#(i feel like i am poking a bear with this but also i get zero interaction on any posts ever so i think i'm safe lol)

[girlscience]

having to put up with mcshepp shippers just to get a crumb of good sga content 😭

[bottledkriegmen]

ZERO DAY HEADCANONS!! >O<

xoxo @calcyum helped me write some of these go look at his art its so yummy!! literally the loml MWAH

☆ Cal tells white little harmless lies like, all the time. He doesn't mean to, it just happens

⋆ Example, he says he doesn't like ice cream but he can and will absolutely destroy an entire tub of chocolate icecream in a heartbeat

☆ Andre burned the shirt he got called a faggot in the bonfire before Zero Day.

☆ Cal's half Russian, his bio dad lives in the European half of Russia.

☆ They both call Mel, "Mel Bell" or "Melanie Bellanie"

☆ Andre played softball when he was little.

⋆ He quit because he got hit really hard in the head by a bat.

☆ Cal's a total metalhead. He has a ton of diff band tee's, but he's never gone to a concert.

☆ Andre has especially sharp canines!! (Feeding into Dogdre propaganda/j)

☆ Cal is a chronic doodler. If he and Andre are sitting next to eachother and Cal has a pen or sharpie in his grasp, Andres getting a whole SLEEVE of silly little doodles all over his arm.

⋆ he's also a stick n poke master, he's got little tatoos littering his ankles.

☆ Andre is a left handed shooter, right handed writer..... Cal is the opposite.

☆ Andre is a polyglot!! He forgets words in English and has to try to convey what he's trying to say to Cal in literally any other language he can think of. (Never works.)

⋆ This makes him so unbelievably mad.

☆ Cal watched Duckman growing up.

⋆ He introduced it to his siblings and they used to all watch it together!! TRUST!!

☆ Andre watched M*A*S*H growing up...

☆ Cal knows how to play a few diff instruments, other than a guitar and sitar.

⋆ Violin, piano, trumpet, all that good stuff.

☆ There's definitely a few holes in the basement walls of Andre’s house. He'll swear it wasn't him. (It was.)

☆ Cal is very awkward with love in general. He'd be an... okay boyfriend, but he would NOT pay enough attention to his partner because he'd be too busy hanging out with Andre.

☆ Andre 100% grew up on older fashioned values with new fashioned eyes iykwim. He'd treat his partner with the utmost respect, but he'd also have the same problem as Cal. He wouldn't pay much attention to them.

☆ (A personal fave) Cal and Andre have matching dog tags!

⋆ Before their final scene in Zero Day, Cal and Andre decided to switch dog tags with eachother. (fags..)

☆ Andre got a little teddy bear as a birthday present when he was itty bitty, and kept it. He's wayy to embarrassed to show anybody.

⋆ Cal found it one day and Andre nearly lost his shit.

☆ Cal often meows or hums in response when talking to Rachel or Andre when he doesn't feel like actually speaking.

☆ Stealing this from another post (I can't find creds rn i am SO sorry), Cal's siblings absolutely love Andre. He's like their other older brother.

⋆ Andre loves them just the same, he's such a good big brother. :(

☆ Cal's sister paints both Cal's and Andre’s nails, and makes them attend her tea parties with her stuffed animals.

☆ Mel follows Andre around the house wherever he goes. There's literally not a second when she's not behind him.

⋆ She gets jealous of Cal whenever he's too close to Andre.

☆ Andre and Cal share a bed everytime they spend the night with eachother.

⋆ They totally spoon but like hell they'd ever admit that.

these were so fun to write guys ty again ml MWAUGHH

[glassautomaton]

Hi there Glass! Me again, yes, the pest in your askbox..

Today, I come bearing questions (and concepts) about this specific line in your sandbox!

I am very interested in the Thorn and was wondering if you could explain how your Thorn works? That and how it would effect Iris?

Also!

I've been thinking about this for some days now, and yesterday I mocked up some Thorn infected Iris drawings for fun! You were the one who gave me the idea, so I'll share the drawings with you! :]

Small explanation for these: I'm just going to explain how everything works in my design. Feel free to add on or critique me or whatever you wish.

In the early stages of Iris being assimilated with the Thorn, her veins start running black, it's not super obvious at first, it just gathers around scars, and her hands, but it isn't a lot.

As time goes on, it grows, veins become darker, then some discoloration on her scars as they begin to rapidly change to black as well.

Then, the thorns push up from her skin. They accumulate with stress, but there are specific ones that can't just be picked out of her skin. (Like the ones lining her spine, the ones on her shoulders, the ones slowly coming out of her forehead, and I am guessing there is maybe a center one, the specific piece of the thorn that assimulated with Iris in the first place, but I don't think that would push up from her skin for atleast a while.)

(Also, yes, I know horns are a little out there, but one, it's fun. Two, I think it ties in nicely with all the religious imagery that seems to follow Iris as a character. Three, it looks badass.)

Anyway! Yeah, feel free to spill your thoughts on that, as for how all of this is happening? I'm not very good with anomalous biology, so I'm not sure I have a specific explanation. Feel free to add on to the design or try and make an anomalous system for it. At the end of the day, this is for fun!

Thanks for reading one of my various rambles! Enjoy the rest of your day, my friend! :]

I’ll start off with saying that while, as I’ve said, I don’t really have an issue with anyone poking around my sandbox, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. The outline you’re taking that from was made mostly to help me get my thoughts in order, and I don’t update it with everything I consider changing. A lot of what’s on there is just stuff I’ll possibly include or things I’ve thought about but not decided on. All of which is to say everything there is subject to change and I wouldn’t take it as the end-all-be-all Devil’s Advocate Bible. If you want to snoop around to take a look at the brainstorming process or cut content (Voices Carry was originally going to be very different and probably much worse), then go ahead.

As for your actual questions, I’ll put them under a cut because they’re spoilers and also possibly subject to change as I said above.

Now, for the Bloom, I’m afraid this answer might disappoint, but I don’t want to say anything definitive in my series. Some of the remaining authors for Resurrection are still planning on bringing the mainline canon back, and I don’t want to step on their toes when it comes to what seems like the main mystery of the series.

I can tell you how I was thinking of making it function in broad strokes, though. It’s basically a conflux like we see in Voices Carry with perfect efficiency, and processes reality through itself, making sure anything it processes is close enough to how it should be that reality itself doesn’t collapse in on itself. Like a very coarse brush moving through the threads of reality, it makes sure they’re at least somewhat straight. Not perfectly, it doesn’t have to and that would be much more difficult, but good enough to where it doesn’t knot up and become a horrific mess.

It got corrupted in Incident Zero, like a compute you don’t shut off for too long. Too many small things adding up until a straw breaks the camel’s back, and the comb itself becomes knotted up, except the comb was also inextricably linked to the hair as well. After it was destroyed, its splinters retained its capability but lacked and force or programming telling them what to do, leaving them mostly inert.

I know this might stray from other stuff with the Bloom, but as I said, I might tweak this in the future as I brainstorm. I also didn’t touch on who/what created it and how, as I don’t want to tread on any toes.

As for the second half of your ask, this is probably where the “I only wrote this for myself and maybe people I would be able to immediately clear things up to” comes in, as the term “assimilation” isn’t really clear at all. I’ll say that I do like the design though, always a fan of that type of gradual corruption. However, when it comes to Iris, my thinking is that if she comes off as scary it should be for what she does rather than how she looks.

So, as for what assimilation actually means I’m this context, I was planning on having an example of that earlier on in the storyline, very shortly after Lily is introduced. Infovores process, assimilate, and spit out all kinds of information, and this extends to more than just memories of images. I was going to have Iris and Lily kill something called a Hymn Weaver, which is a follower of something close to a god who uses song and dance, or at least things that look and sound similar to it, to maintain reality from the spaces in between universes. The need arms to do this, and lots of them, so they sort of graft various arms onto themselves, but the arms aren’t physical. They Weavers assimilate the information that makes them up, like a psychic footprint, and call them up when they need to. So, assimilation is more along the lines of an Inforvore processing all the information that makes something up and being able to use it in other ways. Lily’s extremely proficient at information processing and assimilation, but can’t actually force changes on reality like Iris can.

Fun fact, the Hymn Weavers’ god, the High Weaver, is a mass of so many limbs from all manner of things that whatever it used to be beneath all of them has been long forgotten. It’s part of the “Triumvirate” mentioned in 6907. I actually have a lot more lore of what was mentioned in there, but a) that’s not the point of this ask, though I’d be more than happy to talk about it and b) I don’t think my SCPs have nearly as much of a following as my tales.

Hopefully that gets everything. And this is all sort of a peek pegging the curtain here, and things aren’t final or explained as well as they would be otherwise in an actual article. If you’ve got any questions, as always, let me know.

[ophelius-is-tired]

Also since I'm already pissed off and venting

Seriously being a trans guy is great sometimes but urgh I also sometimes want to bash my head into the nearest brick wall until I'm literally dragged away from it (my fiance would probably be the one dragging me which is part of why I don't play matchmaker with my skull and bricks) but urgh! Shit is so fucking annoying. My fucking family doctor intentionally prolonged, dodged and avoided getting me a GD diagnosis for almost my entire teenage years, even though I begged with him to put me on testosterone or at least hormone blockers - and now that I'm an adult the dude is retiring leaving me with some random ass doctor he trained who may very well put me through the same run around bullshit his ass did. Everybody insists on calling you your legal name so you get to either suck it up and try your best to bear it when it comes to dysphoria or get zero medical treatment until your name is changed, and even then they may insist on using feminine nicknames or some shit! Going about self referral where I live - which is the only option for most people because doctor's literally do not fucking care or simply lack time or knowledge or both - is hell, the waitlist is huge because there's only one goddamn clinic and yet queerphobes are still whining when guess what? Nobody is transitioning and if they are their lives are still hell! - So what more could the fucking phobes really want at this goddamn point? Our hearts and souls on their dinner platter? Like ffs.

Oh and don't get me started on after you transition legally. If you don't change your healthcard to the sex or gender you're working on transitioning to even if your name is changed they'll still call you by the wrong pronouns! How do I know? They do it to my fiance all the bloody time! Everytime I see or hear it I feel like I'm going to explode. And most people would say I'm overreacting but if somebody is coming in for a testosterone shot each week with their name legally changed with a very clear request on his patient profile to call him by "he" and asks you to call him a "he" it shouldn't be that fucking hard to at least muster a goddamn they instead of slapping she on him because you don't agree with or dislike the fact that he's a disabled gay unemployed transman. The amount of prying into stranger's business completely unrelated to the medical services that doctors provide just because they're older than and want to make comments about other people is insane. Like please kindly consider doing your job and leaving us alone you do not need to know if my fiance is still in college and why he's transitioning and what he does in his free time so you can tell him what he should be doing with his education and with his employment status and shit! He can pay his goddarn bills and if he fucking can't I fucking can, poke him with a needle and let us be on our merry fucking way, goodbye, adios, au revoir, genuinely I'm done with the fucking around - its getting really fucking hard to walk in there with a fake fucking smile and a thank you after they're done their stupid interrogations. He comes in every week, this is not small talk, it is very clearly you wanting to know details you don't need to fucking know because he has a cane, he's transgender and he comes in for testosterone. Fucking nosy around somebody else's business for an hour we have lives to live.

Back to my old family doctor because I am still fuming about that guy - he was great /s

Bro really was like I know you're super depressed, you got PTSD, you've got a really unhealthy anxiety disorder just playing parasite in your brain - sucking the energy outta you, really bad Gender Dysphoria that I refuse to diagnose, possibly misdiagnosed BPD, probably some good ol' ADHD and OCD and more than likely a good couple layers of Bipolar or some other disorder - you wanna know what I'm gonna do kiddo? Throw you on drugs, up them super fast and then have appointments with you where essentially your mom and I talk about you like you're too young to speak for yourself - you are 17 but who fucking cares, am I right? And I'm gonna try to bribe you that if you take these drugs that cause you panic attacks, bad paranoia and may have thrown you off a cliff towards literal fucking psychotic symptoms - you might be allowed to take testosterone or hormone blockers ^-^

But only if your current mental illnesses go away - completely and only if that happens will I maybe possibly if I'm in a good mood consider considering allowing you to transition.... maybe! It just depends on how I'm feeling in a year... or two years! Or maybe never! Who knows! Now go take this huge dose of meds that I'm upping like once a week even though you're reacting really shit to it but you're "behaving" better for your mom and having less episodes (aka reacting less to her intentionally triggering your anxiety and PTSD because you're too fucking delusional to function) ^-^

Love being a dude with fucking abnormal ass periods/s

Like the fucking thing will be gone for the entire summer and then I'll have plans around my birthday in early October and it'll be like yeah... yeah about that.. guess what bitch? I'm staying for the foreseeable future. Look, see? I already packed my suitcase and I'm moving back the fuck in.

[thatdisasterauthor]

WHO WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT THE DUMB THING THAT HAPPENED TO ME A FEW WEEKS AGO?

All of you, probably. Because you thrive on my chaos life.

So here we go.

Couple weeks ago I was feeling rather burnt out. Just hitting a wall with everything one day. So I thought, hey, I’m just gonna step back and go watch a movie/nap on the couch for a bit so my brain with chill out. Nice little bit of self care. Some good old me time.

I pull up some Netflix, get all cozy on the couch under several blankets because I can’t afford an actual weighted one, and start dozing. All is well and cozy for about, eh, five minutes. Then my nose starts to run. Deeply annoyed at having to leave my nest, I extract myself and retrieve some tissues. Nose blown, I re-enter the nest. And my nose starts to run again.

Okay, screw this. This couch has two reclining seats. I’ll use those instead of fully laying down so my head will be better elevated but still comfy, and hopefully my nose will stop running. I rearrange, still determined to take my nap and chill out.

Then I start to cough.

Fuck.

Do I have the...thing? How could I have the thing? I haven’t been around people in two weeks. Also, I was fine fifteen minutes ago, so what the fuck? But what else could it be?  Regular cold, maybe? But, again, I was fine fifteen minutes ago.

Ugh. Whatever. I just want to nap. Maybe I AM coming down with something and that’s why I was burning out so hard today.

Wait. Why are my coughs...spicy? Oh, yeah, I ate some spicy Doritos earlier. They probably just aren’t interacting well with the cough. Annoying, but nothing I can do about it now.

This continues for about another, eh, fifteen minutes, the runny nose and cough getting progressively worse and spicier. It was then that I just so happened to hear this WEIRD little whining noise coming from somewhere.

This whine is very quiet. But very annoying. I must find it and kill it. So I start poking around, trying to zero in on what it is. And. Well. I found it. A can of bear spray my father had given me at some point, sitting seemingly harmlessly on my camping gear shelf.

I stare at it for a minute, trying to figure out how exactly this little can is screaming.Then I see it. A tiny puddle of red near the nozzle. The can is leaking, and the leak is what’s screaming.

Wait.

WAIT.

OH.

FUCK.

That’s right, y’all. This little can of industrial strength pepper spray was in the process of slowly gassing my apartment. THAT’S why my nose was running. THAT’S why my coughs were spicy.

I grabbed a trashbag and wrapped the can up and got it out of the apartment, then spent the next couple hours airing everything out and scrubbing up the (thankfully tiny) spill, very glad I had my respirator from work so I could do it without continuing to get gassed. Took a couple hours, but all was well eventually. 

I learned several things from this experience. 1: Just because the can of bear spray is not past its expiration date does not mean it won’t suddenly become very unhappy and try to kill you. 2: If I ever have to actually use bear spray, I’m probably going to be just as fucked as the bear if the effects of even this tiny bit of exposure are anything to go by. 3: Bear spray tastes enough like Flamin’ Hot Limon Dorritos that I could not tell the difference for over half-an-hour.

[morgana-ren]

Morgana, my dark queen, how would our Shiggy feel about a bratty s/o? Like during phone sex he’s be jerking it and breathlessly asking you who’s your master and your respond with “All Might” and immediately hang up

I feel as if it's only fair to preface this with a warning: I am the brattiest brat to ever live. If I'm not challenging your authority and making you manhandle me into doing whatever it is you've asked, we're clearly not fucking. Therefore, when presented with an opportunity to turn him into the world's most effective (and heavy handed) brat tamer, I will. That's the exact type of shit I be pulling, and to be frank with you, he would not take it lying down.

If you're going to act like a little bitch, he's going to treat you like one. You can taunt him all you'd like. He counts each instance as a check he fully intends on cashing.

Your catchphrase of 'Why don't you make me?' is a full on challenge to him.

He is absolutely not above being rough with you to get what he wants. If he tells you he wants you to suck him off and you try that shit, he has exactly zero problem yanking you forward by whatever collar he's making you wear and force feeding his cock down your throat. Since you decided to be a little brat about it, he's not relenting until you're a sniveling, sobbing mess with tears streaking down your face with swollen, puffy lips, and then he'll cum in your mouth and refuse to let you swallow until you show him what a good girl you can be for him by garbling an apology and begging his forgiveness.

It doesn't last long, of course, but that's the game, isn't it?

Next time he can have your legs hiked around his waist, hands tied to his bedframe fucking you so hard you swear you can feel the bedframe- and your pelvis- breaking in half but of course you feel the need to egg him on. 

“Is that really the worst you can do?”

Is this really wise? Knowing his inhuman strength and temper? No. Are you going to do it anyway? Yes. 

‘You’d better fucking pray you never see my worst, you stupid little slut.’

Have fun walking with a limp for the next week, because he’s going to make fun of your bow-legged gait and your blackened bruises every time he sees you. 

Keep in mind, this man doesn’t back down from a challenge. If you issue one, you’d better be prepared to get your ass beat- literally. 

Sass him? He’ll drag you to his room by your hair and force you to count out the welts on your ass. Sass him in front of his colleagues? He’s got no shame. He’ll force you to your knees in front of everyone and pucker your jaw open and spit between your teeth to assert dominance over you and everyone else in the vicinity. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll swallow and ask for more. 

If you get a little cocky during sex, he’ll pull the belt out. Around your neck it goes, and then he’ll happily fuck you from behind in whatever hole he sees fit as he chokes you with it. Don’t forget who your master is. 

If he asks for lewd pictures or wants phone sex when he’s away on a mission, you can always feel free to refuse. Tell him you don’t feel like it, or to use his imagination. If you’re feeling especially bold, send a pic of you flipping him the bird. Of course you have that option.

But he also has the option of punishing you for it. 

Don’t forget, this man has a warp gate and a tracker on your phone. It doesn’t matter where you are. If you don’t want to help him jerk himself off, you can always do it for him! And you will. 

He’ll pop up at your work or school or just at home and make you jerk him onto your cute little face as a lesson in obedience. 

‘You bring this on yourself, you know. You little brat. I need to teach you a lesson.’

Of course there’s the times when he’s not bothering you, which is arguably worse. Instead, feel free to bother him! 

When he’s trying to work, or when he’s on the phone, or even when he’s just trying to relax and play video games and he’s not looking to taste your cunt right now. Go ahead! Piss him off! Poke the bear, so to speak. 

Watch what happens.

Keep nagging at him. Annoying him. Purposefully irritating him because his attention isn’t on you or you’re bored or even just because you’re a little chaos goddess and you feel like invoking his wrath. 

‘You want my attention so badly? Take it. Take all of it. But don’t fucking whine to me that I’m being too rough or too mean. You asked for this, you dumb little whore.’

Sure, Tomura loves destroying things, but he likes destroying you most of all. Seeing you fucked out and bruised and begging him for mercy, which you will only get when you know your place, and probably not even then. Hand on your neck, only allowed to breathe because he allows it, sinking deep into your abused little cunt to mold your silky velvet walls in his shape because that’s where he belongs; In turn, it’s where you belong. 

[sebastianshaw]

*  knowing  your  partner  well  can  potentially  make  writing  a  lot  easier,  repost,  do  not  reblog.

name : RF, Ratmun, RodentFanatic, Ratty, Ms.Rat, Shawmun, 90s, 90smun

pronouns : she / her

preference  of  communication :  IM or asks :3

name  of  muse(s) : Sebastian Hiram Shaw

experience / how  long  ( months / years ? ) : I started RPing online on forums/boards in 2005, came to Tumblr in 2015

best  experience : I’ve had a really nice time on this blog!

rp  pet  peeves / deal  breakers :  The “absolutely will not follow/interact” dealbreakers are whitewashing (yes, even if canon did it; looking at you, MCU Maximoffs), and characters who are pedophiles, Nazis, or rapists. I’m willing to make exceptions in cases where the trait in questioned was confined to one issue/run/writer/etc or it’s something that was added to the character long after their creation and the mun is NOT portraying that version, since I know it’s comics and shit like that happens (ex: what Morrison did to Talia Al-Ghul) and I’d be a huge hypocrite not to understand that considering all my hangups and hate around post-2008 Shaw. But if it’s something that is a huge part of the character like Killgrave, it’s just a HARD NOPE for me.  My pet peeves are MANY and would make me sound really judgey if I went on about all of them tbh, but one thing I see a lot in the superhero/villain fandom is characters not taking EXTREMELY powerful and dangerous beings seriously. Everyone wants to be that really special sassy person who just mouths off to the Biggest Big Bad with zero consequences and I find that really annoying. And as someone who has been on the end of it a few times, I definitely try not to do it to others. Shaw does canonically have a tendency to poke the bear or play with fire in canon due to his own arrogance, but I always have a clear understanding with the other mun that I understand he is opening himself to mega consequences and I welcome said consequences because I do genuinely love it when he gets what’s coming to him. But I also don’t like it when I feel he’s being used as a punching bag either by muses who realistically should not dare try this shit, let alone get away with it. I’m fine with it from some people for comedic purposes, and I am ALL for Shaw getting fucking roasted by the people who CAN get away with it, I really enjoy that, just there’s once in awhile someone who really takes shit way too far and it’s like. . .I don’t wanna be the asshole who has my character crush yours but what else am I supposed to do there? I also really hate when people try to force their own interpretation on my muse. 

plots or memes : I super duper love memes the most because they’re so good for quick fun interactions with low commitment, but I’m definitely open to plots that can carry a proper thread too

preferences  fluff,  angst,  or  smut : I’m not into any of these so much as Shaw just being comedically horrific to everyone on my dash. Like I just want everyone’s eyes to fill with regret because they looked at any response I wrote. 

best  time  to  write : 10 AM -12 PM EST during weekdays is when I get a lot of thread replies done, evenings EST is more just for memes. I’m asleep all morning during the weekend tho XD​

TAGGING: anybody! I ganked it from @divminded

[buckstaposition]

I cling to your lips like gloss (4)

a Javier Peña x OFC story

also on AO3

tags&warnings: spoilers for S3 eps1+2 mainly, some for later episodes also; mention of drug use; brief description of a panic attack; sleazy David Rodríguez is sleazy; somewhat liberal use of the f-word and also other swearing; reference to past canon character deaths; this blog is CIA station chief Bill Stechner-phobic to the max; most non-graphic, vaguest possible reference to sex (to when Javi goes home with that lady in episode 1); oblivious mutual pining; idiots with zero emotional self-awareness; domesticity

word count: 15.435 (I’m sorry, here are some snacks 🍌🥨🧁🥤)

summary: Diana goes into the lions’ den. Javier is not having a good time. No one gets enough sleep.

tag list & author’s notes have been moved to the bottom. let me just say sorry this took me so long and I hope you’re all well and healthy and happy holidays and may the new year be better for all of us 

Masterlist

Prologue • Chapter 1 - The Informant • Chapter 2 - A Wedding and Four Funerals  • Chapter 3 -  Swallow Pride and Anger

Chapter 4 - Prime Numbers

Franklin Jurado, Diana thinks, is a bit of an ass. It's not even that he happily, willingly, goes around laundering narcos' blood money, or that he gets rich off that himself. In this moment, it's mostly the way he dismissively rolls his eyes and can barely keep the contempt out of his voice when arguing with her about Maltese vs Caymanian tax loopholes. Like she's an idiot for actually reading the laws, spotty as they are. 

On top of everything, it's keeping her in her office well past the time she was meaning to start getting changed and dolled up for the grand party that night, and she feels a pressure headache of annoyance building behind her temples to boot. 

She's this close to bludgeoning the man with her stapler when an insistent knock sounds at the door, followed by a blonde head poking in. The blonde lady starts speaking in rapid English, too abrupt for Diana's brain to keep up with what is being said, but she instinctively recognized the tone of a husband being reamed out with righteous indignation and if nothing else, it gives her a certain kind of vindication. 

"Hi, I'm Christina Jurado. Just Christina is fine. Pleasure to meet you!" The other woman now stepped fully into her office, holding out her hand and smiling just a tad too brightly. 

"Diana...Galindo." Why she'd chosen to be known here under her married name is anyone's guess. Perhaps it was mostly a matter of having grown used to it. Perhaps it allowed her to pretend that this wasn't quite her, just an act to be put on for a greater purpose. That helping drug cartel bosses hide their blood money from the tax man and signing off on their henchmen's paychecks was something that Diana Teresa Artemisia Rivas Rincón would not be caught dead doing, no matter the circumstances. "Pleased to meet you." 

"Franklin, we'll be late!" the other woman throws over her shoulder. Rather pointedly, too. 

"We're not done discussing-" 

"I don't care, Franklin!" There's a moment of very animated eye contact, the kind of wordless back-and-forth that she'd dreamt of developing with Juan Mateo but that they never quite managed. Just another little detail that ultimately spelled the end of their marriage. "Actually, why don't your ride with us?" 

"I, um-" Diana instinctively reached to adjust the wire she'd been wearing for most of the day (to get used to the feeling and not inadvertently betray herself later), only catching herself in the last moment and fidgeting with the collar on her blouse instead. "I- Felipe was supposed to drive me. I need to get ready still, too." 

"Eh, he can tag along. What are you wearing? Do you have your dress here?" She did. There was no arguing with Christina, but no malice in her overbearing imperiousness either. Nonetheless, Diana tried to argue, if only for politeness' sake. How she wouldn't want to impose. That it wasn't a problem, since Miguel Rodríguez had very kindly arranged for her transportation in the form of the afore-mentioned Felipe. Mrs Jurado waved it all off. And perhaps the obvious annoyance in Franklin Jurado's eyes gave her a little push. Say what one might about the Rodríguez brothers, but at least neither of them had ever questioned her professional expertise. 

Before she knows what hit her, the three of them are sailing out of the building and towards the cars parked out front. Well, Christina is sailing, while Franklin and Diana are trotting along behind her and shooting each other sour looks. It's the kind of wrathful indignation that she hadn't felt since second grade, when Bruno Moreno had pulled her pigtails and stolen her pencil. Christina seemed unperturbed, ordering the drivers around in her accented but surprisingly decent Spanish. Felipe caught Diana's eye, wringing his hands and questions in his eye. 

"It seems I will be riding with Mr and Mrs Jurado. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to follow us to their hotel and then take my work clothes back to the office after I've changed? I'd hate to have to lug around my stuff or leave it lying around somewhere. You'd be a great help this way, and as far as I'm concerned, you can go straight home after that." 

"Of course, ma'am." He nodded, seeming relieved by the clear instructions. Diana smiled and handed off her garment bag to the Jurados' driver. 

The drive itself could have been more awkward, what with being caged in the back of this limousine with two strangers, one of whom all but openly despised her and spent his time pouting after his wife had told him in no uncertain terms that if a single word of work talk left his lips she'd shove him out the door and into oncoming traffic. Luckily she also had made it her personal mission to pack half an evening's worth of small talk into the barely twenty-minute-ride. 

The Jurados' suite was grand, the lounge alone bigger than the house Diana had grown up in. She was still trying not to show how out of place she felt among all the marble and gilded edges when Christina steered her towards the back, still prattling on in a way that the DEA would have a lot of fun picking through when they got the recording from her wire. 

"Ugh, this place is so... Sorry, we wanted the president's suite, but one of the North Valley people snatched it up. Their... Who is he, Franklin? That unpleasant little man - is he the leader of the pack? With the young woman we saw when we checked in. Was that his wife?" 

"Salazar." Franklin muttered, his face curdling into a deeper frown. At least Diana wasn't at the top of his most hated list, apparently. "Yeah, I think so honey." 

"She looked awfully young." 

"I'm sure we'll meet them all at the party." 

"Something to look forward to." Christina grimaced and pulled Diana into the spacious bathroom, settling her down in front of a gigantic vanity mirror. 

"Alright, what are we doing with you?" Diana looked at her own wide-eyed reflection staring back at her while Christina started pulling her hair free from the simple clip she'd used to hold it up. 

"I, uh-" Diana pushed her glasses back up her nose and frowned. "I have contact lenses." She gestured vaguely towards her reflection. She had also packed a small bag with the handful of make-up items she owned, but lack of practice didn't exactly serve to make her adept at using them. Christina grinned excitedly, her whitened teeth shining. "Well no, that won't do! Hang on." 

She sprung up and rushed towards the door, only stopping when she reached her husband who had lingered there, leaning against the frame.  

"Hey you." For a moment, they softened, stealing a small kiss amid halted momentum. Diana ached to witness it. "Hey yourself." 

"Go get changed." Christina smiled, kissing his cheek as she brushed past to dive into her suitcase. 

"You're telling me? Don't take too long, we're on a schedule here." The words were softened by his tender expression, and as she walked past on her way back he reeled her in for another, deeper kiss. Diana pretended to be very invested in not poking her eyeballs out. Well, half-pretended. Putting in contact lenses was another thing she wasn't exactly used to. When she'd finally managed to fumble the second lens onto her eyeball, Franklin had long left and closed the door. 

Without further ado, Christina set to work. Within moments, the marble counter was covered with various cosmetics and the other woman's eager hands set to work. Diana had no choice but to submit. Thankfully again, it was Christina who shouldered the bulk of the conversation. 

"So, I did notice you're not wearing a wedding band, Mrs Galindo." Diana's eyes were closed, as her eyeshadow was currently being blended, but she did stiffen and instinctively her other hand went to touch where her ring had been. "Oh damn, I hope that wasn't- He's not tragically deceased, is he?" 

"No, we're...separated. Divorcing. It's... it's dragging on, to be honest. I've learned more about Colombian marriage law in the past year than I ever wanted to know." She tried to diffuse with a joke, but it didn't quite land. 

"Sorry, you must think me so rude. We only just met and here I am acting like we're friends!" She bit out in a jarring departure from her hitherto genial tone. "Anyway, I admire you. That can't have been easy what with how...uh-"

"...Catholic this country is?" Diana supplied, clasping the other woman's hands in hers with a slight smile. Christina huffed in relief. "Yes, I suppose. It's just... it's so hard. Marriage I mean. Sometimes I don't even know how to bear it." Her gaze fell towards the bathroom door that Franklin had closed behind himself upon leaving. Her voice dropped to a whisper as she continued. "How did you even know you couldn't go on like this?" 

Diana gulped, hating what she was about to do. Resenting, for a moment, women like Gabriela who only had to sell a bit of their time and acess to their bodies to these people. She felt like she was selling away her soul every single day. 

"Mrs Jurado-"

"Christina. Please, you can call me Christina."

"Christina, let me be honest. I never truly loved my husband, and he didn't love me. We liked each other and it was convenient, and expected, to get married. And in the end that proved to not be enough. But from what little I have seen, that's not something you and your husband have to contend with. Even if things are hard, as long as there is love you can overcome them. You have to believe in that." 

Christina choked out a tearful little laugh, like in spite of herself. 

"Oh God, good thing I haven't put on mascara yet. You're making me all dewy-eyed." She chuckled, then threw her arms around Diana and gave her a tight squeeze. "Thank you. Really." 

"Of course," Diana awkwardly patted the other woman's back, thankful that she wasn't currently facing the mirror, "and I would be happy to become your friend." Whatever ice had remained between the two women was broken after that. Christina perked up and returned to chatting animatedly, finishing her make-up, doing up her hair in a very elegant twisted bun, and gushing over her dress.

"Do you have any jewelry to go with it?"

"Not really, no. I only ever wear this." Diana indicated the thin silver chain around her neck. Christina tutted. 

"Well, that just won't do. Wait, let me just-" An impatient knock at the door interrupted her. "Oh dear, looks like we're running late."

Diana saw a chance to get a moment alone and suggested they each get dressed quickly, and separately, lest they waste any more time and husbandly nerves with their chatter. 

"Okay, but holler if you need help with the zipper or anything." 

Diana had never squeezed into a garment faster, glad that she had chosen to put on the wire device that morning already. She tugged the actual wire tight around her body where it had loosened over the course of the day, then shimmied into the underdress she'd brought in the hopes that it would conceal any suspicious bumps or lines. She had almost wrestled the zipper into its final position when Christina knocked and entered, quickly getting the last inch or so with a comment of how husbands were useful for some things. 

"Anyway, I thought these would suit you." Christina presented an opened velvet case. Sitting inside it was a jewelry set, sapphires with diamonds set in gold. Real ones, judging by the Cartier labelling embossed into the velvet. A necklace, earrings, bracelet and ring, all fancier and more ostentacious than anything Diana had ever set eyes on. Immediately, her palms started sweating. 

"Oh, I couldn't possibly-" 

"Nonsense." Christina cut her off, placing the case down and snatching the bracelet and Diana's wrist. "You'll look so pretty and expensive. You can return them to me later, we'll be in town until Tuesday." Having clasped the bracelet around her wrist, she now moved on to the earrings. "Maybe we could get coffee on the weekend or something." 

"I'd like that." Diana lied. Christina smiled at her brightly. "Great! I just need to ...uh, freshen up a moment." Taking the hint, Diana gathered up her things and stepped outside, awkwardly holding her bag of of work clothes to give to Felipe down in the hotel lobby. Franklin was standing by a sideboard, boredly rifling through a magazine. 

"Mrs Galindo." He acknowledged. For a split second, he looked like he wanted to add something, but caught himself. Diana followed his gaze towards the closed bathroom door, behind which low noises of shuffling and splashing water could be heard. 

"How long have you two been married?" She had no idea how this information might help the investigation, but determined that wasn't for her to worry about. Franklin sighed, gaze still fixed on the door and absent. 

"Seven years now." He finally tore his eyes away from the door and let them flit over her briefly, catching on the borrowed jewels but electing not to comment on it. "They say the seventh year is the hardest, don't they?" 

"I wouldn't know. I never made it that far." Though if Juan Mateo didn't pull his head out of his ass soon she would spend the seventh year still technically married. The thought made her frown. 

Before either of them had to search for more overburdened smalltalk, the bathroom door blessedly clicked open and Christina emerged with a wide grin and a spring to her step, her eyes just a smidgeon glassy and too bright. Diana politely pretended not to see the remnants of fine white powder that Franklin surreptitiously wiped from her nose and upper lip. --- They arrived not exactly on time but not fashionably late either. There's a line of cars already plugging up the driveway to the sprawling estate, stringed lights illuminating against the darkening sky. They got out and sauntered towards the two-storey villa, the Jurados up front and Diana trailing behind like the kid that's finally allowed to come along to the fancy family outings. Her dress hadn't felt this tight in the store, or at any point afterwards, until just now. 

"Franklin! I'm so glad you're finally here! Mrs Jurado, it's a pleasure." Diana can only just contain the flinch at the sound of this voice, and before long Miguel Rodríguez turns to her with one of his bright, self-satisfied smiles. "Mrs Galindo, I'm so glad you could come. We need to introduce you to the rest of the guys! It's been too long!" 

He has his arm around her shoulders within the same breath, exuberant and steering her through the scattered throngs of people at a pace that doesn't even allow for snatching a champagne flute from one of the waiters floating around. She plastered on a fake demure smile. The 'invitation' hadn't exactly been a matter of mere suggestion. 

Miguel led them to a dainty pagoda that sat a comfortable distance from the pool and most of the din and chatter of the other guests, nestled between the luscious greenery of the large garden. Diana could hear the mumbled whispers of the Jurados behind her, Miguel's droning on of meaningless small talk that she barely paid attention to. She could see Gilberto's back, his stature dwarfed almost comically by that of a much larger and broader man sat to his side, with short silver hair that gleamed in the low light. 

"Gentlemen, I believe we are complete!" Miguel boomed, ushering her up the few steps and into the circle. 

"Mrs Galindo, what a pleasure!" Gilberto shot up and made a show of shaking her hand and pulling her close to present her to the rest of the ...associates. 

"Now I believe you've not yet met these fine gentlemen. Pacho Herrera, Diana Galindo." Pacho stood and took her hand gingerly, his face impassive and tone painstakingly polite and neutral. "My pleasure."

"Mr Herrera." Diana replied, heart thumping up into her throat. They'd not so much met as passed each other in front of offices or meeting rooms a handful of times, his tightly coiled, jaguar-like energy always seeming just a smidge out of place in those blandly corporate spaces. 

"And here's Chepe, came all the way down from New York especially!" The large man with the silver hair stood to his full impressive height, snatching her hand with a wolfish grin and dropping a just-too-moist kiss on the back of it with a wink. Diana did her utmost not to flinch. For just a moment, she regretted the moment she'd taken off her ring and put it in front of a shocked Juan Mateo on their kitchen table before leaving their shared apartment. It was moments like these that she missed the protection it had afforded her from some unwanted advances. 

Pallomari was last, balding and skittish, with huge owl-eye glasses not unlike the first pair she'd ever had. 

"Mrs Galindo, how interesting to finally put a face to the name." He greeted, sounding painfully rehearsed. Diana returned with some meaningless pleasantry, hyper-aware of the wiretap device against her skin. She wondered whether it even picked up anything apart from the thundering of her heart. 

"So, about your big announcement-" Miguel began once everyone was settled into a seat with a drink in hand. Gilberto cut him off almost immediately.

"Now, now brother, let's enjoy the party a bit beforehand." A look passed between them, a challenge issued and accepted, until Miguel turned his gaze away with a barely concealed snarl. Gilberto leaned back in his seat, glass raised with a smug and triumphant smirk. "Let's just say that I have made an important investment into our future. We will continue to thrive, but more importantly, we will be safe. Our families will be safe." 

With that cryptic remark, he threw back his drink, expression melting from jovial to grim. The ensuing silence made the hair on the back of Diana's neck stand up, a feat she wouldn't have thought possible with the amount of hairspray Christina had encased her head in. 

"He's dead, Pablo's dead." Miguel reached over where she was squished between the two men, squeezing his brother's arm in reassurance. "He's gone and we helped bring him down." 

"We did. This country should build us monuments, instead they issue arrest warrants!" Gilberto bit out, pouring himself another glass of whiskey. 

"To Pablo Escobar, may he forever rot in hell!" Chepe bellowed, glass raised high. They all joined in. Diana thought of her father. How he'd done her hair and walked her to school every morning and tucked her in with a new story every night when she was a girl. How, during her first year of university when she'd been so lonely and homesick she broke down crying, he'd taken precious time off work and taken a night bus to come visit her in Bogotá for a weekend. How her heart still split down the middle whenever she so much as thought of the crash that killed him. But the gentlemen didn't need to know that she despised them just as much as she did Escobar, not yet anyway. So, she raised her champagne alongside and joined her voice in the chorus of gleeful condemnation. - She'd just escaped Christina and the gaggle of wives for a moment, excusing herself to the restrooms. What the DEA might glean from their inane chatter, she couldn't possibly fathom. She was glad that she was free of them for a moment, and that disecting the recording wasn't her problem to deal with. On her way into the house, she must have passed by at least two dozen important and powerful people. There were a few handfuls of representatives, a number of mayors, at least two senators, an attorney general and an army general. No one she'd ever voted for, at least. And those were just the ones she'd managed to get Miguel to introduce to her, or her to them - either way, she'd made sure to repeat every name as clearly as possible for the recording. 

Rounding the last corner in from the veranda, she all but ran into Salcedo. 

"Mrs Galindo." His tone was clipped as ever. She wasn't sure whether he might be suspicious of her in particular, or whether it was a general thing and he was just like that. 

"Mr Salcedo." She nodded, tone painstakingly polite. He set her teeth on edge, always so stiff-backed with that serpent edge to him; in a ranking of people within the cartel who had this effect on her he would probably come in about third. She wondered what Javier- what Agent Peña would make of the man. "What brings you here, Mrs Galindo?" Or perhaps he just didn't like her for some reason. Which was very much a mutual sentiment. Not that she held particular sympathies for anyone here. 

"To the restroom?" *Take a wild guess, buddy*, she thought, one eyebrow arching with clear condescension. 

"To the...house." 

"The restroom." She resisted rolling her eyes. As much as she may personally dislike Miguel's chief of security, purposely antagonizing him was probably a bad idea. And yet, petty temptation beckoned in every nook and cranny. Like the sideboard they were currently standing in front of that displayed a solid bronze statue of a very rotund dancing couple. "To marvel at the Botero, naturally." 

Salcedo's eyes followed her nod towards the heavy bronze. "It's genuine, you know." He said it not in the tone of an art aficionado, but rather in the crudely suggestive one of a third-rate telenovela detective trying to be slick by not outright asking if she meant to steal it. 

"Of course, Mr Rodríguez wouldn't stand for anything less." The thing was half her size and probably twice as heavy, what was he thinking? Himself a master at subtle insinuation, probably. Or that being poor and growing up in the comunas naturally meant she had sticky fingers. Uptight, hoity-toity middle class prick. Like his employers weren't internationally wanted criminals of the highest degree. The audacity of it!  

His mouth was already halfway open to retort when his name being yelled from outside made both of them turn. David Rodríguez hung onto the veranda door, snapping at Salcedo that his father wanted him for something, and pronto. Diana could practically hear his teeth grind in irritation, but he schooled his face into a carefully blank facade before he gave David a nod. 

"Ma'am." Salcedo gave in and moved, squeezing by David. David purposefully did not budge, instead giving her a leery once-over before following after the other man. 

Diana fled into the bathroom down the hall in a manner she hoped looked urgent rather than as panicked as she felt inside. She held it together until the lock slid closed, and then she was crouched on the floor, curled up and heavy breathing into her hands. The small pressure point of the wire recorder thingy felt like a ton weight against her chest and her heart was beating so fast she could feel it everywhere. 

Hyperventilating. You're hyperventilating, her brain supplied unhelpfully, and she almost laughed at herself. She wished she wasn't here all on her own, wished she had at least one of those spy devices in her ear for some moral support, tried to recall the exact feeling of Agent Peña's hands on her shoulders, warm and grounding. One hand remained up, muffling the desperate breaths and whimpers from her mouth, while the other dropped, thumb dipping underneath the fabric at her chest to brush soothingly across her collarbone. It worked...to a degree. A very small degree. What she would give to at least have the deep, comforting rumble of his voice, or the way he'd held her close after the festival. Did he even know how calming his presence was? It always seemed to work on her, in wrath and anxiety both (something that Juan Mateo had never been able to affect unless it was to irritate her more). So much so that now even just focusing on it was enough to help her pull herself together. 

The guest restroom was bigger than her childhood room had been and, of course, looked more like it belonged in some fancy hotel. All warm-toned marble and matte gold appliances. The mirror was huge and its frame, naturally, also gold. What was it with rich people's obsession with gold? 

"Okay." Diana said to her reflection, then went to work freshening up. Carefully, she wiped away the smudged mascara under her eyes and reapplied her lipstick where it had come off on her drink earlier. She stuck her hands underneath her dress to check on the recording device, concerned that a wire had shaken loose or something, but the small rectangular container still sat right snug right against her sternum. She gave it an absent tap and adjusted the microphone bit so it sat just below the seam of her collar again. 

"I hope you'll get something worthwhile from this because I am never doing this again." A knock on the door nearly sent her into cardiac arrest. Diana swore under her breath, then called out that she'd only be a moment. 

"Sorry," an apologetic female voice came from the other side of the door, "You've been in there a while, is all. Are you alright? I have an aspirin in my purse if you need it." 

Diana stopped dabbing at her still damp eyes and tried to determine whether her near panic attack was the sole reason her vision was still a bit hazy. She could count the times she'd been out without her glasses on one hand. 

"Oh no it's just-," she crossed over and unlocked the door to find a young, very pretty and very concerned looking woman on the other side, "I just had some trouble with my contact lenses. They're awfully fiddly." She stepped back and opened the door wider. "All yours." 

"Oh I don't-" She looked down the hallway, further into the house, her eyes widening slightly when she caught sight of something or someone outside of Diana's field of vision. "Actually, I think I need to...uh, powder my nose or something." 

The door fell into its lock the same moment the younger woman had stepped into the room, not giving Diana a chance to leave. Not that she was over-eager to get back outside and mingle with the corrupt and criminal. That and the discomfort and anxiety hung around the other woman like a cloud. Diana made up her mind, sitting down on one of the plush benches in the room. 

"I'm not a big fan of parties either." She stated, voice careful and soft. The other woman stood, unsure and tugging at the short hem of her dress. 

"I wish they could just open the buffet already. My husband is three drinks in and he gets-" She trembled. No, shuddered. Diana patted the space beside her on the bench, a gentle invitation. 

"It's alright, we can stay here for a little bit. I'm Diana." 

"Maria." She stuck out her hand, which was also still trembling slightly. "Maria Salazar." --- By the time the two of them dared venture outside again, there was indeed, finally!, food to be had. Diana pulled Maria along to the relative safety of the gaggle of wives, busy amusing themselves while their husbands dealt with their important business matters. But then, the bandleader announced that the dancefloor was now officially open and started off with a spirited selection of the finest Colombian rhythms of the past twenty years. One by one the wives were collected to fill said dancefloor, leaving Diana sitting alone at the table with the sad remnants of various canapees and salads. Here was another occasion where she didn't miss Juan Mateo. Or his two left feet. Idly, she turned the near-empty cocktail glass between her fingers and wondered whether Javier danced, or could at least be persuaded to try. 

"You don't dance?" David appeared so suddenly that she almost spilled the last bit of her drink. She remembered his leering earlier, forced her face not to flinch until she had raised the glass and could hide her  expression of distaste behind a sip of the overly sweet and fruity cocktail. Hummed non-committally and hoping against hope that he'd grow bored and leave. Of course, she had no such luck. 

"Oh, whom with? Everyone's paired up already." Sip again. The glass had another three or four in it, if she stretched it smartly enough. "I'm afraid third-wheeling is the unenviable fate of divorcees." How old was this boy anyway? She must have ten years on him, at the very least. But apparently he'd got it into his head that he must prove to himself what a man he was, and how irresistible. At least he had the good sense not to try anything with the wives of any of the powerful men present. 

"Dance with me." David stated. Ah, bingo. He might have at least pretended to ask, she thought sourly. "I insist." 

Of course you do, you entitled brat. "It would be my pleasure." She lies, as most politeness is lies, here in these circles comprised of snakes. Fakes a smile the way she's been taught to by this world, so easy to act and conceal the disdain underneath. It doesn't falter even when his hand, clammy and slightly sweaty, settles way too low for comfort or propriety on her hip. She resolves to step on his feet - accidentally - at least twice. 

David Rodríguez was not what one would call a skilled dancer. At first, Diana had been thankful that the band wasn't playing any slow songs yet, but it had taken approximately half of 'Bamboleo' to dispel the hope that this would keep David's hands from wandering. Well, if she was stuck here she might as well try to get some intel out of him. 

...It takes about two and a half songs - the band now switching to their international collection - to determine that this route of inquiry is absolutely doomed and David completely useless. Doesn't know any business particulars, and doesn't care to. Too distracted with trying to put some moves on her, which she steadfastly ignores. Well, if details of her failed marriage and dragging divorce aren't enough to discourage him, she's got another one up her sleeve. Not to mention she's been curious ever since the gaggle of wives had made their introductions earlier. 

"You're not married." She leaves the 'yet' unsaid, hanging in the air between them as heavy insinuation. 

"If I were, would I be dancing with you?" A faithful husband, and in these circles at that? What a novel idea. Diana almost snorted out loud. Left it at a telling look that seemed to go over his head completely. Doesn't have the energy to dissect how a dance with a friend or acquaintance at a party isn't exactly on par with, say, the juridical definition of adultery. Which brings her mind back to the tedium of having to explain to various lawyers, notaries, judges that no, her husband wasn't a cheating pig who drank and beat her, and that there were a multitude of quieter reasons why marriages failed. 

"I have been wondering, though, where the third of the Mrs Rodríguezes belongs. Besides your mother and your aunt." She nodded over at the three women in question, one dancing with either Rodríguez brother, the third being currently twirled about by Chepe and looking a bit motion sick from it. 

"My mother is dead." Ah, shit. Diana faltered, and this time the graze of her heel on his shoe really was entirely accidental. Something in David's eyes shuttered and hardened, gaze for once lifting from her body and darkly fixing on his father. "They're all my uncle's wives." 

"Oh. Oh!" Diana's mouth falls open. Of all things she could have expected, this was certainly not one. "That's um... That sounds, uh..." Illegal, but then again, what did a bit of consensual polygamy matter in the grand scheme of things, she supposed. 

"You sound so scandalized. Didn't think he had it in him, didn't you?" David smirked, tightening his grip on her back again and leading her in a turn. 

"No, I'm just...wondering...about the, um...time management...aspect." In fairness, that was one of the things she did wonder about. David laughed, bringing her in closer. 

"Each gets two days per week and Sundays he has them come all together and sit there while he watches sports." 

How thrilling. "Whatever works for them, I suppose." 

Diana tried to subtly twist away again. She wasn't going to get anything else from this, what with David already being bored and growing increasingly impatient. And she didn't have an escape plan that didn't consist of ramming her heel into him somewhere until she struck bone. 

"Damn, can't they play something from this decade?" He whined as 'Money, money, money' faded into 'Knowing me, knowing you'. "All of this ancient stuff-" Sensing another chance to subtly nudge him away from his inexplicable sudden attraction, Diana jumped. "Oh I quite like it," she remarked lightly. Now go in for the kill "Reminds me of my youth." 

David harrumphed, then grunted as her heel dug into his toes again. "Oh dear, so sorry." Diana said breezily,  forcing his hand up from where it had been creeping towards her ass with a deft twirl. 

"It's fine." He gritted. "Did you want to-" 

"Allow me to cut in." Herrera stepped up, lightly shoving David aside to take his place. "I've not had the pleasure yet, Mrs Galindo." Diana forced a smile as his hand settled at her waist. Pro: at least this one wouldn't spend the whole time trying to feel her up. Con: not being thus distracted, he might notice...something. And become suspicious. If he wasn't already. Truth be told, Herrera scared her almost as much as Navegante did. Sometimes more so. 

"Right, well this is a very tight dress, so I can't do any adventurous moves." She warned, plastering an apologetic expression onto her face. Thankfully the band had changed to a faster track, though they kept with the international flair of the selection. Next up was some Brazil, if she wasn't mistaken. David stood between the twirling couples for a long moment, glaring but not daring to do or say anything that might affront his father's business partner. She shot him a fake apologetic smile, but suspected it was more the insistent raised eyebrow from Herrera that ultimately got him to scurry. 

Pacho Herrera could dance, that much was undeniable. Under different circumstances she might have even enjoyed this. He was also unnervingly quiet. If the purpose of this was to unsettle her, his tactic was very successful. At this rate, just keeping her feet under her proved to be challenge enough. One could think the band had launched into a Tarantella, given the speed they were going. Her head swam from the quick succession of turns and twirls, and when he dipped her upon the song's grand climax, her heart stopped for a variety of reasons. One of them being that she thought she felt some of her concealed wiring dislodge. 

"I think your dress is not too tight after all, Mrs Galindo." He pulled back up and righted her again, blessedly stilling a moment while the band segued into a mellower number. Diana gulped in a few deep, unladylike breaths. 

"No trust me, it is." She was still catching her breath; meanwhile he didn't even have a single hair out of place. Unfair. "So," Diana began her feeble attempt to bring the situation back under some semblance of control, "Are you interested in... tax exemptions?" Apparently humans could wheeze and cringe simultaneously. Very interesting. Herrera didn't answer immediately, just started leading her back into a mellow sway. 

"I think you're interested enough for all of us, Mrs Galindo. Miguel showed us the figures earlier. Very impressive. I see why DIAN recruited you right out of university." How he made what was ostensibly a compliment sound like a threat, Diana didn't know, just that it did nothing for her heart rate. 

"Thank you." He spun her out along with a flourish from the brass section, turning her already shaky voice into a squeak. She really hoped the recording had not picked that up. After the spin, his hand slid up over  her back, before settling back on her waist. To her horror, something in Pacho's expression twisted and he pulled her closer, hand splaying over her mid-back again. So much for avoiding being fondled for one dance. 

"What's this?" 

"Oh, I don't want to bore you with the details of women's undergarments. Suffice to say I'm wearing an insane amount of Spanx right now." 

There was a prolonged moment, during which Diana tried to keep her cool while deciding how much of a scene she was willing to cause should he not let it rest. Normally none at all, then again it was her life on the line. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Rodríguez requests you make your way to the equestrian ring for the big announcement." 

Never in her life had Diana welcomed an interruption like at this very moment. Herrera hesitated for a split second, expression still unreadable, before joining the throngs of people set in motion. He grasped her hand firmly, looping it through his elbow until it rested on his forearm, where he pinned it with his other hand. Just unconspicuous enough to look polite to any onlooker, just forceful enough that she knew she couldn't free herself without obvious struggle. 

"He could have done this up on the other stage." Miguel grumbled when they reached him, standing off the side to the stage that had been set up in the area. 

"You know how he is, Miguel. Always has to have his way." The two men exchanged a glance around her while more people filed past. 

"Mrs Galindo." 

Diana hummed in acknowledgement, returned the meaningless pleasantries. Yes of course she was enjoying herself. What a lovely party. The music? Exhilarating. The buffet? Exquisite. Her divorce? Ugh. She would really prefer not to think about that right now, thank you very much. 

"It's next Thursday, right? Your court appointment?" 

"Yes, thank you for letting me combine this with a work trip to Barranquilla. It's my personal business after all." 

"Of course, we want you at your best. Undistracted. Unburdened." Diana almost laughed, barely managed to suppress the snort and cover it with clearing her throat. 

"I thought that had all gone through ages ago." Herrera remarked lightly, grip finally easing up some from her wrist. Diana sighed. 

"I'm divorced, as far as I'm concerned. I moved out, signed my papers. I don't know what he thinks he's doing. I'm not going back to him. This obstinate little tantrum isn't helping his case anyway." Countless hours spent arguing with various legal professionals flashed before her eyes. "It's a very tedious process."

"It's a very catholic country." Pacho said, somewhere between wistful and embittered. She used his momentary distraction to pull her arm free. 

"That's true." 

Up on the stage, Gilberto was fiddling with a microphone and waiting for the last few stragglers to come and fill up the equestrian ring so he could begin. Again, the two men exhanged a telling glance around her. 

"You gonna go up there with him?" Pacho said lowly, hands now crossing behind his back. Miguel shook his head. 

"You go. I'll stay here. Better view." 

Diana stayed demonstratively rooted to the spot when Herrera started moving. He shot her a look, which she pretended not to notice in favor of striking up more mindless small talk with Miguel. Apparently Herrera decided that it wasn't worth making a big deal out of, choosing instead to let her be and weave through the audience until he reached the bottom of the stage, exchanging a greeting with Santacruz and glowering over the assembled crooks and accomplices. 

Gilberto's speech was... full of pathos and grandstanding, and too many high-minded terms for such a petty crook, she thought. When did the delusions or grandeur usually start appearing, she wondered. Was it with the first million? The first billion? But it's the core of the announcement that makes her gasp and sets the wheels in her mind into overdrive, the implications just mounting up. She spares a quick glance at Herrera at the foot of the stage, his face too demonstratively blank save for furrowed brows. Miguel beside her is more expressive, but quick to reign his face back in. Among the surprised gasps and whispers all around it tells her enough. Briefly, she thought of making a comment to Miguel, but his jaw is set so tight she can hear the grinding of teeth and she doesn't have anything productive or intelligent to say anyway, so she lets it be. Swallows the bile that rises up in her throat as Gilberto proclaims 'For our children! And for our children's children!', and tries not to roll her eyes. Or gouge his out, for the sheer gall of it. Because here she stands, approaching thirty-five and still deathly afraid to bring a baby into a world they have made so violent, so toxic, so dangerous. Meanwhile Salome is without her parents, both murdered by this unending war. Meanwhile a David Rodríguez flounces around as some sort of better henchman, he and his cousins all cushy and carefree thanks to daddy's blood money. It churns the stomach with rage. 

"Mrs Galindo! Just the woman I've been looking for!" 

The crowd parts for him, less so out of reverence and more because people are slowly drifting away, gossip already flying about, Diana is pleased to note. 

"Mr Rodríguez, what an...impactful speech." She said demurely, keeping all her sneering tucked safely away behind the mask of officiousness. 

"It's the coup of the century!" She catches Miguel's scoff just in the corner of her eye. "It also means transferring our assets into the...ah, ...legitimate sphere, if you will." He's got his arm around her shoulders again, leading her back towards the dancefloor, the buffet and tables, the house. By chance and his smaller stature, he's speaking almost directly into the shoulder with the hidden microphone attached, detailing all the financial acrobatics he wants her to perform to save all their assets from both law- and taxman. There she went again, trading complicity for access. --- Just over an hour on and the gender ratio has left Diana sitting squished between Herrera and the youngest of the Mrs Rodríguezes, but at least he seems to have taken his measure of her. And swallowed her undergarment excuse. Swallowed...undergarments. She snorted semi-loudly into the cocktail she'd been nursing this whole time, the ice in it all but dissolved. Dammit, here eyes were getting heavier by the minute and it wasn't even that late, barely midnight. Then again she had been up since five and alcohol, even though she hadn't had all that much, always made her sleepy. And the guests had started trickling away, leaving behind a scene of mild devastation. 

"I think Mrs Galindo needs to go home." It was Franklin Jurado speaking, Christina's head buffered on his shoulder as she slept. Diana had just enough self-control left to not tell him to fuck off. Or maybe she really is too tired to; doesn't even have it in her to get annoyed at Gilberto's patronizing tone as he agrees. 

"Yes, why don't you drive Mrs Galindo home?" 

She hums more in acknowledgement than agreement to Hererra's suggestion, tired eyes hazily following his line of sight to the man stepping forward from the shadows at being summoned. His gaudy shirt reminds her of one Juan Mateo had worn on their honeymoon and which she had hated half because it had been a gift from her horrible mother-in-law, and half because it was the most hideous thing she had ever seen. And then realization hits and her blood runs ice-cold and alertness slams back into her consciousness like a bullet. 

"Mr Velasquez." her voice is so weak and brittle, she thinks it must give her away if nothing else did so far. She took one last sip to wet her dry mouth, and because frankly she needs the alcohol now more than ever. The suggestion to call a taxi died on her lips as she realized that there was truly no way out of this. So, she steels herself and stands on sore feet, bidding the bosses of Calí and their dependents a good night. "I would be much obliged, Mr Velasquez." 

Navegante approximated a smile and stalked ahead. --- Well, there goes his progress. He'd been down to three smokes a day, four on a bad day, due in part to an iron adherence to some hard and fast self-imposed rules, such as no smoking in his office (or, in fact, no smoking inside the building at all). Tonight, however, is the night of the Calí godfathers' big announcement party, and Javier had not moved from his office for longer than a quick bathroom break or coffee run. He had also gone through half a pack of cigarettes in the last two hours, and his stomach was beginning to feel queasy the longer he spent glancing at the phone on the edge of his desk from the corner of his eye as he pretended to make his way through the mountain of paperwork that somehow never seemed to get any smaller. The fact that he'd woken that morning with the memory of Diana Turbay's lifeless body crumpled in that cupboard certainly hadn't helped. 

He last looked at a clock around half past nine, when a very insistent cleaning lady had shooed him out of his office and he'd spent around ten anxious minutes hovering by the door in case the phone rang. It hadn't, and now here he was, eyes burning and brain mushy with his heartbeat a steady pulsing behind his temples. And he wondered– 

Javier swiped up the phone before the first ring had even finished. "Miss Rivas!" 

"I'm fine." She didn't sound fine. She sounded on edge. Rattled. Like she was trying to reassure herself. He gripped the phone receiver tighter. 

"Where are you?" What was he gonna do? Drive all the way to Calí from Bogotá at half an hour past midnight? Even a flight would take hours, and raise suspisions to boot. 

"I said I'm fine," she replied, nails clacking rhythmically against the plastic phone casing in what he knew by now to be a nervous tick. "I'm safe. I'm home." 

Javier breathed a relieved sigh, rigid shoulders slumping a fraction. He supposed he could have ordered Duffy or Lopez to do something if push had come to shove, though what he honestly had no idea. 

"Good, that's good." 

"Mr Velasquez gave me a lift." 

Who the hell was that? "Who the hell is that?" Javier asked. 

"You probably know him as Navegante." Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. Mentally he's already halfway out the door, physically at least halfway out of the office until the phone wire makes known its spatial limitations. 

"You alright? Is he still there? Lock your door, double lock it, I-" 

"I didn't give him the exact address, please calm down." He does, but only enough to catch his breath and not bolt out the door. There's a rustling from her end of the line, and she makes a sort of breathless little sound, somehwere between a sigh and a grunt, followed by a low but vicious curse.

"You okay?" 

"It's the damn zipper again; I'm this close to pulling something. Hang on." Judging by the thud that reverberates she set the phone down on a counter or table. Javier's hand went to rub at the back of his neck, half reflex, half sympathy. "Let's focus on the real issue here. The announcement." 

The way she said it was urgent, but he chose to believe this was due to wanting to get the message out and not to any concerns of Navegante lurking nearby. He had to, for his own sanity. 

"Apparently Gilberto cut a deal with the government." 

"The government?" Javier echoed weakly. 

"The new Samper administration. I knew why I didn't vote for those clowns. No, that's ...I had many reasons for that actually, first and foremost of them being that the Liberal Party nowadays is a damn joke. And to think that this is the same party that my parents fought for in their youth! Anyway, enough of that. They get half a year to get their house in order, then turn themselves in on the smallest possible charges, minimal jail time, back out again after a few years and back into their cushy lives with all of their blood money laundered neatly away. A clean slate." He'd never heard her sound so bitter, and he'd heard a good deal of her opinions on the Gentlemen of Calí over the past year. 

"So they're just going to get away with it." Javier grit out, equally livid. "Wait, you said Gilberto cut the deal? What about the others?" 

"Yes, so here is where it gets interesting. I didn't get the sense that they knew. Beforehand I mean. You should have outfitted me with a camera too, because Miguel's face was priceless." Another grunt and then a triumphant little 'ha' and then her voice sounded clearer again, nearer as she picked the phone back up. 

"He doesn't like it." 

"None of them like it. Don't want to give up the power, if I had to guess. What is it with men and building their entire ego on how much they can make others fear them?" 

Javier hummed non-committally, deciding that he had nothing valuable to add at this point. 

"Yeah, you're right. So how do I get the 'ooof' ...the recording to you? Usual way?" Javier didn't even get to reply no when she went on, now audibly shuffling around her apartment and out of the rest of her clothes. "I can't believe I almost forgot! I met the money launderer. His name is Franklin Jurado. He'll be in Calí until Tuesday with his wife Christina. I somewhat promised her to meet for coffee on Sunday; if you can have one of your agents trail me you can get them." 

She sounded so hopeful that he hated to have to dash it, even for her own safety, but snatching such an important cartel member so soon and with her so close would cast suspicion. She couldn't be involved. And he hadn't heard back from his agents yet, which was possibly a bad sign. Javier made up his mind, cringing while he glanced at the clock to make some mental calculations. 

"I'm coming over." 

"To Calí?" 

"Yes, what's your address? Unless you'd rather meet somewhere else?"

She gave her address, sounding stunned. He jotted it down under the note he'd made of Jurado's name; he'd need someone to look the guy up first thing tomorrow. 

"You're not leaving now, are you? It's late, you need to sleep." Javier could picture the way her brow creased in a frown just from the tone of her voice. 

"No, I'll call you again as soon as I know when I'll be there." Driving the whole way would be a nightmare and eat up most of the day. Javier whirled around and pulled an atlas from the shelf behind his desk. Flying in directly was out of the question with the way the godfathers had the whole city under surveillance. Buenaventura, under two hours by plane and then about two and a half from there to Calí. Yes, that would work. 

"Goodness, you're actually serious about this." 

"Of course." Javier stopped in his tracks for the first time in several minutes now, taking a moment to breathe and slump in his seat. He was exhausted yet wide awake, and likely would be for some time. "I mean, if that's okay with you." 

"Of course, umm...anything in particular you'd like for dinner?" Javier stopped. He would be staying for dinner, possibly the night, too. In a hotel of course, he couldn't possibly impose- 

"You don't have to cook for me." His mouth said, but his stomach said bandeja paisa. Briefly, the thought of taking her out for dinner popped up, indulgent and unbidden, and was immediately squashed by the thought of the godfathers' eyes everywhere. "I can pick something up on the way." 

Her protest turned into a yawn not two syllables in. Javier couldn't help the small smile appearing on his face, felt it only by how it twinged his tense jaw. "You're tired, you should rest." 

"We're not finished with this." She mumbled obstinately. "You rest." 

"I will." He would, eventually. "I'll call you tomor- ...today." A quick glance at the clock revealed it was now past midnight. She made a very grumpy, very adorable huffy sound, mumbling something about the inexorable passage of time. 

"Sleep well, Miss Rivas." 

"You too..." There was a rustle and the quiet squeak and groan of a bedframe and mattress. He waited a moment, unsure whether more was coming or whether she'd just been too tired to disconnect the call. A short silence burst into a quick curse, her voice remote but still clear enough to make out. "...God fucking dammit, fucking contact lenses! Son of a rabid-" 

"Miss Rivas?" By the rapid padding of feet and the continued cursing he had to suppose that she hadn't heard, and by how either sound seemed to be at about equal distance with neither decreasing, he supposed further that the phone was still in her hand. As soon as he heard the 'thunk' that most likely meant that the phone had been tossed down on some surface, he tried again. "Miss Rivas?" 

"You're still there?" She sounded marginally more awake now, but not like this state would persist for very long. 

"You didn't hang up." And perhaps Javier wasn't all too opposed to having the continued assurance that she was alright and her cover intact. "You swear very entertainingly, by the way." 

"I'm glad my lack of filter and ladylike decorum amuses rather than appalls you." Splashing water interrupted them for a moment, but was quickly replaced by more colorful cursing. 

"Please, don't hold back." Javier commented drily, not really expecting to be heard clearly since the satphone didn't have a loudspeaker. 

"Very funny. Why don't you talk to me a bit more while I try not to poke my eyes out by accident-" 

"I- ...I'm afraid I don't really have anything interesting to talk about." 

"And I don't have enough brain left today for anything more taxing than the weather anyway. I just need your voice; I'm dead on my feet. How was the weather in Bogotá today? I always found it so cold when I was at university there. Nothing like Medellín. They used to call me 'chompa' at uni because I would never go anywhere without one. Too cold. And of course Calí is so much warmer than either..." 

"It's been quite grey here, and not especially warm either. Back home it's at least twice as warm but I've been here so long now I think I'm more used to it." 

"I never asked where exactly you're from..." 

"Laredo, Texas. It's right on the border with Mexico." 

"Laredo..." She mused, puttering about still. "Oh like the song? As I walked walked out on the streets of Laredo..." She must really be tired and devoid of all usual inhibitions, Javier thought, to just start singing like this. Not that he minded. She got halfway through the first stanza until she faltered, the lyrics escaping her. Her voice was soft and with that same raspy edge she had when speaking. It was a voice suited best to lullabies he thought; or to yearnful ballads performed in smoky bars, or some similarly wistful thing. "Aren't I supposed to be the one talking?" 

"Hmm, this works too. I'm almost done, so you won't have to humor me much longer. So, tell me more about Laredo while I brush my teeth." --- He ended up talking longer than that - divulging more than he ever planned to as per usual, of the town and the ranch that sat up against the river - until she was settled back into bed and about to doze off for good. If nothing else, it settled him too somewhat, though sleep would elude him for a a good while yet even despite the physical and mental exhaustion the day, or in fact the whole week, had brought him. No sooner had he disconnected the line with a soft 'Sleep well' than the phone rang again. 

"Yes?" 

"Boss, I've been trying to reach you for half an hour!" Duffy's voice sounded strained and any modicum of relaxation Javier might have gained dissipated with immediate effect. He scrubbed a hand over his burning eyes and resigned himself to dealing with one more catastrophe. 

"Duffy, what is it?" Agents Duffy and Lopez had organized their own infiltration of the godfathers' party, courtesy of the intel provided by Miss Rivas as well as what Operation Cornerstone had shaken loose. At least he knew it was nothing that had blown the cover of his informant. 

"Okay well, no use beating around the bush here. Our guy got made, and Calí knows we're here-" Javier listened to his agent's report with his frown deepening. Why was it that with every step forward, another wrench was thrown his way? 

"Alright, close up shop. Leave as soon and as inconspicuously as you can. I'll see you back here at the embassy on Monday morning." He ordered. Hopefully the gentlemen and their security would leave it at the gesture of intimidation, especially if they thought themselves well on the way of becoming untouchable, but one could never be too careful. 

---

Javier consulted the clock for what must have been the hundredth time that evening. Normally the bar down the street from the embassy wouldn't be his first or even fourth choice, but tonight he was looking for a place to wind down with the shortest possible distance to cover afterwards. The danger of being accosted by any of his co-workers was one he'd simply have to brave. If luck was on his side for once, none of the more sociably inclined would be there any more, or too engrossed in their own merriment to notice him slink in, and if not, his curmudgeonly ways were known well enough that a civil yet decisive refusal would hopefully be deterrence enough. 

It was for Stoddard, but of course not for Bill Stechner, the non-drug-lord bane of Javier's existence. Ostensibly on the same side, though Javier would argue that the CIA was on its own side entirely. Or that their budget would be spent more productively by making the damn lot of them just feed dollar bills through a shredder, but no one asked Javier about these things. So, he sits and grinds his teeth while Stechner's smug voice grates on his nerves. Visualizes strangling the CIA station shief with the tie he'd just pulled off and balled up into his pocket moments ago, which does a little bit to alleviate the almost overbearing urge to smash Stechner's face into the bar top. "Oh come on, you don't care about American streets or dead Colombians." 

And the deal? How the hell does Stechner know about the deal when it's only just been announced? For a split-second, he wonders whether Diana- but no, he trusts her completely, and he hasn't told anyone except a handful of his agents about her, deciding this information was so sensitive it was strictly need to know, and even they only knew her by her assigned code name. Not even the ambassador knew that he had such a high-priority informant on the inside of the cartel. Stechner must have some government source, be it an informant of his own or bugs in the offices of ministers. The way he only mentions Lopez and Duffy's operation confirms it. 

"Same goal my ass." Javier muttered into his whiskey after Stechner slithered away. This had been supposed to be a one-drink-night, but now he was feeling like he might need at least three more, if only to dull the screeching of his swirling thoughts. 

It's no use. He's all keyed up still, something feels like it's burrowing inside of his chest, some sort of woodland critter both desperate and unable to settle down. He's tired, too, of course, eyes heavy and burning and sore, feels like his eyeballs are coated in smoke and pitched open by caffeine. He shouldn't have had that much coffee that late; despite his high tolerance it does still have an effect on him. Thank goodness on any given day, but right now he's regretting it. His leg jumps, knee knocking painfully against the bar front. He feels eyes on him. They've been there since he walked in, furtively glancing throughout his confrontation with Stechner, but bolder now. He feels it like a prickle on his skin. Turns his gaze finally. Sees long dark hair, open, melting into the late shadows of the bar. Too long, but it'll have to do. She's... he's definitely seen her around before. The elevator? Different department, perhaps press office, or visas. Definitely nowhere near the DEA offices or he would have known her name. She's coming over now, leaning easily against the bartop, slender fingers tapping, and an easy, eager smile. Her hair isn't dark enough, and too long and wavy all the way through instead of only curling at the ends, and nothing else about her appearance quite matches up, but she's pretty and willing and he's pent up and about to crawl out of his skin. And so he lets her take him home. And he means to leave right after, he really does. If only not to give any impression of this having even the slightest potential of becoming any more than it is. But Katie (that's her name, but he's learnt a long time ago to not groan out names during, because whether the name is correct or not it always turns out bad somehow), Katie sleepily mumbles that he can stay because it's late, and truth be told? He's completely shot, feels like he couldn't move if he wanted to. And the thought of dragging himself back to his empty apartment with only his thoughts for company is the most unbearable thing at this moment. Her mattress is too soft and despite the fact that he only laid on it until waking again at first light, it messes up his back for almost a week. --- It is indeed much warmer in this side of the country, and an especially hot day in Calí itself. On the coast where he'd landed, there had at least been a breeze blowing in from the Pacific, but the further inland Javier drives the less the air seems to move. He felt the sweat start to gather at his hairline, and down his neck, as soon as he parked the rental car in front of the cluster of new-ish high rise apartment blocks in one of the north-western boroughs of the city. 

Javier grabbed his one piece of luggage and the bag of takeout he'd picked up on the way, just as promised, and walked up to the first building to study the panel beside the door for the correct bell to ring. A sharp whistle made him look around, then up at the next building. Miss Rivas was all but hanging off the side of her balcony, waving down and giving Javier half a heart attack seeing as she was on the sixth floor. He waved back in acknowledgement, then jogged over to the already buzzing door, which he pushed open. Blessedly, there was an elevator, and not two minutes later he stood in front of her apartment, the door swinging open before he could raise his hand to knock. 

"Hi." She sounded breathless, as if she'd run up six flights of stairs, not across an apartment. 

"... Miss Rivas." In his relief, he'd almost slipped. Almost called her by her first name, but they're not there yet, strangely. Or not strangely at all, in fact. It's quite by design. It's a way of keeping himself detached; professional. Or whatever excuse he could come up with to maintain this state of perpetual denial. 

"Umm, ...lunch? I brought lunch." He thrust the bag foward, watched it swing between them while cringing inwardly. 

"Good! I've only been up for two hours or so; I don't even care what it is, I'm starving!" Carefully, she took the bag from him, one hand supporting the bottom like a newborn's head, the other brushing his as she looped her fingers through the handles. "Come in, come in." 

Javier stood a full three seconds or so after she'd already turned around and walked down the narrow hallway, rooted to the spot and struck dumb like some sort of imbecile. His skin prickled in all the places he'd let Katie touch him the night before, which, admittedly, hadn't been too many - but still enough to be burning him with that familiar mixture of guilt and shame now. So he does what he does best when it comes to emotions: deny and repress. 

He left his shoes beside the pair of strappy heels she must have discarded there the night before, probably in a hurry to get the severely uncomfortable looking things off after spending a whole evening in them. The hallway opened into an open living room and dining area, the balcony beyond that, and a galley-style kitchen off to one side not unlike his own apartment. It was a sparse place, not quite enough furniture to fill the space - a long couch and coffee table, a low sideboard with a TV on it, none of it new save for the stereo system that was of course on and softly playing the usual eclectic music mix. Javier dropped his bag beside the couch where it would be out of the way. The dining table barely deserved the name. It was a small, round, reedy looking thing, just large enough for two, or maybe two and a child, with two plastic fold-out chairs. On it stood a light blue and white ceramic fruit bowl that currently held zero fruit, just the recording device he'd given her and... some pieces of golden sapphire and diamond jewelry? Puzzled, Javier picked up what turned out to be a bracelet. He raised one eyebrow at her as she set down plates for them. 

"Got a raise?" 

"Ha! As if. I should have, though. What with the extra work I got saddled with last night. That's the problem with rich people. Miserly. The more zeroes on their bank statements the stingier they get." She scoffed, ranting away all the way to and fro carrying the cutlery. "No, this-" she stabbed a spoonhandle through the bracelet and swirled it around once, twice, before glowering at the gemstones darkly, "This is what Mrs Jurado had me borrow to complete my outfit yesterday. Obviously I have to return them, which is why I'm meeting her for coffee tomorrow afternoon. If you do your whole government agent covert spy observation thing you could at least get eyes on her, maybe even him, too. Franklin Jurado, the money launderer. You can just smell the entitlement on him. I bet he went to one of the really fancy schools over there, like Princeton. Or maybe Harvard." 

"I'm glad to see you're making friends." Javier had followed her to the kitchen, leaning against a cabinet and watching her place the food on plates, any attempts to help or make himself useful deftly rebuffed as always. 

"I think it was Harvard actually. I think he mentioned it- It's on the recording, in any case. Real smug about it too. La Javeriana is a perfectly good university, too. Older, too. Luis Carlos Galán attended it, you know? Graduated in economics and law, like I did." 

"Like the new president, too." Javier dared remark, only to be leveled with a death glare that could make a man fear for his life. 

"Professor Samper, oh yes," she said pointedly, thrusting the plates at him, "Don't remind me please. The whole family attended, have for generations." 

Javier dutifully carried over the dishes and set them down, returning a moment later for the pitcher of water. Diana followed him, wiping her glasses with her tee-shirt in a gesture he had come to know was more about calming down than it was about being able to see better. 

"Right, no politics at meal time. Tell me something interesting instead." Diana attacked her food with a frightening kind of fervor. And suddenly the only thing he could think about was what Stechner had told him the night before, how the deal would go ahead, a neat little setup by politicians whose only objective was looking good enough for re-election. Naturally, the words died in his throat. He shrugged and started digging in. 

"Nothing huh? Okay, well, how about this then: How many Mrs Rodríguezes are there?" 

"Is this a trick question?" There should be one only, seeing as Miguel was widowed and his little shit of a son wasn't exactly husband material - nor looking to be. "One?"

"Close. There's three." 

That didn't make any sense. "That doesn't make any sense. Miguel is widowed and David- ...Gilberto! Gilberto?" 

"Gilberto." She confirmed. "All three. They have a rota, apparently. On Sundays they just sit around while he watches whatever game is on which sounds thrilling. And I thought my marriage was crap." 

"Huh." If Javier thought that the farcical nature of governmental - and inter-governmental - bureaucracy had prepared him for the absurdity of chasing drug kingpins he had apparently been sorely mistaken. But mostly, he was relieved to see that Diana was in such good spirits again, what with how affected she'd sounded the night before. Lunch was over in no time at all, and Javier felt his short night starting to catch up with him. He yawned surreptitiously as he helped carry the dirty dishes back into the kitchen, or what he thought had been surreptitious anyway. 

"Okay, coffee or nap?" 

"Huh?" Dammit, his eyes were burning. Diana took the plates and deposited them in the sink, leaving him to blink sluggishly. "I can do those. The dishes." 

"You're about to keel over. Haven't slept a wink, have you?" 

"About three hours, and another half hour or so on the plane. I'm fine, really." He admitted. The fact that he had to lean against the cabinets did not exactly serve to strengthen his argument. Diana tutted. 

"I need to run some errands, grocery shopping and the like. If you are really determined to get to work on the recording I'll make you a good strong coffee before I go, but I would personally suggest you use the time to catch up on some sleep. The couch pulls out." 

It was tempting, it really was, but Javier also knew that he'd have a harder time falling asleep later if he messed up his rhythm more now. 

"Coffee it is, then." She set to work in the same breath. 

A fond smile pulled at Javier's lips. "Thank you." --- Even knowing she was fine and safe now, she hadn't expected that listening to the recording would be so excruciatingly stressful. She had very helpfully compiled a list of encounters, along with time estimates (and a very evocative caricature of the chief accountant, Guillermo Pallomari), which had allowed him to fast forward through the recording to get a general overview. Even so, he'd gotten stuck on several bits, even replaying a few. The introductory round, for one. Her panic attack in the bathroom. Or the segment with that slimy little bastard David Rodríguez. Her quick thinking and clever diversion of Pacho's suspicions. He hated hearing the strain in her voice, the barely masked anxiousness that none of them even seemed to notice but that stood out to him so very clearly. His jaw was clenched so tight he could feel his teeth grinding– The lock on the front door clicked open, jolting Javier from his focused state. A quick glance at his watch told him it had been well over three hours since she'd left for her errands, afternoon now melting into early evening. In his haste to get up he tangled the wires, cursing as he he sat back down. Diana huffed into view, heavy-looking bags on each arm. 

"Hey there," she threw him a quick smile before vanishing into the kitchen to set down her load, re-emerging a heartbeat later. She crossed the distance in a few strides, lightly squeezing his shoulder as she leaned over him to peer at the notes he'd taken. "How's it going? Anything viable?" 

Her touch, given with such casual affection, electrified him. He'd never been, never considered himself the type of person anyone would come home to. 

"Plenty." He needed to collect himself, clear his throat and mind and get a grip. "You did amazing work." And I can't use it in court because you incriminate yourself all throughout.

"Good, I'm glad. Would have been a re-" 

The shrill ringing of her landline interrupted them. Immediately, Javier mourned the loss of her touch, the spot on his shoulder where her hand had lingered now turning cold. Pull yourself together, dammit! 

The telephone was mounted on the wall that separated hallway and kitchen, and had a cord long enough to allow for a range of movement to about halfway into the latter. Unsure of whether he was supposed to be listening, he tried to go back to the recording. Only tried rather turned into pretended. As quickly as he had put the headphones on, he took them off again, watching Diana for a moment of hesitation. She was shuffling around the kitchen entrance, emptying her shopping bags with the phone receiver pinned between her cheek and shoulder. She was talking to her aunt, tense and worried, but managed a small smile when she caught Javier's eye. Wordlessly, he started helping her putting the groceries away as directed. 

"No, I know you don't approve. No one approves except Gabriela, and incidentally Gabriela is also the only one who saw that I was making a mistake right from the start and the only one who tried to dissuade me from going through with the wedding, and if I'd only listened to her and my gut back then, I wouldn't-" She turned her back at this, and Javier put away the last few pieces and left the kitchen, giving her the pretense of privacy at least. It wasn't like the apartment was so vast that her voice wouldn't carry. He walked over to the stereo system he'd turned off earlier and switched it back on, fiddling with the volume by way of looking distracted. 

"...No, and I don't want to talk about it any more. I don't care what the Pope says; the Pope was never married! ...Yes, put her on; I think that's better for everyone involved." 

Immediately her voice and stance relaxed, became softer and warmer, and the conversation a lot more one-sided as Diana talked to Salome on the phone. Javier's knees were starting to protest at his half-kneeling by the sideboard, but he was too transfixed by trying to determine whether the little girl would perhaps say a few words today. She sometimes did, though very rarely, and Javier had yet to witness it himself. 

"Okay, my little darling, you be good for granny, alright? Sleep well, sweetheart. I love you. Bye-bye." 

Diana hung up and shuffled over, taking a seat on he edge of the coffee table closest to him. Javier gave up on the volume dial and turned towards her. 

"Everything okay?" She nodded and took off her glasses to rub at her eyes. Cautiously, Javier placed his hand atop hers where it laid in her lap, rubbing his thumb back and forth across the top of it soothingly. "And are you okay?" 

"I will be; I just- ...I try that she at least hears my voice every day, even if I can't be there and- She's so little and has already lost so much, and every time I have to leave I feel like I'm just making it worse and like maybe that's why she still barely talks. And it's so unfair! She's just a little girl and she needs her mother or at least she needs a mother and we try - my aunt and I try our best but we're all that's left of this family." Her voice got quieter with each word, fading to a whisper before ceasing. Javier didn't know how to respond; all the obvious things seemed like meaningless phrases, frivolous and unhelpful. Diana deflated, her whole frame drooping like misery personified. She let out a single, quiet sob, gripping his hand in both of hers like he was her anchor. "I just wish I at least knew what I was doing." 

She wiped at her eyes angrily, blindly grasping for the glasses on the table behind her until she found them and shoved them back on. She stood abruptly, but did not let go of his hand, instead tugging him up, to which his beleaguered knees only objected more. 

"Sorry, forget that. Let's sort out dinner." She stalked back into the kitchen, and Javier could only follow of creaky knees, the blood rushing back down into his feet and making them prickle and almost falter. She finally let go of his hand in front of the refridgerator, throwing open the door of it like a shield between them.  

"So for dinner I was thinking-" 

"Miss Rivas." She didn't even hear him, just went on explaining what was possible with the ingredients she'd picked up earlier. Javier laid his hand on top of hers gently, feeling the tension in her fingers, the tremble in them as she gripped the fridge door tight. Gently still, he eased her grip and shut the door. She didn't even look at him, obstinately staring down at the tiled floor instead. 

"I'm in control of my emotions." She declared defiantly. "I'm not a liability to your investigation." 

"I know." Javier took both her hands in his now, squeezed them once, still gentle. Kept his voice soft too; soft and low and for her ears only. "I know you ...aren't. It's okay. You're doing so good. You're doing amazing. It's okay." On the last few words, he raised their entwined hands, nudging her chin up to look at him. Took in her reddened but stubbornly dry eyes, her lips pressed into a painful line, and the hard set of her jaw and brows. All she needed was one final push to let go, one word of permission, and he gave it gladly. "It's okay." 

He'd expected an outburst now, an explosive outpouring of grief or at least wrath. Instead, Diana squeezed his hands back once before letting go, leaving him standing in the kitchen while she went into her bedroom. He heard her rummage around for a moment, then she returned with a small photo album in her hands which she carefully set down on the counter before throwing it open and flipping through the pages until she found the picture she was looking for. It showed what he assumed was her family. He recognized only her and Maritza, both noticeably younger then. Side by side, the family resemblance became more apparent, especially in comparison with the respective parents. Wordlessly, she flipped through the pages. In the next one Maritza's father was missing, the one after that, her own father was no longer there. The one after that showed the addition of a young man and what must have been a newborn Salome, him holding the baby with a broad, dimpled smile that his daughter had inherited. He was gone in the following picture, Diana's mother vanished in the one after that, until the last photograph showed only Maritza's mother, Diana herself, and little Salome. 

"Some time after we cleared out Maritza's apartment, I went to Escobar's grave. If I was looking for some kind of satisfaction, I didn't find it there." She closed the album with a sharp snap. "The whole drive back, last night, I was sure I was about to end up fish fodder, and I just thought... with how my aunt's health is failing, will Salome be all alone in the world before she's even five?" 

Javier swallowed hard, choking on the words that had sprung up onto the tip of his tongue. That he wouldn't let that happen (but it could have happened not twenty-four hours prior and there would have been nothing he could have done about it). That he would make sure the little girl was taken care of (How? He wasn't kin and Diana's aunt didn't know him. And he wasn't exactly prime fatherhood material, so what exactly did he think he could do?). And in the back of his head, he still heard the desperate shallow little breaths she'd heaved during her panic attack. So different words jumped onto his tongue instead, tumbling out before he could ever think through the implications. 

"Do you want out? You don't even have to go meet Mrs Jurado tomorrow, I can organize to have you pulled out within the week. And your family too. You'd be safe." 'I am never doing this again', she'd said. Well, he wouldn't make her. And considering what he knew now, that his whole investigation was just a front? What was the damn point of it anyway? 

Diana smiled, just a slight quirk of the corner of her lip, but the first in what felt like hours now. "Now? No. I don't want anyone else having to go through what my family and I went through, here or anywhere. This kind of...lust for power - it's grasping. It never stops, it is never satisfied. And it doesn't care what stands in its way." 

"You sure?" He ought to tell her, he really ...but even though the betrayal isn't his, just his to hand on, he hesitates again. 

"I am. Starting with meeting Christina Jurado tomorrow. Besides, you'll be with me all the way through." 

"Yeah," his voice creaks like a rusty hinge, "Yeah, of course I'll be. Just a stone's throw away." --- "Goodness, does she ever shut up?" Javier shut the door behind himself, hanging up the spare key on the hook by the door. They'd just returned from Diana and Mrs Jurado's coffee and lunch date - separately for safety purposes - and Javier's head was still swimming. Diana might be reasonably called talkative, but at least she had things to say. Christina Jurado, it turned out, could talk a mile a minute without saying much of substance at all. Diana had been all but steam-rollered by the barrage of conversation and Javier, who had listened closely to all two and a half hours of it, was starting to feel the beginnings of a pressure headache building. 

"Without being condescending, Agent Peña, there is so much that men don't understand about the way women talk with each other." Diana peeked out into the hallway with a raised eyebrow. "Besides, she may well have been... uuh-" 

"May have been what?" After discarding his shoes, he walked into the apartment fully. Diana frowned, then touched a fingertip to the side of her nose with a meaningful look. When he didn't light up with sudden understanding, she gave a good-natured yet long-suffering sigh. And Javier really thinks he should probably have slept more than four hours, but his back was now paying the price for his stint on that marshmallow fluff that passed for Katie's mattress, and also his mind liked to give him trouble when it ought to quiet down. 

"She may have been what, Miss Rivas?" 

"Mrs Jurado, I have good reason to believe, likes to uhh... sample the product." The penny rolled around Javier's exhausted mind a moment longer before dropping. 

"...You mean to tell me she was high on cocaine the whole time?" 

"Yes. Why are you whispering?" Why indeed. Javier cleared his throat and wondered why this revelation left him so scandalized. "She did use on Friday night, too, which is a frequency I honestly find alarming. I hope it's more of a weekend thing- Franklin knows, but I don't think he has any idea what to do about it. I'd reckon it's something they're both keen to keep under wraps, though for different reasons. I don't imagine the gentlemen would be overly thrilled, especially the brothers. They like to keep a pretty tight hold on everything even remotely to do with the business." 

"Huh... what the hell are you do-" While he had been musing on this new development in his sluggish mind, she'd stuck one hand down her blouse from the top and the other up it from the bottom, fumbling around for a moment before pulling the wiretap she'd been wearing for the meeting out and handing it to him non-chalantly. 

"When's your flight?" 

"Uh, late. Later. Ten-ish." He'd be back in Bogotá before midnight, but there was the drive back to Buenaventura to consider. Even so, it was only mid-afternoon now. Javier rubbed his hand over his burning eyes. His brain was no longer in a state to be doing that kind of math and he sighed, the coffee he'd just had clearly not doing anything. 

"You have at least an hour to get some sleep. Come lie down." She was out from in front of him and across the room before he could blink tiredly, already pushing back the coffee table and bending to pull out the couch. Javier meant to protest, he really did. But. Sleep beckoned. And so, with heavy feet dragging across the laminate floor, he acquiesced. 

"Thanks." He mumbled, gratefully receiving a pillow. 

"I'll wake you in an hour, hour and a half tops." She already sounded further away than she should be, considering she was by the sofa-bed's - and his - head still. Javier hummed a reply, more affirmative sound than any proper words. As he drifted off, he thought he felt gentle fingers brushing the hair back from his forehead. But surely that was just wishful thinking, for what else could it be? ---

So, six more months of looking busy and doing nothing while the Calí godfathers revved up operations to squeeze as much money as they could out. He'd had to send his agents home after they'd been splashed all over the front page of the Espectador, so not only did the DEA not currently have any presence on the ground in Calí, it also left Diana without even the faintest layer of protection. And with the massive stink the Colombians, fronted by General Vargas, had kicked up about it, he couldn't send in any replacements, no matter how eager or indeed fastidious Agent Feistl was. And now the incident in Yumbo. The youngest of the dead had only been six years old. Javier glowered at the TV report where the safety inspector was giving his final report. Natural gas leak... yeah, sure. This thing reeked; he felt it in his bones that the cartel was responsible somehow. And he couldn't go after them. The desire to go find Stechner and smash his stupid smug face through the screen became near unbearable. He turned the TV off before the urge manifested into action. 

He sat down behind his desk, taking a moment to look around the largely dark and empty office space around him before opening that particular drawer on the top right and taking out the arrest warrants. Their money and power and the influence both bought meant that the Calí bosses could move comparatively freely, but they still hid away. Carefully so, with the kind of tight-knit security that most heads of state could only dream of. Even if he did find a way to get at them, his hands were now unofficially bound. Well over a year's work, two good agents sent home, his informant risking her life every single day, more innocent dead who would never get justice, and what for? He hated it. He still hadn't told her. He thought about quitting. 

The phone rang. He knew it was her. She didn't even try his home landline first now, knowing he spent his evenings at the office more often than not. Javier let it ring once more while mustering up the courage to come clean. 

"Miss Rivas, good evening." 

"Decidedly not. Did you watch the news?" 

Javier scrubbed a hand over his face, squeezed his eyes shut so as to not have to look at the warrants spread out on his desk. There was only so much mockery a man could take. "Yeah. Yeah, I did." 

"It was them. David specifically, that self-absorbed buffoon. They chewed him out for over half an hour over it, which is far less than he deserves." 

"I figured." His throat felt tight; undoing another shirt button did precisely nothing. 

"Gilberto worries it will give the government leverage to go back on the deal. I hope it does."

So did Javier, but knowing the special interests being at play here he didn't hold out much hope. 

"And you have been made to recall your agents from Calí." 

Javier gulped. "Yes." 

"But they'll be replaced, right?" 

Well, here goes nothing then. "...No." 

Silence. She's not one to raise her voice even when upset and right now she must be livid. But perhaps she's shocked before anything else. Shocked into silence, into disbelief. He hates this, too. He wishes she would scream at him. Instead all he gets is a brittle quiet little '...What?' 

And it's so unfair, all of it. Stechner doesn't have to face her with this, the bastard. None of the politicians who are oh so invested in this little vanity project do either, the consequences aren't real to them. They get to collect the empty symbol of a supposedly bloodless surrender, some good publicity, and don't have to do or face any of the ugly truths on the ground. He thinks about quitting again. Pats his pocket for the reporter's business card. If he's leaving, he thinks, he'd do it with a bang. Burn all bridges with a mighty barrage of his personal J'accuse. But for now that's all idle thinking. 

"The surrender deal is going ahead as planned, because the powers that be will it so." He explained, truly understanding the sentiment of shooting the messenger at this very moment. "My hands are bound, there's nothing I can do."  

"Bullshit!" Yeah, agreed. He tries saying more, justifications that turn to dust on his tongue before the words even leave his mouth. His heart's not in it, and it only serves to stoke her wrath, fearsome even over the distance of the phone line. 

"What else will they get away with? If you're rich enough you can buy impunity? A blank cheque for murder? How many more people must die? Every day I go in and make myself complicit in it all on the promise that it will take them down!" 

The worst part of this, perhaps, is that he knows she's right. If any of those senators in their cushy Washington offices had even a bit of her bravery, her steadfastness, her moral clarity– 

"I'm sorry." His mouth is so dry. At last he opens his eyes again, glaring down at the warrants. Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela. Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela. 

"You're sorry?" Even now her voice is still level. Full of venomous disbelief and cold with rage, yes, but it has not risen even a single decibel. 

"Miss Rivas, I-" 

The line went dead with a click. She'd hung up.

--- --- --- 

author’s notes: 

*me, an idiot* this chapter will cover episodes 1 through to 4. this is a thing that is feasible and realistic

*me, 7000 words in and still at the party* ah. oh no.

in other words: remember last chapter when I cut things off because I wanted to keep it below 10k? yeah, that won’t be happening anymore. It takes as long as it takes. *shrug emoji* stay hydrated.

DIAN (Dirección de Impuestos y Aduanas Nacionales) is the Colombian government agency that is responsible for collecting taxes

Fernando Botero is a Colombian artist and sculptor, famous for these really chunky bronze statues, though the one I reference here is a complete fabrication and does not actually exist

according to the Art and Making of Narcos book Navegante’s actual name is Jorge Velasquez

‘chompa’ according to the dictionary I used, is a term for jacket used in Colombia and some other places

yes I looked up average temperatures in all these cities. I have concluded that it gets hot af in Laredo

La Javeriana (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana) is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Colombia. Presidential candidate Carlos Luis Galan did indeed attend there, as did president Ernesto Samper, who is president during the season in the show. He also did indeed teach there for a while in the early 80s, which fortunately matches up with my timeline. It was indeed founded before Harvard. Thirteen years before to be exact (1623 vs 1636)

here’s the drawing Diana made of Pallomari (contador=accountant): 

tag list: @keeper0fthestars @opheliaelysia @fromthedeskoftheraven @dindjarindiaries @shikin83 @cinewhore @maddoggrahaml @javier-djarin @huliabitch @heatherbel @shestillwrites1​

didn’t ask to be tagged but reblogged all previous parts and therefore I assume you enjoyed it regardless of that you reading my story made me very happy list: @asoftcollection​ (thank you for indulging me and brainstorming the Jurados with me it helped a lot) @holographic-carmen​  @dermandalorianer​  @oldstuffnewstuff​ (sry it won’t let me tag ur sideblog hope this is okay)

Next Chapter

[kookie-doughs]

Y/N L/N AND THE HALFBLOODS

Percy Jackson X Reader

-Y/N L/N met Percy Jackson and everything was now ruined.

CHAPTER 6: WE HAVE BATHROOM INCIDENT

We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horn Percy was carrying. Another said, "That's him."

Anxious if all the attention, I scooted closer to Percy holding onto his arm. Most of the campers were older than us. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. The way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. Though I am aware the attention was on Percy. I still felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something.

I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized—four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.

"What's up there?" Percy asked Chiron.

He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic."

"Somebody lives there?"

"No," he said with finality. "Not a single living thing."

I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain.

"Come along, you two," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see."

We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.. . . . . . . . . .

Chiron told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."

He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.

I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music. I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.

"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" I asked Chiron.

"Yeah, I mean... he was a good protector. Really." Percy added.

Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horses back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill."

"But he did that! He brought two!"

"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate... ah... fate of your mother and Y/N's parents. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you two dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."

"He'll get a second chance, won't he?"

Chiron winced. "I'm afraid that was Grover's second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago. Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age... ."

"How old is he?"

"Oh, twenty-eight."

"What! And he's in sixth grade?"

"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."

"That's horrible."

"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career... ."

"That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?"

Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"

But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about Percy's and I's parents' fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word death.

"Chiron," Percy said. "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real..."

"Yes, child?"

"Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?"

Chiron's expression darkened.

"Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. "There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now... until we know more... I would urge you to put that out of your mind."

"What do you mean, 'until we know more'?"

"Come, Percy. Let's see the woods.". . ..

As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.

Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."

"Stocked with what?" Percy asked. "Armed with what?"

"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"

"My own—?"

"No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose either of you do. I think a size five will do you both. I'll visit the armory later."

I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much), the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.

"Sword and spear fights?" I asked.

"Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall."

Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.

"What do you do when it rains?" Percy asked.

Chiron looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird. "We still have to eat, don't we?"

Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.

Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at. They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).

In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.

The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.

"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.

"Correct," Chiron said.

"Their cabins look empty."

"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."

Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot. Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?

I stopped when Percy stopped.

"Percy?"

He stood in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.

It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor.

I held his hand and we got closer to the cabin. We peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"

Before he could pull us back, I caught a glimpse of the interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. "Come along, you two."

Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.

Number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.

I kept walking, trying to stay as close as I could to Percy. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," Percy observed.

"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."

"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really..."

He smiled down at me. "The Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, I am."

"But, shouldn't you be dead?"

Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about should be. The truth is, I can't be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish... and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."

I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.

"Doesn't it ever get boring?"

"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."

"Why depressing?"

Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.

"Oh, look," he said. "Annabeth is waiting for us."

* * *

The blond girl I'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.

When we reached her, she looked us critically.

I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek. There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.

"Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy and Y/N from here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Cabin eleven," Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."

Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on old. The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it... ? A caduceus.

Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.

Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.

"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy, Y/N. I'll see you at dinner."

He galloped away toward the archery range.

I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at us. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.

"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."

So naturally Percy tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of himself, almost taking me with him but I had let go of him as he fell. There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.

Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson, Y/N L/N, meet cabin eleven."

"Regular or undetermined?" somebody familiar asked.

I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined."

Everybody groaned.

"Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy and Y/N. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there. Y/N can have the bed over there."

"Luke." I smiled. He replied with a grin and ruffled my hair.

"Uh?"

"This is Luke," Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could've sworn she was blushing. She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor for now."

"For now?" Percy asked.

"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."

I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given Percy. He was a few spots away from mine.

I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.

"How long will we be here?" Percy asked.

"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."

"How long will that take?"

The campers all laughed.

"Come on," Annabeth told us. "I'll show you the volleyball court."

"I've already seen it."

"Come on." She grabbed Percy's wrist and dragged him outside. Percy took my hand to come with him, I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind us.

"See you at dinner." Luke waved.

When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."

"What?"

She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one. Maybe it was Y/N."

"What's your problem?" Percy was getting angry now. "All I know is, I kill some bull guy—"

I gripped his shoulder trying to calm him.

"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"

"To get killed?"

Previous | Masterlist | Next

Hahah typo and originality go brrr

Taglist?

@gayer-than-the-gayest-gay @the-natureofme @booknerd-3000

[unholyplumpprincess]

Full Moon Sacrifice

It’s here! The breeding fic for Bloodhound I promised! Please enjoy- I also made them a lil more domestic in this fic and a lil more open with Reader as if y’all have been together for awhile to get ya Romance Juices flowin today! Enjoyyyy!

Reblogs > Likes. It cost zero dollars to reblog the fics you like :D

Fandom: Apex Legends

Relationship: Bloodhound/Reader

Warnings: R18+/NSFT, Reader has a vulva and is explicitly stated, gender neutral reader, breeding kink, Bloodhound has a vulva but is not explicitly stated, strap on usage, werewolf dick makes a return, knotting, uhhh fluff?, God kink, sexual sacrifice

Words: 3k

_______________

It started out as a simple, harmless joke. A little poke at Bloodhound and their feral habits and saying that if they had a heat cycle, they’d probably be desperate to fuck you until you were full of pups. A joke, a simple little joke, that had their cheeks on fire and an interesting look in their eye as they peered at you from across the room. They had huffed a laugh through their nose at you, taking a sip of their drink as they murmured, “Perhaps.”

You figured it had been to humor you, but then something seemed to almost switch in the bedroom.

It started off small, probably something you wouldn’t have noticed if you weren’t so interested in your partner. Just a little bit different of things. Such as their new favorite toys to use on you all had cum lube tubes attached to them. Or they felt the need to stuff you to your limits- or maybe use one of their ovipositor toys.

Even when you would take the lead, they seemed to fancy you getting penetrated in some fashion, even if it was them in a strap on with a vibrator tucked neatly inside of them as you rode them. It’s as if they needed to see the visual appeal to get off.

You started to piece it all together when Bloodhound asked you how you would feel about being their sacrifice this evening. Almost shyly they had said it as they held your hands. Curious, you dumbly asked, “You mean like- stabbing me?” To which they had let out a choked out noise and shook their head, dark cheeks flushing a lovely shade of red.

~Rest under the cut~

“No, beloved- ah...there is...other ways to sacrifice your body to the gods. An act of devotion- of bearing children?” They had started slow, eyes flickering between yours as you slowly got it. They waited for you to ask what they meant, but when your eyes lit up and you laughed in a flustered tone and averted your gaze from their strong one- they knew you got it.

“I knew it!” You had cheered playfully, bringing up your past joke. Only to get tackled onto the couch behind you with a flustered Bloodhound covering your face with a pillow. Your partner was far too cute, sometimes. Amazing to see what domestic love would do to them when they weren’t wearing a mask in the ring or pretending to be big and bad.

The day had come rather slowly with your eagerness and them refusing to touch you until the day. They kept teasing you periodically with too hard of kisses and a well timed hip squeeze to keep you interested, only to part and sigh against your mouth, “You must be ready when the time comes. You may touch yourself, but do not allow release. I shall know, my love.” Practically a threat.

You had poked, begged, and cried, but it would be all worth it, you just knew it.

The coming of summer meant the air was warmed, but not overly sticky or something to whine about. The forest was humming with the insects coming from their hiding holes and the winds brushing the tree tops and making them sway. Furs were lain out on the forest’s floor in the clearing, paving the way clearly for the full moon to shine down and cast its natural light where you rest on said furs. Your clothing had been taken from you with gentle, partially gloved hands, with only peppered kisses on your lips and cheeks keeping you on your toes.

When Bloodhound finally joins you, they’re completely dressed while you are bare before the gods above and the god in front of you. You whine softly in your throat, but remain lying down against the soft furs, knees pulled up and legs parted to show how desperate you were.

They come in full combat boots, leather pants, a tight and torn up dark red tanktop with a leather jacket thrown overtop with a fur lined collar. A black mask with sharp white teeth rests on their lower face and their red curls pulled into a ponytail. The partially gloved hands you had felt were from their fingerless leather gloves. It was a casual outfit they’d wear on outings, and you assume they had been out all day while you napped and tried to ignore the ache between your thighs.

Bloodhound’s eyes practically glow in the darkness of the forest, a singular blood red and a singular fire built in their blinded eye. They stalk around you without another word, looking ever so much like a predator as you quiver and hold still. Almost as if both of you were getting into characters and roles that you had yet to discuss. Them, the big, bad predator. And you, the helpless deer caught in their trap.

A soft sigh leaves you when they circle back around you and begin to remove articles of clothing. The mask and jacket go first, set to the side and followed by their gloves. They fit their body between your spread thighs, pressing their clothed body to yours and leaning over top of you with their tone spoken lowly, “You are going to be bred like the sweet little pet you are, am I understood?”

And the way it’s said- Gods does it send shivers down your spine. You’re already focused on the way their full lips move, how their sharp teeth glint that you can only nod vigorously, hips coming up to desperately try to catch their attention. Yet, Bloodhound is always smart, staying just out of reach to leave you wanting.

“Use your words.” They warn in the same low tone, eyes narrowing as if trying to hold back a grin at your desperation. It had been WEEKS since you’d gotten off- let alone touched yourself. You gave up on that way out quickly.

“Yes- yes, please, Houndie- baby, please, breed me. I’ve been good, so good-” You start to bargain, pleading and arching your back to try and look more appealing by letting your head fall to the side to bare your throat. It seems to work, since they swear under their breath- undoubtedly cursing that you know them so well- as their mouth comes to rest soon over your neck. Sharp canines nipping at your exposed flesh as their body begins to press weight down into you.

Their teeth soon become their lips pressing to yours, a hand resting in your hair and gently pulling to manipulate you where they’d like you. You moan softly into their mouth, reaching up to caress the curves of their sides and feel over the powerful muscle. Their hips shift, allowing your naked pelvis to press up against them and smear your slick over the front of their pants. You note that there’s a shape there, unlike the usual flatness, meaning they wore a toy here. You wonder if they intend on fucking you naked at all.

Knowing their speed and preferences, they’d rather you bare and helpless, and themselves quite the opposite.

The wind hums, picking up its pace briefly and the world seems to hum with the energy of the bright full moon overhead. Bloodhound seems affected as well, their soft pants turning to huffed, quiet growls as they bite at any inch of you they can. Working their way down your body until they reach your heat. Slick and wet with need as you peek down at them just in time to see them looking back up at you.

Their eyes are half lidded, lips parted to breathe hot air onto you. A small tilt down of their head implies that they’re inhaling your scent, an action that makes your cheeks burn and making your head fall back. Just in time when they nose at you, one hand resting over your mound and using two fingers to part your lower lips while another hand rests on your hip to keep you down.

The first hot, wet slide of their tongue makes you arch up with a hiss. Oversensitive from lack of touch in weeks and managing to curl your fingers into the furs beneath you rather than reach out and shove them down. “Hound-” You warn, your voice quivering with need. All you get in return is a low huff of amusement, spreading air across your heat and making your hips twitch as best as they could to get more.

Of course the world’s beloved Apex Champion was not only good at pulling a trigger, they were good at giving head, and enjoyed doing it just as much. Bloodhound indulges in you as if you’re a treat, or perhaps a last meal. Delving their tongue down into your hole only for their own little taste and parting your lower lips further to fully lick and suck at your clit. At some point their hand moves from your hip to rest underneath at your ass, helping arch you upwards against their mouth so they can suck a little harder, get a little messier.

Their moans of enjoyment are low, but noticeable past your own sharp sounds and low coos. They moan into you when your hand rests at their ponytail. Curling your fingers at the base and shoving them down further with a tone of desperation aching through your lungs and echoing throughout the night sky.

When you cum, both their hands cradle your ass and lift you up higher with their body. Practically on their knees and you practically bent in half so they can lick up your mess like sweet nectar on their tongue.

Oversensitive from cumming, you try to squirm and arch- but the new position does you no favors.

“Hound,” You try to cry out, toes curling and thighs flexing as their nails dig into the soft flesh of your ass. A growl echoing from their lips as their tongue slides sloppily over your clit until their lips can seal back over it greedily. “H-Hound!” You cry out again, hands flying back to their hair as you quiver and shake with a dry orgasm racking your frame far too soon.

You hardly can focus when they finally stop lapping at you like a starved dog. Gently, they rest you back down on the furs, letting you throw an arm over your face and shake with low whimpers in your throat. You vaguely can hear the zipper from their pants and how they pant lowly. You catch it in time to peek at them just as they wipe their mouth off, lips having been glossy from your slick. Once they catch you peeking, they flash you an almost feral grin, fitting when you glance down at their crotch and note their weapon of choice for the night.

“What is it that you told me the other day, dearest?” Their voice is almost a tease verging into a growl as their hands yank your hips, pulling your lower half up and practically into their lap. “That if I was perhaps a feral animal with a rut, that I would ‘fuck you until you were full of pups’?” They mimic you from the other day, two fingers pressing cruelly inside of your pliant cunt as your hips jerk from the motion. Curling upwards against your walls as if feeling you out, but you know they’re checking how wet you are.

Toys did NOT have natural lubrication and made it a bit hard for penetration without proper lubrication.

A few hard finger thrusts make you sob out a, “Fuck!” And throwing your head back. Feeling their fingers retreat and hearing them rooting through their jacket until seeming to find what they want. The familiar sound of a cap being flipped makes you shudder, hearing the slick noises of them fisting their own toy cock and stroking over it.

Their weapon of choice for the night was a favorite of theirs. A thick red cock with a tapered head and a fat knot, matching that of a dog’s- a fairly large dog for that matter. A werewolf even. Eight inches long in total including the fat knot that was as thick as your wrist. You can’t see the syringe connecting a tube to the base, but you know it’s on their person somewhere with the way this was going.

“For the gods, you shall be the sacrifice of the night,” Bloodhound murmurs, sliding the head of the cock through your lower lips. Gliding past your hole and over your clit then back down. Their eyes are trained fully on the action, hungrily watching the redness of the toy disappear briefly only to reappear slipping across your swollen clit. “You shall be my good breeding pet, will you not?”

Their voice is a coo, one you can’t refuse as you nod your head vigorously, far too gone for words. Especially when they press down on the base of their cock and begin to press into you. Each inch is a stretch on its own, but with your own slick, the lubrication, and their work on you earlier, it’s not painful so much as it is you can tell it’s a stretch. You hiss out a swear, tossing your head to the side and resting a hand in your own hair to steady yourself as you bare your throat.

Bloodhound must appreciate the gesture because they’re full of purrs and coos, leaning down to kiss over the length of your throat and murmuring about how good you’re doing as they slip their cock in deeper and deeper. Until the knot is pressing to the rim of your sex but not yet pushing inside.

There’s a moment of break in the scene when they nuzzle over your jawline, “Tell me if I become too much, beloved. I feel I shall get carried away with you like this.”

It’s so honest, so gentle, that you manage a break in your haze to laugh softly. Gently, you nudge their cheek with your nose and press a soft kiss there as well as you murmur, “You’ve done worse than fuck me in the forest. You won’t break me, I promise. I know my safe word.”

Just a small amount of communication to ease their nerves. Going so far as to when they don’t reply to reach down and pinch their ass. That makes them yelp softly, huffing against your cheek before pressing one back to yours with a gentle rest of their forehead to yours as they settle back into the scene.

A single thrust and a snarl from their lips lets you know the game has begun once again. At first you try to be quiet as they pick up a nice pace, stubbornly biting your lip- but you should know by now that that won’t work. Slowly, moans begin seeping past your lips, until you’ve thrown your head to the side, lips parted and brows knitted with pleasure.

They must be feeling something too, judging by how they’re doing that cute little noise they do when they’re being touched. This huffy, soft little growl in their throat with every breath. And when you peek at them, you can see their own eyebrows knitted, eyes half lidded to watch your facial expression.

When you catch their eyes, Bloodhound holds the stare only momentarily before leaning in and capturing your lips. Nipping and biting at your lower lip that was already reddened from your own teeth. Threatening to break the soft flesh with their sharper teeth as they begin fucking into you harder.

Your moans flow into their mouth as their hands greedily grab at you. It’s only suddenly they break apart briefly, carefully pulling out and rolling you over with a reminder of their strength as they manipulate you like a doll onto all fours. Immediately, a hand rests in your hair, shoving your cheek down into the fur on the ground as they fit their cock back inside of you.

The new angle allows them to go deeper, making you practically squeal when their other hand reaches under to cup your mound and rub your clit in circles with their fingers. All the while Bloodhound growls in your ear praises and filth of, “You are going to be my breeding pet for as long as it needs to take.” “Such a good little thing.” “Thank your god for this blessing.”

To which you begin wailing, “Thank you, thank you, thank- th-thankYOU-!” As you begin to cum hard on their cock. Just two more thrusts before the knot slips into you, stretching you wider and making you feel yourself flexing and squeezing with the aftershocks of your orgasm.

Vaguely you can hear them moan behind you, struggling briefly before you feel the sizeable amount of ‘cum’ entering inside of you. You whine at the full feeling, rocking your hips back to feel it only to have their hands greedily hook over your hips and yank you flush to them.

“Do not spill anything.” They murmur, lazily rolling their own hips against your ass as if to make sure you’re holding still. You hum coyly in return, allowing your weight to rest in their hands as they help ease you down into lying on your abdomen with their thighs framing yours in an almost straddle.

“Aw, but if I spill some, doesn’t that mean we have to go again?” You tease back, tilting your head to the side to eye them from the side. Resting your cheek against your folded arms and smiling lazily at them as you catch them narrowing their eyes at you.

A gentle pinch to your cheek makes you smile as they huff at you, “Do not tempt me, my love.” Just a small threat as you flash a grin in return, lazy and tired as you rest your eyes.

“Mmh- did you cum, Hound?” Yawning at your own words, you peek open an eye to catch them nod briefly, watching them look away from you as if even admitting that was embarrassing.

Yawning once more, you nuzzle into your arms. “We should do this again. Maybe you can chase me a bit and tie me to a tree. Seems like something up your alley.”

And judging by the playful swat to your ass and a huff from your now flustered partner who just fucked you in the woods- you're going to take that as a solid Yes.

[apenapaperandadoofus]

19 angst Saeyoung

Habits (angst Saeyoung)

You asked for it and I'm not holding back this time I WILL BREAK YOHR HEART MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (sorry in advance pft)

"DID YOU SEE THE PICTURE OF THE CAT!?" An excited and loud voice came through the speaker of your phone and you laughed.

"Yes Saeyoung, I did! But honestly I had to try my best not to laugh and squeal, I was in the middle of class!"

Saeyoung rolled his eyes as he leaned back on his chair, a bright smile on his face. "Yeah right, you were texting me the whole time! You were in class my ass."

"Saeyoung!!!" You tried to scold him but ended up laughing instead.

"Anyhow~ Changing the subject from how you're not paying any attention in class, what game are you choosing today?" He asked.

"Oh I've been wanting to beat your ass in Mario Kart for a while now, so we can do that one."

"Challenge accepted! I won't let you win!!!" He smirked.

"Yeah says the one that lost last week while playing Smash!!" You teased.

"I- I was just letting you win on purpose!"

"Sure, sure. Anyway I gotta go to class now, are you picking me up?"

"Yup, same time, same place. Now go along to class, and pay attention, we don't want you failing physics again."

"That was once and I-!"

"Loveyoubye" Saeyoung quickly said and hung up the phone.

You huffed at your phone screen, but still couldn't help the big smile on your face.

.....

"AAAAAAAND I WIN!! HA! SUCK ON THAT MISTER!" You screamed as Saeyoung acted as if you had stabbed him in the heart. You had been playing non-stop since you got home and you had beaten Saeyoung every time.

"Fine I admit defeat, but next time I will get ya." He said, pouting.

You laughed and wrapped your arms around his neck, sitting on his legs. "Well now don't be all mad because you lost~" you teased as you poked his cheek. Saeyoung tried his best not to laugh and looked to the side. "No! I am mad!"

You giggled. "Well then....maybe if I give you a kiss you'll feel better?" Saeyoung raised his eyebrows and gave you a sly smirk, his face coming close to yours. "Not a bad idea. C'mon." He made a silly kissing face and you laughed as you pecked him on the lips.

"Now let's go and get dinner, I'm starving!" You said as you got up and Saeyoung protested, but you only turned around to stick your tongue out, making him gasp in fake indignation.

.......

A dark room. The smell of alcohol. Where was he...? Why wasn't he at home with you...? Was it all a dream?

Saeyoung didn't have time to react before he felt a cold hand slap his face, making him fall on the floor.

"You're wothless." The familiar voice said, and Saeyoung flinched. No matter how many times he'd seen this scene over and over.

He still felt his heart drop when he suddenly saw his brother hiding in his doorway, and then the woman noticing him there and an evil smirk appeared on her face.

"Saeran. Come here you worthless little bug~"

Saeyoung couldn't so anything as he saw his mother go towards his little brother. He was chained to the wall, and for some reason he couldn't do anything. He screamed and yelled, and pulled, but no matter how hard he tried no one heard him, and he wasn't able to break off the chains.

"STOP! PLEASE...!"

.......

"STOP!" Saeyoung yelled as he sat up on his bed, making you jump beside him. You turned on the bedside lamp, and took one look at him before wrapping your arms right around him. Saeyoung held you tight, sobbing. It always took a while to calm him down after that nightmare.

You learned that you could never leave the room whenever he was like that, because he just couldn't bear to not have you in his sight, so you had water prepared by your beside table in case of these situations. Saeyoung quickly drank the it and ran his fingers through his hair, a sad smile on his face as he looked at you.

"Thank you Y/N. What would I do without you?"

"Probably die from a PhD. Pepper overdose or something." You joked.

Saeyoung rolled his eyes but still smiled. At least now he wasn't thinking about the nightmare!

You caressed his cheek and kissed him, saying that you loved him. Then, you turned off the lights, and before you could fully go to sleep Saeyoung kissed your forehead. "I love you. I will always love you. And I promise I will always be by your side."

You smiled. "I love you too."

.....

"WAKE UP MY BEAUTIFUL 606!!!"

You opened your eyes to see Saeyoung jumping up and down on the bed, a huge smile on his face. You groaned. "Saeyoung it's too early."

He chuckled and got on top of you, giving you kisses on your cheek, your forehead, your nose. "I know, buuuuut you have classes! And you can't leave without having breakfast you know? So here I got you, the SEVEN ZERO SEVEN PANCAKES! Saeran helped too!"

"Woooow, the two of you have sure been cooking a lot, haven't you?"

Saryoung smiled. "Yup, everyday! It's become a sort of habit in fact haha. Now let's go or they'll get cold!"

You giggled as Saeyoung gave you a last kiss and carried you towards the kitchen, laughing all the way.

"By the way, there's no more sugar" Saeran said as he placed the plates on the table.

"I guess we're both going to have to go shopping again huh?" You mock glared at Saeyoung and he laughed.

"It's not that bad, besides, the deal is you two go shopping, and then I bring the groceries and place them all where they're supposed to be."

"Yes but this time try and put them in the right place you dumbass." Saeran glared at his brother, who hid behind you and you couldn't help the smile on your face.

You loved mornings. Especially mornings like these.

........

.....

...

..

.

Ironically enough, it was a beautiful day for a funeral.

The sun was shining brightly and the birds were singing.

Everyone in the RFA was present, and each gave a speech about how they got to meet, or just funny stories.

Then they all mourned when it was finally time to say goodbye.

........

He stared at the screen on his phone every now and then, expecting a call or a message. But there was nothing.

He was getting ready to leave the house and go to your school, but then he remembered that you didn't have to go to school anymore.

The house was quiet. It felt cold and dark. Especially in his room. Whenever he woke up from a nightmare he would call your name and reach towards you, but there was nothing in the other side of the bed. It was just empty.

At mornings he'd wake up and start to say good morning, only to be met with complete silence.

He'd walk up to the kitchen and heat some water, while looking at some pictures in the fridge. He felt his heart ache, and decided to instead check his phone to distract himself. Saeyoung laughed as he saw a funny picture of a cat dressed up in silly clothing, and was starting to share it before remembering that there was no one to send it to.

.....

He got on the car and drove the familiar route. He passed through reception, saying hello to the ladies, and made his way up to the white room.

"Hello Saeran." He said, as he entered the room.

Saeyoung opened the curtains to let in some light, and watered the plant. He remembered when he had just got them, they were just a tiny little seed. Now a beautiful blooming flower looked up at him, and he smiled.

He sat on his chair and grabbed his sibling's hand, and then proceeded to do what he always did; tell him about the plans for the day, and what he did the day before.

"I had to throw out another bowl of ice cream. I'll have to buy some more when I get home, after all, it's the first thing I want to give you when you wake up. I'm sure you're tired of drinking all those liquid foods and such. Ugh I can't even imagine..."

He stayed there for a few more hours, until he had to leave.

Before he went home though he decided to make another stop.

....

Saeyoung looked at the stone grave and sadly smiled.

"So....it's been a while since I last came here. I'm sorry for not visiting sooner, I was...well, busy. In the end we weren't really able to fix the car. I'm sure you'd be super mad at that it was your favorite after all heh. I also saw a very funny cat meme today, you would've loved it. Saeran is thankfully doing fine, although they can't really say if he'll wake up any time soon. I....I really miss you. I keep trying to look at you to tell you something but you just aren't there.....I wish you were here, my 606." He said, and tried to not cry once again. Then he left the flowers and said goodbye. He was never able to stay there for long.

He took the long way home, still not able to pass though that street.

When he opened the door he was once again reminded of everything he was missing. He kept expecting you to pop out and welcome him home with a big smile on your face, hugging him tightly. He kept waiting for Saeran to grumble his hello's, acting as if he didn't care.

He kept waiting but...it never happened.

As he got ready for bed, he checked his phone once more, before taking off his glasses and turning off the light.

He turned around. "Goodnight Y/N- oh....."

He let out a sarcastic laugh and covered his face with his arm, tears falling from his eyes once again.

"Old habits die hard I guess...."

[thedreadvampy]

Ok so like I don't really want to kick off another round of Mondays argument but

having had a bit of time to step back I feel pretty confident in saying that there's a real struggle in a lot of communities to understand and accept the concept of conflicting access needs

Like it isn't fundamentally an act of bigotry against Person A when Person B says 'this thing that helps you harms others', nor is it implying that A or B is 'less oppressed' or that their oppression doesn't matter. But these kinds of access conflicts need to be talked about in order to be addressed.

Like in a sphere I spend more time taking about, disability and neurodivergence, where this comes up a Lot - say wheelchair users need the entrance to be a ramp, but somebody with balance issues finds walking up a ramp difficult and often fall. Saying 'it's a problem for me that there are only ramps in this building' doesn't mean you think that it's unimportant that wheelchair users can get in, or that your needs matter more.

Or like, here's an example that's come up a lot for me lately - automated subtitles. Some people find automated subtitles on Zoom calls make meetings possible (people with hearing or audio processing issues particularly) but others find them distracting and find it impossible to focus. Those two things are incompatible needs - you can't both have subtitles and not have subtitles in this context - but that doesn't mean one of them is Real and Important and the other is Fake and Irrelevant just because that would make it easier.

One last example of this in material terms - I am autistic and have real problems with audio processing when I'm tired. I went to a workshop in a smallish space, so the workshop was quite near the crèche. Having a crèche is a vital access need for a lot of people; lone parents and working class mothers in general are often very left out of activist and social spaces because of a lack of childcare. But for me, it created an insurmountable problem - the noise from the crèche meant I couldn't take in any information, I was exhausted and stressed and in pain the whole time, you know? It wouldn't be fair to ask the crèche to shut or to silence the children, who need and deserve the right to play, but equally it wouldn't be fair to tell me I'm selfish or lying for having trouble following the session.

Anyway so that's access clash. Different people have different needs that may be fundamentally incompatible, but they're equally valid needs.

But access clash isn't just personal, it's also political, social and linguistic. And this kind of feeds into a recurrent issue in groups of marginalised people where there's a persistent desire to decide in any given argument Whose Marginalisation Matters More and to accuse the other of lying/arguing in bad faith/ignoring erasing The Struggle.

Some recent examples of that phenomenon in the TMA fandom (pokes bear pokes bear) might be:

1. It's aphobic to say that there's any problem at all with framing fat, traumatised MLM as virginal or naive or inexperienced or non-sexual, because he could be ace and that's important to ace people. But fat, traumatised and gay people have a history of being desexualised, given less sexual and romantic agency, and infantilised or objectified as cute and pure in a way that thin, non-survivor or straight people don't. One way to approach this is to say One Of These Issues Is Important And Valid And That Means The Other Is Being Homophobic/Fatphobic/Ableist/Aphobic and Targeting Marginalised People With Invalid Criticism. That's a very easy task to fall into but it's important imo to make space for the access clash.

2. Bisexual people want an event that focuses on bisexuality. Non-bisexual people want an event that focuses on their own sexuality. Everyone's desire in this situation is to see their own experience reflected.

There's this kind of hierarchy of truth idea where anything that conflicts with what you know to be true must necessarily be false, but the fact is that human experience is infinitely complex and variable so actually something that's undeniably true for some people will always run into some friction with what's undeniably true for others.

And there's such a strong impulse towards assuming that the other is lying or arguing in bad faith, because you KNOW your need is real and important and it conflicts with their needs and that MUST mean they're doing it At You, or in the extreme that they're actively lying to hurt and belittle you. And that's a really natural and understandable impulse, especially among marginalised people who ARE often hurt, manipulated and belittled in bad faith. But I really think that as a community we need to actively work to undercut the idea that oppression is a zero sum game; that if you having the space you need treads on my toes, I can say "you're on my foot and it hurts" without Secretly Meaning "you don't deserve space and shouldn't be given it." Like I do authentically need an untrodden-on foot and you do authentically need enough space to stand in and it's not undermining the truth of either of those statements to acknowledge the other.

idk I just think. Understanding that the other person may have an authentic need being intent/overridden (even though the need may not be what they think it is!) is a pretty important part of conflict management. and believing that if I say "ow you trod on my foot" means I'm actively trying to undermine your need for space is a pretty important part of how conflict escalates into oblivion until I'm yelling YOU DON'T DESERVE STANDING SPACE GO GET CRUSHED and you're yelling I'M GOING TO STAMP ON YOUR FOOT UNTIL IT BREAKS

idk if that makes sense but 🤷‍♀️

[serifsans]

Vladimir’s bulk is warm and comfortable in a way nothing else is. It’d probably be downright luxurious to curl up on his lap in his true form but if there’s anything Jean-Paul hates, it’s letting their boyfriend (boyfriend, he calls him, as if either of them aren’t anything but too damn old, as if they don’t think of him as their husband, even if they dare not say it lest that change something and ruin everything.) see them when they aren’t wearing human form. It’s embarrassing, like being caught wearing bell-bottoms before they cycle back into fashion. They’ll let Vladimir see them now when they’re skulking around wearing ratty bathrobes so old they’re now antiques but JP draws the line as letting him see that silly pink dog.

(Also, they figure that if the regulators ever decide to mind-wipe him, it’s probably better if he has less memories of an obviously alien form. Maybe it won’t completely fry his brain then. JP’s terrified of that. Of course, JP also knows that if they ever came for him, Vladimir’s taking as many regulators as possible with him before they could even get to his head. They’re terrified of that just as much.)

They see each other so infrequently anyway that there’s no point wasting it looking like anything but a dream: that is, if your idea of a dream is undersized, middle-aged, and dressed entirely in designer brands. Vladimir’s is, which is part of the reason they like him so much. Their volph form is not a dream. It’s silly and little and adorable when it’s not glitching and lagging. JP will take adorable but the silly part, no.

Jean-Paul has his shop and his commissions and a whole part of his life he doesn’t want to drag Vladimir into any more than he already has. Vladimir’s got his work and his family and a whole part of his life he doesn’t want to drag Jean-Paul (or Polly Jean or whatever other name they cycle though) into any more than he already has. They both have businesses that keep them very busy and also side-pieces that also keep them very busy, mostly because neither of them really like to address their emotions and mostly deal with them by throwing themselves at whatever distraction they can find. Always, always, there’s the looming threat that this cannot last, that it’ll end poorly, that they should just end this, but whenever they break up, they can’t stay apart too long until the fear comes for one of them again.

Anyway, the point? Jean-Paul’s living like a fucking king over there because he gets to wallow all over this man. Anyone who doesn’t get to cuddle him is missing out on one of the finer joys of life.

“Paulie, my sweet one, maybe you would like it more if you moved a little, yeah? Just a little. I love you as I love no other, you are my starshine, my heart, but your ass, it’s bony. My legs can only take so much. I am sorry, my love.”

Oh, okay, the man he loves is just cruelly abandoning him like a complete and utter monster. That’s how it is. Being JP is so hard. They make a big show of looking extremely sad as they scoot off his lap and curl up against his side instead, sighing extremely, extremely over-dramatically. Vladimir pets his hair and gives him a little kiss to make up for kicking him off of his lap. JP sighs even more sadly and when that doesn’t elicit the desired response, sighs even louder so Vladimir kisses him again.

Their ass isn’t that bony.

“I guess I might find it within my heart to forgive you for this cruel and utterly cutting insult,” they say. “But only because I am an extremely kind person. The best. I’m completely saintly, darling. That’s the truth of it.”

Vladimir chuckles, a low rumble.

“They will write poems to your kindness and generosity. They will not say that you called what’s-her-name horrible things for hours only because she did not say hello to you while walking down the street. I still think she did not see you. If she knew what you said, she would never talk to you agains even if she did see you.”

JP huffs.

“First of all, it was not for hours. Second of all, I was only being truthful. Third of all, she did it on purpose; don’t argue otherwise. Fourthly, she can snub me all she wants, I really do not give a fuck, the joke’s on her, I made out with her dear old dad in the 70s and he liked it, so hah. I hope no one shows up at her fucking garden party. I hope she gets kicked out of the country club. I hope she buys a pony and it doesn’t love her.”

“Okay, Paulie, you tart,” says Vladimir, laughter still in his voice. “You were very busy in the 70s. You must have never rested.”

“You know it.”

Maybe being kicked off Vladimir’s lap isn’t so bad. It means they can nestle up against him and rest their head on his stomach. He likes to run his fingers through their hair, especially since they decided to start wearing it long in this body. Anyone else doing it makes him feel like anxious lapdog with no control over who does and doesn’t pet him (or pull his tail or mess with his ears or poke him) but Vladimir does it and he feels like a person instead. He closes his eyes and though he never naps, JP really feels so comfortable right now he could doze off. Bears are fantastic. The world needs more of them. Actually, it needs more of them and it needs this one to last forever.

“Mm, completely unrelated to exploits of the past, but I made an account on a website. Thought you should know. Transparency. Communication. That sort of thing. It’s fun.”

God, they’re comfy. This is amazing. Their life really is so blessed. Thank you, universe.

“Paulie,” his boyfriend says with gentle exasperation in his voice. “You join these websites, you find someone that maybe you do not like, you say things that you know to be hurtful, the websites say that you cannot go to them anymore. You can’t keep doing this. There is a reason that I run the boutique’s social media and you, you, my heart, are allowed nowhere near. You are very spiteful and very rude. I know this and I love you.”

JP really can’t argue against this one because they’re running out of websites to be banned from. Even still, they roll their eyes and huff because how dare Vladimir call them out like this.

“Ugh, fine, I’ll behave. I’m really trying to be nicer, you know. It’s all so goddamn weird that I wouldn’t even understand how to insult these people if I tried, anyway. I don’t fucking get memes, darling. It’s all a bunch of bullshit people pretend is funny. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I am sorry you do not understand the Internet. It is a strange place. I will send you Russian memes instead and then maybe you will understand,” Vladimir says. “If you do not like the site, then maybe consider not being on it.”

“I didn’t say that. I just said that it doesn’t make sense. Darling, you know I really do think people should cater to my exact sense of taste at all times but even though they don’t, I still very graciously put up with it,” JP says. “It’s a website for fellow space fans. They’re all bound to be weird."

Vladimir’s hand in his hair stills.

“I do not need to know the details of what you say on your websites, I think maybe I do not even need to know what they are called, but be mindful of what you post. You do not know who could be reading. Do not mention me on it ever, please.  Be careful.”

The ever-present anxiety starts making itself known. It’s not that Vladimir himself makes them anxious because he’s a giant softie underneath the leather and gruff exterior and the fact that he will commit murder in an instant if it means protecting his loved ones. It’s just that sometimes JP very suddenly remembers how much they absolutely have to protect him at all costs and what it will be like to lose him if they can’t devise a way to keep him around forever.

“I’m sorry, Vladimir. I should’ve said something before I made an account. I’ll delete it. I just...you told me I can’t keep running away from others like me. Well, I can’t deal with them in real life. I just can’t. It’s just a website, I didn’t think things through, I don’t want to compromise your safety, I can-”

“Ah, ah, no, I am sorry, I think maybe I said things too harshly, do not worry, my darling. I trust you. Please, maybe it will be a good thing for you and then you will understand their memes. I only want you to be happy and safe. Just be careful, okay? And do not start fights with people.”

JP whines and buries their face against him.

“I really can delete it. I, I don’t always think things through. I wasn’t made for thinking.”

Vladimir decides the best course of action is to pull them back into his lap in hopes it’ll calm the anxious volph, except JP can’t even properly enjoy it because their brain (if they even have a brain because they honestly do not know.) goes from zero to one hundred in half a second and now they’re thinking about everything bad that could possibly happen because they joined a website for aliens.

“Hey, it’s okay, okay? Have fun on your alien dating site. Maybe you will sleep with a Nessie and it will change your life. Do not worry about me. Just be careful with yourself, okay? You do not protect that person enough.”

That’s enough for JP to momentarily break through the anxiety.

“It’s a blogging website, not a hookup website."

“Okay.”

...

“Paulie? Is the Loch Ness Monster real? Do you know her?”

“Darling, you know I never kiss and tell.”

“Is she real?”

“Fuck if I know but I’m certainly not swimming all the way over there to find out.”

[lilaccatholic]

I bet you love ‘Gone with the Wind’ and fantasize about the era where you could own whole-ass people.

Baby I don't even consider myself the owner of my dog. We're just roommates.

Seriously what made you think it's okay to message this to a stranger, especially one who you seem to be making a lot of assumptions about without knowing anything about her? You have no idea who I am or what I do or how I treat people and the fact that you'd accuse me of something so awful with zero basis (because let's make it clear, I am vehemently against any and all forms of racism and slavery) means I must have said or done something that REALLY ruffled your feathers. I bet it wasn't even something about racial matters because I don't post that sort of thing very often--no hate to those who talk more about that issue online than I do, it's just not an area I feel particularly well educated in in order to talk about in greater detail--so that leaves us with a few options:

A. You're mad that I'm Catholic and said something Catholic and you assumed from the aesthetic and the profile pic of Grace Kelly that that means I'm particularly traddy and either made the assumption that that means I fall in line with the racist, "life was better when there was segregation and society was cool with domestic violence" crowd. In which case you would be very mistaken and happy to know that I consider those people the ones who I am personally the most angry with and who I regularly block the second I've seen they follow me. Or, you saw my aesthetic and profile pic and just figured that that meant I was a loathsome "piece of shit trad wife", as who I'm betting was you so kindly said on anon last night.

B. If indeed you are the same anon you were probably furious that I answered your ask last night with humor, as most children seeking attention would be, and this little tantrum of an ask came about because of that anger. Not very clever, I must say--though I do offer bonus points for using the current heightened racial tensions in society to your advantage. Sloppy on the rest, though, so I must of course deduct points for that. See anon, once one has been bullied by middle school girls, outright insults with no real substance to them simply don't hold the same level punch to them anymore.

C. You're an angry, bitter troll who sends messages of hate online to people for no reason.

D. Now this option I'm pretty confident in, though admittedly all the evidence is pretty circumstantial. Then again, this is the internet and lives have been destroyed based on rumor alone. See anon, I rarely received hate on here outside of the usual "ur priests r ped0s" anons which I see and delete in short order. I also don't believe I've posted anything particularly spicy lately, as I'm sure one of my mutuals would have responded to it by now and offered another take on things because my mutuals have a variety of opinions and I delight in them sharing them. So, for me to receive two instances of anon hate right in a row, something must have precipitated it, but what? Now, as I'm sure you'll so delicately explain in your next response if I'm incorrect, I can say with pretty fair certainty that this only began after I publicly messaged my support to dear Nelly who has so often been sent anon hate for simply existing. And, dear anon, I'd do it again because Nelly deserves that, as would anyone else being bullied by those who share the same sentiments as you. So taking this altogether it seems to me as though it's quite possible that you are one of the same anons who has been going after Nelly because you can't bear the thought of people defending her. My, how dismal a life like that sounds. Being so preoccupied with your hate for a stranger on the internet for just existing that you try to destroy not only her self confidence, but you go after others who have supported her? That sounds miserable. And quite sad.

Because you see anon that's what I think you are: sad. I think that regardless of your motivations, that deep down you're an extremely sad, angry, and broken person. I say this because that's what I read from this. Yes, I've poked quite a bit of fun in my response and perhaps that was not the most charitable. But honestly anon, deep down I'm not mad at you. I feel very, very sad for you. Because clearly you're hurting. Clearly you're lashing out because you don't know how to deal with that hurt, with that rage. I've felt that kind of rage anon, the kind with teeth that roars and doesn't let go until it destroys everything around it, leaving you with nothing but more pain and brokenness than when you started. And I also know that this all seems a bit silly to you, all that I've written. It sure is silly to me, but hey, I was bored. So, before this gets any longer I'll tell you something anon: I forgive you. For this and any hatred you've harbored against me. I forgive it. And if you need someone to talk to, if you need a helping hand or just someone to chat about nothing with, my dms are open. I hope you do better, anon. I'll be praying for you.

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

Hey Chekhov, I'm gonna say in advance that if this ask is too invasive and/or personal, please ignore it. I recently came out to my best friend(and myself) that I am nonbinary, and the thing that made me realize was that I had experienced pretty bad gender dysphoria when I was younger(w/o having a term to describe it). I am curious in your own experiences with dysphoria, whether you had any, how it was for you, etc.

Aight, I’m gonna put this under a cut because I’m sure no one else need to be reading through my life story (which is painfully boring):

Basically to get a few things out of the way immediately because I know there will be some people reading this looking to poke fun at me for it, so this first part is for you - to give you something to do with your time because I pity you: 

I identify as agender, I consider myself to fall under the umbrella term ‘nonbinary’, and I have felt this way throughout basically... my whole life. (Granted, I also did not have words for this until I was in my late teens.) 

I’ve used the word agender for myselg for about 10 years now, my views regarding my gender have not shifted - and I hate the presumption that there are ‘trans-trenders’ out there. I don’t personally believe that is a thing. I think exploring your gender feelings and your gender presentation and etc is super cool and an interesting thing to do.

I believe negotiating yourself socially with regards to your gender is actually quite healthy, so if you think it’s “just a call for attention” then we already disagree. 

People want to be perceived in specific ways. That’s not a novel concept. Most people have an image of themselves they like to broadcast to the world. (Strong, smart, witty, friendly, a salesman, an artist, a feminine icon, etc.) This has been true for CENTURIES. It just so happens that now we can finally be more flexible in how we perceive gender without life threatening repercussions, so many more people are open to the idea of doing it. 

I do not believe that one must have dysphoria to be trans/non-binary, although obviously many transgender people do. I believe the defining experience of identifying as trans is a GOAL of how you want to be perceived or how you want yourself to be defined in society, because - again - I believe gender is socially and culturally negotiated. 

If you disagree with any of this - cool. You can send a message to my main tumblr @thechekhov and yell at me about it if that’s how you enjoy spending your time, but I cannot promise I’ll answer you because frankly I have hobbies and shit I enjoy doing, so I’ll probably be doing that instead.

And as an off-topic mention: I don’t personally identify as ‘trans’ (although many nonbinary people obviously do, and have every right to) and there’s a lot that goes into that but the bottom line is that I just don’t want to take up space in that community because I personally don’t want to ‘transition’ and that’s not a part of my identity in that big of a way.

But regardless of that:

To get to the meat of it (and get ready to be thoroughly disappointed if you’re carnivorous because I am the worst person to ask about this.)

I drew the lucky lottery ticket of genetics and scored well in two fields:

1) I’m white (bears mentioning, because people of color honestly get so much more shit for being nonbinary)

2) I’m naturally relatively slim and puberty kinda grazed me instead of hitting me head on. I never developed overt (publically visible) secondary sexual characteristics for my ‘assigned’ gender.

So by and by, I’m actually already WAY not the person to talk to about this because I got off easy and I’ve never actually had any big amounts of dysphoria. Other people had dysphoria FOR me (my grandmother lamented my androgyny on my behalf) - but I was always quite comfortable with my body. 

It also has to be mentioned that I never actually actively cared about my body. I was briefly invested in fashion in high school, and through college experimented with fashion and various haircuts, but three out of the five days a week I literally do not look in the mirror before I go to work. And this has nothing to do with hating how I look - I just forget to. So... I suppose that says something about me. Not sure what. (My coworkers have never complained terribly about what I wear, so presumably I do a swell enough job of passing as a human being with functioning eyes). 

That being said - when I dress to my assigned gender, I often get comments that kind of skim the borderline of “oh, finally, you’re normal for a change”. They’re always well-meant, but quite surprised, because I feel like people have come to expect me to dress a little weirdly. 

And that isn’t to say I haven’t experienced disgruntlement with how I’m perceived. People often purposefully gender me at work - and that’s not a totally bad thing, and I don’t blame them for it. The country I live in has close to ZERO knowledge of non-binary identities, even WITHIN the local LGBTQA+ community, so I can’t expect others to know anything more. But I think my ability to not care about this spills over from my ability to not care about my appearance. It’s just a handy little personality trait - I am blissfully indifferent to what others think of me 90% of the time (as for the other 10%... well... we all have bad days. I’m not totally emotionless.) 

Perhaps this will get me into hot water but - I’ve never once corrected a person about my own gender. I’ve been fully comfortable in it, and I am aware of it in my own head but as someone who has been in the closet about my bisexuality for over 10 years, I am not invested in risking social retaliation for the sake of something I know 90% of the people around me will not understand - or perhaps purposefully misunderstand. 

If asked about it I’m rather forthright, and I make jokes about it with friends, but other than that I just kind of.... live my life. Whether or not I’m ‘clearly nonbinary’ to my peers is up for debate - I like to think I am, but like the metaphorical mirror that I avoid looking into, I never actually questioned any of my irl friends about how well I ‘pass’ or... don’t, I guess? But it’s not actually that important to me. I dress how I enjoy dressing, which is, I think, the most important thing (and it confuses the students a bit, they can’t gender me as successfully as adults can).

And that’s all I need, really. 

Cheers. 

[screechnweeb]

STUBBORN

KATSUKI BAKUGOU /// MHA SHORT FANFIC

∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆

"Bakugou! Look out!" was the last thing that he heard before blacking out.

"Kacchan...Kacchan~"

Bakugou heard a gentle voice calling for him, he felt like someone was poking him awake. He opened his eyes and saw a familiar figure smiling at him with bright eyes.

"I told you to be careful didn't I?" The girl smiled.

Bakugou couldn't believe his eyes, tears started falling before he could even notice. He immediately pulled the girl in front of him into a hug, earning a gasp from the girl.

Bakugou was speechless, he was silently sobbing his heart out. The girl heard the quiet sniffles and frowned, "I know...I missed you too" the girl hugged him tighter.

After a few seconds, she pulled away and turning her frown into another bright smile. "You have to go back now, Kacchan. You don't want your friends to worry, right?". Bakugou didn't move an inch, the girl sighed and sat beside Bakugou

She rested her head on his shoulder and said "The sea's beautiful isn't it?" as she stared at the sea in front of them.

"You must be lonely huh?" The girl's face fell into a sad smile.

The girl sighed deeply. She stood and held out her hand to help Bakugou stand.

He took her hand and stood up. She hugged him once more with cried.

She pulled away and smiled her brightest smile yet with tears still falling from her eyes. Bakugou became frustrated and started to drag the girl with him and go back.

"I'm getting you back, I promise that I'll-" his words were cut by the girl stopping on her tracks.

"I can't go back, stupid" The girl chuckled a sad laugh, she knew that Bakugou would refuse to let go. Bakugou fell silent, stifling his cries.

"Don't cry, you look ugly" The girl joked but was also tearing up.

"Please... I just want another chance" he sobbed

"Kacchan, don't tell me that you still blame yourself..."

"What am I supposed to feel? I don't know what to do! I just- *sigh* I just want you to come back..." He held unto the girl's hand tightly.

"If you're here, how will you be able to fulfill that promise? Didn't you promise me something before I left?" The girl wiped away Bakugou's tears and kissed him on the cheek.

"Be the best hero you can be, okay?"

"How can I be a hero if I couldn't even save you?"

"Then save those that you can save, protect those that you can. I'm not the only one who needs protecting, there is so much more that you could do to be a hero" once again, the girl's eyes are brimming with tears.

"Why are you so fucking stubborn? If you can't go then I'll-"

"No... As much as I want you to stay with me, I can't be selfish, so please..." The girl wept. She sighed and looked upon Bakugou's face and smiled.

"Be a hero, Ground Zero..." She pulled Bakugou closer to her until they've touched foreheads.

"Do your best...I'll be waiting for you here" Bakugou kissed her on the lips and whispered "I love you" but then, he woke up.

"Bakugou... What the hell were you thinking?!" Kirishima was the first one Bakugou saw.

At first, he seemed to have forgotten what he just dreamt about, but then he remembered.

Y/N...

Bakugou sighed and sadly smiled.

'Still as stubborn as usual huh?' He thought to himself. 'Don't worry, I'm keeping that promise'

"Bakugou? Are you alright? Should I call a doctor?" Kirishima asked when he noticed Bakugou smiling out of the blue.

"Go away, I'm trying to rest dumbass" Bakugou shortly came to reality again.

Kirishima sighed with relief seeing that his best friend is fine. "Okay, then... I'll get going, and please don't swear at the hospital staff while you're here" Kirishima then left.

'I'll be waiting for you here' her words echoed in Bakugou's mind. He smiled and thought 'I'm really gonna punch you once I come back there'.

Hiii, I'm sorry for any errors and such hehe😅 English is my second language so please bear with me😂