybe he wants to have a tropical island vacation in Chult."

Grim: "So we call around, learn if there's been any sightings round the coasts."

Pepper crosses her arms. "I mean. There's a lot of elvish magic crap at Moonshae but there's also a lot of Baelnorn. And it just took one to keep him away from Candlekeep right? I mean. If he was ever even going to Candlekeep in the first place."

Grim glances at Pepper, mildly surprised for a split second

Edith Runekill: "Yeah. Maybe check the foreign papers, too. See if there's any news of unexplained disasters or mayhem."

"Hm, that's right, though. Tharnis seemed very confident about being able to hold Tam off, or keep him confined if he'd walked into the trap set for him."

Malkas: "Okay, well. I think we should continue on to Prastuil, unless we get word of Tam somewhere."

Edith Runekill: "Yeah."

Our course of action stays the same, we're heading to Prastuil and then further on to Thay. But first—shopping. Edith gets to work enchanting a wizard hat so she won't lose it after the next monster fight, Syd looks over gifts, and Grim, Mal, and Pepper scope out the local Army Surplus store.

Mal and Grim chit-chat a bit about Syd—she's a different sort of paladin than the holy-rolling assholes they're used to. While they're talking, they spot some suspicious merchandise in the store's display cases: bits of animals and humanoids of questionable legality. Pepper calls Mal over to look at some tacky hats

Pepper lets out a stifled laugh at a hat with an Elvish phrase on it.

Malkas: "What?"

Pepper: "It uh. It wouldn't really translate too well."

Pepper: "It's completely filthy though."

Pepper turns the hat around in her hands, obviously desperate to buy it, but puts it back. "I'm pretty sure you'd get kicked out of like EVERYWHERE if you wore that in public."

Malkas: "Just get it."

Pepper: "We'd never see Edith again."

Grim, meanwhile, stays to strike up a deal with the shop owner.

Grim: "That goblin hand genuine?"

Grim definitely says gen-yew-wine

Helia (GM): "Oh yeah. Got it off a gerblin trader."

"I bought it from 'im, already severed."

Grim nods and studies the case, sucking on her cigarette, then gestures at it

Grim: "How 'bout them hydra fangs?."

Helia (GM): "Can't reveal my sources on that one."

Grim: "Uh-huh."

Helia (GM): "You with the guard?"

Grim: "Shit no."

Grim looks at him

Grim: "I look like a guard to you?"

Helia (GM): The dwarf shrugs.

Grim: "You in the market for trophies, say I had a line on some unusual game?"

Helia (GM): "Maybe. Depends."

Grim: "Here's how it is. I'm a bounty hunter by trade, come into contact with a lot of...real exotic types."

Grim: "Once in a while, a perp don't make it home all in one. You know what I'm saying?"

Helia (GM): "Why don't you give me some more details about what you got a line on, eh?"

Grim regards the dwarf for a moment, then reaches into her pack and pulls out a couple of wanted notes. Specifically, Mal's and Capridi's.

Helia (GM): The dwarf examines them.

Grim: "So happens I'm, uh, travellin' with a couple folk right now as might have some interest to you."

Helia (GM): "Hm. That's a weird lookin' Dragonborn..."

Grim: "Never seen one the like've her," Grim mutters back."Pelt like a sheep, but tougher'n leather."

Helia (GM): "Hm..."

He writes a number down on the back of Malkas's bounty paper.

(2500 gp)

Grim: "Whole package, or horns 'n tail?"

Helia (GM): "Both, an' the Dragonborn."

Grim: "Shit, you gouge your clients almost as bad as your merch."

Grim straightens up and raises her voice along with her rifle

Grim: "Hey Malkas? This sorry sonovabitch just offered to buy your hide."

Malkas: "... What?!"

"... For how much?!"

Pepper: "Uh."

Grim: "2500, you an' Capridi both."

Helia (GM): "Your pal here offered to sell it!"

Malkas: "That's not nearly enough!"

Grim: "What d'you reckon on our doing with a rotten ass poacher?"

Pepper squints her eyes shut and rubs the bridge of her nose.

Malkas: "Uh... We're legally allowed to beat the hell out of him, I think?"

Grim: "That's about what I wanted to hear."

There's a minor scuffle with the shopkeeper pulling a rifle on us, but Pepper deftly panics and knocks a rack of merchandise onto his head as she dives for cover under a table. Mal and Grim only got shot a little bit. Pepper's not too happy with the turn of events, but thanks to the Baldur's Gate laws of “finders, keepers” she scores a free lewd hat out of the deal.

Success! And it only took up most of the morning!

Later that afternoon, Pepper spies Edith on the street. Mal's gone off to run an errand and she's looking for a place for lunch so she invites Pepper along into a local diner. Edith orders a burger while Pepper can't resist ordering the mushroom and spider-meat stew. Edith shows off the darkvision goggles she picked up for the road trip that might come in handy, Pepper seems to have spent her time thinking about what she's going to eat.

Edith gets in to the philosophy of the different schools of magic—she was drawn to Evocation because of the inherent excitement, but she's always admired the ways wizards can be useful with magic, even if it's less flashy.

Edith Runekill: "See, now, I went into wizardry for the excitement of it, which is why I ended up majoring in Evocation even though my school's so famous for useful schools of agricultural magic like transmutation or enchantment."

"But wizards who do useful stuff are so, so important? They're the reason Plaguewrought Land isn't so wrought with plague these days."

"Maybe I was just selfish..."

"Or too fascinated by setting things on fire."

"Both, probably."

Pepper: "Seems like being into something useful just gave my mom an unhealthy obsession with legumes."

"Which--and I'm still trying to puzzle this one out--leads to setting a lot of fires in its own right."

Edith Runekill laughs. "Well, we all got our specialties."

Edith Runekill: "Legumes and fire?"

Edith Runekill considers this.

Edith Runekill: "Culinary magic?"

Pepper eats another sugar cube and sips some coffee. "Got that in one."

Edith Runekill dumps like three sugar cubes into her coffee cup.

Edith Runekill adds an amount of cream perhaps best characterized as "too much"

Pepper says nothing to the massacre in a cup happening across the table and digs around in her soup for more legs.

Edith Runekill: "Always wanted to try something cooked up by a culinary wizard. But it won't happen with what I make as an assistant curator. Or at least not if I want to pay both rent and eat for the rest of the week."

The topic then naturally turns to family, we'll be driving straight through Plaguewrought Land where Edith's from. She's not looking forward to going back home, but she feels obligated to do so, though Pepper doesn't see it that way. At best, Edith anticipates a lot of farm chores to which Pepper jokes it's a good thing they have Grim along. Which just gives Edith something else to fret over—she's still trying to see how she could have handled the Cap situation differently, but she's at a complete loss.

Edith Runekill: "Yeah. You SEE that look she gave me? Her tone of voice when she talked to me? And. Like. I GET it, since-- like-- catching bounties and bringing lawbreakers to justice and stuff is her THING, but... but I can't really APOLOGIZE since... since she really was wrong there? That really wasn't the right thing to do?"

"But it's even more messy because like now I know WHY I care so much about what she thinks of me????????"

Pepper spoons some pie onto Edith's plate. "Settle down, it's not like she hates you. Or even dislikes you."

Edith Runekill drops a french fry in surprise. "She... doesn't?"

Edith Runekill: "I... I figured I'd burnt my bridges...?"

"Making friends with her at all was so hard... worth it, but it was hard..."

Pepper: "She doesn't strike me as the type to hang around people she doesn't like."

Edith Runekill: "Well. I mean. We all got a job to do, here..."

"And it's important to me, and it's important to HER, too, which is why how she handled things with Capridi burns my butter so much?"

"Capridi helped us NOT DIE so we can CATCH THE LICH and isn't that more important than jaywalking in High Imasker or whatever?"

"Everything's all mixed up with everything else and I'm just flying in like six different directions at once."

Pepper: "I think she's just got different priorities. She just spent 20 minutes by herself getting a shopkeep to admit to blackmarket bodyparts trafficking instead of, oh, calling the police."

"Like, if it's a law problem she can fix she just goes for it?"

Edith Runekill: "Well. That's good detective work, at least."

"And-- like-- I get that. I live by a code too, even if-- as I'm learning-- it's a pretty different one. It's just. Like. The Lich is breaking any number of worse laws in worse ways? Shouldn't we be triageing our priorities a bit? Or at least sorting things out before just shooting people?"

Pepper: "Well sure, but if you think about it, we were heading to the police station anyway, so we didn't really waste much time--" she trails off, catching Edith's expression. "I mean, it was a crummy thing to do, don't get me wrong."

Edith Runekill: "Yeah..."

Pepper scratches her chin. "But I think she's just used to doing things her own way. She doesn't seem the type to do a lot of uh, group activities, anyway."

Edith Runekill: "Yeah, that too. Which is maybe why she didn't realize that between all of us there were way better ways to keep Capridi form bolting before we got everything worked out."

Pepper: "I mean, it's hard to get used to working with a group if you've been alone for awhile." Her face flushes and she shoves a forkful of pie into her mouth. "'At's just wha' I fink, 'nyway," she mumbles.

Edith Runekill: "I guess so."

Pepper then does her best to reassure Edith that unexpected crushes aren't the end of the world and you can even still be friends and coworkers with a crush. Pepper also starts to come to terms with the fact that she's been a complete ass.

Pepper clinks her mug to Edith's, which is weird because Edith's mug is sitting on the table. "At least you figured it out with a girl you LIKE, and not one that keeps hiding your shoes at camp."

Edith Runekill: "I guess," Edith says, sounding a bit unconvinced. "Sure makes things complicated though. Also, hiding your shoes sounds pretty mean and I'm sorry somebody did that."

Pepper: "Joke's on her, I got to go home a week early because of it." She laughs, but her brow's a bit furrowed.

"Anyway. It's not complicated so much as. Hm. Wrinkled? You can pal around with someone you've got a crush on, y'know."

Edith Runekill: "You... can?"

Pepper: "I think modern society would crumble if that weren't the case."

Edith Runekill looks thoughtful as she contemplates the mysteries of modern society.

Pepper: "I mean, you work with so many people one of them's bound to've had a thing for you and kept it to themself," she says, eating another sugar cube.

Edith Runekill: "Leave some of the those cubes for me," Edith says, as she absentmindedly puts another one in her cup of coffee. Then: "Wait, really? On li'l ol' me?"

Pepper: "I guess I am taking it on faith there's more than one person out there who'd be interested in you."

Pepper pauses. "That was mean. Was that mean? That was mean."

Edith Runekill: "That... that was kind of mean. Sorry."

Pepper: "Right." She nods and eats a too-large bite of bread.

Edith Runekill: "Well. Thanks for realizing it and saying something, anyway. You... you've been nice to me, these past few days."

Pepper rubs her chin. "Yeah, I sorta had you pegged wrong from the start. I thought--" she trails off and rubs at her chin like there's a smudge she's trying to get rid of.

Pepper: "Well, nevermind what I thought."

Pepper tries to paint Edith a picture, anyway: To her, Edith was a stone-cold hardass willing to tangle with a lich and then hunt down some muggers for street justice. Edith gets upset remembering the showdown in the alley, it's something she's been avoiding thinking about. In doing so, though, she realizes that maybe she shouldn't keep these things to herself—that it's better to talk about what's bothering her. Pepper agrees, it's no good to keep your troubles bottled up inside.

On that note, Pepper asks if there really is a chance the lich is headed over the Sea of Swords—it turns out her parents live in the Moonshae Isles, just off the coast that way. Edith doesn't think it's likely, she agrees the baelnorn in the area would keep Szass Tam away and going by history, he's much more interested in the Eastern part of the world. Still, Pepper says she'll let the group know if her parents have anything lich-related to say the next time she calls them.

Pepper: "Fingers crossed pops doesn't bring up skeletons next time I call home, then."

Edith Runekill: "Or he does but it's just the friendly baelnorn next door." She smiles, but then a guilty look flickers over her face. "Wait, you been calling home? I... I haven't since the Secomber thing..."

Pepper flushes and looks up at the ceiling. "Well. Y'know. Not like EVERY day. Just every few. If I have something to say."

Edith Runekill: "Ah..." Edith wrings her hands, anxiously. "I... I know I ought to call more often, but I don't... I don't think they'd be all right with how dangerous what I'm doing is. They aren't even thrilled about me living in Neverwinter, or the little expeditions me and Mal go on, or... well, Mal at all, really. Ma was really mad,,, or-- or really worried, maybe-- when I called her during the Secomber thing. But. But if we're headed in their direction?"

"I... I guess I GOTTA call?"

Pepper: "Edith, I call my folks because I like to. You don't gotta if just thinking about it gives you a peptic episode."

Edith Runekill: "Ah..."

"Well, I still probably oughta call before we just show up unannounced. Even if that would actually be pretty funny, come to think of it."

They finish up their meal and head out. +1 to social bonding between Pepper and Edith achieved!

Edith meets up with Mal who gives her a present: a bracelet with 5 enchanted charms. Each charm can summon a different party member to Edith—useful if we get separated during the trip. A very thoughtful gift! Mal's such a good boy.

They talk about the upcoming trip, Mal is understandably nervous about visiting Edith's parents at their home. They've never been too keen on him in the past—the word “half-breed” may have come up a time or two—but it's important to Edith that she stops in. She tries to reassure Mal that things will go as smooth as possible, she's positive her parents will come around on him.

Edith Runekill: "They like you better than my high school boyfriend. Low bar, I know, but..."

Malkas: "Ha, really?"

"What did he do?"

Edith Runekill: "Tried to elope at the age of 18."

Malkas: "Wh-What!"

"You ... What?!"

Edith Runekill: "He wanted us to get married and run off together right after high school. And I'm standing there with an acceptance letter to PA&M like, what? I think he was just trying to save the relationship before I went away..."

"And. You know. My parents 100% had my back on that. They want me to marry a nice local boy, but, sweet Auril, not like that."

Malkas: "Not at eighteen, no matter how thick-necked and tow-headed he was?"

Edith Runekill: "Yeah. And not when I had a future ahead of me. Of course, turns out the future they imagined and the future I imagined were pretty different."

Malkas: "Fewer ravenous monsters in their future?"

Edith Runekill: "But at the time they were proud of me for going away to college. But I reckon they counted me on coming back with a degree in agricultural magic and ideas about how to modernize the farm. And not... well, all the things I found that've made life worth living."

Malkas: "Edi, you're gonna make me blush."

They head back to the hotel and the scene fades to black.

Ahem.

After waiting a polite amount of time, Grim—who had been in her room when Mal and Edith got back to the hotel—goes to pay Edith a visit. Edith is noticeably flustered to greet Grim while wearing a bathrobe, but it's not as if she's the type to pretend she didn't hear the knock at the door.

Edith Runekill opens the door. She's wearing a fuzzy hotel bathrobe, and her generally carefully-styled hair is in disarray. She has an obvious hickey on her neck; she tugs on the collar of the robe in a vain attempt to try to cover it up.

Edith Runekill: "Oh... Grim! When did you get back?"

Grim looks at her

Grim: "Bout an hour back."

"Don't mean to interrupt."

Edith Runekill: "Um... an hour, huh. Um."

Edith Runekill sweats.

Edith Runekill is having a waking nightmare.

Edith Runekill: "Um. Anyway! What can I do for you?"

Grim: "Wondered when y'all reckon on leaving. Ain't heard from none've the others."

Grim is just as completely :| as ever

Edith Runekill: "Oh! Um."

"Sometime this afternoon, depending on how long it takes for everyone else to finish getting things together."

"I've already done all the shopping I needed so... I guess... I can get ready whenever?"

Grim shrugs

Grim: "Ain't out to put a rush on the two've you." She glances across Edith's shoulder for a split second, then back at her.

"Only wonderin' is all. Got no feel for the temperature round here lately."

Edith apologizes for accidentally disregarding Grim's feelings back at the library and the museum; she feels like she took the reins on where the group should go and what they should do without taking Grim's views into account. Grim doesn't seem too upset, Edith is more equipped at dealing with libraries and museums than she is.

Edith emphasizes she thinks Grim is an important member of the group, Grim in turn tells her not to be upset if they're at odds occasionally—it's not a bad thing that Edith stood by her convictions in the library about Capridi.

Grim: "You ain't gotta like me, Edith. Or agree with half what I do. I got no place to ask that from anyone. Don't make no difference to my bein' here to see this through."

"Truth be told, I reckon it's the mark of a good person. When your conscience won't lay flat on what you see just 'cause it'd be a whole lot easier."

Grim shrugs gently

Grim: "I ain't one to do what's easy. And you ain't neither. Don't mean we always gotta agree on the right way."

Edith Runekill nods.

Edith Runekill: "Yeah..."

Grim: "I don't want you thinkin' I'm a good person, or a smart person, or the kind you gotta tear yourself in two to please. Just so long as you do what comes right to you, I got no quarrel."

Edith Runekill looks visibly relieved. Even though she's standing there in nothing but a bathrobe, with a hickey, and a look that sort of evokes the 17th century fashion concept of "romantic negligence".

Edith Runekill: "I do think you're good, though, and smart. I think I can still think that about you, even if I don't always agree with you."

Grim snorts softly

Grim: "Guess I talked myself out've arguin' you on that one."

Edith Runekill smiles a bit for the first time in this whole conversation.

Edith Runekill: "Guess you did."

Grim eyes her, considering her words again

Grim: "Didn't reckon on you carin' for me, for as much as you ever did. Ought've been different to you if I realised."

Grim isn't exactly apologising but she looks vaguely abashed

Edith Runekill blushes, and looks away. "Guess it was obvious to everyone but me."

Grim 's brow furrows

Grim: "It was, huh?"

"Didn't figure on it myself 'til I heard it out've your mouth last night."

Edith Runekill: "Ah..."

Look at these two.

But, now that it's all out in the open, Edith is a lot more comfortable with things and the situation has more or less resolved itself. They come to a mutual agreement that Edith can just say what's on her mind next time, rather than keeping it all to herself.

They chat a bit about going back to Edith's hometown—Grim seems to be the only one vaguely encouraging about her making the trip.

Edith Runekill: "I dunno. I been thinking a lot about how... how dangerous this thing we're doing is. We might not come back from it. So... so I guess I don't want to regret having missed what turned out to be my last chance to see home again."

Grim takes this in and nods, eyeing her cigarette

Grim: "You got folks there, too. For good or bad, there's a place that made you."

"I got no answer for it, all I know is it's somethin' that don't stop being true. No matter how far you go."

Edith Runekill nods. "I might spend my days in dusty tombs or overgrown temples or stuffy museum offices. But Plaguewrought Land is still in my bones, Auril's ice is in my blood, and that'll be true until the day I die."

Grim: "It's somethin' I like about you Runekill. You got feet that know the ground, hands that know the soil. Ain't met so many magic types that way."

"Ain't nobody else where you are now who came by the roads you did."

Edith Runekill nods again.

Edith Runekill: "Maybe getting back there for a bit really will do me some good. Or at least it'll be a chance to see my nieces and nephews again..."

Grim: "Worst comes to worst, you got a half decent right hook these days."

These two, I swear to God.

And with that, bridges are mostly mended and we're ready to be crammed in a car together for hours at a time. Good luck to us all.

[yarrie-writes]

Thisness

Chapter 1: A Rose by any Other Name

They called it "sublimination," because there was always a nice way to describe terrible things.

Lance had never seen it happen before, but that was just a fluke, a stroke of luck, a - a sign from the universe that he was meant for something, maybe, because in a tiny brick elementary school of 128 students, he'd been the only one sick at home the day that a fifth grader went up in flames and brought the whole school down with her.

People said, afterward, that no one could've known that it would happen. That it could've been anyone. That she hadn't done anything wrong. That there hadn't been any signs of magical affinity in her or her family, much less fire affinity...until she exploded, anyway.

None of that sounded particularly reassuring when you lived five minutes away from a building that had been charred so horribly that the brick was scorched black and the windows were crystalline puddles on the ground. Lance remembered wandering over there once, just once, and getting the shit smacked out of his ass when his mama found out. But he'd had a reason for going. His neighbors had told him, soft and low like it was a secret to tuck into his pillow and sleep on, that somebody in town had been sneaking past the patrol and smuggling out handfuls of ashes for the families who'd lost somebody, and Lance had asked, soft and low because he was in awe, who would do that, but nobody knew, because they went when it was dark and they went fast and they didn't tell no one but God. So Lance had gone looking, and he probably would've kept going if his mama hadn't caught him.

But aside from that one brave soul (and Lance), nobody in town would go near the place. A small colony of government workers migrated down for the summer to scrape charcoal and bone ash from the streets and rebuild the school, but it didn't do much good. Fear was a powerful thing.

In the meantime, Lance went to a school one hour away, and everyone even slightly related to him breathed a sigh of relief when he graduated from it before construction was done.

They called it "sublimination," because there was always a nice way to describe terrible things - and if there wasn't, somebody could always be hired to find one.

And for the last five years, Lance had been that somebody.

Maybe that was overstating his importance, a little bit.

In reality, Lance was a tiny gear in a huge machine. In reality, he was sort of a nobody, even if he was a nobody with a mouthpiece. In reality, his job could rightfully (if rudely) be summed up as propaganda-pushing.

And maybe in another reality, Lance would give a fuck about the ethics and morals of what he was doing. In this one, he didn't have any fucks left to give.

"Good mornin', Pasadena, how was your beauty sleep?" he crooned into his microphone, pulling his mouth into a smile because you fake it til you make it and he desperately wanted to make it. "This is Lance McClain speaking, here to remind you that the sky is blue, the earth is round, the stars are bright, and I'm free for dinner if you're lonely tonight, so hit me up, ladies and gentleman."

On the TV in the corner of the recording studio, he saw Pidge dropping his head onto the desk with a muffled groan, so he pointed finger guns at his techie coworker half-ironically. Pidge could use a fake-it-til-you-make-it smile, he thought. Pidge could use any expression that wasn't exasperation or homicidal rage.

He kept the finger guns up until Pidge gave him the middle finger, then he gave Pidge two middle fingers back, and not once did he stop talking during the entire exchange. "Now then, tonight's topic is the total catastrophe with the protesters at the Gates of Justice yesterday! I mean, seriously guys, if you haven't been following the news you better turn on your TVs. It was a madhouse. Lots of people fighting lots of other people, 'cause no better time to duke it out with security than when you're supposed to be protesting peacefully, right?"

He made a very exaggerated huffing sound. "Now, I'm the first to defend freedom of speech and all that. I love freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is my best girl. It just seems...kinda dumb to get so riled up about it that you go around punching people, y'know? Words don't have feelings, guys. People have feelings. People have lots of feelings. Play nice while you're flaunting your freedom of speech, that's all I'm asking.

"But this isn't just about me, guys. Hit me with your opinions, 'cause I know everyone and their mother has one about this stuff - my facebook feed tells me so. As always, the number to call is 626-555-5567! We'd love to hear from you."

In the corner of his eye, he spied Pidge and Hunk fielding the first callers of the day before he was even finished reciting the number.

Well, that didn't take long.

Seconds later, names and descriptions were scrolling down his screen, and he picked one at random, because he was a brave, brave man, the kind of brave that was often mistaken for stupidity but was actually closer to stubbornness.

"Man, you're chomping at the bit today, Pasadena, aren't you? Mr. Adam Smith, how are you doing?"

"Good." Mr. Adam Smith's voice was soft, and raspy, and absolutely not radio-friendly, which could be blamed on either the inherent quality of his voice or the obvious lack of quality in his phone. There were cars in the background, which helped not at all.

Lance winced a little. Just this once, couldn't his first caller be somebody with a good microphone? Whatever. Rolling with the punches. "You rolling in traffic, sir?"

"Not even rolling, unfortunately. But you know how it is."

A sense of humor, he could work with this. "Man alive, I wish I did know how it is. Maybe I'm lucky that this job forces me to wake up too early for rush hour, but I sure don't feel too lucky when my alarm sounds."

Mr. Smith uttered a dry, dry laugh.

Lance caught the annoyed undertone of that laugh and winced. It was an impersonal sort of annoyance, like Lance had simply nudged an underwater iceberg free and now it was floating to the surface of the sea and causing chaos in its wake. Impersonal, nothing to do with him, but that didn't mean it couldn't get ugly.

On paper, his job was actually pretty simple - all he had to do was talk, and piss the right people off, and not piss anybody else off. And Lance was good at talking, and really good at pissing people off. He might be a little shaky on choosing who to piss off and who to let go, but he was getting better at it. And right now, his hard-won instincts were telling him to bail.

"Alright, alright, while we've got you captive in traffic, my good sir, what's your take on the protests?"

"Well, actually, I think their hearts are in the right place. We all saw what happened in Kerberos, and given the...background...of the terrorists, you can see why people might think that there's something deeper going on."

"Sure, sure. But the question is, do you think that there's actually evidence that there's something deeper going on?"

"I'm not ruling it out."

"Of course not. There's no such thing as ruling it out, right? I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that I know what actually happened. That way madness lies. But what about actual evidence?"

"The tape - "

"Yeah, the tape." Lance sighed. "Not gonna lie, I've listened to it, and I am un-im-pressed. I keep trying to hear the screaming that everybody's talking about, but all I'm getting is feedback. And this is from a guy who talks into a microphone all day for a living. Thanks for talkin' back, though - good luck with traffic!"

The man tried to call back a few minutes later. Wanted to finish the conversation, Pidge's curt notes told him.

Lance sighed and picked someone else.

It would be easy to string his haters along until they stumbled. They always did, sooner or later. Lance wouldn't consider himself the smartest or cleverest or meanest person in existence - he wasn't even the smartest or cleverest or meanest radio personality on his channel - but he was incredibly good at dragging people down to his level, and that was all he needed to do, most of the time. People didn't judge arguments by how good the reasoning was. It was all in the delivery, and Lance was good at delivery.

It just...it would be easy to string his haters along, but he didn't like doing it. Didn't like shining a spotlight on people until they burned from it. Didn't like humiliation. It just wasn't in his blood, his bones, his too-soft heart.

"Today sucked," he said with feeling, curled around one of Hunk's glorious cookie-cake masterpieces.

"Tough topic," Hunk nodded. "Tougher crowd."

Pidge snorted and nibbled on his piece of cookie-cake without commenting.

Lance groaned. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I was there."

Pidge snorted again. It was an ugly, harsh little sound, like a high-dose injection of condescension.

Lance was pretty sure Pidge didn't like him. Then again, Pidge didn't seem to like anyone. Except Hunk, but everyone liked Hunk.

That was not precisely true, he reflected later, as all three of them were berated in Iverson's dusty office for 'gross negligence of their duties.' Lance had tuned him out after he realized that this was about the same old stuff. Iverson was ex-military, and it was written all over the squareness of his shoulders and the straight line of his back and the way he expected his employees to respond well to beration. He gave off this overwhelming sense of what he called patriotic dignity and what everyone else saw as overcompensation.

Plus, he didn't like Hunk, and everyone liked Hunk.

"Dismissed," Iverson barked suddenly, and the only reason Lance even heard it was that he'd been listening for it.

"Freedom," he whispered to Hunk and Pidge. Hunk smiled weakly at him, looking a little nauseous.

Pidge, being Pidge, just snorted again. "You might wanna actually pay attention when he goes off on you. He wants to fire you, you know."

"Okay, first of all, he wasn't just going off on me, he was going off on us."

"Pretty much only you, though."

"I heard Gunderson in there a couple of times."

Pidge scowled.

"And secondly, this is a government position. We're technically government employees. Nobody ever gets fired from the government. That's why Iverson's still here."

Hunk chuckled weakly, recovering a bit from his Iverson-induced panic.

Score.

Pidge opened and closed his mouth. "...you...okay. That's fair."

Score! Lance crossed his arms behind his neck and let his head rest there, soaking in his victory. "The worst thing that can happen is that I'll get promoted into a position where I can't do any more damage," he said conspiratorially.

"Oh how terrible for you," Pidge said, dry as sandpaper.

Lance grinned. "I know."

Hunk sighed and sighed, worry creasing his forehead, but it was a familiar worry that was no longer contagious, because he and Pidge were immune by now. "What do you want for dinner, Lance?"

"I was thinking burgers." Lance half-turned to Pidge. "You?"

Pidge blinked large owlish eyes at him. After a moment he realized why - ever since Pidge turned them down for dinner that first day, he hadn't asked. Maybe their lack of friendship wasn't entirely on Pidge.

"Pidge?" Hunk prodded gently.

"Oh," Pidge said, flushing ever so slightly. "Sorry. Not today, but...raincheck?"

"Sure, sure, Pidgeotto," Lance said cheerfully.

Pidge stared at him. "Was that supposed to be an insult? Pidgeotto's awesome."

"You're awesome," Lance fired back, on instinct, before he realized that yeah, that really wasn't an insult at all.

Pidge giggled, downright giggled. Behind him, Hunk threw him a thumbs up sign.

Lance groaned. "Let's pretend that didn't happen. You're Pidgey now."

"Too late," Pidge said.

"I canceled your evolution, you're Pidgey."

"Too late!" Pidge grabbed his bag and gave them a half-hearted backward wave. "Have a good dinner!"

"Thanks, see you tomorrow, Pidge," Hunk said.

Lance glared at Hunk.

"What?"

"Traitor."

"Pidge is cool, bro."

"Cooler than me?!"

"Lance, I love you, so I'm not answering that."

When he got home he put on the television. He always did, no matter how much shit the television was spewing about the state of the world. It was a horrible habit that he needed to kick, except it made him better at his job, while also making him better at hating his job.

Today the topic of choice was some gun-toting fool with the Remember Kerberos movement, which made him think about that stupid tape again, which made him listen to the stupid tape again, trying his damnedest to hear something in the background other than an increasingly sharp voice on the radio asking for someone, anyone to check in.

Some people listened to the static and heard screaming. Some people listened to the static and heard breathing.

Lance had been listening to this tape ever since it came out, and all he ever heard was static.

Wishing don't make a thing real, his mama always said.

The next day was more of the same. The protests up in Washington had escalated. Again. There were pictures of tear-gassing and water hosing. Again.

Lance was already sick of it, but he did his best not to show it, because he was a fucking professional, and it wouldn't be very professional to ask his listeners why they felt the need to express their opinions on the radio instead of taking those opinions up with people who actually mattered and could get something done.

"Mr. Tom Cain, what's your take on - "

"Madam Euphemia Lowe, how about you - "

"You're up next, Mrs. Efemena Ayodele - "

And so on, and so on.

Until - "Annnnnd here's Mr. Kitty Rose, here to pitch in his two cents!" Then Lance paused for a long moment, successfully pulled out of his own headspace for the first time all day. "Um, please tell me that's not your real name. Actually, no, wait! Please tell me that it is your real name, 'cause I love it."

"...Hello?" came the voice from the phoneline.

Lance nearly cooed at how confused the poor thing sounded. He'd bet an arm and a leg that this was the guy's first time ever calling in to a radio show. It was kinda flattering. Who was he kidding, it was really flattering. "Hello, Mr. Kitty Rose! You're on air right now. How you doin'?"

"...I'm...I guess I'm good?" He didn't sound any less confused.

This time, Lance did coo. "Awww, just good? Not great? Not dazzling? Not awespectacular?"

"What the hell is awespectacular?"

Lance grinned with wild abandon, because the setup was way too perfect, and he probably shouldn't push a new caller like this but what the heck. Being called by a guy named Kitty Rose was the best thing that had happened to him all day. "A lot of things are awespectacular! Me, for example. Specifically, certain parts of me."

There was silence...then the sharp, unmistakable click of a phone hanging up.

Lance pouted, even though no one could see him. He'd always believed in the power of making faces to give his voice that extra emotional oomph. "Well, guess he didn't wanna stay and chat, ladies and gents. Next!"

Awkward-cute or not, Mr. Kitty Rose (seriously, was that his name?) slipped out of his mind completely within half a minute. He was too busy with his other callers, some of whom agreed with him, some of whom didn't, and some of whom really didn't, but it was all in good fun - on Lance's side, anyways - and arguing was the best part of his job, so he wasn't exactly complaining.

So it was weird when Pidge came into the recording studio, afterward, and said with utmost casualness, "So. Mr. Kitty Rose?" like it was meaningful and shit.

"Dude, if that's actually his name..." Lance started laughing again.

Pidge grinned slightly - which was mindblowing to see on Pidge, King of Angry Scowly Faces - but it was a grin of the shit-eating variety. Lance braced himself, and good thing he did, because the next thing Pidge said was, "Didn't stop you from flirting with him. What, you aspiring to be Mr. Rose-Mclain?"

Lance laughed messily and ignored how his neck felt a little hot. He was never going to get used to the fact that batting for both teams was treated so casually here, but that didn't mean he didn't appreciate it. "No way, dude," he chirped out at last, "Mr. Mclain-Rose sounds way better." 

Pidge gave him the sharpest little grin he'd ever seen on a human being, and mockingly saluted him on his way out.

"I think Pidge and I are becoming friends," he mused out loud as he and Hunk sat in a sleazy bar with two orders of burgers with cheesy fries for the third time in a week. Who needed healthy arteries, anyways?

"Pidge is cool, I told you," Hunk said, around a mouthful of fries.

"You think everyone is cool."

"Pidge is actually super cool, though. Did I tell you that he managed to install some kind of internet radio app on our computers? I didn't even think they were capable of running anything more intense than Wordpad."

"Hey," Lance said, pouting.

Hunk blinked at him. "What?"

"You listen to radio stations other than mine? I'm feelin' betrayed, Hunk! Abandoned! Gutted! Hung out to dry!"

"Dude," Hunk said, snorting with laughter, "we gotta listen to something when there aren't any callers and we're waiting for commercials to pass."

"Hung out to dry, Hunk!"

Later at home, when his landline started ringing, Lance cursed wildly and had a battle of epic proportions with his remote to turn the TV off, because he knew who was calling and he knew what she would have to say about watching the news again, mijo?

"Hola, mama," he said, curling his tongue over the soft vowels of his native language.

"Hola, mi amor," his mother said warmly. "Two rings and you pick up, how punctual."

"I'm very punctual, mama," he protested, grinning. "I always do things exactly when I intend to do them."

"Does that mean that you haven't called me this week on purpose?" her voice turned gently chiding.

"Oooph, mama," he said, wincing a bit.

She laughed, forgiveness and love all in one bell-like sound. "I was listening to you the other day."

Oh shit. "Which day?" he asked, trying for lightness.

"The day you were talking about cereal," she said, and thank god, thank god, because he knew how sad she'd be if she'd been listening yesterday or the day before. Politics and laws were not up for discussion in the McClain household. His brothers and sisters would get fired up on their respective choices of social media, where his mama's sphere of influence did not extend, but Lance kept himself firmly, firmly out of those arguments, even when they tried to draw him in. Sometimes, when he came home for dinner and the table topic landed on how he was doing at work, he'd look up and his siblings would be looking at him plaintively, like they didn't understand how all the pieces that made up Lance McClain could possibly fit together into a cohesive whole. It sucked knowing that at least some of them were disappointed in him. It sucked, but he dealt with it, because he was disappointed in himself, too.

Small mercies, he reminded himself. Always be thankful for the small mercies, because you've already filled your quota for the big ones.

Things would get better, he thought, clenching his phone in his hand. Things had to get better.

Things did not get better.

He'd gone to work, spirits bolstered by his mother's warm, easy affection, and Iverson was waiting for him, and it was way too early for an Iverson lecture, fuck the universe. When it rains, it pours, he thought grimly.

"Look at this," Iverson said, thrusting a paper into his face.

Lance just barely managed to prevent himself from snapping back, "I am looking at it, but you might want to take it back a couple inches if you want me to actually read it." Instead, he said, "Yes?"

"Look at this, and read it!"

"Yes sir," Lance said cautiously, and that seemed to be what Iverson wanted, because he harrumphed irritably and stopped looming.

"This is your last warning to shape up," he said, because he only existed on a spectrum from upset to very upset. "You're not here because you're good at your job. You're here because the last man who had your job turned out to be a thief. Don't push it!"

Lance pulled the paper away and read it.

It was a fucking gag order.

When it rains, it pours, and pours, and pours.

"This sucks, man," Hunk murmured, looking over the stupid piece of paper with a critical eye.

"Yeah."

"I feel like - like we're doing everybody a disservice. This is basically self-censorship, right?"

Lance sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, but - hey, it's not like a random radio talk show in Pasadena is going to change the course of history."

Hunk frowned and looked sad.

Lance winced. "Look, I don't like it - but I don't wanna know what they do to me if I break rank, either."

Hunk chewed his lip. "You have to be careful, Lance. Maybe, this year - maybe you should try to get transferred to the tech side."

"The dark side, you mean?" Lance waggled his eyebrows.

"...we do have cookies."

Lance laughed. "Hunk, you already make me cookies all the time."

Hunk looked properly pensive. "If I stopped doing that, would you turn techie for the cookies?"

"Hunk, my man, I'd die without them. You don't want me to die, do you?"

"No, I really, really want you to stay alive," Hunk said, and wow, okay, this conversation was becoming Way Too Serious.

Pidge piped up, making them both jump, "I didn't know you could do any tech stuff. Aren't you always saying that you and computers have a mutually assured destruction thing going on?"

"Pidge, Pidge, Pidge," Lance wagged his finger at him, "I was a technician here before Hunk was."

"I mean, he wasn't a very good one, but - "

"Hush, Hunk, I'm trying to make a point."

Pidge snickered. "Consider your point unmade. And probably unmakeable."

"I'm feeling so attacked right now," Lance muttered.

"Good," Pidge said, and there was a grin on the little guy's face, and Lance felt weirdly better.

Then Hunk sighed and ran his hand through his hair, ending the moment. "We need a game plan. Pidge and I, maybe we need to screen the callers more? Make sure they're not gonna be trouble?"

"I don't mind trouble," Lance said, "s'long as they don't mention anything on the unmentionable list."

"It's gonna be hard finding someone who won't mention Kerberos or protests or anti-magic regs." Pidge wrinkled his nose.

"Give me an hour of Kitty Roses, then," Lance said, sighing.

Pidge snorted. "You sure you want that kind of trainwreck on your hands?"

Lance looked at Pidge, stern-faced and serene. "Bring it."

He should not have said that.

He should not have said anything.

Pidge was going to be insufferable.

Scratch that, Pidge was already insufferable: next to the little label with Kitty Rose's name, Pidge's note read, Ask and ye shall receive! With the next refresh, it also said, BTW I told him you were gonna answer his call, so if you don't, I guess he's just gonna think that you're a coward.

Pidge was going to suffer.

"So," he said, as sweetly as he could while simultaneously imagining a painful, humiliating death for his traitorous technician, "Mr. Kitty Rose, back again?"

"Hi," the other man said. "...I guess I am."

"You definitely are, my man. Do you actually have anything to say this time, or...?"

There was a pause. "Wow, you're kind of a jerk. Why do people take time out of their day to listen to you?"

"Heyyyy. I'm just gonna point out that you're calling in for the second time, which means that at the very least you've listened to me twice."

"And both times were a waste of my time."

Pidge was going down. Pidge was so going down. Lance leaned in and uttered in the cheesiest cartoon-villainiest voice he could manage, "How dare you."

"How dare I, indeed."

"Yeah, exactly. How dare you listen to my step by step instructions and call me."

"It's almost as though you don't want listeners."

"What, are you a listener now, Mr. Both-Times-Were-A-Waste-Of-My-Time?"

"You know that feeling you get when you pass a car accident on the road and you want to slow down to see what's going on?"

"Yeah?"

"Your radio show is the verbal equivalent."

Lance found himself laughing, hysterically, helplessly. Okay, so maybe Pidge didn't have to go down. "Seriously, man, did you call in just to tell me that I'm a jerk?"

"That's my story and I'm sticking with it."

"You don't have any pearlier pearls of wisdom? That's all you've got for me?"

"...okay, I got another one: cereal, then milk, is the only acceptable order to make cereal in."

Lance gasped. "You heathen."

"But I'm right."

"I'll have you know that I'm a cereal expert, buddy, and milk is always first."

"I bet all your cereal bowls are mushy at the bottom and dry at the top."

"You take that back, my cereal bowls are perfect, thank you, because I know how to treat my dates right."

"That sounds awfully pathetic."

"Why, why I oughta, you're pathetic!"

"What a comeback. I'm quivering in my boots."

"You should be!"

"Yes, yes. That doesn't change the fact that you're wrong."

"How could you possibly put milk over the cereal? You're just making it soggy faster!"

"It's too messy pouring cereal onto milk. Gets everywhere."

Lance narrowed his eyes. "I'll have you know that cereal is my second favorite thing to eat in bed, and unlike the first thing, I've never made a mess in my sheets with it!"

There was silence. Then, very quietly, "Um, what's your first favorite thing then?"

Oh. Oh my god. Oh my god.

He didn't get it.

This was the best day of Lance's life.

With a huge shit-eating grin, he settled down on his elbows and sing-songed, "Nothing, nothing at alllll. Hey, by the way, I'm thinking of having a cereal party soon, wanna come?"

"Uh, no, not if you're going to eat it wrong."

The best. Day. Of his life.

"Hey, man, if it matters to you that much, we can try it both ways." Lance wiggled his eyebrows. "I can bring the milk if you bring everything else."

"Er, no, I'm not drinking your milk."

Hook.

"Why? Don't you trusssst me?"

Line.

"No. Plus, I'm lactose intolerant, so double no."

And sinker.

"Oh, Kitty," Lance purred, "nobody's making you swallow."

Lance was floating on Cloud Nine, and counting, the rest of the day. He'd never been more disappointed to cut a caller short so that he could start music hour. Or more disappointed, in general. He'd already eaten four of Hunk's cookies to chase the high of that incredible call, and now he was eyeing the plate for his fifth.

Next to him, Hunk was shaking his head, the flush of secondhand embarrassment fading at last. "Dude. Dude. Did you have to?"

"Dude. It was necessary."

"So necessary," Pidge agreed.

Lance turned to Hunk. "See? Pidge agrees with me! And Pidge never agrees with me."

"Never," Pidge agreed.

Hunk sighed at both of them. "I guess we did a good job today, though."

"Good? Good? Hunk, my man, my bestie, my homie, that was more than just good. It was amazing, it was incredible, it was - it was - "

"Awespectacular?" Pidge suggested, rolling his eyes.

Lance pointed to Pidge emphatically. "YES."

Hunk looked resigned to his fate. "Right. That. Anyways, good job. I don't think anybody noticed that we didn't talk about the unmentionables."

"Thank you, Kitty Rose, savior of us all," Pidge said.

"Hey. I'm the savior here. Kitty Rose is, like, the DVD Disc 1 villain who helps out during the final battle against the actual villain."

"So not a villain at all," Pidge said.

"Well - "

"And also probably the most important person during the final battle."

"I - "

"So basically the savior."

Lance screeched. "Okay, whatever. What-ever. And here I was, wanting to invite you to our bro dinners, but I guess you don't wanna go - "

Pidge sucked on his soft drink. "Nope."

Hunk frowned. "Awww...."

Pidge flicked his eyes over to Hunk and heaved a sigh. "Yeah, sorry. Still need a raincheck."

"When's the end of your shift today?" Hunk asked.

"6 pm."

Lance wiggled his eyebrows. "And you don't have time to grab dinner with us? Does someone have a hoooot daaaaate?"

"Oh my god, Lance," Pidge muttered, smacking his head.

"That's not a no, Pidge!"

"I take it back, no raincheck."

Pidge, because he was a boring, boring person, turned out to be headed for the library at Caltech after his shift.

Lance, because he liked poking boring people until they lost their boringness, and because he still felt a little guilty about making Pidge the third wheel to his and Hunk's awesome bro relationship, tugged on Hunk's sleeve until Hunk agreed that they should accompany Pidge to the library because you know it's not a great idea to be walking around alone at night, Hunk!

"It's surprisingly quiet around here," Hunk said, warily, twisting his head this way and that, and Lance almost felt bad for appealing to his best friend's protective/paranoid instincts.

"Were you expecting it to be loud?" Pidge asked, raising an eyebrow. "This isn't exactly party central."

"Well, no, but I'm surprised you don't have protesters camping out anywhere."

Pidge snorted. "There were, for a while."

Lance raised an eyebrow. "What happened? Mace? Batons? Dogs?"

"Deadlines and exams," Pidge said flatly.

Hunk cracked a small, wry grin, while Lance outright laughed. "Oh, jesus. You serious?"

"Yep. There were We Will Never Stop Looking signs abandoned all over the courtyard as soon as Hell Week started."

"Ironic."

Pidge smiled at that, but it wasn't really a smile-smile, and it didn't even reach all corners of his mouth, much less his eyes. "Yeah. There are definitely better places to start a revolution than a school of engineers. Not enough of them care, and the ones who do care don't care enough." Was that bitterness? It sounded like bitterness. But maybe Lance was hearing things. It wasn't like Pidge to be bitter - or maybe it was, and they just didn't know Pidge well enough to know that.

"Maybe they have the right idea," Lance said cautiously.

Pidge looked really hard at him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I don't think most people are cut out for revolution."

Pidge looked even harder at him. "For such a loud, bossy guy, you're actually really cynical," he said finally.

Lance grinned at him. "Hey, gotta hope for the best but expect the worst, right?"

Pidge shrugged, quiet and blank-faced. He wasn't glaring at Lance, but he wasn't agreeing with him, either. Which was normal. Everybody in the information business talked big game about the moral imperative to inform the masses and change the world and shit, but it wasn't human nature to walk the walk unless you were already headed in that direction.

Lance was a coward, he'd be the first to admit it - but at least he wasn't a hypocrite.

Unbidden, the image of the wreckage at Kerberos Station popped into his head. He winced.

At least he wasn't dead.

Kitty Rose showed up the next day, too.

They had to table the cereal debate, though, because Kitty dropped a bombshell about not being able to cook, which derailed them for a solid fifteen minutes.

He also found out that Kitty liked running and kicking balls around but didn't like team sports because of the team part, and that his favorite color was the same red as canned cranberry sauce, and that he thought pineapple on pizza was disgusting, which was so, so wrong that Lance was compelled to inform him, "You're disgusting!" before hanging up.

Then Hunk and Pidge completely and utterly betrayed him by sending forward an endless line of callers who agreed with Kitty on the pineapple issue, and he vowed not to speak to them ever again.

Kitty Rose also, apparently, thought that Raisin Bran counted as a cereal.

Lance curtly informed him that this lost him the cereal debate by default.

He also, reluctantly, began speaking to Hunk and Pidge again, seeing as his silence didn't have a lot of emotional impact when the alternative was engaging in interpretative dance moves to get his message across.

Also, Hunk gave him more cookies, and those cookies made up for all kinds of shenanigans.

Two weeks after the gag order had been thrust upon him, Lance took inventory of how he was doing and thought that, all things considered, it could've been worse. Iverson was still yelling at him regularly but it was with his usual, baseline hostility. Pidge still wouldn't come to dinner with him and Hunk, but at least the awkwardness of their duo becoming a trio had mostly rubbed off. And Kitty was, weirdly, becoming something of a friend? Lance had no idea what was going on there, only that Hunk and Pidge thought that something was, and they kept making these faces whenever Kitty called and it was actually super embarrassing. And his mama was still checking on him and his siblings were still weird about his job and the McClain house was still a no-politics zone.

So life was - not good, but okay. Really, really okay.

Or, at least, that's what Lance had thought.

It turned out that there was a difference between thinking that things were settling down, and the actual process of things settling down. A small part of Lance's brain had solidified in early childhood and never really changed after that, and it was this part of his mind that fooled him into thinking that turning his eyes away from the world shifting on its axis would somehow make it stop.

So he was just doing his usual bedtime routine, his brushing and flossing and face mask and shampoo and conditioner, when the television noises in the background stopped sounding like weather report noises and started sounding like news report noises. It wasn't a big difference, but he felt it like a cold front crashing down, chilling him to the bone. Some animal instinct told him to pay attention, pay attention so he did, plodding slowly to the living room and sinking into the couch of his living room, staring glassily at the television screen.

" - currently receiving reports of a flash flood in Washington D.C., right at doorstep of the White House. At least forty civilians, many of them protesting the recent changes in the Magical User Registration Act, were caught in the flood - "

"Authorities suspect that the flood was caused by an act of magi-terrorism or a sublimination event...witnesses say that there was a white light before water came rushing from the steps of the White House. No suspects have been - "

"This just in, the flood has started rising again, still not a cloud in the sky - "

" - massive explosion at the White House. Authorities say that its blast radius was dampened significantly by the flood - "

" - White House Correspondent, on the line now - the prevailing theory we've heard tonight is that whoever raised the flood knew about the bomb, what are your thoughts?"

"These horrific events are the doings of terrorists - and I do not use that word lightly - aligned with the magi-militant group Remember Kerberos. We all know there is a time for tolerance, a time for patience, but we have been tolerant - we have been patient. There is also a time for action, and that time is now. I call upon every member of this group to surrender to the nearest authorities - "

It also turned out that both he and Pidge were a little wrong about engineers, because Caltech was on fire the next morning. Metaphorically.

They weren't the only ones, either - the news was full of footage from nearly every major city in the country. Pasadena fared better than most, but there were still riots happening, honest to god riots. Half of lanes on the highway were blocked off because someone had moved the road partitions. There was broken glass everywhere around the 7-11 across the street from the studio. Lance actively feared for his car's structural integrity if he parked it any lower than the roof of the garage. By then, he was almost forty minutes late. 

Hunk called him while he was running up the stairs, saying, "Dude, I packed you an extra sleeping bag. Have you seen the streets? We might not be going home tonight."

"Fuck," Lance said, blearily. "That's a good idea, thanks, I'm at the studio - "

"How is it over there? I'm gonna be late, tell me how it is - "

"It's..." Lance looked around, and was nearly run over. By the time he managed to find a safe spot, he laughed weakly. "It's a madhouse, man. There are papers all over the hallway - new carpeting, hey? I almost got run over by a super short lady. And she almost got run over by a slightly taller lady. People are everywhere, and it's - uh." He peered out the window and stared. And stared. And stared. Then, without moving his gaze one centimeter, he whispered, "Hunk?"

"Lance? You okay?"

"Yeah...yeah, I'm okay. Listen. I still have a change of clothes at your place, right?"

"Multiple changes of clothes, actually." Hunk, bless him, was still so Hunk through this mess.

"Can you bring them over? I think maybe the studio's safer than our apartments right now. Kind of. Maybe?"

"What do you mean? What's going on?"

"There's, like, twenty soldiers right outside the door."

"Is that..." Hunk said cautiously, "a good thing?"

"I don't know, man." Lance laughed, only a little hysterically, "I don't know anything anymore."

"Good morning, Pasadena," he said, a pale imitation of his usual cheer, "how was your beauty sleep?"

The words felt like cotton in his mouth.

He didn't ask for callers - no techs meant nobody to screen the callers, so it would've been a lost cause anyways. It was still depressing to look at the empty tech room and watch the phones flash, ringing into the void. He had the ridiculous thought that he should keep watching, regardless, because what if Pidge called in? What if Kitty did? Surely he'd know that it was them, even without sound, without anything but the telegraphed trill of an impersonal ringtone.

The studio felt deathly still, now. Pidge was still nowhere to be seen, and the other people in the building had been leaving - he tried not to think evacuating - one by one all morning until it was just him. He hadn't even seen Iverson all day, and this was probably the only day of his life that he'd feel happy catching a glimpse of the old grump. But no one was there, so Lance stayed huddled in the recording studio, talking about nothing at all, because he didn't know if Hunk would be able to find him otherwise, and he really, really didn't want to be alone.

Halfway past nine, Hunk finally showed up with their sleeping bags and bottles of water and a generous snack stash, and Lance could have cried, he was so glad to see him.

"Where's Pidge?" they both asked, at the same time. Then they looked at each other, and looked at Pidge's empty chair, and Hunk made this...noise of distress. "Okay. Okay. I think Pidge can take care of himself. So let's take care of ourselves, first."

After he was properly fed and watered and hugged within an inch of his life, Lance started taking callers.

Pidge wasn't one of them. Neither was Kitty.

He tried his best not to think about that.

The smoke alarm went off at 4 am and woke them up. Hunk couldn't find a way to shut it off completely, but he did manage to dismantle the one in the recording studio, and they were both tired enough to go back to sleep in spite of the distant ringing. By the time they woke up again, it was all quiet. The street outside didn't look any different from yesterday, which was comforting because it meant nothing big happened and not-so-comforting because no one had come to clean up the 7-11 and the glimmer of glass on the ground was like something out of a horror movie. 

"Okay," Hunk said after they ate a dry breakfast of granola bars, "Let's regroup."

"Hunk, buddy," Lance said, wincing, "two people does not a group make."

Hunk ignored him. "A, things are kinda going crazy out there."

"Yep." Lance resisted the urge to put his hand on his forehead. No facial cleansing routine meant he had to be extra careful -

"B, Pidge is missing."

"Yep." Lance put his hand on his forehead.

"C, Your radio boyfriend is also missing."

"Why is that C? That should be, like, X or something." He paused. Then, frantically, he added, "Also he's not my boyfriend, what the hell Hunk - "

"D," Hunk continued serenely, "I'm pretty sure Pidge knows him. Like, actually knows him."

Lance shut his mouth and stared.

Hunk huffed a bit. "C'mon, man. You said it yourself, Kitty Rose just can't be his real name. But he hasn't corrected you either, right?"

"No," he said slowly.

"Well," Hunk shrugged. "Pidge is the one who screened him. And, um, while we're at it?"

Lance made a go-on gesture.

"It seems way too coincidental that Pidge - like pigeon - and Kitty are both animal names, right?"

Lance stared at him. "Oh my god. Why did I not see that before??"

Hunk, ever humble, shrugged. "So it just makes sense that they actually know each other - but also, um. I tried to find Kitty Rose in the logs, and there's nothing. No phone numbers, no call records, just...nothing."

"Pidge?"

"Pidge. Probably." Hunk scratched his nose.

Lance nearly screeched. "Pidgeeeee. Whyyyyy."

"Don't worry, don't worry!" Hunk grinned at him, and held up a fifth finger. "E, I bet they're still listening to you."

[alo-piss-trancy]

Are there any sdr2 characters that you don’t like or just aren’t very interested in?

BIG SPOILER WARNING FOR SDR2 BELOW! DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE GAME!

It's actually neat getting this question because I can see where some characters I used to dislike/find annoying in the beginning have worked their way up. For example, I initially despised Te/ruTeru, but after his backstory reveal I ended up feeling some sympathy for him and realized despite some traits, he wasn't entirely a bad guy (and I'm assuming his social link will endear him to me a little once I get around to it in island mode).

In fact, I can only really think of two I actively dislike/hate now: Nag/ito and Hiy/oko.

Real quick: Obviously these are all solely my opinions! I have no problem with my followers viewing characters differently, so even if you're the biggest fan of these chars I hope y'all know you're always welcome on my blog! 💛 Feel free to ramble in my inbox about them or chatter about omo, I genuinely enjoy discussing things or seeing different hcs even if I don't share them and I love seeing people be passionate about whatever makes them happy! Heck, sometimes fan ideas even end up changing my mind or at least make fun aus!

Now back to the question:

Hiy/oko's behavior in many instances was just appalling, and the way she cared about Mah/iru, while sad/sweet, still couldn't make up for all of her other bullshit. I can't stand little snots and I don't like 'loli' characters, so she's basically a 2-for-1 special on tropes I find irritating. Also high pitched voices are grating on my ears. After finishing the game I still stand by my original sentiment: Good Riddance Bitch. She will not be missed. As a note, I haven't done her FTEs yet so maybe it'll change, but I think it's pretty unlikely.

Na/gito is just. Idk where to start with him tbh. He definitely serves his role in the plot well, has great interactions with the rest of the cast, and really made me feel like I was struggling and he was so smugly one step ahead. I appreciate him as part of the story and it wouldn't be the same without him (Some of the memes about him are also really funny lmao). That being said, as far as his character and my personal tastes go, I fucking hate him lmao. Not 'villain I love to hate'. I just can't stand him and am lowkey annoyed at how popular/'woobified' he is in some parts of the fandom. My feelings on him are pretty similar to Ak/echi from p/5, except at least Ake/chi was understandable, whereas every time Nag/ito goes on a long spiel I'm just braindead and confused lmao. That or annoyed because he repeats himself like 30 times. I really thought doing his FTE's would endear him to me a little but it actually just made me dislike him more. He's just... he goes 120% ALL THE TIME and he's all over the place, it was overwhelming and gave me whiplash. Also while I do feel bad for him and the clear issues he had, the CONSTANT 'I'm worthless trash please kill me haha I don't deserve your kindness' talk really got on my nerves. Maybe it wouldn't have bothered me so much if I played the game back in the year it came out? But in this day and age all it reminded me of was certain 'Crabs in a Bucket' people I've known or witnessed who formed their entire identity around self-hatred and desperately tried to drag others down with them. (Note: I'm not talking about the general struggles with depression, etc. here. But I don't want to go into a lecture on exactly what I mean so I'll just leave it at that.) Nag/ito's not entirely the same thing and I get that, but it just rubbed me the wrong way because of that association.

Overall I just find him obnoxious and tend to avoid stuff that focuses on him. I might try writing a short omo thing about him being tied up because, like, how could I not? But besides that don't expect much from me. All of that said, I don't mind other people talking about him and y'all are free to send me asks with your own opinions or hcs, I might give my own occasionally. And I do like seeing art sometimes.

Also though, I ship him hard with Ju/nko (and in a poly with her and Mik/an). I'm also interested in him x Chi/aki since they're yin/yang parallels and have some similarities in design and the art of them together is neat. Not sure how much I ship them as far as actual canon or writing goes, but aesthetically it's pretty neat.

I think it's also worth mentioning that Ka/zuichi So/da toes a real weird line for me. Not in the sense that I actually hate him (his design is neat and he can be likeable at times), but that I hate what the game did with him. Which was not doing ANYTHING with him. His character had a lot of potential to be interesting, but they never let him break past the two running gags: Being confused about EVERYTHING, and obsessing over So/nia (to the point about making multiple sex jokes/getting flustered over her during the middle of the most serious trial in the game (Na/gito's death), which makes no sense even for him and completely ruined the mood). Every other survivor had important spotlight moments in the plot, developed their character as they went, and formed meaningful relationships with at least one other character to drive them forwards/give them angst. Kaz/uichi had none of that and I can't think of a single instance where he ACTUALLY had bearing on the plot, positively or negatively. He's basically the Fortune Teller Guy of this game: completely useless and ignored unless he needs to question something for exposition or drag the protag somewhere, scraping by only because he isn't hated or liked enough by anyone to get murdered and is too scared to kill. He didn't survive because he was genuinely fighting/had the ability to, but because everyone just forgot about him and left him alone.

A lot of his issues could have been fixed by just having a point in the game where he learns to treat So/nia as a person instead of being so obnoxious about following her around (he dislikes Ter/uTeru but then pretty much is just as annoying, only difference is he's a little less immoral and more just unable to take hints). Haj/ime even pointed this out in the last chapter with his thoughts of 'Dude just take a hint already'. If the game put them on more equal footing and he like, actually got to know her, it would've been way easier to believe he was fighting FOR So/nia in the same way all the others were fighting for someone they loved, and he might have actually done more throughout the game. He might have had some actual development and maturity, but instead he's pretty much the exact same person he was at the start of the game (I don't remember them even really touching on how he felt about the final chapter's Big Reveal). Because his obsession and cluelessness was one of his defining traits, they never let him do anything besides that. I spent most of the game convinced he was going to get a case in a trial or big moment eventually since they kept giving him so much screentime and let him make it so far, but there was just nothing. He's just a giant mass of wasted potential and for that reason I struggle to enjoy him without getting irritated.

Quick note to clarify: I'm not hating on him because of the ship with So/nia or because he 'gets in the way' of Gun/dham. I honestly don't mind that, the problem is just the lack of development I mentioned above. I could def enjoy the ship or a love triangle if they gave him smth. (And I realize part of that was the point, that G/undham 'gets the girl' bc he actually respected and talked to her, but still. The chapters after that point would have been the perfect time to let So/da have some viewpoint shifts and make efforts to change but they didn't).

Actually tbh even if they wanted to keep his obsession, I would've been fine with that, IF they had given him some other plot/character besides that. Like if he had some important tasks to do and was pretty good at them, but they also turned it into a flaw where he would prioritize helping/following her sometimes over what he was supposed to do and caused problems as a result, that could have been interesting. Creating tension within the surviving group or having her get mad at him over it, just SOMETHING.

[kryptonianbcrn]

SYNOPSIS: Mike ( @ofdaxam ) leaves Haven in a last ditch effort to find medication for an ailing Kara. During his search he runs into a young woman at an abandoned hospital --- Brianna Fraser ( @laidirnighean ). After a short run in with clickers, it’s divulged that the young woman is a doctor and Mike pleads with her to return to Haven and attend to Kara. Brianna agrees and after Kara is treated Mike offers a permanent home for Brianna in Haven.

MIKE MATTHEWS.

He’s staring at his fingers soaked in red blood. His own blood. He almost want to laugh out of pure hysteria. A million thoughts fighting for the forefront of his mind, yet he can’t seem to grasp a single one. It’s a big hospital filled with infected and every single shelf has been ransacked. Except the one lab that had three clickers inside and it was locked from the inside out. He’d punched his way through a window and that’s as far as he’d been able to go through. Mike and Kara had gone through so much — this really couldn’t be it, could it? It was one of his many negative thoughts. Because how much worse could this get? She’s gotten impaled, shot at, she’s been kidnapped and a single scrape would be her demise? And his if he doesn’t save her. “Please open,” He whispers under his breath, his forehead pressed against the cold metal frame. He was tired. Lost two of his men already, sent the rest back to Haven. He kicks the door again, a moment of weakness and frustration. He wants to scream. God be damned, he’s not gonna go without a fight. He pulls his gun out, the nuzzle peeking through the hole he’d managed to punch through and he shoots. Round after round till he’s out of ammo and only one clicker left. “Great idea, Matthews.” He quips sarcastically as he tosses his gun in frustration, “Now how the fuck are you getting in?”

BRIANNA FRASER.

her bag was getting heavy now, the supplies she’d gathered weighing down upon her back. but she needs them, for every town she crosses, for every ill person she comes across, brianna needs them. pulling her gun out from her holster, she settles into the idea of leaving now. finding a place to stay for the night and furthering on her journey to finding roger. that was the plan, medical supplies and all- but shots fire and her attention is shifted to their location. ricocheting around the building like a pierced stone. she pauses, breath catching in her throat at the sound of movement in her direction before she’s running in its direction, eager to find the owner and desperate for zero casualties. its only upon her arrival does she see him, a man outside one of the doors, firing shots and killing the infected that linger inside. leaving one left standing. gun flies to the side in his frustration and her brow quips. within moments, she’s stepping forward, gun angled at the machine that lights its lock and fires. she’s ransacked enough to know now how to get into unauthorized areas. “hold up,” the redhead whispers, pushing it forward and firing to more bullets into their enemies skull, “it’s always two to the card reader,” she nods, placing the gun back into its holster. briefly, she lingers before spotting the blood on his hands, panic sweeping her. “are you hurt?” bree begins, “.....bitten?”

MIKE MATTHEWS.

He’s broken out of his reverie, nearly knocking into the wall in his desperate frenzy to get into the lab. His eyes widen at the sight; a red head, small, young and alone? Mike is confused, shifting back. The last clicker’s dead and she seems to want to help him more than harm him and he’s almost relieved. His breath catches his throat at the prospect of her knowing how to get inside, but he wonders? Would she also need the penicillin he so desperately sought after? He looks to his hand, it was bleeding but it was okay. He’d known better than to shove his fist through a window. “My hand’s beyond repair, but no I’m not infected.” He chuckles, closing his fist, eyes flickering back to the, now, empty lab. “I’m trying to… get penicillin. This is the only place I haven’t checked.” He straights his back, following her direction until the door opens. “Are you by yourself?” He’s almost nervous to know that a young, seemingly good human being is roaming around such dangerous territories. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm his mind. It was strange to meet someone and not have them attack at first sight. He often had to remind himself that not all humans were lost.

BRIANNA FRASER.

her eyes are still focused on his hand now, bag being slung over her shoulder and bandages being pulled out in an instant. “maybe not that kind of infection,” she begins, unwrapping the cloth with her hand and shrugging a shoulder, “but with the amounts of bacteria in the hospital alone, you may just get another kind.” brow raises then as a small smirk settles across her lips and she’s looking back in her bag again, pulling rubbing oil from it and then proceeding to drench the material. wasn’t the most ideal way to heal him up, if anything, he needed stitches, but they would have to make do. “you won’t find any in here,” she chats, still busying herself. “more so the instruments -but i have some, you can take it.” she pauses then, tearing the bandages before halting. his question causes her to give pause before she remembers, beyond his injuries, she does not know this man. and so she stands back a little, hands lowering to her side and twitching next to the gun that rested on her hip, “im alone,” she nods, focusing on him, “but don’t think that leaves me at a disadvantage.”

MIKE MATTHEWS.

He’s suddenly worried about this chatty, but seemingly harmless person. He had questions? Like why are you alone? Why help him? A man that probably to others would seem rather suspicious. He notices it then, how off his question would’ve seemed to anyone alone. “Sorry, I don’t mean to scare you.” He flashes her a sheepish simper, straightening his back, “My wife, she’s got an infection and our town nurse said she needed antibiotics. We ran out months ago.” She had bandages, if hadn’t known better he would’ve pegged her as some sort of paramedic or doctor. Maybe she was. He couldn’t be sure. “Are you — are you a doctor?” His eyes flicker to the bandages and back up to the auburn haired woman, gulping at the thought that he might’ve spooked her to the point he looked like someone who wasn’t trustworthy. “I’m unarmed. That was my last round of bullets.” He nodded towards his discarded firearm as he wipes the blood from his hand against his flannel. He’s too tired at this point. “I really need your help. If you can help. I don’t know how else to help and I can’t lose her. I’ll pay you with anything. We have a lot of resources; food, water and empty houses. Anything.”

BRIANNA FRASER.

she’s very still for a moment, fingers still lingering close to her gun. she’d met a few people along the way, who sought to hurt both infected and uninfected alike, she didn’t need another off chance right here. that trepidation doesn’t last long though, not at the mention of his partner and her illness. because she can see it, the look in his eyes that practically pleads with her to believe him. and she does, without hesitation. this life was difficult enough without having the fragility of common illnesses be in the way. “i know, i barely look old enough to have graduated college, but yes. im a doctor,” she nods to him, face settling into comfort as she steps closer to him, “one that can tell you right now that wiping your hand on your shirt was a dumb idea, and one that doesn’t need payments to check on your wife.” she’s slow in her inflection then, no amount of money would be worth a life. in this situation or another. that’s what her mother had always taught her. with ease, she lifts his hand then, regardless of the necessity of permission. she presumed he’d rather keep it than lose it later down the line. “this is going to sting,” brianna whispers, wrapping the damp cloth around his wounds before tying it neatly upon his knuckles, “ill grab some needles,” she nods, “some disinfectant. and then we can go?” pulling back, she moves to the cabinets, taking whatever she can and packing it into her bag, “what’s your name?”

MIKE MATTHEWS.

He’s taken by surprise as she grabs his hand and tends to it. By the mild sting he could presume it was alcohol soaking the cloth, cleaning his wound as she wraps it tight enough to stop the bleeding. He lets her, because; yes, wiping his hand on his dirty shirt was a stupid idea. Most ideas he’s had today had been anything, but brilliant. In his defense, he hadn’t slept in days and had barely been able to find his way around the dilapidated building. He doesn’t even flinch. Not because it doesn’t hurt, but because his hand was mostly numb after they’d near shattered the whole thing in the early stages of the breakout. “Thank you,” He utters, picking his discarded gun and tossing it into his backpack, "Our place is not too far from here." He keeps an eye out, watching her back as she picks up more supplies. “My name’s Mike,” He replies, leaning his weight against the doorframe after strapping his bag to his back and crossing his arms over his chest. “What’s your name?” Darkness was beginning to push in all around, the whispers of the wind making his hairs stand on the back of his neck. He hated traveling at night with an unreliable flashlight as his guide for his footsteps.

BRIANNA FRASER.

finishing her packing, brianna lofted the bag back onto her shoulders before strapping it across her chest and pulling her gun back from her holster. he was unarmed, she remembered, so one of them had to keep it out. “brianna,” she nods in his direction, “nice to meet you mike.” and it was. it’d been a while since she’d really seen another living soul. two weeks maybe now, she noted. having used her days for multiple supply runs and gathering of medicinal products for when she was finally ready to move on. leaving the fireflies, it left with her with nothing. it was all she could do but get ammo, and weapons and kit herself out. but standing here and talking with a living breathing person? it almost caused her to cry in relief. following behind him, she’s quiet, focusing on the sounds around them and the potential for any danger that could come their way. her own mind lingers with thoughts and feelings, on his “place” in particular. a hand lifts to scratch her cheek as they press on, tongue wetting now dried lips. “is it just you?” she questions, anxiety pressing into her lungs, “just you and your wife, i mean. at the place we’re going? or are there others?”  roger lingered in her mind briefly, hope that maybe he knew this mike playing on her mind. maybe he was alive, and well and safe. “i don’t mean to pry, i just haven’t seen people in a couple weeks.”

MIKE MATTHEWS.

He’s careful, keeping his two ears for out of the norm noises that aren’t Brianna’s voice, the wind or their footsteps. It was a trick Kara had taught him, his own footing was a little rougher and heavier — he never did manage to learn how to walk more quietly, but he was quiet enough. He didn’t mind talking, in fact, it made the unsettling sight of withered building and overgrown vegetation a little bit easy to endure. “No, it’s not just me.” He turns his head, squinting as he urges his eyes to adjust to the darkening skies. Hoping they would make it into Haven before the complete black out. “There’s a whole community, actually,” he quips proudly, a little smile stretching across his features as he thinks of his friends and everything they’ve managed to build from the ground up. “Men, women, children. Whole families, really. All hard working and willing to get their hands dirty to make things work. Kara — she, uh, keeps things running. People love her.” He turns slightly, shoots her a sympathetic smile and nods, “You’re not prying. I don’t blame you for asking. I would be asking questions, too.” She reminded him a bit of himself and Kara, willing to help but also cautious. “Why are you running off by yourself? I mean, I don’t mean to pry either, but there’s strength in numbers. At least, that’s how Kara and I have managed to survive — As you can see,” He lifts his hand playfully, “I would’ve probably been dead by now if it weren’t for her. She's usually the one to make the smart decisions."

BRIANNA FRASER.

hope bubbles in the pit of her stomach at his admission, hope that she knew was premature in its arrival, but was there all the same. a community of people. that was more promising than anything, she knew. a group of people, that could only mean that someone could know something.  “ive always been kind of a loner,” she nods, not going into massive amounts of detail. her past was complicated, this “apocalypse” aside, her life had always been complicated. “i keep moving, because im trying to find someone.. his name is roger. wakefield. roger wakefield,” smile crosses her features at his name, she hadn’t spoken it in so long, shed almost forgotten what it sounded like. “he isn’t- at your camp is he?” brow raises and head cocks, eyes stay focused on the back of mikes head. a dangerous thing it is, to hope. she only had to think of her mother to know that, but brianna can’t exactly help it. “what’s wrong with her?” she piques, interest flowing her now to try and think of the best possible way to cure whatever it was ailing her, “can you describe her symptoms?”

MIKE MATTHEWS.

He's seen that look before. He's worn it himself. That hopeful glint in the eyes. The same tone of voice -- when Kara had been kidnapped. "Roger," He frowns, shaking his head apologetically, "It doesn't sound familiar, I'm sorry." He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck as his eyes drift back to the horizon. "I don't really know everyone's names at Haven, so I don't want to say no. I'm not very good keeping up with that sort of thing. We could ask around Haven to see if anyone knows anything, but I haven't heard of a Roger Wakefield." He answers truthfully, "It's most been a high fever, a lot of pain in her body and nausea. She can barely stay awake anymore." She's dying. If they don't do anything soon, she would. He knew as much. "Our town nurse says it's some kind of infection because her immune system wasn't the best at the time she got the cut."  Minutes drag on to the point they feel like hours, but there it was. Haven. He smiles in relief at the sight of their small gated community, "There it is." He nods towards their guards, he waves his flashlight to signal their arrival.

BRIANNA FRASER.

brianna nods at his response to her question, the hope fizzling as quickly as it had come. it was a stretch, to think that he’d have traveled this far south, she knew, but it had been worth the ask. not that she was hoping out for mikes reassurance of not knowing everyone by name. if he was anything to go on, he and his wife, kara, they seemed to be the ones in charge. knowing roger like she did, it was doubtful he wouldn’t at least try and get to know them better. pulling on her backpack, she nods until he explains karas illness, waves of nausea running through her. it was something, she knew, that had it been treated quicker, would have only last a day, maybe two. but by the sounds of it, this woman was fighting a losing battle. she picks up pace then, following him into his haven and towards where they stayed. pulling her bag off of her shoulder, she follows him into the room where kara lay before she settles on the edge of the bed. a hand rests against the woman’s sweaty forehead before she gives pause, intrigue washing over her, “kara danvers,” she whispers, mind buzzing at the thought of alex danvers, “you’re alive...” a small smile pulls at her features then before she’s rummaging through her bag, “kara danvers,” she repeats, briefly looking at mike before pulling needles and penicillin from her bag, “i met her sister alex, a while back, she didn’t know if she had survived. but-“ she presses the liquid into the needle, tying fabric around karas arm and finding the right location to inject, “i can’t believe you’re alive.” she proceeds to work on her then before finally pulling everything away and moving again to pull out more cloth and dampening it, wiping the sweat from karas face before leaving the coolness of it across her forehead to try and fight against the temperature. she removed another and followed with pressing them across her shoulders, “you’re going to be alright,” she nodded, hopeful. “need to cool you down so your body can start to fight...”

KARA DANVERS.

it's impossibly hot but, then again, there hasn't been a moment recently where kara has known anything else. voices come and go with fading consciousness. a few short broken words here, a wet tongue against her burning cheek there but it's all she can filter through the haze clouding her mind. kara aches. the type of thundering pain that sets into your bones, weighs down your muscles until nothing seems to work and everything is this heavy, heavy, heavy thing. the cold cloth pressed to her forehead has been changed more than three times and there's been a bottle lip pressed to her lips more than once. with the growing inferno comes something else entirely --- the opening of a door, the low snarl of an animal. sam. and her mind knows that, knows it enough to let out a small "shhhh." a low whine accompanies the soothing hiss but even that little moment of clarity drains her. and then --- everything happens at once. someone is above her, a young woman she doesn't know even through the lethargy of her mind. the others words, though, spark a small flutter of adrenaline. "alex," her throat is rough, name grating against the back of her throat. heavy lidded blue eyes shift to the newcomer, searching with all her might for answers. but kara doesn't recognize her, and the new information flits away as quickly as it had come. there's a tightness around her bicep, a small pressure that pricks at the crook of her arm. kara's gaze shifts past the others shoulders, landing on mike and it's like a damn has broken. the blonde flashes a weak smile, sighing as she relaxes back into the bed. "it's hot," she manages to whisper, eyes suddenly clenched shut.

MIKE MATTHEWS.

They’re moving quickly. He’s a little nervous as Brianna is the one that seems to urge them to pick up their pace when he was already in a hurry. It makes him fear for Kara even more, dread sitting heavy in the pit of his stomach. He dodges a few people, throws a few hellos here and there and a few “I’ll talk to you soon.” They barge into their home, then their bedroom where they find Kara. The stench of sweat and illness nearly knocking him to his knees. She looked absolutely ill. It was heartbreaking. He couldn’t bare the thought of Kara suffering. He stands aside, lets Brianna work. Chewing on his cheek, arms crossed over his chest. Brianna is talking again, mentions of Alex Danvers making his stomach flutter. His eyes flicker form the back of Brianna’s head to Kara whose blue eyes are glassy and red. He reaches her bed, kneeling at her side and placing a small kiss to her cheek. He shoots an apologetic glance at Susan, it’d taken him too long. “You don’t know how happy we are that you’re back.” She sounds relieved. Paula, too, her smile is tight and her gaze tired. He looks back to Brianna, “where is Alex?” He questions, eyes squinting into inquisitive slits. “Is she safe?” He has so many questions, though his main focus would always be Kara. “How long? Till she gets better, I mean.” He doesn’t know what to do. Seeing Kara ill mostly threw him into a fit of panic and clouded thinking.

BRIANNA FRASER.

“i know,” brianna nods to kara who writhes beneath her, annoyance filtering her tummy for a long moment at the idea that were was simply a damp cloth to suffice for the heat that scorched through her. she tears more material and dampens it before putting it on her wrists. fastest way to try and cool her down, one of the most effective ways at that. she follows by pouring some water into her hand and running it through the blondes hair, letting the coolness saturate her scalp. this, alongside the antibiotics, it would help, speed up the process and beat this infection. “she’s safe,” she nods with a smile, “doctoring a camp that i stayed in a few months back, but then again she doing different runs to help different people. but she’s okay, i promise,” she nods to mike then, lips pulling into a tightened smile as she continues to keep reapplying the cooled materials to kara’s head, shoulders and wrists. “with the antibiotics and the cooling methods? she should start to perk up in a few hours. definitely needs a few days bed rest, but by then id suggest she be out of this room and in another. one that’s more aired out,” she nods before placing her hand upon the cloth of kara’s forehead, “but she’ll make it. just needed the right medicine.”

KARA DANVERS.

kara almost misses it. the soothing creep of something far colder than fire seeping its way through her body. it starts at the crook of her elbow and spreads outwards, ice in her veins. then, more still. her forehead. wrists. through her hair. a blanket of cold, cool, comfort washes over her. there's the faint hint of a smile at the corners of her lips as she sinks back into the bed with a relief filled sigh. "thank you," she murmurs, blue eyes blinking open to the woman. "thank you." she doesn't know what else to say. what else to do. for a moment she wonders if she's died because this --- she's dreamed of this moment for days now. the fire erased with a calming coolness. the touches are far more manifested than her fever induced mind can muster, though, and the soft press of lips to her forehead bring her some form of awareness. this is real. this is happening. her hand searches across the bed for mike, seeking anything that will prove him concrete. sam lets out another low whine, paula excuses herself to get more cold water and susan observes, shifting into an almost seemingly content and procedural silence.

MIKE MATTHEWS.

“I’ll have to go find her.” He makes a mental note of it and shelves away for later. He wanted to bring Alex back for Kara, but his selfish need to see her better overpowered any other. His grand her hand with his good one, pressing swift kisses to her knuckles. She feels warm to the touch. All to be expected due to her fever. “I’m here, darling.” He hushes her, pressing her hand against his cheek. He couldn’t possibly tear his eyes away now, but he does to direct his next words to Brianna. He was thankful, but the lump in his windpipe made it so difficult to say much. “You really don’t know how thankful we are.” He sighs in relief, wanting nothing more than for Kara to regain some colour and talk. God, how he misses her voice. “I know you said no thanks are needed, but we do have room for you. There’s vacant houses with electricity and running water. There’s plenty of food.” He looks back to Kara, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips, “I’m sure Kara would want to properly introduce herself.”

BRIANNA FRASER.

she smiles at them, how careful he is with her, how soft she is with him. its nothing short of the usual sensations she feels when helping others. the smile she garners though, it soon fades and she’s left thinking about roger again. brianna misses him. more than she would ever care to admit out loud. eyes fall to kara’s hand as it presses into mikes cheek. she licks her lips then, focusing on the syringe in her hand and giving them the privacy she feels like they need. “if it’s all right with you,” the redhead nods, “id like to at least stay until kara gets better. just in case anything happens, im not saying it will, but id rather be safe.” she nods then before gathering her things and putting them into her bag, “but i appreciate the offer, thank you.”

MIKE MATTHEWS.

“You’re welcome to stay as long as you need.” He offers a smile, his good hand reaching out to card through Kara’s  hair. Being around his wife made him feel instantly better. “Our doors are always open for you.” He looks back to Paula who nodded her approval, quirking a smile of her own in the doctor’s direction. “We can give you a tour around Haven when the sun rises. I know Paula is dying to show around the little  medbay she’s managed to put together.” He rests Kara’s hand back and rises to his feet, he hesitates bringing up the man she’s searching for. He didn’t want to give any false hope in a world so full of grief. So he makes a mental note to ask around his towns people if they know of a Roger Wakefield tomorrow. “I hope you don’t mind giving me the coordinates of Alex Danvers’ camp. I would really like to bring her home to Kara.”

KARA DANVERS.

with the small amount of clarity she's managed to regain, kara focuses. eyes shift around the room with far more concentration than she's had in the past week, passing between people. the girl that's treated her is far younger than she'd originally registered and couldn't be any older than mid-twenties, housing the composure and intellect of someone far older. mike's there beside her, face heavy with concern and exhaustion but his touch, like so many times, is soft and comforting against her own. with what little strength she can muster, kara brushes her fingertips against his cheek, flashing a small warming smile. it's so good to see you she wants to say but the words catch, tongue heavy and brain still this side of lethargic. until alex's name is dropped. mike is no longer beside her and that alone has drawn her attention, but when the name of her sister filters through her ears kara cannot help but blink. "alex?" she questions, hand shifting to try and handle the weight of her body as she attempts to push herself up. it's a weak and pathetic attempt, exhaustion sapping any straight she's managed to find within the past few moments. "she's -- alive?"

BRIANNA FRASER.

"i'd like that," brianna nods, smile garnered in mike's direction and then geared towards paula. it suddenly dawns on the redhead then that she's in a room full of strangers, new to this small family and seemingly interrupting their dynamic. accidentally of course, but still, the discomfort of being the "new girl" starts to settle into her stomach and she's left to look at her hands awkwardly, "of course, yes, anything." and with that, she turns her attentions to the apparatus in her hands and busies herself with putting it away and back into her bag. kara letting her fingers touch mike's face softly once more feels like an intrusion, and she's ready to leave. that is until kara speaks and is trying to pull her body up. "hey," brianna starts, small smile filtering through cheeks but voice serious, "you don't want to be getting ill again, and dizziness is sure to follow in the moments that pass between your head and not touching that pillow." gently, she places hands on the woman's shoulders before fixing the cloth upon her head. "she's alive, very alive. helping whoever she can. she mentored me for a while-" had been like an older sister, actually, "she talked about you. a lot. so can i say, it's an honour?"

KARA DANVERS.

there're a million things she wants to do, ideas and thoughts and plans swirling around in her head now that she's actually clear enough to properly think. it feels like she hasn't been able to do it in days, mind weighed heavily under a constant fog. but now everything comes crashing down at once. and at the mere mention of dizziness, it hits her full and hard in the face. kara gets a few inches off the bed before lethargy seeps into her arms and the hands placed gently on her shoulder feel like boulders. "dizziness?" she manages to get out, swallowing thickly and lying back down. "m'totally... there's no dizziness." a halfhearted laugh puffs from between her lips and she grins, half assed and weak but it's --- something. something that isn't whimpers and panting. a long sigh escapes her next, eyes fluttering closed at the new information. "i..." she trails off, licks her lips and shakes her head. "i'm so glad she's okay." there's a hint of tears in her words but kara clears her throat and opens her eyes. "i think the... the honour is all mine. you're the one who saved my life." a pause, "i don't even know your name."

MIKE MATTHEWS.

Logically he knows Brianna is a doctor, she seems to be a good one too, he knows that if she says Kara will be alright then it means she’ll be alright. On the other hand, his more paranoid side wants to beg her to heal her as if with the wave of a wand she could magically make her all better. Then Kara is rising to a sit up position and Brianna is gently pushing her back down — of course his wife would be eager to find Alex. He almost wanted to run out of haven and go get her himself right now but if Paula’s threatening glance said something it was that he better not dare leave town for at least a month. Or until Kara’s made full recovery. So he stays put. Admitting defeat before he has a chance to argue. It dawned on him this whole time he didn’t even introduce the woman who’d just saved his wife’s life. “I’m sorry I’m so rude,” He sighs, rubbing his neck shyly, “Susan, Kara, that’s Brianna.” He clears his throat and shoots a small smile in Brianna’s direction, “We ran into each other back at the hospital. I was wondering who ransacked the building and well,” he gestures in her direction and chuckles, “Pretty good shot, too.” A weight was lifted off his shoulders, hearing Kara talk  and move and regain some colour it brought him some peace. “Brianna, as you already know that’s my wife; Kara and that’s Paula. Susan is our towns nurse.”

BRIANNA FRASER.

“nice to meet you all,” the redhead nods, gesturing a smile to each new face, who now had respective names. the awkwardness that had settled across her body seemed to melt slightly at the easiness of now being able to say she knew them. with that, she rubbed her hands on her khakis before gaze shifted over to mike. “i think i ought to maybe get to sleep,” she nodded, thinking now that she was finished that the couple definitely needed a little alone time and not some strange girl who evidently talked too much but said so little. the line of her lips pull a little before she rests a hand upon karas, “just take it easy though, yeah? just because you start to feel better doesn’t mean your body actually is better.” the redhead stands then, reaching for her rucksack and slinging it over one shoulder, “I can sleep wherever. till morning at least.”

KARA DANVERS.

she can feel her concentration slipping from her with each passing moment. now that the fire has been subdued kara feels as if she can sleep. peacefully so. even though a small part of her fears closing her eyes. this could all be a dream. a hallucination. fate pulling her into a deep unconsciousness that she will not return from. "i'll try to take it easy," she replies, flashing a weak smile with half lidded eyes. "no promises, though."her hand grips tighter around mike's searching for that solid anchor of realism as she feels weary sleep claw at her. "get her a... nice bed. some food. clean... clean water." the words spill from her lips as her eyes blink shut, slowly fading into slurred speech as unconsciousness takes her.