#(that i added after i realized nobody wanted to wade through lines and lines of text waxing poetic about my thoughts or whatever /lh)

[dangerous-drabbles]

update

i've been putting off writing this, but i can't exactly not, so... i'll try and make this brief.

in short: i've had an epiphany.

(tl;dr at bottom)

i've been writing/brainstorming this fic since november/december last year, and since then, my ideas and understandings of the show and it's characters have evolved. and with them, my plans and understandings for iwf.

i want to be clear: this is not me saying i'm done with iwf, or going on some long hiatus. in fact, it's more the opposite.

having graduated, with summer in full swing, and feeling more sure than ever about where i want to take this fic (as well as remaining fully invested in this fandom), i plan to do more writing than ever before B)

that said: something needs to change.

this fic has been, and continues to be, my baby (besides my ever-growing, yet rarely spoken of, tmnt iteration) for most of the time i've been active in this fandom.

i've long struggled with motivation for big writing projects, but i am resolved to keep with this one because i have a story worth telling. will it be worth reading? who's to say!! (i hope so /gen)

but, as you might've noticed, my more recent updates (especially around the end of arc I) were... bad. maybe not bad-bad, but still bad from a 'technical writing/story' perspective. i struggled a lot with them, and i think that really shows.

i've was trying to figure out why its come to be this way while pushing forward by forcing myself to write, but that didn't work. it wasn't until this week, tuesday, when realization struck me (while watching a video essay, lol).

it made me realize a big part of what was making me unhappy was something i already knew, an issue underlying the fic (and my writing style) as a whole.

with this in mind, i can't keep going forward in the way i had planned.

i'm not gonna go back and change arc I. while the problem is there, especially in the later chapters, i'm early enough on that i can turn things around and (hopefully) root out the problem(s) without any major changes to what i've written/set up so far.

but to do this, i need time.

i know i know i just took a 2-3 week long break, but to pull this off, i need time to prepare and rewrite. i'm halfway through revisions for the arc II outline, and i'll need to heavily revise/rewrite several chapters, plus write some new stuff (since i'm axing the next couple i had planned/written out... rip.)

if all goes well, it shouldn't take longer than two weeks. best case scenario, i get it done in one. we'll see.

until then, i humbly ask for your patience.

as a note:

i could go deep into my inspirations for this fic, where i wanted to go originally, what's changed since then, and especially what brought me to my realization (plus the specifics of said realization) but i said i would try to make this brief, and here we are, [insert amount of words] later.

are you really surprised, though? (/lh)

[if you would like to see me talk more about that (i would absolutely always be down, i love talking about myself /j /lh), feel free to shoot me an ask. in fact, i would beg on my hands and knees, if i were not a silly guy who lives on your computer (/j)]

(tl;dr -- i am not done writing iwf. however, i had a realization that led to me reevaluating my writing and determining that i need to rewrite/revise my arc II outline, and edit/revise/completely rewrite the next several chapters.

this means i am planning to take another week or so off (i am sosososo sorry) to iron everything out and get ahead.

this whole post was me trying to explain the reasoning behind this decision, with an underlying sense of desperate patheticism to match (/j /lh).)

to conclude, i want to say thank you so much for your support, silent or otherwise, from all who have read and (hopefully) enjoyed this fic thus far. i genuinely couldn't do it without you (yes, sun, this includes you /lh.)

especially to my frequent commenters, who i promise i do see and appreciate. you guys are the real mvps <3

i have some really big plans for iwf, and i hope you'll stick around to see them come to fruition (:<

[starcrossedkaiju]

Kingslayer AU: Chapter 3

This one is a bit shorter. It’s entirely fluff, nothing bad happens here. I felt bad for my man, I really did. Scott really channeled Ethan Winters in that last chapter.

Also, Jimmy is here!

Once again Scott awoke to something touching his face. This time it decidedly was not water, although he kind of wished it was due to how dirty he felt. Scott groaned when he opened his eyes and was immediately blinded by harsh sunlight. He remembered making it to the desert and presumably passing out. Was he dead?

“Scott?”

Holy shit. Someone just spoke.

“Hey dude, can you hear us?”

Two mystery people hovered over his line of sight. Their faces were unrecognizable due to being backlit by the sun.

“Hey Scott, can you open your eyes?” Someone spoke softly to him. He reached up slightly with his hand and they took it with a loving squeeze.

Back on earth now, Scott recognized a half of his company.

“Is that you Jimmy?” Scott muttered through half lidded eyes, “It’s so bright, I can’t see your face,” he apologized quietly.

Jimmy giggled with a twinge of sadness, his hand traveled up to cup the other’s cheek, “yes it’s me dear. Grian is here too. I’m going to bring you home in no time,” he reassured.

A primal chill went down Scott’s spine. It sent his exhausted brain into an instant overdrive, causing him to loose his breath quite suddenly.

“No..” Scott said. His voice was hoarse and laced with something like fear.

“They’ll kill me,” he whispered pleadingly, “they’ll come back for me and this time they’ll just kill me! Please don’t, they’ll kill us,” he repeated until he had no more air to talk with.

Jimmy’s eyes were wide with shock, he’d pulled his husband into his lap and off of the rough sand so that Scott’s head was off the floor. A hand fruitlessly rubbed circles on his arm in an attempt for comfort, which seemed to be lost on poor Scott.

“Okay- Scott? Count to ten with me will you?” Grian stopped observing and pat his disheveled friend on both of his shoulders to get his attention.

“Deep breath in, then out,” he guided, and Scott followed him shakily.

Grian made Scott do it ten times before shifting to counting up and down from ten. Scott was able to breathe again and he instinctively turned his head away from the sun. Jimmy placed a gentle hand over his eyes.

Scott tuned out of the conversation in favor of slipping into a comfortable numbness. He could infer the pair were considering their options to get him home. Jimmy couldn’t carry him alone, Grian definitely couldn’t.

The sun in the desert was harsh during the summer months, thankfully it was wintertime and a cool wind swept over the land. Scott focused on the calming sound of a breeze on the sand as he fell asleep once more.

*****

“Careful with him Scar, you’ll snap his neck,” Jimmy complained from somewhere under Scott’s line of hearing.

“Dude shut up, you’re being paranoid,” Scar chuckled back at him.

“I’m really not. Don’t let his neck hang like that,” Jimmy replied.

“Guys stop. His neck is perfectly fine,” Grian audibly hit someone on the arm as he scolded them.

*****

The uncomfortable feeling of grime against sheets greeted Scott when he awoke. It looked like late afternoon judging by the light coming through the curtain (which was a white sheet clipped over a window). He sat up, instantly recognizing his whereabouts.

The Sand Castle.

So it wasn’t a dream, he thought, he actually had made it out. Glancing down at his hands, he observed a myriad of bandages adorning his hands and wrists. They must have been pretty messed up. The rest of his body was still covered in dirt and sand, hence why they stuck him in a cot instead of a bed. Figures.

His sheet was also looking worse for wear, so when he stood up on mildly shaky legs he bunched up the ruined blanket and took it with him to go find someone. Making extra sure to hold the railing on the stairs, he came upon a window and took a second to look outside. The desert was expectantly barren, everyone must have been downstairs.

A muffled conversation became clear when Scott made it to the living room. Scar, Grian, and Jimmy had taken up residence on a single couch. They must have been waiting for something to smelt and conversing frivolously with the resident Enderman. A window near the door was propped open to let in the cold afternoon air which dulled the heat and mild stench coming from the furnace. It must be iron, for Scott could taste the faint metal in the back of his mouth.

He leaned on the doorframe casually as all the eyes in the room turned to him.

“Hey look whose awake!” Scar greeted him with an arms open gesture, “the dust man himself,” he added with a smirk.

“You really are quite dirty,” Grian agreed.

Jimmy almost threw himself from the couch, he went to hug Scott but was pushed away to arms length.

“They’re right, I am very gross right now,” Scott cautioned, but his husband would not be deterred.

Jimmy pushed the other’s arms down and pulled him close, leaning his chin on top of the other’s head gently. Scott sighed and gave in as well.

A unanimous decision seemed to be made when Scott was sat down on the couch. Scar, Grian, and Jimmy hovered over him awkwardly with worried faces. Unsure what to ask him and what not to ask him.

“Uh, I’m assuming you have questions?” Scott broke the silence.

“Yes. Many,” Grian said, “I suppose we should start with where you’ve been for the past three days,” he supplied.

“Three days?” Scott replied slightly horrified.

“That’s not good,” Scar said in reference to Scott’s lack of awareness.

“Well okay, let’s start with where you’ve been right? I mean I think we all know the answer, but still”, Jimmy sat down next to Scott. Probably for moral support.

“Right. Yeah, I got kidnapped; if it wasn’t obvious,” Scott said. Everyone nodded with an I knew that expression.

“They whacked me over the head with a stick in the woods and then,” he paused and looked at his hands. They were shaking, so he curled and uncurled his fists a few times.

“They threw me in a hole and left me there,” he said.

“Wait like an actual hole? Underground?” Scar asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Yes, underground, it was like a cell made of cobblestone. There wasn’t any light, and nobody came to visit me either. That’s probably why I didn’t know how long I was down there,” Scott confirmed.

“What so they just left you in there to die?” Jimmy butted in with a concerned inflection.

“Man that’s messed up, but hey this is good news! Now we have a valid excuse to take Dogwarts down right?” Scar said.

“What?!” yelled Grian, “this is not good news at all. What is wrong with you?”

“We are not building another bomb,” Jimmy said.

“We are completely outnumbered,” added Grian.

“I am not picking another fight with those guys. I think we’ve messed with them enough, look at where that got us,” Jimmy agreed.

“Guys shut up!” Scott said. He stood up from the couch. Everyone seemed to eye him with speculation.

“I need to go wash up,” he excused himself, taking the bedsheet with him out the front door.

*****

Around the back of the base there was an area where the mountain dropped off into a small pond. Scott slid down on the loose sand until he reached the dock where the Red Desert kept their stash of gunpowder. The sky was empty and quiet, eerily so. The only sound came from a slight din of insects and the babble of water lapping against the legs of the dock.

Peaceful.

Scott pulled off his boots, dumping a mound of dirt from both of them before continuing to strip down to his shorts. He waded into the water and submerged himself. He could see the cloud of dirt coming off of him when he ran his fingers through his hair.

Scott stayed under the water for a while. The muffled ambience calmed his nerves. He allowed himself to cry for a moment, then returned to the surface.

“Wow, I didn’t think you were coming back up,” Jimmy said from above him.

Scott yelped with shock, spinning around to face the other.

“Don’t do that!” he scolded with no malice, but he splashed some water in his direction.

“I didn’t even do anything,” Jimmy pleaded and laughed as he was bombarded with cold water.

“Whatever. Were you just standing there watching me?” Scott asked.

Jimmy shrugged dismissively.

“You creep,” Scott splashed him again.

Jimmy made to reach down and get Scott back, but the ladder grabbed his hand when it was near and pulled his unsuspecting husband headfirst into the pond. Jimmy seemed to have already dressed for the occasion and was also wearing his shorts and a T-shirt, so there was no real harm done to him besides his meticulously styled hair.

Scott leaned on the dock to prevent himself from drowning in his laughter. Jimmy resurfaced and a long string of water flew from his now messy hair as he flung it from his eyes.

“You…” Jimmy growled, sending a playful spritz into Scott’s eyes.

“You,” Scott said, “were asking for that,” he teased.

“Ugh. Well I’m glad you still seem to be yourself after all that. Don’t be taking it out on me though,” Jimmy joined the other on leaning on the dock.

“No promises,” Scott responded jokingly, but his smile quickly faded from his face. He pulled himself out of the water and onto the dock, a puddle forming under him where he sat with his legs in the water.

The lake was a deep blue color, just barely able to see the bottom through the dark shadows cast by the mountain in the now setting sun. Scott’s reflection gazed back at him. Cleaner than last time, his bangs were plastered to the front of his face by the water, which had turned his hair into as deep of a blue as the lake below him.

He felt rather exposed. Still afraid that Dogwarts was hot on his trail, they’d no doubt realized he had escaped them.

This was not the life he wanted. Constantly being on the run, feeling unsafe at home, and fearing that your presence could be the reason the people you love get hurt. Scott looked at his mangled hands, his fingers were irritated and red from where they poked out of the bandages; and for the first time in a long time he felt pain.

Not the pain that comes when you catch your finger in a doorframe, or the pain from a bad trip down the porch steps; the pain that grows in your chest when you feel like a burden. When you’ve had to be picked up and glued back together by another person one too many times. When you’ve spent your life running, only to fall into someone else’s arms and suddenly feel safe for once.

When you’re terrified of what will happen if they’re not there anymore.

“Hey,” Jimmy said with a reprimanding tone, “you’ve got that look on your face,” he warned.

Scott threw him a side glance, “what look?”

“That look. The look you get when you start overthinking your life instead of talking to someone about it,” Jimmy recited.

“I hate when you do that,” Scott sighed.

“Do what?”

“Know me,” Scott deadpanned.

Jimmy hoisted himself up and sat next to his husband. He tamed the strands of hair from the other’s eyes, tucking them behind his ears.

“I brought some soap. I was planning on lending it to you before an attempt on my life was made,” he said, leaning backwards and coming back with a bucket and a bar of light orange soap. It was lightly used, it smelled of citrus and mint.

“I feel like I never knew anyone before I knew you,” Scott said as he examined the bar of soap up near his face.

That wasn’t entirely a lie. Jimmy was the first person Scott had seen after entering the border.

“Sometimes it makes me afraid that I know someone so intimately. It makes me feel dangerous,” he said.

“Dangerous?” Jimmy took the soap from his hands and filled up the bucket with fresh water.

“Yeah. In the way that loving something so completely makes it easier to get to me. I’m afraid of people finding out that the way to destroy me is destroying you,” Scott explained.

“That won’t happen,” Jimmy replied, “I can’t even count how many times we’ve almost died and been just fine. Remember that TNT?”

“Oh my god don’t even remind me,” Scott covered his face.

“I am reminding you, because it was cool! I mean I’m the one who took out the Red King without dying,” Jimmy bragged.

“On accident!” Scott reminded him.

“Nobody needs to know that. Also I got him first,” the other added. Scott kicked water at him.

Jimmy put a hand on Scott’s back and pushed him into the lake.

“Hey,” Scott said.

“Stay right here,” Jimmy directed and positioned Scott between his knees so that he could reach his hair easier.

“Don’t let that indestructible mindset get to you,” Scott said. He admired the ripples on the surface of the water.

“Maybe if I believe it enough it’ll be real,” Jimmy said with no particular conviction, focused on making sure he adequately scrubbed his husband’s hair.

[novannna]

Same Sea, Same Soul, Same Heart

Chapter 8 Danna and Nova pine for eachother, while Nova’s plan falls into motion.  

link to masterlist

link to chapter 7

Wc: 1723

Nova cracked her knuckles, and sat down.  

“So, here’s the plan we have already,” she said to her crew.  They were gathered around the deck, a table with a map pinned on it in front of them.  

“I managed to pull a few strings within the castle, and the idea of a sea wedding was introduced to the prince.  Apparently the mysterious bride was excited by the idea.  So, the wedding should be here.”  Nova moved a small red painted ship to a cove outside Gatlon City.  “If we attack from here,” Nova said pushing a black ship in from the opposite direction of the city.  “Then they will see us, and know that the wedding is being attacked.  While rushing to their ships, we will attack the wedding.  If possible, we take hostages to use as an exit ticket, but we can’t save everyone.”  Nova smirked.  “And while the armada rushes to save their prince and kings-”  Nova shoved a fleet of ships across the maps.  “Ace will slip into the palace, and conquer the city.  Any questions?”

Her crew shook their heads.  

Nova grinned.  “Excellent.  Details will be ironed out as new information comes in, but that’s the general gist of it.”  Nova swept the ships into a small cloth bag, and rolled up the mat.  “Now, don’t you all have work to do?”  She shooed them off.  

Moxie hurried up to her.  “What if Danna’s there?”  She asked.  

“What about it?”  Nova shrugged.  

“...Well would you kill her?”

“If it comes to it, yes.  I’d never put my ambitions on the line, just for a girl I don’t even like.” 

“But what are your ambitions? You talk about them, but I don’t actually know what they are.”

Nova inhaled deeply.  “I want to avenge my family.  If the Renegades had given them the help they had needed, they would still be alive.”

“Nova, is that really what you want?”

“Yes.  It is.  Now, I’m busy, and so are you.”

Moxie caught her hand, jerking her to a stop.  “Nova…”

In seconds, Nova had whirled around, and pressed a dagger to Moxie’s throat.  “Don’t even start,” she growled.  “And don’t touch me.”  

Moxie sighed and looked down.  “Yes Captain.”  

Nova spun around, and stalked away.  She hurried into her office, and swung the doors to her balcony open.  The sea swayed below her, wild waves reaching up to slap the hull.  

“Oh, why did I ever even think I had a chance with Danna Bell.  Me, of all people. To her perfection, I am nobody.  Why was I foolish to ever even begin to think that she might stoop low enough to love me.  The scum of the earth.  A thief.  A liar.  A traitor.  A murderer.”  Nova hugged her arms tight around her body.  “Why did I fool myself?”  

The clouds hung heavy, as if sensing Nova’s foul mood.  She walked back inside, footsteps plodding heavily across the wood floor.  

Nova closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply.  She let all her thoughts collect, and when she exhaled, she let them all flow away.  SHe cracked her eyes open, refusing to even think about Danna.  She picked up a piece of paper, and a quill.  Sitting down in her chair, Nova began to write a letter.  Before she could overthink it, Nova stuffed it into a bottle, and tossed it overboard.  

The odds of the person she actually wanted it to get finding it were next to nothing, but still Nova hoped.  Hoped a foolish, stupid, pointless hope.  

And she knew that.  But still, Nova hoped.

---

Danna scurried down the vines outside her window, disguised under a heavy cloak.  The guards didn’t even notice as she darted past them, using shadows as cover.  It wasn’t surprising Nova’s crew had been able to steal her so easily.  The men were incompetent.  Completely, utterly incompetent.  

Danna smiled to herself.  

She hurried through the streets, gaining more and more speed as she neared her destination.  

Finally, she was racing in a flat out sprint, coming to an abrupt halt inches away from the cold waves. 

Her shoes sank into the sand, and Danna threw them off.  

A laugh burbled out of her throat as her toes wiggled in the sand.  

Danna screwed her eyes shut, and placed a single foot in the water.  

It was cold, and gently lapped against her ankle.  Danna laughed again.  

She had never been in the sea like this before.  

She stuck another foot in.  Slowly she waded farther and farther, until her hips were under water.  

It was silly, but Danna felt like she and Nova were connected through the waves.  

They were in the same sea.  Despite the distance between them, it was still the same water.  It felt like it was watching over her.  Keeping her safe.  

Danna breathed in deeply, and bracing herself, dove under the waves.  

The water covered her head, tugging her hair in different directions.  

She moved her fingers through the water, just like she remembered frogs doing.  

Danna moved forwards.  She tried to smile, but water flooded her mouth.  She accidentally swallowed a mouthful, and frantically tried to stand, only to realize she had floated away from the shore.  

Danna frantically paddled her arms, somehow flailing her body back to the shore.  She lay on the sand, coughing salt water up.

Danna collapsed down, lying on the ground,  The stars twinkled far above her, and she wondered if Nova was looking at the same ones.  

Danna smiled, and brushed a piece of hair from her face.  

“I miss you, my love,” she whispered into the nothingness.  “I hope that I can see you again someday.  Even if it is when we are in the stars.”

---

Nova sighed, and collapsed onto her balcony.  She looked up at the stars shining bright above her.  The clouds had cleared, and now the thin moon hung high in the sky.  She gazed at the shore, where she knew Danna was, probably safe in her bed, forgetting Nova had ever existed.  Maybe she was getting ready for the wedding.  Nova wasn’t sure whether or not she wanted Danna there.  At least she could see Danna again.  

But Danna would see her dark side.  Her bad side. The brutal, violent, killing side.  The side Nova wished didn’t exist.  

Thinking about it, Nova definitely did not want Danna there.  She didn’t want Danna to view her as even more bad.  

Nova sighed heavily, and looked back to the stars.  

She wondered if Danna was looking at the same ones.  Probably not.  But it was nice to think that she was.  

“I miss you, my love,” Nova whispered to the sky, wishing Danna could hear her words.  “I hope that I can see you again someday.  Even if it is when we are in the stars.”

---

Danna slowly got up, her wet body caked with sand.  

She looked back at the ocean one last time, and saw something glinting in the waves. 

Danna walked over, and laughed when she saw a bottle floating by her feet.  She bent down, and picked it up.  A letter was tightly rolled up inside, safe and dry.  Danna pried the bottle open, using her teeth to pry the cork out.  It had swollen after spending hours in the sea.  

Finally it popped free, and Danna slid the letter out.  Carefully, she unrolled the parchment.  Danna gasped, and fell to her knees as she read.  

Dearest Danna,

I know this letter will most likely never reach you.  It probably will never reach you.  But I hope that the sea will care for me, as it has always done, and see that this bottle makes it into your hands.  Danna, there is no amount of words I can write that could accurately phrase what I want to say to you.  You could never understand how much you mean to me.  I know that I’ve done bad things.  I know I hurt you.  And I don’t expect you to ever forgive me.  I wouldn’t forgive me either.  I want you to know that ever since we’ve parted, I have thought of you almost constantly.  I love you, Danna Bell.  And I have to live with the fact that I sent you away.  Because I was scared.  That was the only reason.  I was a coward.  I left you.  I couldn’t even bear to see your face so I drugged you.  I’ve done terrible things, but that was the first thing that truly made me feel guilty.  I’m sorry I was such a coward. 

If you are reading this, then maybe the universe has decided I can be saved.  Maybe it did give me a scrap of luck for once in my life.  I’ll think of you for the rest of time, because you are my heart. 

I love you. 

Nova

Danna let out a sob, and pressed the letter right to her chest. She hadn’t been an idiot.  She hadn’t been a foolish, naive noble.  There was a chance for them to be together. 

And Nova has thrown it all away. 

For a second, Danna was angrier than she ever had been.  But the more she thought about it, the more sense it made.  Nova had an entire life.  She was scared, and confused, and she wasn’t about to throw it all away for someone she was supposed to hate.  Unlike Danna, Nova actually had something left to lose.  Of course she sent Danna away. 

And Danna could never be mad at someone she loved that fully.  Danna could never be mad at Nova.  No matter how many terrible crimes she did, Danna would always forgive her.  That was the way love worked.  You always return to the arms you know best. 

“I got your letter,” Danna whispered.  “I promise, if I see you in this life, or the next, I won’t let anything tear us apart.  Never again.”  

---

The two girls sat near the sea, looking at the same sky, wondering if the other knew the depths of their love.  The lengths they would go for the other.  

And neither of them knew that the other wondered the same thing back. 

They just sat, looking at the sky, wishing on every star they saw, that there was a way for them to be together again.

Tag list: @novissa @thepurpledragon4444  @phobidawg   @rvbell @redassassin @ifyouhadntbutyoudid (let me know if you want to be added/taken off!!!)  

[chromecutie]

Not A Ghost - part 19

A/N - Multi-part fic. Colossus x OC where OC has come home after being wrongfully imprisoned in the Icebox. Warnings for whole fic - references and flashbacks to harsh prison environment, including various types of abuse. Takes place shortly after events in Deadpool 2. Whole thing will end up on my AO3 eventually.

Taglist: @emma-frxst  @ra-ra-rasputiin  @holamor ​  @empressme-bitch  @marvel-is-perfection  @hazilyimagine ​ @marvelhead17 @rovvboat @angstybadboytrash ​ @whitewitchdown ​ @master-sass-blast ​ @mori-fandom @mooleche @dandyqueen . Wanna be added or removed? Holla at me.

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

In Rhonda and Piotr’s shared bathroom, Yukio spread her dye supplies across the countertop. She kept a lot of pink on hand for her own coloring needs, but also had small amounts of almost every other bold color imaginable. Rhonda sat on a little stool, tense and seething. That boy Russell had caught her off guard, calling her by her prison moniker as if it was some harmless nickname. It turned her stomach to be called Guestbook in front of her family.

Staying upbeat, Yukio said with a big smile, “I keep asking Ellie when we’ll get more girl time with you, so this is really exciting!” Picking up each of her colors to consider them, she continued, “It’s so sad you’ve been spending so much time by yourself -- I think you’ll feel better spending more time around us.”

“Yeah,” Rhonda said distantly.

Turning to her girlfriend, Yukio asked, “Bunny, will you go get the Bluetooth speaker? Let’s have some music while we do this!”

Ellie hesitated. Yukio only called her Bunny in private. She supposed it was okay to count Rhonda as close enough to “in private,” since it seemed to barely register to her at all. “Yeah, Sugar Bean. Be right back.” As Ellie was walking out, Yukio arranged the dye colors according to her decisions.

“I’ve only known you from pictures,” Yukio said, “and every single one I’ve seen, you have some bright hair color. I think that’s what you’re missing here.” Digging in her pouch of tools, she took out a comb and some scissors. “We gotta do some cleanup first, though.” 

Rhonda frowned slightly, “You know how to cut hair?”

Yukio took in a big breath and pursed her lips before answering, “With all due respect, Mrs. Rasputin, veteran X-Men, I can’t do any worse than this,” she fluffed Rhonda’s hair. It was chopped in uneven chunks. The shortest pieces fell about the right length for a bob, if it was possible to do a bob on one third of her head. The longest sections fell to the middle of her back, but the ends were so damaged it seemed like it would be a better mercy to just shave her whole head and start over.

The reality check stung, but Rhonda couldn’t get mad at Yukio for being right. “All right,” she shrugged. “Have at it.”

“You should take off your hoodie so we don’t get hair all over it.”

Rhonda hesitated.

“If you don’t, it will be super itchy until you wash it, like at least twice,” Yukio insisted, with a pointed look.

With a sigh, Rhonda pulled her hoodie over her head and laid it on the counter. She hated having her prison tattoos visible, and tried not to squirm for how uncomfortable she was.

Ellie returned with the speaker and paired Yukio’s phone. After a few taps, some music started playing--

My lover’s got humor--

Yukio’s eyes shot wide and she beamed, “YES!” She tapped Rhonda on the shoulder, “You’re in for the real treat now, listen!” Ellie smirked and leaned against the wall, watching and scrolling on her phone.

As Yukio snipped and combed Rhonda’s hair, she hummed along to Hozier’s “Take Me to Church.” It was light and atmospheric, while also rich and deep like it was made from all the oldest forces on Earth. Rhonda’s troubled expression softened as she listened. When the song was over, she held up her hand, “Hey...can I hear that again?”

Yukio happily wiggled her shoulders, “We can put it on loop until you want something else.”

Ellie was already tapping the loop buttons as her girlfriend said it. “Told you,” she said simply.

Ellie was right -- Hozier was objectively good. As Rhonda listened, she felt her tension ease in places she hadn’t realized she had been carrying it (or how long she’d been carrying it). The sound made her want to stand in an open field between some mountains and cry...or laugh, or shriek, she really wasn’t sure. The vocals and backup chorus were full of raw emotion and she felt her chest opening up, as if she had forgotten how to truly breathe and this music reminded her.

On one loop of the song, Yukio belted at the top of her lungs, as if the song was made from her own soul. Even Ellie smiled and hummed along, no longer able to hide that she liked it too. 

Clippings of hair ghosted over Rhonda’s shoulders and arms, tickling and itching. She tried not to glance in the mirror, but finally looked up and saw Yukio was almost done cutting a decent shape that didn’t quite touch her shoulders. There were even some shorter pieces in front that she had to admit looked good with her jaw line.

“Are you good with this one?” Yukio asked after the ninth loop of “Take Me to Church” ended. “There’s others on this album you’ll love too.”

With a sheepish little grin, Rhonda nodded. She gestured loosely at her hair. “This is looking a lot better already, thank you.”

Confident and playful, Yukio replied, “I’m just getting started.”

Rhonda eyed the different colors Yukio had arranged on the counter. “Wait, you’re gonna mix these? How?”

Ellie piped up, “It’s better to just shut up and trust her. I’ve never seen a color job from her that wasn’t amazing.”

Fixing her head straight forward, Rhonda tried not to watch what Yukio was doing in the mirror. She felt Yukio’s fingers as she gently ran them through her hair, testing the texture and the way it fell. Yukio slipped on some gloves, and humming along to Hozier, got to work covering Rhonda’s mousey grey-brown hair with something much more vibrant.

--

The women laughed and chatted as they waited for the dye to take, and when Rhonda rinsed it all out, Yukio lent her a blow dryer and some hairspray so she could style it how she wanted. When Rhonda was done, she had volume to make an 80s rockstar jealous -- and now with color an 80s rockstar could only dream of. Near the roots, her hair was a muted teal, melting to bright emerald green, and finally ending in electric yellow. 

“No way,” Ellie breathed, smiling wider than Yukio had ever seen her. “You look so badass!” Slipping an arm around her girlfriend, she added, “You did great, Sugar Bean.”

Rhonda’s lips quirked -- she supposed that with the bright hair, steri-strips covering the nicks on her face, and visible tattoos (including the tear drops) she did look like a young person’s idea of badass. As amazing as it felt to have color in her hair again, Rhonda’s smile faltered looking at the Xs on her arm in the mirror.

“They bother you bad, huh?” Ellie asked. She had her guesses for what they might mean, but for how angry and hurt Rhonda looked whenever someone brought them up, Ellie was afraid to ask anything specific.

Rhonda reflexively ran her left hand up her arm, like she could hide or wipe off the ink with the gesture. “Oh...I mean--”

“Would you get laser tattoo removal?” Yukio asked, guileless.

“Huh,” Rhonda thought a moment, “Doesn’t the laser just make the shape of the tattoo look like a scar?”

Yukio gave an exaggerated shrug. Ellie brushed it off, “Probably hurts more than it’s worth anyway.” She stood beside Rhonda in the mirror, fixing her with a hard stare. “Besides, I think you shouldn’t hide them. Nobody else here tries to hide their scales, or fur, or blue skin. Why hide this?”

“It’s…” Rhonda debated whether she should explain, and realized even if she should, she couldn’t do it. “This is different. It means something different.”

Stubborn, Ellie pressed, “But you’re the only one who knows what it means, right? So fuck what anyone else thinks.”

Russell knew. Wade knew. If Wade knew, Cable might also know. As well as any other telepath. Plus whoever they felt like telling. Rhonda’s stomach turned. “It’s not just me,” she shook her head.

To keep Ellie from poking further, Yukio cut in, “Well, if you feel like you need to cover them up, it’s the middle of summer. It’s too hot to wear hoodies and cardigans all the time.” She turned to her girlfriend, giving her the most angelic puppy eyes, “Hey Bunny? Can you go get something for me?” Yukio whispered in Ellie’s ear and in another minute, Ellie headed out and down the hall again.

Rhonda fluffed her hair and eyed Yukio in the mirror. “You really got her wrapped around your finger, huh?”

Yukio tried to contain her smile, and blushed a little anyway, “Maybe a little. She likes everyone to think she’s so edgy, but I know better.”

Nodding, Rhonda added, “She acts so tough until you get to know her and realize she’s a sweetheart, yeah.” She had learned that herself with the rough and tumble child Ellie had been.

Yukio chewed her lip like she wanted to say something, then suddenly blurted, “You were my favorite X-Men for a long time. I really wanted to be like you...Voltage.”

She hadn’t been called by her codename in ages, and it stirred up a lot of old feelings. And while she wasn’t Ororo or Scott or Hank (or Piotr), it was funny and strange for someone to tell Rhonda she was their favorite. “Why?”

Yukio flicked an electric spark off her fingers, “You were like me. And you had fun hair. And you always did cool poses in all your photos.” She laughed, “Cool poses were a must when I was nine.”

“You had good taste,” Rhonda smirked.

Ellie was huffing when she came back to Rhonda’s room. “I wasn’t sure which one you were talking about,” she said to Yukio with an edge of annoyance, “I had to hold them all up to the light one by one to check.” She handed off a pair of green tights.

Yukio held them out to Rhonda, “These were more opaque than I wanted, but maybe you can wear one leg as a sleeve? So you can cover your arm without being too hot.”

With a thoughtful frown, Rhonda nodded, “We can try it.” They looked around the room to see where Piotr kept scissors these days, and they found them in a container of other office supplies under the little table by the window. Yukio quickly snipped one leg off the pair of tights and twirled it at Rhonda like a big ribbon.

Surprisingly, the leg fit fine over Rhonda’s arm. It wasn’t too loose, certainly wasn’t restrictive, and her tattoos were invisible under the green nylon-poly blend. Not much could be done for the Xs that peeked out of the leg at her shoulder, but she was satisfied with the rest. With the foot still intact, there was nowhere for her fingers to come out, and she flopped her hand uselessly at Yukio. “Help,” she said with an exaggerated fake pout.

Yukio laughed and obliged her. Two more quick snips and Rhonda stretched her fingers and thumb through the slits. Rhonda checked the mirror again. 

What she saw was...tolerable. She could live with a small portion of her ink showing if the rest was covered. Her neck felt bare and vulnerable and she wasn’t sure what to do about it, but her new green sleeve went great with the green in her hair. For the first time in years, she mostly recognized her own reflection. Amazing what a little hair dye can do. Relief eased over her and a smile bloomed over her face. “This looks,” she took a big breath, her smile even bigger, “really good.” She turned and held her arms out. “Thank you!” Yukio quickly swooped in for a tight hug and Ellie eased in as well. The three of them were a tangle of arms and giggling when they heard the bedroom door open.

“Sladkaya, are you in here?” they heard Piotr call. “Wade wanted to visit with Russell, and I finally got him to--” he stopped when Rhonda and the girls came into the bedroom from the bathroom. His mouth fell open, and then pulled into a goofy, lopsided grin, like he was seeing his wife for the first time. Slowly, he crossed the room and just barely touched her freshly dyed hair with his fingertips. “You look…” he brushed a yellow-tipped curl, “you look wonderful, my love.”

As if he had forgotten about his former trainee and her girlfriend, he lifted Rhonda by the waist and kissed her, circling one arm around her and burying the other hand in her hair. 

Yukio quietly squealed, barely containing her excitement. Ellie rolled her eyes, but smiled in spite of herself. 

Suddenly remembering himself, Piotr broke the kiss and set down his breathless wife. He cleared his throat, “Ah, Yukio strikes again, I see.”

Rhonda glanced at the younger girls, “It’s the best color I’ve ever had, for sure.”

Piotr stared, still smiling, and practically speechless, having forgotten he wanted to ask Rhonda about Russell.

Picking up the Bluetooth speaker, Rhonda asked Yukio, “Is it okay if I borrow this? Maybe for a couple days?” Hozier still swirled through her head and she needed to get some place where she could see how to dance to his music.

“You can keep it!” she chirped, gently elbowing Ellie, “I’ve been wanting an upgrade anyway.”

Ellie gave a halfhearted eyeroll, hint taken. She took her girlfriend’s hand and they left the room. Yukio stole one last glance over her shoulder and waved at Rhonda.

Rhonda returned the wave and picked up her phone with the speaker. “Um...do you mind?” she looked at her husband apologetically. “I wanna...go play with something. I might be a while.”

“Of course,” he replied wistfully. 

She grabbed his hand and kissed his knuckles, and in another second she was out the door, walking briskly down the hall. 

Alone, Piotr chuckled to himself and shook his head. The color in her hair added so much. It was the most his wife had looked like herself since coming home from the Icebox.

[babybluebex]

Wait For Me pt. 1

this one also disappeared, so have at it lads

 pt. 2

Every girl in our school knew Merriel. He was the smooth-talking Cajun boy with curly hair and a smirking smile, and he was the biggest player if I had ever met one. He was constantly flirting in his silky accent that, even though New Orleans was overrun with Cajuns, the girls found charming. I had to admit that I too was charmed by him, but not for the same reasons that everyone else was.

One day in sophomore year, my grammar teacher held me back after class and told me that there was a student that was struggling and would benefit from a little tutoring. I happily accepted, even though I figured that I couldn’t be much help. My mother always told me that I was an angel, willing to help people even if it didn’t help me.

I was sitting in the school library, lazily scanning our assigned reading, when I saw Merriel enter. I mentally scoffed at the sight of him, and my body tensed when he moved close to my table. Finally, he sat down without a word, and I felt those blue eyes scanning me. “You’re Rose, ain’t ya?” Merriel asked finally.

“Daisy,” I corrected him.

“Damn, yeah,” Merriel said. “Knew it was some type’a flower. I guess you’re my tutor, huh?”

“Seems that way,” I sighed. “What’cha need help with?”

“I ain’t getting none of this,” Merriel chuckled. “It ain’t a big deal or nothin’, but my daddy’s gonna skin me if I fail anotha class.”

“I’ll help ya keep your skin on,” I told him.

I kept my promise to him. We met once a week, sometimes at the library, sometimes at my house, and I would help him with the grammar work. He was truly a sweet fella and it was a shame that he had the playboy reputation, but I noticed something change around our last year of high school. We were the Martha Washington High School Class Of 1940, and everybody in our class had just about given up. Boys knew that they were gonna end up at their daddy’s car garages or other vocations, and the girls had already picked out who they would marry. We had our futures lined up for us, and I had the same. I was the only girl who had been accepted to go to college for something substantial and not just a beautician course; I was a computing major at Louisiana State University. Merriel assured me that he had a job lined up at the lumber yard a few miles outside of town, and our lives were perfectly aligned.

“Dai!” Merriel exclaimed as I tossed my bike at the top of the path that led to his house. He lived with his parents in the Bayou, and the July air was already bringing sweat to my hairline. He jumped down the porch steps and ran to me, and he picked me up and spun me around.

“Merriel!” I squealed. “What’s wrong?”

 “Ain’t nothin’ wrong!” Merriel cried. He gave me a few thick sheets of paper, and I only had to read the first line before I was as excited as he was.

“You got inta Tulane?” I gasped. “Merriel! Why didn’t ya tell me you were applying?”

“I didn’t think I’d get in,” Merriel grinned. “But... Wow, Dai! I’m a college-bound man now!”

“Congratulations,” I said and hugged him tightly. “I’m proud of ya. Ain’t everyday a knucklehead like you gets into Tulane.”

“Hey, ya helped me,” Merriel told me and ruffled up my hair. “Couldn’t’a done it without ya.”

I chuckled. “Good Lord, Merriel, ya flatter me,” I said. “I ain’t done nothin’ to help ya. I helped ya pass tenth grade English, that didn’t help ya get into college.”

“Helped me get inta this one!” Merriel grinned like a fool. I had seen him drunk and happy, but this was a different kind of happy. This was gleefully happy. “Thank ya, Dai.”

“Don’t mention it,” I told and playfully shoved him away. “Now, if your momma ain’t ‘round, I say we should go for a swim.”

Merriel agreed. He lived close to a pond that was always overrun with mosquitoes, but it had heavy tree coverage that kept it hidden from anyone. It was a perfect paradise, and Merriel had been taking me there to swim for years. He was the best friend that I could ever ask for, and he didn’t judge me when I was unladylike. I kicked off my little slipper shoes and carried them under my arm as Merriel and I raced through the Bayou's Spanish moss-adorned trees, batting it out of the way as we traversed the path that we knew so well. Merriel reached the water’s edge before me, which wasn’t a surprise because he had longer legs than I did and he also wasn’t wearing nylons (which were hard as hell to run in), and he began to undo his belt to swim. I stopped next to him and brushed stray hair off of my sweaty face, and I reached around behind me and undid my dress. We frequently went on cheeky swimming trips and had long grown comfortable in our underwear around each other, but my dress came off and my heart stopped. I wore a slip that day instead of a brassiere and knickers, and I slowly pulled off my nylons. Merriel was already knee-deep in the water, cupping it in his palms and splashing it onto his hair. “C’mon, Dai,” he said. “Water’s fine.”

“It ain’t that,” I said. “This is as far as I can go, and my momma’ll kill me if I get my slip wet.”

“I don’t care,” Merriel said and turned away from me. “I won’t look at ya. I’ll even get all undressed too, if ya’d like.”

 My hands shook as I pulled my slip dress off, and I slowly waded into the water. It felt good, especially against the bare skin of my stomach, and I crossed my arms over my chest as I moved further into the water. It wasn’t entirely clear and, once the water was at my shoulders, I felt comfortable with letting my arms drift away from my body. “Nobody can know ‘bout this,” I said softly. “Your daddy’ll have my head on his wall.”

“Nobody needs to know,” Merriel said, still facing away from me, and he quickly sank entirely underwater. I enjoyed the quiet buzz of cicadas for a moment before Merriel resurfaced and flung his wet boxers to the shore. He was still turned away from me, and he asked, “Does this make ya feel better?”

Affecting others was never something I did. I didn’t consider myself a looker, even though I had been told that I was, but a small piece of my heart always wished that Merriel would see something in me that others didn’t. I wished that he’d see past the glasses and conservative sweaters and see me, Daisy, the girl who liked riding her bike and drinking beer and playing darts. The fact that we were so bare, so close to each other made me feel sick, and I moved a few inches closer to him. “Mer?” I said softly. I started to reach out to him, but my fingers halted just above his tan and freckled shoulder. I sighed softly, and Merriel turned his head slightly to catch a glimpse of me.

“Something wrong?” he asked and turned fully to see me, and his face softened. He had to see how nervous I was. He couldn’t be that blind. “Daisy.”

“Ya know how much trouble I’d get in if my momma knew ‘bout this?” I laughed lightly, but Merriel was stern and serious. Something had filled those blue eyes of his, and he seemed to hesitate before he reached out and took my hand. His skin was so warm and inviting, and I stepped closer to him.

“D’ya ever feel like...” Merriel began softly, and he gently rubbed the back of my hand with his calloused thumb.”Like ya know that what you’re doin’ is significant? Like ya know it’s supposed ta happen? In the moment, you realize it, and it’s... Overwhelming, almost?”

“No,” I said softly. “I mean, I do that retroactively, but neva in the moment. Why?”

“I just had one’a those moments,” Merriel said. “Where I know that this is supposed ta happen.”

“Like a premonition?” I asked.

“No,” Merriel whispered. “Jesus. I can’t put it inta words, but I know that I was supposed to see ya like this sooner or later.”

“Like this...?”

 Merriel took another step towards me, and his hands sank under the water to find my waist. “Just so damn pretty,” he said. “Not just pretty, though. You’re... Gorgeous, Daisy. Most gorgeous woman I done ever seen. I knew your face was pretty, but... I don’t know how to say it without it soundin’ skeevy, but I just--”

“Ya think I look pretty naked,” I giggled. “I mean, I understand. I’ve got great tits.”

“Daisy,” Merriel said softly. The seriousness was in full force, and he raised his eyes to my face. “I couldn’t eva tell ya ‘cause I was afraid that ya’d think I’m just a stupid dick that was comin’ onta ya, but graduation and everythang made me realize that I really don’t know what I’d do without ya. Ya’ve kept me whole for so long, and I neva wanna lose ya.”

“Ya ain’t gonna lose me, Mer,” I whispered. I swallowed back my tears and added, “Ya couldn’t get ridda me if ya tried.”

“I’ve had dreams ‘bout marrying ya,” Merriel told me. “One of those church deals, ya know, with the flowers and all. Havin’ kids with ya and everythang, havin’ a life with ya. I want that. And I know that dumpin’ all’a this on ya ain’t the best way to do this, and I understand if ya never wanna see me again, but--”

“Merriel, shut up,” I said firmly. I wasn’t mad at him, though. My heart was racing and my head was spinning, and I could barely control myself from falling into his arms. It was a surprise, but a welcome one. I drew in a shaky breath, and I whispered, “What d’ya want from me? A single night? A drink? Supper?”

“I was hopin’ for a lifetime,” Merriel said. “But I’ll take what ya give me.”

I began to laugh. “Merriel fuckin’ Shelton,” I said. “Are ya really proposin’ ta me now? But... We ain’t even been datin’.”

“We can do whatever ya want ta,” Merriel said. “I can’t let ya go ta college without at least lettin’ ya know how I feel.”

“I didn’t say that not datin’ was a problem,” I told him. “Merriel, if you’re really proposin’ ta me right now, promise me one thang.”

“Anythang,” Merriel said quickly.

“Promise me,” I began and laid my hands on his chest. “That you ain’t ever gonna name our daughter after a flower. It’s annoyin’ as hell to live with. Ya get people callin’ ya Rose and all kinds of bullshit.”

Merriel and I got out of the water soon after and redressed, but I wore his jacket over my shoulders. Our fingers were loosely intertwined as we ambled down the path that we had raced down, suddenly different people than the last time we ran down that path. We reached his house, and we lingered at the top of his path for a few seconds. “I’ll see ya tomorra at graduation, I guess,” Merriel chuckled. His hair had dried into untamed frizzy curls, and he scratched his head. “Umm, look in the pocket of my jacket. I got somethin’ for ya.”

I pushed my hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small golden ring. It obviously wasn’t expensive, but it had a tiny filigree around the gemstone that resembled flower petals. “A daisy,” I chuckled lightly. “You’re creative, I’ll give ya that. Put the ring on your fiancee, ya loser.”

“I’d disagree with that,” Merriel said cheekily with his signature smile. “I think I’m the winner, ‘cause I got the best girl eva.” He slipped the ring onto my finger and kissed my hand, and I tugged him close to me and kissed his forehead.

“I got the best fella eva,” I whispered. “Dream of me tonight, alright?”

“Are ya kiddin’ me?” Merriel chuckled. “I won’t be able ta get ya off my mind.” 

“Sleep well, Mer,” I said softly, and I righted my bike and threw my leg over it. 

“You too, Daisy,” Merriel said, and he kissed my cheek before I left.

My brother was in the den when I got home. I motioned for him to be quiet as I shut the door as slowly as I could, so as to not hit the deadbolt, but Frankie was a hell of a bastard. “Who’s jacket are ya wearin’, Dai?” he asked, and I sighed in frustration.

That brought my mother out of the kitchen. She studied me with her big brown eyes, and her features softened. “I’ve seen that Shelton boy wearin’ that jacket around,” she said. “Y’all meet up tonight?”

“Yeah, actually,” I said. I couldn’t contain my excitement. “Merriel... He proposed to me.”

“Oh, Daisy,” Momma gasped, and she rushed to hug me. “Oh, my little girl, gettin’ engaged and all. Ya did say yes, didn’t ya?”

“I did,” I chuckled. “We ain’t figured everythang out yet, but--”

Momma’s glee was bursting out of her. “My girl!” she laughed. “Goin’ to learn ta be a computer, gettin’ married, all’a that! I’m proud of ya, baby.”

“Thanks,” I whispered, and I felt my brother’s strong hand on my back. Frankie had been a rock for me for years, not going to college in favor of helping Momma run her restaurant. We didn’t have a father that either of us could remember ever meeting, but we didn’t need one. Just the three of us got along fine. We all worked at the diner whenever we had free time, Frankie picking up a few shifts as a janitor at a different diner and me tutoring younger kids in math and science. I didn’t get many tutoring options in those fields, mainly because I was mixed. I knew my daddy was from Puerto Rico, and I could barely see the pigment in me and my brother’s skin. That was why I was drawn to Merriel from the beginning; one of our first conversations as friends had him divulging how his family was Egyptian and people treated him differently for the way he looked.

“I’m happy for ya, Daisy,” Frankie told me. “Shelton’s gonna treat ya good. Or else.”

I giggled. “Like ya could hurt a fly, Frankie,” I said and turned to hug him. “I love y’all.”

Graduation went smoothly the next day. Momma met Merriel’s parents and gushed about the good things that she had heard about my betrothed, while his parents did the same. Merriel kept his arm wrapped around me the whole day, playing with the sleeve of my pretty floral dress. As he walked me home from a party that night, he stopped and plucked a bright white daisy from an embankment next to the river, and he slipped it behind my ear. We shared our first kiss under my porch light that night, and the moment that our lips met, I knew that I was in one of those moments that Merriel had asked me about. A sort of deja-vu for something that hadn’t happened yet. I knew what he meant.

Merriel made the uncouth decision to follow me to Baton Rouge. I was concerned about his hour-long commute for him to go to college, but he grasped my face and kissed me. “Nobody gonna hire me, Dai, even if I do got a degree,” he said. “Ya got potential, suga, so much more than I do. I want you to go get that computin’ degree and be the best damn computer that this country’s eva seen, because I know that ya can do it.”

We were settled in a small house by the time classes started, and I was shocked to find that I was the only woman in my computing classes. The other gentlemen gave me long stares as I sat in the front of the classroom, and finally the professor came in. He saw me, looked down at his role sheet, and said, “Young lady, I think you have the wrong classroom. The nursing school is in the next building.”

“Oh, no, sir, I’m sure I’ve got the right room,” I said with a smile. “I’m on your role sheet: D. Shelton?”

The professor looked at the sheet and back to me again. “D. Shelton,” he mumbled. “Well, Miss Shelton, I sure hope that you can keep up with the coursework.” By the end of the first term, I had the highest grade in the class. “Suck on that, old man,” Merriel grinned when he saw my grade report. “I got the prettiest damn computa this side of the Pacific.”

Life went on. We never got married because we could never find a time that felt right, but that didn’t stop us from being happy. For my birthday, Merriel surprised me with a kitten which we named Delilah, and Delilah became a little Daddy’s girl. She would always meow at Merriel during supper, and she’d only stop when he set her on her own chair so she could see us, and she insisted on sleeping on Merriel’s stomach every night. Watching Merriel take care of Delilah confirmed for me that he would be a great father, and I sat down next to the two of them one night. Merriel was reading the newspaper and smoking a cigarette as Delilah snoozed on his lap, and I said, “Mer, I wanna say somethin’ ta ya.”

“Fire away,” Merriel said, and he folded his newspaper up to give me his full attention.

I sighed. “I dunno how to say this lightly, but I guess I don’t have ta say it lightly,” I began. “Seeing you with Delilah’s got me thinkin’ ‘bout some things, and I... Hell, I dunno. I might, in the future, once I’ve got my degree... I might want kids. I dunno, though.”

“Really?” Merriel laughed. “I would love that, Dai.”

I chuckled in relief. “Good,” I said softly. “I was worried...”

“Worried ‘bout what?” Merriel asked. “That I wouldn’t want kids with ya? Daisy, I would love nothin’ more than ta have kids with ya.”

We agreed that it would be best to hold off on that until I was done with school, but that didn’t stop us from practicing. Merriel was a good lover, taking his time with me, and I loved every intimate moment that we had together. Merriel was perfect, and it seemed like absolutely nothing could go wrong.

Then, Merriel got The Letter. He was being called to duty. He had enlisted in the Marine Corps, per his father’s request, but specified that he would only leave me if there was a war. Momma remembered the first war and she said that nothing could ever be as horrible as that but, even though I had no idea what Merriel would be doing or where he would be going, I knew that this war was the worst thing for us. From the day we received the letter, he had two days before he had to report to go to training.I had been keeping a secret from him, one that I meant to surprise him with on Christmas, but we laid in bed together the night before he was to leave, and I couldn’t hold it back anymore. “Mer?” I whispered.

“Yeah, suga?” he asked.

“I gotta tell ya something...”

[go-diane-winchester]

How come Misha gets away with causing so much damage to this show?

Thanks for the conundrum @staycejo1:

That is a good question to ask.  How does Misha get away with so much?  The reason is simple.  Misha is smart.  Compared to Jared who is merely scholarly or book smart, and Jensen who is intelligent with regards to cinema and various arts [he hit the nail on the head with wincest, year ago], Misha is shrewd.  I don't like the man, but I have to admit, he is very smart.  He is using something I learned about whilst studying Public Relations: networking.  Networking requires skill.  You need to know how to talk to people and you need to know which people to talk to.  If you network properly, you reap major benefits.  There are a few cliques that Misha might be networking with:  SPN production personnel, SPN alumni and cast members, Creation Entertainment, media personnel and selected fans. 

SPN Personnel and affiliates

I elaborated on these people in other posts.

Bob Singer:

Bob Singer has been a co-showrunner for almost all the time that SPN has been on air.  He handles production while the other co-showrunner handles the story.  And yet, this man never gives the impression that he is a showrunner.  When Sera Gamble killed off Castiel, rumor has it, that Singer fought to bring the character back. 

Eugenie Ross-Lemming and Brad Buckner

She is Bob's wife and was brought on board with her writing partner, Brad  Buckner.  Since season 7, she has enjoyed many promotions.  Now she is a co-executive producer on the show.  Nice to work for your husband, huh.  She and Brad butchered Sam's character until recently.  I think Jared told them off.  They were demonizing Sam to elevate Castiel's status.  Currently, they are not writing destiel.  They are not stupid.  They are writing enough material to keep Misha on the show. 

Robert Berens

Robert or Bobo Berens started off as a writer and moved up to co-executive producer.  He allows the leads to be abused by heller fans, that he follows online.  Remember, he is the one following problematic fans and not the other way around.  Does that even make sense?   

What personal stake do they have in keeping Misha relevant?  Well, they all take their cue from Bob, and he is a close friend of Misha's.  If Bob has a stake in Random Acts or Gish, then it might explain why he isn't willing to let Misha go.  But I don't have that information just yet. 

Stands

Misha has shares in Stands.  For awhile now, they have been pushing destiel related merch.  When they start to regret it, you will see a change.  This is because hellers are already complaining about getting duped by Misha regarding the merchandise.  We will just have to wait and see.

SPN alumni, cast members and affiliates

I spoke about these people before so I will gloss over them here.

Kim Rhodes and Brianna Buckmaster

They needed Misha for Wayward Daughters.  They have affiliation with a bunch of fans who are involved in the Travis Aaron Wade scandal. 

Osric Chau and Orlando Jones

I don't think Osric had any personal stake in elevating destiel.  He really loved SPN and the fanbase.  He was probably trolling destiel for fun like Orlando Jones does.  The minute both men realized how problematic the hellers are, they slowly backed off.  I don't think Orlando Jones has spoken about destiel in a while.  He still is a friend with Misha as is Osric.  I don't think these actors have any ill will.  So far they just seem like a couple of trolls.  Misha's networking failed with Destiel but succeeded professionally because these two men may be able to ''hook him up'' with other projects. 

Creation Entertainment

Someone once pointed out that Adam, the CEO of Creation Entertainment, is in fact, Misha's cousin.  I don't have any sources of that.  However, for awhile CE was pushing a lot of YANA and destiel related things on their con circuit.  The reason is because they have financial stakes in Misha's charities and thought that pushing destiel might make his fans shell out more money.  The cockles photo ops probably gave them the erroneously impression that Misha himself, is profitable.  Recently, however, this happened. 

https://jolygram.com/profile/creationent/photo/1842990860569353024_552397215

They added a caption:  Name a better duo.  We'll wait.  So was Cockles not better anymore?  Misha is not profitable, so all of a sudden, CE loves the leads.  I think they realized that when Misha's entire con fails but one of Jared's sweaty hoodies which he wore all day, fetches $8000 during an auction, that maybe they were betting on the race horse that dances rather than runs to the finish line. 

Their personal stake was money which is why they dropped Misha and destiel related endeavors like a hot potato.  Misha's networking failed here.  Well, not completely.  I heard there might be a new Misha con.  I think they want to be sure that he is a failure before letting go completely. 

Media Personnel

There are many kinds of mediums that are available to Hollywood.  Some are more important than others.  There are small trendy little pointless media outlets, usually social media outlets, like Hypable, ONTD and Geekiary.  There are bigger more credible ones, also known as mass media outlets, like E! Entertainment.  The heads pick up on news coming from the mass media.  They don't bother with small outlets, and that is where Misha does his networking.  He has people working within these outlets who are not legitimate reporters.  They are merely gossipers and shippers in disguise.  These outlets are invited to meets to disseminate information and that is where Misha connected with these viruses.  Some of these pseudo-journalists have since been demoted, reprimanded or fired for misinformation. 

What is their personal stake?  Self-importance.  Hellers and their sock accounts keep these peoples social media handles active. 

Selected fans

These are fans that are overly invested in either Castiel or destiel.  Most of them are nobodies but because of their association with Misha, they are recognizable figures.  These are meta writers and influencers within the fandom.  Their names are: 

Lua James, with a twitter handle, poptivist.  Real name:  Theresa Cotter

Influencer who regularly attacks Jared on SM, and fled California after Travis's house was vandalized.  Close friend of Kim Rhodes.  Destiel shipper.  Claimed to be a Journalist.  Not sure about that.  Followed by Kim, Matt Cohen, Robert Berens and Briana on SM.

Monica Gleberman

Very big shot.  Lua's bosom buddy and Swagger magazine journalist or editor.  She is a minion who lied that she had sex with Jensen and Jared.  Commits fraud. 

Emily Cleghorn

Influencer.  Not sure if she is a meta writer.  Runs the SPN anti bullying twitter handle and Exorcising Emily blog on Tumblr.  J2 kicked her out of con once, because she made them uncomfortable with a tweet.  She got into a twitter fight with William Shatner over destiel. 

Reba Snodgrass 

Runs small cons like Wayward con.  Proven liar.  Has to know Misha personally in order to run the cons. 

Janelle Clay Davis

Influencer, also known as intelligentshipper on Tumblr and GhostofBobby on Twitter.  Claims to be haunted by the YED.  Pushes destiel like a religion.  Cyber stalks people.  Posted a selfie where she is posing with a gun recently. 

Sara Burnhope

Knows Misha and his parents personally.  Random acts volunteer as well as Gish participant.  Might have worked with YANA although I am not sure about that one.  Attacks people on his behalf on social media.  Cyber bully.  From the UK.  Might be an influencer.  Not sure if she writes meta. 

Melanie Adeline

Regular con-goer and influencer.  She has fans of her own.  She belittles Jared to his face.  Destiel shipper.  Knows Misha and Briana personally. 

These influencers and meta writers are important because without them and their overreaching meta, Destiel will fall flat.  Misha accidentally tagged their meta once in a tweet.  Or so he claimed.  What is their stake, other than canon destiel?  Self importance.  These randos are suddenly important people, because Misha put them in that position.  They are the ones who encourage people to vote for Misha for awards, and harass the execs for destiel.  They are the ones who attacked J2 for the Nolacon joke and influenced others to follow suit.  The above women were implicated in the Travis Aaron Wade scandal.  There may be more, but these are the worst of the worst.  As far as I know anyway.

So to answer the question, why does he get away with this problematic system that he has put in place?  Notice, that he is affiliated with small fries.  Misha, like I mentioned before, is a nobody.  People are not linking the irritation they are dealing with, to Misha.  Misha's criticism of SPN's misogyny was reported in those petty small media outlets where his hellers are working.  And it was written in a such way that he is portrayed as a good guy.  If E! spoke about it, Misha would have been in trouble because Pedowitz and gang pay attention to E! not Hypable.  That's why they don't fire him.  They don't know what he has done because he has spn people in his back pocket covering for him.   

Even J2 don't have time to look through their own panels.  They are certainly not paying attention to Misha's panels.  So obviously Jensen doesn't know about this. 

If Jensen was aware of this, a fistfight would have broken out of the set.  Jensen would have boxed Misha's ear.  Because this is sick.  This was apparently at one of the Chicons.  I don't know which one, because I can't stomach looking at that over bloated loudmouth.  This is proof that the leads have no time to spare looking at this man's panels.  So he is confident enough to say these things knowing full well, that the lead are too busy to care about him.  He's behavior goes unchecked, and his continued presence on the show ensures that Gish and Random acts are continually funded.  He needs Castiel to keep these two machines running. 

Excuse the typos. 

[linny-of-the-lakes]

The F-word is 'Force'

Deadpool 2 fanfic, idk why I do these things

Summary: Don't be fucking mean, Nathan reminded himself, when a reproachful look from Domino made him realize he was glaring. Kid's an orphan. And abused. Probably in ways you don't want to think about. But at least he wouldn't have to grow up in a hellscape like Hope would. Well, fuck. It was his responsibility to prevent Firefist's future reign of terror, it was not his responsibility to like the kid. Which he explained to Domino when they were alone in the kitchen that evening, over weak beers that felt stronger on an empty stomach.

Dom just shrugged, looking nonplussed. "I get it. You miss them."

Nathan grunted, in what Louise would have called 'the hypermasculine-emotionally-closed-off version of a yes'.

"And anyway, he has Wade," she added, and for half a second there was the barest trace of a smirk in her eyes, before it disappeared into a look of complete poker-face sincerity.

Nathan had seen a lot of battle aftermaths. He knew even the victories could be hard on people. In those moments, he was used to putting the combat firmly behind him and kicking back for a couple beers with his comrades as if nothing had happened. Well, that was fucked now. He could have imagined after-combat drinks with Domino, all charm and confidence and enough raw skill to make him kind of want to buy her drinks all night and talk shop, not sex.  Or the big Russian fucker. He looked like one of those by-the-book guys who took things serious, which Nathan respected, and he probably crushed vodka like a pro. Hell, he would even grudgingly sit down with Wilson. Wilson was a psycho, but Nathan had already decided he was worth keeping around, sealed that decision in the flow of the timestream, and lead, and blood. Wilson had found a solution to this whole mess, and if he could do that, then his fucked-up perspective was clearly unique enough to be useful. Wilson would flirt and natter at him in turn all night while they drank, and Nathan would let him, and each successive drink would make it easier to imagine Wilson filling the void of his wife, Louise, who nattered just like that in her wonderful way. Now so far away, but safe, and safer if he kept away from her. Separated by a couple decades. Yeah. 

But then there was the fucking kid. Wedged in between him and Domino in the back of Dopinder’s (now rather bloody) yellow cab, all hunched up and quiet.

In the end, the X-contingent had taken Domino’s magic schoolbus back to the Mansion to negotiate getting Wilson and the kid taken off whatever official shit-lists Xavier might have power over and figure out what to do with several dozen shellshocked and traumatized mutant kids, which left Cable and Domino and Wade and Russell to get a ride with Dopinder back to the old blind lady’s apartment, because Wade had apparently blown his own apartment to shit not too long ago.

At first Russell had seemed to derive some kind of peace from the death of that creepy kidfucker headmaster. Domino had put an arm around him and murmured, “We outlived the bastard, honey, it’s gonna get better now,”. And Russell had grinned up at her with a little too much of a glint in his eye, making Nathan reach for the stuffed bear to reassure himself the thing was still free of ash and blood. Maybe the chubby little motherfucker wasn’t a mass murderer any more, but he still had a vengeful streak.

And Wade Wilson, thus far a necessary buffer between Cable and his quarry, had the audacity to fall asleep in the front seat on the way back. Domino soon followed, declaring that she could cat-nap anywhere. So now it was just Nathan and Russell fucking Collins, in uncomfortably close proximity, while Dopinder played some kind of self-help motivational bullshit at very low volume in the front seat. Russell had gone from animated to silent and overwhelmed-looking, and he kept casting nervous little glances in Nathan’s direction. Nathan, meanwhile, glared.

The kid was not what he had expected. The Firefist of Cable’s own time was close to a hundred years old, though he was effectively ageless thanks to the work of a bodysculptor mutant in his inner cadre. One of these huge six-foot-seven Pacific Islander guys, just built like a brick shithouse. Well, either future Firefist had been cheating with the bodysculptor for height and muscle tone or puberty was going to hit this kid like a fucking meteor. At this point in the time stream he was maybe five-foot-two in shoes and about as physically unintimidating as it was possible for anybody with flamethrowers in their hands to be. The scared brown eyes that peered up at Nathan through a fringe of sweat-flattened hair had purple bruises around them like he’d been slugged recently. If not for the powers and the weird-ass Kiwi accent, Nathan would have thought he had the wrong guy.

But as he’d had time to observe the kid, he’d seen the beginnings of Firefist’s resourcefulness and determination, and his ability to pull powerful people into his orbit (seriously, how the fuck had he managed to escape an ultrasecure prison transport truck and get the Juggernaut in his back pocket in one swoop?). And the anger. Oh, yes. The anger had been more than enough to convince Nathan he was too far gone, but Wade had known, somehow. And Nathan couldn’t say he wasn’t grateful. Future warlord or not, he didn’t want to have to kill a fucking kid. But that didn’t mean he had to trust Russell a single inch – no, he was going to be watching that little fucker, lest he drift back over the line and become the future monster all over again.     “Are you still gonna kill me?” asked Russell, out of nowhere, as if he’d plucked the thought from Nathan’s brain.

“Nah.” Nathan stretched, dropping his glare hastily away. Maybe an explanation was owed. “Future you was on my shit list, but I think we changed time streams when you didn’t kill the pervert.”

“I wanted to.”

“Ya didn’t.”

“What did I do to you?” He chewed his lip momentarily. “Er. Will I do? Was I going to have done?”

“Yeah, I don’t think English has tenses for this shit.” Nathan sighed. He realized abruptly that he didn’t want to tell the kid he was, or even would have been, destined to become a monster. But he’d never been one for mincing words. “Long time from now. You kill my family. Wife and daughter. Burn them to death.”

The kid turned away, staring at his hands. “I was afraid of that,” he mumbled, in a thick voice. Oh, god, I made him fucking cry. Yep, the kid’s face was all scrunched up and there was moisture glinting in his eyes. And it was some kind of primordial physiological bullshit that made Nathan react the same way he would to his daughter Hope’s tears. Awkwardly. But wanting more than anything to fix it. So he held out the teddy bear.

“Do you see soot on this thing?”

Russell shook his head, not looking up. “I was just so angry, I-I didn’t – I don’t want to be like him-”

“So don't be,” said Nathan, a little too gruffly. On the other side of Russell he saw Domino crack a golden eye open in silent warning, and winced. Okay, try again. “You just need to keep… deciding not to murder people.”

This was probably even worse, but Russell stopped whimpering just long enough to arch an eyebrow at him. “No killing ever? That’s fucking hypocritical.”

“Huh.” Nathan took a moment to try to figure out how to articulate the need for dispassionate action in his line of work and how not one in ten soldiers actually had that quality but sometimes you could fake it with extreme discipline, took one look at the kid, and gave up. “You’re fourteen.”

“I’ve seen some shit. I’m basically an adult.”

“No you’re not.” Nathan sighed. “It’s not your responsibility to kill people like him.”

“Whose is it then?” Russell stared at the road up ahead, scowling.

“Mine,” put in Dopinder.

“That was dope.” The memory seemed to get a bit of a smile out of the kid. It didn’t last. “But we were in that place because everybody in the whole world thought we were somebody else’s problem.” Russell’s eyes had gone steely. “People knew, y’know. Essex wasn’t a fucking secret. People could have stopped him and nobody did shit.”

Christ. He had something like a point there, even if Nathan couldn’t afford to admit it. “Yeah. The system failed you. Thing about killing, though, kid. The first time you do it it feels good. But it eats you up inside after. The thrill ain’t worth the guilt. But every time after that it gets a little easier to take, and pretty soon it’s all thrill, no guilt. And in the face of that, you gotta keep hold of your morals. Nobody your age should have to work against that. ‘Specially not you.”

“Because I’ll fuck it up,” the kid surmised, bleakly.

“Yep. Not your fault, really. Just how it is.”

“I knew I’d never be a superhero.”

Nathan relented a little. “Come back in eight years when you know what you’re doing with your powers and maybe we’ll talk. Maybe.”

Russell made a frustrated noise and knuckled the tears out of his eyes, burrowing into Domino’s side for a cuddle. Nathan let his grip on the unblemished teddy bear relax a little. Alright, maybe watching the kid like a hawk would be overkill. He’d… keep an eye on him.

-

They spent the next day or so at Althea's apartment, nobody quite sure where they were going to go next. Nathan had long since perfected the military art of not appearing to give a shit about his physical circumstances, so their accommodations didn’t bother him, but he kept to himself, kept closed-off and quiet. He had been mentally prepared for death, or for going home to his family and to the familiar bittersweet guilt of an ugly victory. Not for this... horrible lukewarm limbo. He'd made the decision to save Wade Wilson, and even now, he didn't think it was the wrong one. His family were alive, and safer now that he was too far away to make them a target. He had an opportunity to fix the past and give his daughter the kind of life he'd never had. He just... might not see them again until he could get the time travel device fixed, and that might be years from now. Or never. So Nathan gritted his teeth and worked on gun repairs and made Plans, and tried to think about anything other than how Louise would have hit it off so well with Domino, or how Hope would have been amazed at the scrubby daylilies that bloomed in the front yard (real flowers were the stuff of fairytales in his time, gone the way of most green things you couldn't grow in underground vats). 

Domino, who told him her real name was Neena, was a quiet blessing, a thoughtful cup of coffee or word of encouragement offered without excessive sympathy. Wade was too, in his own weird, twisted way. His burble of seemingly random commentary ended up being a very necessary distraction. He wanted to talk X-Force, and correcting Wade's various tactical blunders was a real intellectual exercise, but he also wanted to introduce Nathan to the wonders of the early 21st century. Nathan liked video games. The blam-blam stab-stab kind, mostly. Or The Sims. That game was like inhabiting the pages of a nostalgic, dreamlike history book where you could also make hideously ugly people and then drown them in a pool just by removing the fucking ladder. Great shit.

Russell's presence was grating. The kid was behaving, more or less, minus some bickering with Wade over shit that had gone down in the icebox and some standard teenaged whining about being made to help Althea with cleaning, but he didn't need to do anything to piss Nathan off. He was the reason Nathan had been forced to come back here in the first place. Any way you sliced it, future mass murderer or permanently redeemed, he was still the catalyst that had separated Nathan from his daughter. He should have been with Hope right now. His bright, effervescent daughter with her mother's beautiful eyes and her clever questions and the endless optimism of a summer's day. And instead she'd been supplanted by a mean-spirited, overweight juvenile delinquent, like the swapping of the infant Esmeralda for changeling Quasimodo. 

Don't be fucking mean, Nathan reminded himself, when a reproachful look from Domino made him realize he was glaring. Kid's an orphan. And abused. Probably in ways you don't want to think about. But at least he wouldn't have to grow up in a hellscape like Hope would. Well, fuck. It was his responsibility to prevent Firefist's future reign of terror, it was not his responsibility to like the kid. Which he explained to Domino when they were alone in the kitchen that evening, over weak beers that felt stronger on an empty stomach. 

Dom just shrugged, looking nonplussed. "I get it. You miss them."

Nathan grunted, in what Louise would have called 'the hypermasculine-emotionally-closed-off version of a yes'. 

"And anyway, he has Wade," she added, and for half a second there was the barest trace of a smirk in her eyes, before it disappeared into a look of complete poker-face sincerity. 

Ah, yes, Wade Fucking Wilson, mercenary and occasional coke-head with obvious psychoses and a soul rubbed as raw and bloody as Russell’s was. Not a bad guy. Nathan kind of liked the chatty freak, despite himself. But not father material.

“Wade, are you fuckin’ serious about this family shit?” Nathan asked him through gritted teeth, when Wade padded in for a beer and Russell was safely out of earshot.

Wade’s brown eyes looked almost hurt. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. I know me and ‘serious’ go together like Roseann Barr and twitter’s abuse policy, but this actually matters to me. Everybody else wrote that kid off. Including you. And the only thing I took from ninth grade English class aside from the precise, perfect shape of Mr. Hawthorne’s ass was that The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz was about a self-fulfilling prophesy and if you treat someone like a villain they'll become one.” Seeing the look on Nathan’s face, he frowned. “Right, you wouldn’t have read that book, you’re American. Future-American. Hey, how’s Canada doing in the future, by the way?”

“Shitty. The climate went to hell, your major cities flooded or got eaten by glaciers.”

“Is Ben Mulroney still alive? No, don’t tell me, nothing can kill him, he’s too powerful. ANYWAY. I fully intend to be the tragically disfigured dad that adorable little arsonist never knew he wanted.”

The really fucked-up thing was that Nathan believed him. Shaking his head in horrified amazement, he followed Wade to the living room, where he and Russell were halfway through some kind of... musical theatre film. Something evidently set even further into the past than 2018, which the case proclaimed to be Les Miserables. Wade plonked down next to Russell and gave the kid’s hair a short, tentative little pet. 

To Nathan’s surprise, the kid not only let him, but rested his head against Wade’s shoulder. 

Nathan shrugged, and sat down to watch. And was disturbed to find that it was giving him Emotions. 

They killed the video over the last belted harmonic chorus, and Wade turned to Russell. "So, kid, what did you learn?"

"Fuck Russell Crowe. That cunt abandoned New Zealand and he can’t even sing."

"Excellent,” said Wade, with evident pride. “Not to mention he’s the reason we had to get discount Thanos, so fuck him, but like, morals?" Wade turned to Cable and Dom and flashed a thumbs up and a look how well parenthood is going grin. 

Russell considered this for a moment. "...Instead of fighting my enemies, convince them to commit suicide?"

"I probably shouldn't have showed you Oklahoma! before this."

Christ. Nathan put his head in his hands. "All that shit about redemption and fatherhood and the futility of war and sparing the cop's life and that's all you two chucklefucks have to say?"

Wade grinned at him. "Whoah, so much depth! I could just dive into you, Terminator 2. You be Javert, I'll be Wolverine, we can get our Foe Yay on."

He felt like he’d just been either insulted or propositioned, but he wasn’t sure which. “I don’t want to be Russell Crowe,” Nathan objected, a little helplessly. Maybe he ought to have just been grateful the kid wasn’t in a murderous rage over the Thenardiers.

Russell shrugged, apparently unmoved. "Wade, have you got anything to eat?"

"Yeah, I keep some cereal above the sink."

Nathan raised his head, in time to watch with dawning horror as the kid got up, filled a huge bowl with milky Lucky Charms and settled back down on the couch. Nathan knew Lucky Charms. They were still selling them in his own time. Probably the same recipe and everything. They were, as far as he could tell, 90% sugar and 10% wood shavings. His daughter loved them and was not allowed them ever. "Wilson, you can't just give him fuckin' Lucky Charms for dinner."

Both Wade and Russell looked up at him with a mixture of offense and genuine confusion. Nathan didn't know why he was even surprised. Russell would take whatever he was given, and Wade was still a fucking child himself, so why on earth would he know any better? "It's not food."

This won him even more confused looks. "Sure it is," Wade argued, hopping up to investigate the box. "It's got... niacin, that sounds important, right?"

Nathan growled. A frustrated growl of defeat. Of responsibility. He turned and opened the fridge to conduct a rapid inventory of items he'd need to replace for Althea later. "I'll cook something. Wade, take that shit away from him. Russell, set the table." 

"He cooks! Sweet Bea Arthur I'm in love."

"We haven’t even got a table,” Russell pointed out, glowering at his bowl of cereal as Wade snatched it away and started eating it himself.

“Well – set something. And go wash your hands.”

He was alarmed to realize he’d used the same autopilot Dad Voice he used on Hope when she was being difficult. To his surprise, it worked; Russell gave up trying to paw the cereal back from Wade and went off to dig up knives and forks.

“What voodoo was that?” asked Wade, staring with interest as Nathan chopped vegetables.

“It’s called parenting,” Nathan growled back. Too harsh, maybe, but now he was pissed off. Wade had said he was serious, and sure, Nathan had known not to expect actual good judgment out of him, but the kid deserved better than this, dammit.

He didn’t know when exactly he’d decided that the kid deserved anything besides a bullet in the spleen, but apparently he had. Probably the fucking musical making him soft.

-

Russell could not stay with Wade, in the end. There was a place for him at Xavier’s, thanks in no small part to Colossus and his two young wards. Xavier’s could offer him stability, training, education, and a huge extended family of almost aggressively supportive mutants; it was very clearly the best possible place for him. Nathan would have put his foot down if he’d needed to, but Wade seemed to accept and understand this, demonstrating more maturity and self-awareness than anyone had dared to expect. It helped that he’d been given carte blanche to visit whenever he wanted. The Professor hadn’t been happy about a known killer lurking the halls of his house - right up until, at the end of his very first day at the Academy, Russell had a sudden, apparently causeless freakout and nearly blew a hole through the handsome oak-panelled walls in sheer panic. Only Wade had been able to talk him down, eventually coaxing from the kid a panicky stream-of-consciousness babble of an apology.

“-They gave me my own room and there’s mutants using all their powers and everybody smiles at me, Wade, it’s a fucking trap, isn’t it, or – or I’m dreaming, that’s it, right? It can’t really be this good – Fuck, I don’t belong somewhere this nice, I’m gonna burn something by accident and get thrown out -”

Nathan had to leave halfway through because it was all a little too Emotional, but not before he got the basic picture. Russell, who’d accepted getting the crap beat out of him in mutant prison without batting a blackened eye, didn’t know how to deal with people being even minimally nice to him. Wade did an admirable job calming him down with a stream of jokes and weirdly sincere reassurances and more jokes, and nobody was questioning the need to keep him around after that.

Wade’s visits suited Nathan just fine, too. He’d been offered a place to stay for a couple months, and a part-time job to boot. Charles Xavier, who was every inch the serene all-knowing bastard the history books made him out to be, sat him down and told him, teach the students the skills they may someday need to survive. But more importantly, teach them not to make the mistakes that bring about a world where those skills are necessary. Teach them to fight wars by preventing them. And try not to let Cyclops know your real name, hm, Mr. Summers?

So basically the students knew him only as Cable, and he was their own personal warning oracle from the future slash hardass gym teacher. It was a useful day job. Put him in an excellent tactical position for moonlighting X-Force plans.

Today, Wade, in full red condom-wrapper suit minus the usual surplus of weaponry, found him at the edge of the Mansion’s running track, sweating in the summer noon sun and watching twelve teenagers do laps. And naturally the first thing that caught Wade’s attention was the pair of running shorts Nathan had on for the day. They were, admittedly, a little shorter than he was entirely comfortable with. It was hot out. And he hadn’t known Wade was coming, dammit.

He’d suspected, but that wasn’t the point. Wade tried to snap the waistband on him. Nathan broke his wrist.

“Oww. You know, I was gonna say the Richard Simmons look wasn’t ‘you’, but it’s really growing on me. ‘It’ being my erection. This is probably a conversation we shouldn’t have in front of running teenagers, huh?”

Nathan wasn’t touching more or less all of that. He stared straight ahead, face stoic. “Thought Canadians said ‘eh’, not ‘huh’.”

“Urban myth. The thing about the syrup heist is true, though. How’s our boy doin’?”

On the running track a hundred yards away, Russell was pulling up the very rear, red-faced and dragging his feet. “Swear the chubby little fucker’s never run a day in his life before this,” grunted Nathan, and then called out in the direction of the track, “Let’s see some hustle, Russell!”

Russell groaned and flipped them both the bird, but not before he picked up the pace.

It was hard to tell, behind the red mask, but Nathan was pretty sure Wade was staring at him. “Was that… was that… it was.”

“What?”

“A goddamn dad joke.”

Nathan played dumb. It was all he could do.

When Wade’s cackling had run down, he tilted his head at Nathan, managing to look imploring behind the surface of the mask. “Will you teach me? I want to know the Ways of the Dad. Ideally in a quick training montage to the tune of Cat’s in the Cradle. I want to barbecue and play catch and call him ‘sport’ and embarrass him in ten years by developing regressive political ideas.”

“Get yourself a fanny pack,” Nathan deadpanned.

“I knew it was a fucking fanny pack!”

“They’re better for lumbar weight distribution than a backpack,” Nathan grumbled. He wore one because he was getting old, his joints rebelling, and he did not give a flying fuck what anyone thought of him. And yet, with Wade, he felt the need to justify the damn thing. “I’m a pretty shit dad, Wade. Don’t make me your model.”

“You’re good with Russell,” Wade pointed out. “He does what you say even when he’s being a pen in the ass. Pain. I meant pain.”

“Yeah, well, discipline’s easy. Russell was a foster kid for ages before Essex got him. Needs structure, bad.” Discipline was easy, for an army joe like him. With Hope, he had always been the strict one, the parent who laid down the law. Although, funny, it was still him she always came to when she really wanted something. “I can’t do any of that emotional shit though. Louise was always sayin’ I wasn’t ‘present’.” He scrubbed at his face with his hand, mopping away summer sweat. “She was right. First couple years of Hope’s life I was one frigid son of a bitch to her. And now I’ve abandoned them to fix the past. Talk about a deadbeat.”

“Uh, you had to do that to save me,” Wade pointed out. “So really you abandoned your family for a man you’d just met, yet had unforgettable chemistry with – huh, I guess that’s worse, isn’t it?”

Nathan nodded, grimacing. It was probably too late to bother trying to convince Wade he hadn’t consciously decided to keep the merc around. “Worst thing is I kinda like it here. This era. Doing what I’m doing. What kind of father…”

“Oh my gooood.” Wade groaned. “I thought they were abandoning the whole messiah complex thing from the comics when you decided to kill Sarah-Connor-in-the-first-movie-before-she-could-do-chinups! Are you seriously beating yourself up about abandoning your family? Just Chronicles of Narnia that shit! As soon as you get your time travel McGuffin fixed just go back to the exact moment you left!”

“Huh.” He had known he could do that, obviously, but it hadn’t really sunk in that weeks or months or even years spent here, with Wade and Russell and Dom, didn’t need to change a thing for his family. If anything, his arrival time would be more precise if he delayed, as the time gap slowly shrank. Sure, he’d be a couple years older when he got back, but it wasn’t old age that was gonna kill him. “I guess.”

“See? Not a shit dad.”

“I’m still crap at the whole…” Nathan gesticulated vaguely, not sure how to say it. “…Emotional Vulnerability stuff.”

“Ahh, yes, you’re a repressed alpha male. The strong, silent, toxic masculinity type.”

That irritated him. “Go fuck yourself, Wilson. At least I’m fucking trying. It was always hard with my daughter. I learned to do it. Way too late. Russell, though? I look at that kid and I have no idea what he’s feeling.”

“It’s usually rage,” said Wade, helpfully.

“You said you’d been in his shoes.”

“Oh, Jesus, yes.” Incongruously, Wade laughed. “He’s a pyro, I’m trigger-happy, we get each other. Hell, there’s even national similarities. He was parentally abandoned in New Zealand, or as I like to call it, Down Canada.” It was unclear whether the implication that Wade had also been parentally abandoned was intentional. Prism of humour again. Wade burbled on. “Y’know, If we do get your time travel thingy fixed I want to re-do the orphanage fight again just so I can kill more pedophiles with a brick. It was therapeutic.”

“I think he needs you.”

Wade shut his mouth, turned, tilted his head. The wide-eyed, grateful surprise was visible even through the mask. “Vanessa said the same thing.”

Nathan smiled. Just a little. “Look, tell you what. You keep going with the bonding, touchy-feely-”

“-But not inappropriately,” Wade cut in, sing-song-

“-All that shit. You’re actually pretty good at that stuff. And I’ll stick around to make sure he does his homework and occasionally eats something green.” Nathan rolled his eyes. “God knows I don’t fuckin’ trust you to.”

“You mean… co-dad? Dad Team? Russell gets two dads?” Wade made a little high-pitched noise, leapt into the air and actually fucking clicked his heels. “DAD TEAM! DAD-FORCE!”

Nathan groaned. And to think, Hope had always said he was the embarrassing parent. “Can you not?” But Wade was already bounding towards their boy to tell him the good news.

Nathan still would have preferred to be home, all things being equal. But all things were not equal. If he was Jean ValJean, then these idiots were his Cosette. They needed him, and maybe he could use the second chance.

[canaryatlaw]

alright. well. today was pretty good, despite the fact that I didn’t get to sleep in because I get to sleep in pretty much every other day anyway? (summer is wild, y’all). But yeah I woke up hella early because I left my window open last night since it was hot AF in my apartment (welcome to July with only a window A/C unit and not central air conditioning) and for some reason our neighbor has chickens???? why?? Idk, but they were making a lot of noise this morning and they woke me up, so I got up and closed the window and tried to fall back asleep but it wasn’t happening so I was like welp, guess I’m up now so I got my laptop and messaged Jess because we left off with plans at “text me when you wake up” but of course neither of us anticipated me actually being up this early voluntarily (or semi-voluntarily, I guess) so shortly afterwards I got dressed and she came and picked me up and we started our adventures for the day. The first stop was mcdonalds, because breakfast, and that’s like, the only place we get breakfast from lol. then we had semi-gps-woes and there was an asshole honking at us and then pulled up next to us and was being rude and I really wanted to tell them to go fuck themselves (as you learn to do in driver’s ed in New York) (I’m not kidding that was part of the program) but I knew it would make Jess anxious so like a good friend I did not do that. But we eventually progressed to Target, where we wasted time looking at clothing we did not intend on buying, then I got liquid plumbr (which is actually spelled like that) because the drain on our tub has not been working well, and picked up a prescription. I also needed to go to the post office because I had a super heavy box full of bar exam prep books I had to ship back to the bar prep company because they were the New York books and they just sent me the Illinois books so I had to send the NY ones back, because apparently they want them all back in the end even when they’re all marked up and shit??? Idk man. But since we were making our way to the apple store we aimed to go to a post office on the way south to that, and it ended up being somewhat close to wrigleyville and it was a game day which means parking was a mess, so Jess sat in the car with the hazards on while I ran inside to get this package sent as quickly as possible. It was totally empty at first with like nobody even behind the counter and I was like ?? but then a guy came up and was like “oh sorry I didn’t see you over there” because I was standing by the sign that said line up here but it conceivably could not have been in sight of where he was so no worries. Jess told me that if it was all books I could send it “media mail” and it would be a lot cheaper because it was super fucking heavy (when the same box filled with the equivalent books came it said it was 27 lbs) so it ended up being $14 instead of $25, so that was a win. From there we actually went down to the apple store, because last Sunday Jess’ gps on her phone stopped like responding to when you’re moving and like refusing to reroute if you deviate from the route it wants you to take like at all and these are of course problems when you rely on such things to get around the rather big city you live in, so we parked and walked inside, we hadn't made an appointment or anything so they said the wait time was gonna be like an hour to an hour and a half (which made me wonder if maybe I should’ve just ran down there with my Mac last Saturday after it got wet instead of just looking at appointments but whatever) but we could like walk around and they’d text when they were ready for us, so we went outside and looked at the surrounding stores, we were gonna go to starbucks at first but then realized they didn’t have any seating or bathroom which we were looking for at that point so we ended up going back into the apple store to use the bathroom since I knew how to do that from the time I was there a few weeks ago, then we walked over to where the forever 21 was nearby, it was a freestanding one, not like in a mall or anything, which I thought was kind of different from them, but whatever, it was a huge two story place so there was plenty to browse through. My weakness of course is floral dresses which I already own a shitton of but they have a million of this time of year and there was a really cute one on sale and it ended up being like more on sale than I even though originally so it came out to like $4.96 which I mean??? that’s pretty awesome, so I was pleased. after we shopped we walked back over towards the apple store where there was like some outdoor seating and chilled there for a bit, there was like little fountains next to us and there were some toddlers like getting their feet wet and playing and it was really cute. We were only out there for like ten minutes but I somehow mentioned to get like, a really intense sunburn on the back of my neck during that time, like I got a little on my arms which like okay that’s fine it makes sense but the back of my neck, which I mean I could feel the sun on while i sat there, but still, is like unreasonably red and I’m annoyed about this. But while we were sitting there I called the place that did have my computer, I had called them a few times already that morning but nobody had picked up so far, but they picked up this time and they were like “oh yeah it just came in like not even ten minutes ago, we just have to run some tests and you can pick it up in like 40 minutes” so I was like alright perfect! But yeah, then the apple store texted they were ready, so we went inside and waited some more, then finally talked to a guy who did some shit with settings and said it would probably work now, but of course because it was a gps problem we couldn't test it until we left, and we soon discovered that it did not fix it and the gps still didn’t work, so that sucks. The thing is this is the iPhone 6 that was my old phone before I got the 8 so now if this doesn’t work that’s obviously my fault for giving her a defective phone, and since we’ll be in New York this week anyway I know once my dad hears about it he’ll be like nah we’re buying you a new phone and that will be that, lol. So we departed from the apple store and stopped at a car wash quickly because someone ran into Jess’ car with a shopping cart (maybe? it looked like it could’ve been caused by that, it was just scratched not dented) so she wanted to get it cleaned and see what it actually looked like. So we did that, then went to the place which had my computer, but before going in we took a detour to the petsmart that was in that parking lot and looked at the lizards for a bit then went and looked at the cats they had up for adoption and they had a super cute little black and white kitten who was like 4 months old who was being really affectionate and I was just like.....my roommate definitely wouldn’t object if I came home with a cat because we’ve talked about this and almost adopted the cat that hangs out outside our building all the time before finding out she does actually have an owner and just likes to wander, so like, that wouldn’t be an issue haha but of course I resisted and we left to go to the computer store. They got it for me pretty quickly, and of course I just had to pay the $300 deductible for using apple care, so a very minimal amount of water spilling on my computer only cost me $300 to fix (😑) but I guess I shouldn’t really be complaining when it used to be that apple just wouldn’t even touch water damaged laptops and I basically would’ve had to just buy a new one, so that’s an improvement at least. We stopped at the Panera across the street from there and got some lunch, then we were pretty much done with everything, so Jess dropped me off and I first started setting up my computer since all the data got wiped from it, but thankfully I had a back up on my external hard drive from last September when I got this laptop (and I will definitely be backing it up on there more often now) so while I lost any data between now and then, I at least had a significant amount of stuff back, so that was very helpful. But yeah, I got that to set up and do all the updates and everything while I started my bar prep stuff for the day. It was pretty much all review outlines for different subjects and then do one set of practice questions based on the differences between Illinois’s (adding the extra s for possessive is consider correct in legal writing) evidence rules and the federal evidence rules, because part of the bar will test the federal ones and part of the bar will test the Illinois rules, so that’s fun. Then the rest of them were either outline and self grade or write out and self grade like 3 different essays. I admittedly haven’t been writing them all out, but I did my best to outline in at least getting the main points down on paper, which is really all I need because I know I can write, I’ve been writing bullshit essays since like middle school and if the grades I got on my law school finals are any indication, I’m rather good at it, so I was just more focusing on identifying the info they wanted you to get from the fact pattern to base the essays off, so I did that for the first two and did a fairly decent job getting all the points down. But then I turned to the last one and was like oh, I already did this one under the New York program I guess so I was effectively done at that point, which was nice to be done a bit earlier. I did more laptop shit for a while before making my way to the couch to look at some job prospects and hopefully apply to some places. I had collected a bunch of links to jobs I could apply for but had been waiting on the NY job (grrrr) to get back to me to apply, but I lost them all when my data got wiped, so I had to go back into the schools job finder thing and wade through all of those. There were a decent amount of them, most want at least some experience though or at least want an attorney who’s licensed already, so that cut them down a lot. I ended up sending in two applications, one for the state appellate defenders office, and I went into the sent file on my gmail and downloaded all the cover letters I’ve already submitted so I’ll have stuff to work with, it tends to be like copying one paragraph from one of them to another to create the optimal cover letter for this specific position, so I was of course pulling hard on the whole “my father is a criminal defense attorney and I grew up watching him and am always on the defense’s side” blah blah blah, and then railed a bit about how those who are wrongfully convicted and were basically railroaded by the system often get their trauma compounded even more through the appellate process, so I feel like that should be good at least. The other one was a trial attorney job but for a plaintiff’s personal injury firm, so I threw in some crap like “Since I was a child and accompanied my lawyer father to court, I’ve always wanted to be a trial attorney” and something about working some of those cases at his firm because he does do some cases that are like, more or less in that field, just on a different level (i.e. suing giant pharmaceutical companies for defective drugs instead of suing the guy who ran into your car) so I thought was good. I looked at some other options I might do soon but figured that was good for now. I didn’t do much else for the night, just watched Nailed It and did computer stuff before starting to get ready for bed. My eyes are rapidly closing and this post is already super long, so I’m gonna end here. Goodnight dears. Happy weekend.

[marblesarelost]

Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

                                               Chapter 7

She wasn’t surprised to see Natasha leaning against the wall outside her office at five o’clock that afternoon, half-smirking with worried eyes.  “Kotyonok.”

“Tante.”  That drew the smirk into a small smile as Natasha walked with her to the private elevator, both staying silent until the doors closed before them.  Then ‘Tash slid her hand into Darcy’s, interlocking their fingers.  “He called,” Darcy said quietly.  “At like, five this morning.  To tell me what was going on.  That he had to leave.”

“That was good of him.”

“Yeah.”  Darcy bit her lip.  “It sucks.”

“Yes.”  The elevator stopped, and Natasha stepped out first, her grip firm, leading Darcy to the apartment she shared with Clint rather than going to Darcy’s.  Clint met them at the door with Natasha’s vodka and iced glasses, taking Darcy’s bag and shoving her gently toward the couch.  

“So,” Natasha began after all the glasses had emptied once.  “The date went well?”

“Yeah,” Darcy sighed, holding her glass out for ‘Tasha to refill.  “Really well.  We…shit, I’ve got the party at --“

“Nope.  Secretary of State canceled it, due to the new developments,” Clint interrupted.  “Keep going.”

“We talked about getting together again later this week,” Darcy said after a second.  “We had fun, it was a good time, I mean…I think he likes me. I think he really likes me.”

“Who could not?” Natasha purred.  “You were lovely.”

“He held my hand,” Darcy added, blushing.  “Took his glove off for the second --“ Clint choked, vodka dribbling out over his lower lip, and both Darcy and Natasha looked at him, waiting for him to breathe.

“Wait,” he said between coughs.  “Wait, what?”

“He took his glove off and held my hand?”

“You’ve touched --“ Clint coughed again.  “-- Victor Von Doom?  You’ve touched his skin?  He has skin?”

“Oh for God’s sake, Clint, he’s not Darth Vader,” Darcy sighed, but when she looked at Natasha, she saw how carefully blank her expression was.  “What?”

“Doom doesn’t do that,” Natasha said quietly.  “Doom never takes off his armor in public.  Any part of it.  I have known of him, I have watched him, I have studied him, at various times, for various employers, looking for weaknesses, for slips.  Darcy.  He never, never, removes any piece of the armor at any time.  Not even in his castle.  Perhaps in his bedroom, he is human, he must sleep, but…no.”

“Well, we held hands during the first act, and it was okay.  Kind of weird, because his glove is…it’s metal, but it’s really super flexible. Not uncomfortable, it didn’t bother me or anything.  Then I went to the bathroom at intermission with Jennifer, we came back, we all had some wine, we settled in for the second act…yeah.  Yeah, he had his glove off through the whole second act.  But it was dark, and pretty private.”  Both the spies were looking at her now as if she’d grown another head.

“Well,” Clint recovered first.  “So you guys went out last night and then…”

“Yeah.”  Darcy nodded, slumping backwards against the couch. “Then I got a call at five this morning saying he had to go, that the New Soviet were pushing their luck.”

“And you didn’t come tell us,” Natasha said.  “You just got up and went to work.”

“I asked if he wanted me to get Tony or Steve, he said no.  That the Avengers showing up could make the situation even worse,” she sighed. “My hands were, they are, tied. There’s nothing the Avengers can do. There’s nothing I can do.  It’s up to the Kremlin now.”

Natasha filled her glass again, raised an eyebrow at Clint when he pushed his glass closer.  “You choked.”

“I was surprised,” he retorted.  Natasha snorted, but refilled his glass.  “Thank you.”

“It is after midnight in Latveria now,” Natasha said, picking up her glass.  “Have you heard from him since this morning?”

“No.”  Darcy tried to keep her lip from trembling, and thought she’d done a fairly good job of it.  “He’s probably way busy.”

“No news is good news,” Clint added.  “No news means he’s not out there on the front lines, no news means nobody’s infiltrated Castle Doom.  Because if the New Soviet were able to get an assassin in there, they’d be crowing about it.”

“Were you seen with him last night by anyone?”  Natasha asked suddenly.

“We were at Hamilton, ‘Tash, it was crowded as hell.”  The spies exchanged a look, and Darcy looked back and forth between them.  “What?”

“Take it that you were, then,” Clint said.  “Listen, you don’t leave the building without at least three security agents for a while, okay?”

“What?  No, we had one date, we’ve never been seen together before --“

“Crimson Dynamos,” Clint said brusquely.  “You and ‘Tasha approached him and Namor at the party.  You went inside with him.  You came back out with him.  You’re a legit target, Darce.  At least three agents, I’d feel better if you didn’t go out without an Avenger or an X-Man for a while, to be honest.”

“There were other observers besides the Dynamos,” Natasha added.  “I know there were.  And you had a nice long conversation with him outside, in clear view, while everyone else was busy.  I am not scolding you; I am pointing this out.  They know who you are.  They know he has shown interest in you, and they know that you are a member of our support staff.  You are likely a high priority target now for an extraction and kidnapping team.”

“Christ,” Darcy muttered, holding out her glass again.  “Top me up.”

“He has likely thought of this now as well,” Natasha went on.  “If things went as well as you think they did, it would not surprise me to wake up tomorrow morning to see the building flanked by Doombots.”

“Oh, surely not, he’s got to know what kind of fit Tony would throw over that,” Darcy argued. “You want to talk about a pissing contest, Christ, Doombots versus the Iron Legion, Tony’d go batshit.”  Natasha shrugged, sipping her vodka.  

“Perhaps he will not send them overtly,” she said.  “But if you do not hear from the Latverian Embassy offering you extra security within, say, the next forty-eight hours?  I will be very surprised indeed.  And what do you think that security will be made of?”

“Doombots,” Darcy sighed, collapsing against the sofa.  “God. Tony will be livid.”

“Well, if nothing else, you’ll be able to tell just how much he likes you,” Clint grinned.  “What would you say, Tash?  Three if he’s really into her?”

“I would feel better if he hired someone, but yes, at least three,” Natasha said, stone-faced. “Perhaps the best of both worlds; perhaps --“

“Not Wade.  Just not Wade,” Clint said, looking up at the ceiling and pressing his hands together as if he were praying.  “Oh please God not Wade.”

“You’re both horrible,” Darcy grinned.  “First, again, one date, hello?  Second, he’s got a little more on his mind than me right now.  Third, hiring somebody?  Like who?”

“Deadpool,” Natasha said frankly, and Clint dropped back against the couch, shaking his head violently.

“No, no, no, no, no, not Wade, just not Wade, I don’t care who else --“

“I have heard that Creed is available; who would you rather, then, Deadpool or Sabretooth?”  Natasha asked, raising one eyebrow.  “The worst thing about Wade is that he talks too much.”

“Too much?  He never stops!”  Clint exclaimed.  

“And Sabretooth is apt to lose his humanity and try to kill everyone,” Natasha snapped back.  “Wade will shut up if you are firm enough.”

“What about LeBeau? I’ll call him myself, you’d like Remy, Darce, he’s long and tall and made out of sex,” Clint offered.

“Yes, because her beau is going to hire someone who would try to charm his way into her pants,” Natasha pointed out.  Darcy sat back with her vodka, pleasantly buzzed, waiting for the two spies to stop arguing.

“Guys.  It doesn’t matter because he’s not going to do any such thing,” Darcy said quickly when both of them had paused.  “One date, you guys, I’m not a princess, I’m not anybody important.  He barely knows my name.”

“Would you care to place a wager?”  Natasha offered, and Darcy considered.  If Nat was sure enough that she was willing to bet on it…because Nat didn’t bet unless it was a sure thing.

“Okay, maybe, but at best it’ll be a single Doombot.  I actually think it might be one or two of his Latverian Embassy heavies, if anything at all.”

“We will see,” Natasha said, winking.  “Probably by morning.”

  Intelligence briefings, meetings with his allies and their generals along with his own, working out a cohesive united defensive strategy that would save as many lives and materiel as possible, calculating with his military advisors how much ordnance and how many super tanks and operations teams to drive them could be spared, as well as how quickly the reinforcements would arrive at their destinations, all these things had filled his time from the moment he had arrived home.

Now, however, all that was left was the waiting and the hope that the New Soviet would realize what a mistake they were making; the EU had already issued a condemnatory statement against the aggressive movements and escalation in Ukraine, the UN were trying to open up diplomatic relations.  Hopefully, this would all have been for naught.  For now, all that was left was to wait and see.  He gave orders that he was not to be disturbed save for an emergency, and went to his rooms.  He had been awake for over 24 hours, and though he could remain conscious and coherent for up to four days, he preferred not to if it was not necessary, even if it was only late afternoon.

He took a shower, soaked for a bit, then went to bed, closing his eyes and breathing deeply and rhythmically in order to invite sleep.  Then Darcy’s features passed behind his eyelids, and he sat up, cursing as he picked up the phone beside the bed.  It took several minutes for the international call to go through, but eventually she answered.

“Avengers Initiative, this is Darcy Lewis.”

“Darcy.”  

“Victor,” she said, and he could hear the relief in her voice.  Damn.  

“I hope this is not a bad time,” he began.

“No, no, I just sat down behind my desk.  How are you? Is everything okay?”  

“I am exhausted,” he admitted.  “And once we hang up, I intend on sleeping until either a servant wakes me, or I wake on my own.  But I am well, so far.”

“Good.  Stay that way,” she said firmly, and he had to chuckle at the cheek of the young woman giving orders, even faux-orders, to him. “Seriously, though, I’m really glad you called.”

“As am I.  How are you?”

“I’m okay.  I’ve got a little tiny bit of a headache because I drank too much of Nat’s vodka last night, fair warning, don’t drink with the Black Widow, she can drink anybody but Steve and Thor under the table.”

“I will keep that in mind. You said there was a function you had to attend last night.  Were you able to avoid it, then?”

“Nah, it got canceled. The Secretary of State was too busy with the UN because of what’s going on over there.  It’s okay, I didn’t really want to meet the president’s kids anyway.”  He snorted.

“Inform me if the sons are rude.  The daughter is much better bred; she takes after her mother, the first wife.”

“Oh, I fully expect Junior and Nimrod to be douchecanoes,” she said airily.  “I actually got a gown that covers all the assets just for them.” It took a moment for him to parse what she meant, and his free hand grasped his coverlet tightly at the thought of either of the president’s sons being ungentlemanly with her.

“As I said, inform me,” he repeated himself, carefully keeping his voice steady.  “There are certain business dealings with Chernaya that I will gladly interfere in, should they need a reminder of how well connected you are.” And that reminded him.  “You have not left Avengers Tower, have you?”

“Not since yesterday morning, no, but I’m going to have to eventually.”

“If it would not be too presumptuous, would you do me the kindness of informing the Embassy if you do? They will send a security detail for you.  I have no fear for you within Avengers Tower itself; even if they are called away, Stark’s security team and his technology should be sufficient.”  Too, he would call Stark, he decided.  A subdermal tracker somewhere discreet would not go amiss, if she did not have one already.  She was, after all, an intimate of Prince Thor, and obviously a favorite of the team.

“If it will make you feel better,” she said after a moment.  “Guess I get to tell Nat she was right.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Natasha and Clint said last night they thought you’d want security for me.  Clint doesn’t want me leaving without at least three members of security, or an Avenger.  I told them I thought that was a little…” she paused.  “I don’t know, we’ve had one date, I thought it was a little soon for something like that.”

“In any other time, I would agree.  But this is a time of hostility, and the FSB do not play by the rules.”

“You know the Avengers would come for me, right?”

“That is not the point. The point is that nothing untoward happen to you to begin with.  You are a noncombatant civilian, but that will not stop certain agencies.”

“If it’ll put your mind at ease, sure,” she said lightly.  “You’ve got enough to worry about right now without adding me into the mix.”

“Then I will make the arrangements momentarily.  Thank you for understanding.”

“Oh, I don’t have any problem with being safe,” she laughed.  “You’re welcome.  And you should probably get some sleep, and I’ve got to earn my paycheck, so --“

“Of course.  Was this a good time?  May I call again?”

“Anytime, Victor.  And especially if you have to go add a personal touch, okay?”

“I remember.  Have a good day, Darcy.”

“Good night, Victor.” He hung up, called the New York embassy and gave the requisite orders for her security detail if requested, debated…it was still fairly early…and decided not to call Stark until later. Besides, if push came to shove, there were magical means of finding her.  He was able, then, to lie back and eventually sleep.

  The intelligence that came in overnight was not promising.  The strengthening push into Ukraine, the troops now crossing Belarus, pointed toward the New Soviet’s determination to reconquer the smaller countries.  Belarus could be forgiven; their position was unenviable, and while Victor knew they were playing both sides against the middle, he also knew that they could not possibly stand before the might of the troops currently passing through their country. He gave the orders for the immediate air transport of several brigades of Doombots to help defend Poland’s eastern border, with promises of more as soon as he knew more about the Ukrainian situation.  He also gave the orders for the supertanks, already loaded onto the special express trains, and their operators to make the journey to Lublin and Bialystok for assignment. Those destined for Ukraine and Romania were already en route.

A teleconference with the generals, exhibiting the latest Doombot models and pointing out their strengths, took up a few hours, and then another teleconference with Chancellor Merkel, President Macron, and President Mattarella regarding the efforts the EU had made to convince Russia to stand down.  He did not comment on the absence of Prime Minister May and President Trump; it was only to be expected, after the Brexit, and of course President Trump likely did not even know there were currently tensions.  Nor, to be honest, did Victor think the man would care. Ukraine was far enough away that the U.S. could ignore it, though he had an idea that the First Lady was likely keeping a very close eye on the situation.  She was from the region, after all.

Now he paced in his control center, waiting.  He felt somewhat bound by his determination to change; were he the Doom of five years ago, he would have gone to the front and decimated the armies with a few spells, driven them forth from the soil of his allies and shown no mercy.  He could feel the energy, taste the triumph…but no. “I am not that man any longer,” he growled to himself between gritted teeth.  “I am better.  I am stronger, I am more than I was.”  But the words did nothing to curb his desire to see something destroyed by his hands.

He swallowed his irritation, and began reviewing the currently available freelance enhanced humans or mutants who might be acceptable to Darcy as a bodyguard.  She could not be followed by a Doombot all the time, and while the embassy’s security was top notch, they were all human. He did not like their chances against more Crimson Dynamos or perhaps Black Widows.

Sabretooth was not an option, due to his instability.  Certainly he was supposedly “cured,” but he had seen Victor Creed in his murderous frenzies, and he would not risk Darcy in that manner.  Elektra was a possibility, save for the fact that she had a price of her own on her head, one that would never be called off.  Deadpool was annoying, and too easily distracted.  

He studied videos of the last current possibility for a long few minutes, the high angular cheekbones, the saucy grin, the insolent grace, the lean, muscular body.  His upper lip lifted into a sneer, watching him attempt to charm every woman he met.  Did he dare try to hire this one?  What if Darcy found him attractive?  What if, since he was unable to court her properly right now, she allowed that charm to disarm her?  He pushed himself away from the control panel, paced the room again, glancing every so often at the loop of the man in action leaping to provide cover for a child, defending an elderly man, sweeping a handful of foes into unconsciousness with a few well placed blows.  Finally, he stopped, folding his arms over his chest.  

He was fond of Darcy. She seemed fond of him.  They were not sworn to one another in any way, they had not even begun to scratch the surface of any type of relationship. Hiring someone to guard her was not for his benefit, it was for hers.  Her association with him was what would place her in jeopardy;  he was therefore honor bound to ensure her safety.  Out of the available possibilities, this was the best option.

And besides, if she gave way to the flattering rogue’s charms, if she could not remember who had hired him and why to begin with, then it was simply not meant to be.  He sighed, then picked up the phone.  

  The welding arc flashed blue, hotly hypnotic, as the Clash screamed about knowing one’s rights, the thudding bass enough to feel it in his feet as he worked, mouthing the words along with the song.  He had just finished the line of weld when the song cut off abruptly, and he cut off the welding torch, flipping up his helmet.  “FRIDAY?”

“Sorry, sir, but you didn’t hear me the first eight times I called your name,” his AI said.  “Lord Protector Von Doom is on the line for you.”

“Oh.”  Tony wrenched the helmet off, wiped his forehead on his arm. “How long do I have before Pep wants me for the dinner thing?”

“Two and a half hours, sir.”

“Right, and my alarm is --“

“For an hour and a half from now.  Shall I put Lord Doom through, sir?”

“Yeah.  Yeah, patch him in.”  He laid his tools to the side, got a bottle of water from the mini-fridge and downed it, waiting.

“Mr. Stark.”  Doom’s voice boomed, even when he wasn’t meaning to. He’d have made a hell of a front for a metal band.  Literally, Tony thought to himself, grinning.

“Vic!  Good to hear from you.  How’s Europe?”

“Holding together for the moment.  May I have a word?”

“Sure.  You need a hand out there?  I don’t mind,” Tony offered.  “I owe them a courtesy call after the other night, to be honest.”

“I promise you, Mr. Stark, you are first on the list should reinforcements be needed.  I’m calling regarding Miss Lewis’ current security measures.”  Tony blinked.

“She lives in Avengers Tower, man, we’re not going to let anything happen to her,” Tony began, a low growl of discontent rumbling in his belly.  What, he didn’t think the Avengers could keep her safe?

“I’m well aware, but she does have to leave the tower from time to time, Mr. Stark, and while your security teams are top-notch, they are human,” Doom said.  “Humans, unenhanced humans, well trained humans, are very well and good against most of the FSB or human extraction teams.  I am more concerned for mutant and enhanced threats. I have a bodyguard candidate in mind for her.  I am calling to ask if I might rent the gentleman a suite of rooms in the Tower, so that he is always at hand.  This is only temporary,” he added.  “Until the unpleasantness here is over, and the New Soviet come to their senses.”

“Who’ve you got in mind?” Tony asked, taking another swallow of his water.

“Remy LeBeau. Gambit.”  Tony choked, coughed, had to catch his breath.

“I thought he was upstate? In Westchester?”  He said when he could speak again.

“No.  He has left Xavier’s team, and is currently working as a freelance operative in Quebec City.”  

“Not New Orleans?”

“I believe he is persona non grata in the Crescent City at the moment.  Something to do with the Assassin’s Guild.”

“Yeah.  Yeah, um.  Let me put you on hold for just a minute so I can check the availability, okay?”

“Certainly.”  Tony made a cutting gesture over his throat at one of the cameras, and Billy Joel’s “Vienna” began to play, signaling that Doom was on hold.  “FRIDAY? Do we have anything?”

“The guest floor below the Avengers’ floor is currently empty, sir,” came the lilting answer. “The current market value for one of the guest suites is approximately $15,000 per month, due to the space, the limited availability of rentals in New York, and the location.”

“Okay.  Bring him back on.”  The music cut again.  “Vic, you there?”

“Yes, Mr. Stark,” came the irritated reply, and Tony grinned to himself.  

“Yeah.  I’ve got some room, I’ll cut you a deal because it’s for Artoo.  Eight grand a month, it’s a two bedroom suite with a hell of a view, access to the Avengers’ workout area and communal areas if he wants it.  Comes furnished, top of the line electronics, utilities, cable, and delivery service included.”

“Acceptable.  I will call you back after I speak to Mr. LeBeau,” Doom said after a second.  “I deeply appreciate your courtesy in this matter.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Tony said easily.  “Let’s do doubles next time you’re in town, me and Pep, you and Darce, huh?”  A long pause.

“I have no objections. Thank you again.”

“Sure thing. Later.”  He made the motion again, and the call cut off.  “FRIDAY.  Make sure one of the suites is deep cleaned,” he ordered.  “I don’t know when he’ll show, so, let’s get on it.”

“Yes, sir.  Shall I have groceries delivered as well?”

“No; wait on that until we know when.  Work up an invoice for the Latverian Embassy at eight.”

“Yes, sir.”  Tony hefted his helmet up, slid it back on his head, tightened the belt.  

“How much longer do I have to play, FRIDAY?”

“Approximately one hour, eighteen minutes, sir.”

“Awesome.  Bring back the tunes.”  

“You have the right…to free speech…as long as you’re not dumb enough to actually TRY it!”  The music picked back up right where it had left off.  Tony grinned, flipping his hood down and re-lit the welding torch, bending back over his work.

...STAY TUNED, TRUE BELIEVERS...

[unkindnessofone]

5SOS. Up We Go

This is the idea that won the vote. I hope you enjoy. I would love some feedback. There was going to be more beyond the end, but I thought I might leave this one on a happy note. Let me know what you think. xoxo

*******************

“How nice of you to join us.” Simone mused from the shallow end of their suite's pool where she was floating very slowly in simple black one piece. Against her chest, in a very small bathing suit with blue stripes, yellow sand dollars, and pink flamingos all over it as well as a very floppy matching cotton hat, she was holding four month old Molly Irwin, just letting the her chubby little legs feel the cool water as they traveled around with no real place to go. Her tired eyes matched her young husbands as he slowly sat down at the edge, dipping his legs into the pool and waving silently at his two favorite ladies. Ever since Ashton became a father, his hangovers had hit him harder. They were fewer and further between, but they felt like being smacked over and over again by a swollen iron fist. He used to be able to work out through them, but it was bad painful just to read his texts in bed when he woke up. In his defense, one of his best friends did tie the knot the night before and that was a special occasion worth celebrating. Plus, there was an open bar with an incredible selection. “The water might help your head.” She suggested, shrugging her shoulders as she moved a little closer to where he was. Ashton shook his head as an answer and reached out his arms for Molly. He had been awake a grand total of ten minutes and he hadn't had a single second with his little one. It was not okay.

“Hey Miss Molly....” Quietly, for his own head and hers, he greeted her while carefully taking her from Simone's embrace. The last thing he wanted to do was accidentally drop her into the water. “Are you hungover, too?” Jokingly, he asked her, adjusting the wide rim of her hat so he could actually see her face: expressionless,  but still charming.

“She might be kiss hungover.” Simone added, her wet shoulders against Ashton's legs that were hanging in the water. “When I picked her up from your mum's room, she had the biggest lipstick stains on her. Bright red right on her forehead and cheek.” Simone would have been amused if it hadn't taken three baby wipes to fully remove the makeup from her child's face. Still, she was grateful that Annemarie left the reception early to watch over Molly while Ashton and Simone partied like they were teenagers with their friends.

Ashton held Molly out, just above the water, and let her feet kick clumsily in the water. Simone swam a little bit ahead of her, cheering her on as she watched Molly smile. It was one of the few ways she could indicate her mood to them at all.

“Did you talk to anyone this morning? Is anyone else up?” Ashton asked his wife, prying his eyes away from Molly's legs as he held her. Most of the invited guests to Cagney and Luke's wedding had stayed in surrounding hotels in Brisbane, but there were still some of Ashton's friends who had crashed at The Stamford Plaza or who could also afford a room there. He couldn't remember for sure if he and Calum made morning breakfast plans or if that was just silly drunk talk in between celebratory shots.

“Just Grace and your mum.”

“Ah, I can't remember as much as I'd like to after our first round of shots...” Chuckling, Ashton admitted before handing Molly back to her mother so that he could slide into the pool to join him. He hadn't put on any sunscreen yet even though it had been resting on the night stand by their hotel bed. “I was thinking, maybe, someone could fill in the blanks.”

“You danced a lot.” Simone informed him, a Chesire cat grin spreading across her face as she told him that suggested perhaps his moves on the dance floor hadn't been all that smooth. “And cried. You were very happy for Luke.”

“I like Keg, you know that. She brought us together.” He shot her a wink that he instantly regretted since it poked at his headache.

“You called yourself 'a fountain of extreme feelings'.” Simone wiggled her brows at him with a small chuckle, recalling how emotional the night made her husband. “I'm sure Grace could fill you in.” Simone mentioned. She hadn't exactly stayed stone cold sober either and since she was still pumping and breastfeeding, it had been her first night drinking in over a year. She was as light a weight as she had been on her eighteenth birthday. “She didn't drink last night.”

“What?” Ashton's whole face contorted until it looked like a honey crueler. That wasn't the party girl he knew. Both Michael and his wife could polish off a whiskey bottle to themselves and still walk in a straight line. As Ashton took a minute to consider what Simone said, he realized he hadn't seen Grace drunk in a little while. She had been sipping a glass with lime slice in it all night, but Ashton just assumed it was gin and Sprite.

“Do you want some juicy  gossip? You'd be the second person to know. Well, I told Molly, so third.”

“What do you know?” Ashton didn't know if they were talking about his antics the night before or Grace, but either way, he was interested.

“Grace is pregnant.” Even though no one else was around, Simone still whispered the news.

After inhaling a huge breath of fresh morning air, Ashton lunged closer to the little girl in Simone's arms and poked at her tummy, “Do you hear that, Molls? You're going to have a little buddy!”

“Michael doesn't know.” Simone jumped in quickly, speaking from behind Molly to make it seem as if her daughter was the one dropping the hot gossip mom.

“Alright, start from the beginning.” Moving away from Molly and Simone, Ashton went closer to the pool wall, resting against it to focus on his wife. He really wished he had thought to bring his sunglasses out from his suitcase.

“She told me yesterday when we were in Cagney's suite because she was having a hard time staying awake. She wanted to know my tricks.” Unfortunately, Simone didn't have any. She hadn't gone through the exhaustion a lot of women feel during their first trimester. In fact, she was full of energy until the last month. “She's not really sure how to tell Mike.”

“She wants to some kind of special reveal?” Ashton didn't quite understand.

“They've been at each other’s throats lately. Yesterday was the first time they hadn't fought in a long time and I think that's because they were too busy.” Michael had been in Luke's wedding party and Grace was helping the girls get ready, looking after guests from out of town, and trying to lend a hand where she could. Ashton nodded as he listened to Simone. He remembered Michael telling him as they were drinking with Luke and the rest of his buddies in the limo that Grace had told him to go fuck himself the night before, leaving him to sleep in the hotel bath tub with a blanket and pillow that a maid brought up.

“They love each other though.” Shrugging it off, Ashton said without a care. Nobody ever questioned the affection between Grace and Michael. There had been times where they were threatening to break up with one another and then five seconds later Michael was cursing out a random guy in a club for looking at Grace the wrong way or standing too close. Their relationship was hot to the touch, but Ashton assumed they wanted it that way. “Michael once said he likes when she's angry because then she wants to be on top.” Ashton had no idea why he remembered that. He was a little embarrassed that none of them had been classy enough to keep information about their sex lives to themselves except for Calum.

“Well, she's worried.”

“They weren't trying?”

“She said they've just stopped using protection, but that was before they started fighting.”

“Mike's wanted to have kids since he met her. He'll be so happy.” Ashton really wasn't concerned in the slightest, but he could read on Simone's face that she wasn't as optimistic.

“Yeah, it's not about him and his feelings.” Forever a feminist, Simone shot with a little spice on her words, earning a little kick in the water from Molly. “Grace doesn't come from a supportive household. She didn't have a mother figure. She's very scared she will fail at it. Oh God, Ash, it was awful. She literally said, 'What if I'm as bad at it as I was at acting and everything else?' My heart would have broke if Cagney hadn't come out two seconds later in her dress.” The hairstylist really had looked like a vision. Nobody thought Luke would cry, but the moment Simone saw her friend in white she texted Ashton and told him she was changing her bet. A hundred dollars that the groom would weep – and she was right.

“How far along is she?” Ashton asked, knowing Simone had all the details. His wife never got involved in anything without gathering all the information. He always thought of her as a squirrel when she was in work mode, collecting everything and anything she could get her hands on.

“11 and a half weeks.”

“I would kill you if you waited that long to tell me.” Without any thought or regard for Grace, Ashton said with an eye roll that almost went around twice.

“Well, good thing she isn't your wife. She can handle this however she wants. I won't fault her for any decision she makes. We are supporting her, Ashton.”

“I feel like I should tell Mike.” A few seconds of uneasy silence drifted between them, but Ashton pushed off of the wall and waded closer to Simone and Molly, kissing his daughter's cheek and then his wife's lips, soft from a beeswax lip balm.

“Don't.” Whispering, Simone advised. “I'm only telling you because I can't keep anything from you, not because I want you to get involved.” She knew that wasn't easy for him, but it wasn't their issue to meddle in. “They'll be fine. She's just frightened.” Even though Molly's experience had been very different, she could still empathize with her friend. For her, the fear didn't arrive until the contractions did. That was when it truly felt real

***************************

Enjoying a sip of hair of the dog from a flat beer left open on the floor from the night before, Michael laid out on the chair he moved near the hotel balcony. He enjoyed the sunlight pouring into the room, bathing him from head to toe in the bright explosion of colour. It was a gorgeous morning after one Hell of a night. He opened up his laptop on his lap and looked over at his sleeping wife while the home screen loaded. It was very strange for her to still be asleep while it was almost eleven in the morning. Usually, he was the one to crash into the afternoon while she went to an early morning spin class and ran errands about town, meeting with friends for lunch, and picking up dry cleaning and organic groceries. He just assumed she was either fully emerging into vacation mode or that she had danced herself exhausted at Luke and Cagney's reception. Michael hadn't realized yet that Grace had been napping lately. He just thought she was taking breaks from him. They had been pushing one another’s buttons a lot more furiously lately. It seemed like all he had to do was squeeze her too tight and she was jumping down his throat.

She was beautiful though. Michael still felt like he had won the lottery. For all of Grace's flaws, she was still the soft 'good morning' and 'good night' sound that he missed when they were apart. She was the first person to make him feel truly needed. It had always been him who loved fiercely and grew attached to other people, but Grace relied on Michael when she was down, she craved his jokes and his arms, and it made him feel unstoppable. She was one of the toughest people he had ever met, but yet, she genuinely needed him. They could fight like they were being paid to, but Michael never lost sight of how important they were to one another. He smiled at her completely still body until his laptop released a bright beep as his fingers mindlessly typed the wrong password.

“Oh, fuck.” He hissed at the machine, settling down his stale beer on the floor to use both hands this time. The beep hadn't interrupted Grace's slumber in the slightest, but Michael's curse did. Stirring, her eyes fluttered open and she wiped at her face, smudging the already creased makeup from the night before that she hadn't washed off. She had remembered to remove her flash lashes though. They were resting with dry glue all over them on the night stand by her side. “I was trying to be quiet.” Michael chuckled at himself and confessed.

“It's alright.” Grace pulled herself up by one side and reached for her phone that was resting by the curled up lashes. She checked the time and noted that she had missed a phone call from her doctor's office back in New York. “I should be up anyway.” She was really not used to how tired she had become. It was as if she hadn't stopped yawning the moment the strip turned pink on the pregnancy test. To be honest, she couldn't believe Michael was up. He had been rowdy the night before. She thought for sure he would sleep the whole day away like a bear would the winter season.

“Uhh...I slept in the bed next to you last night.” Michael had his laptop open on his knees, but gave Grace his attention. He liked watching her this way. It had been a while since he watched her unwrap her naked body from bed sheets, messy hair falling around her like a waterfall of tangles. “I hope that's alright. I guess, I just passed out.” They had been too busy with helping their friends get married to properly sort of their argument from the night before. Michael didn't dare say it out loud, but he couldn't remember what it was about. He knew he made an off hand comment about the wedding they were all in Brisbane for and that Grace took it the wrong way. Next thing he knew, he was banished to the bath tub since the hotel was out of extra rooms thanks to Luke's nuptials.

“Yeah.” Throwing her hair back from the front, Grace confirmed. “I asked you too.” She reminded him. Drunk Michael had been clumsy, but gracious. He was on his way to his makeshift bathroom bed when she asked him to cuddle her close.

Michael's face didn't hide any of his surprise, but a crooked smile tiptoed over his face, “I wish I could remember.” The night was a blur at best.

“We were about ten seconds into sex before we stopped because you kept saying you couldn't find me.” She informed him. “You said we were spinning.” She was the queen of messy sex, but it just didn't feel right with him slurring his words and losing track of his own limbs. “So, we just cuddled.” Grace watched as Michael just smiled at the words she was saying. “It was nice.”

“You're not mad at me?” He checked, removing his laptop from his person and closing it on the way to the floor.

“No. I love drunk Michael.” That wasn't always her stance on him intoxicated, but she was trying to put their recent troubles aside. “He thinks I'm beautiful.”

“Sober Michael thinks you're beautiful too.” Frowning at her with the corners of his mouth down and his eyebrows closing over his eyes, Michael informed her. “You seem to always forget that somehow, how in love with you I am.” Shaking his head, he rejoined her in bed. She was sitting up, but he pulled her down with his arms wrapped around her chest and curled her into him, his lips finding different tangles of hair to kiss vivaciously. “We have a couple more days here. Anything you want to do?” Michael checked in, purring in her ear as his grip around her shoulder loosened so he could roam elsewhere around her warm body. The sun had toasted them both perfectly this morning.

“I told Simone we would watch Molly tomorrow.”

“Yeah?” Pulling away from her head, Michael checked. That was news to him.

“How often do her and Ash get time together, right?” Between her company and Ashton's commitments to the band, it was a miracle they ever saw one another. Now with a baby in the mix, Grace just assumed the two of them lived completely separate lives that were forever dowsed in breast milk and drool.  It was one of the many things that frightened her about motherhood.

“Yeah, no, it's cool. I just didn't know. What do you do with a three month old anyway?” He asked and then wondered if that was actually how old Molly Irwin was.

“You don't know?” Very scared, Grace checked, pushing away from Michael and furiously studying his face as if the actual answer was written somewhere between his forehead and left nostril.  “I don't know either. I guess we just feed her and put her down and don't like...throw her around like a football.” She rambled.

“I wasn't planning to do that.” He laughed at her, shaking his head. “Are you sure you want to babysit? You seem a little freaked out.”

“Of course, I do.” Grace scoffed like  he was crazy. “It'll be fine. It won't be hard.” She said to mostly herself.

“Well, what about today? We have the whole day ahead of us.” Even though Brisbane was special to Cagney and Luke, Michael wasn't sure if Grace had been there before. He wanted to seize this moment where she was feeling calm and they were in a good place. “Whatever you want to do, okay?” If she just wanted to hang out in the room and stay naked, he would be very okay with that, but if she wanted to call some friends and go out, Michael would make that happen as well.

“Could we talk?” Grace also wanted to take advantage of the warmth between them. She had been craving the current closeness she was feeling, their legs between one another's and their stomachs pressed together. The thin grey fabric of Michael's boxer briefs that he had wrestled into that morning were the only thing between them. It felt exactly how it should feel and Grace figured if there was a perfect time to tell him that she was pregnant, it was right now.

“Yeah. What about?” He always worried when they were in the middle of a bad spell that this would be the time she grew tired of his bullshit and wanted out. He had a full on panic attack the day after she accepted his proposal that one day she would get over him and leave. Calum had to punch him in the stomach to get him to snap out of it and focus on the song they were trying to record. “Fuck, did I say something stupid last night? You know I talk out of my ass when I'm drunk...” Michael rolled his head back on a pillow and pinched the middle of his forehead. He wished he could remember, but figured if he had done or said something unforgivable it might be better that it was lost in a fog. “I know it's not an excuse, but I'm sure I didn't mean it.” He reached for either of her hands under the table, massaging her knuckles with his thumb once he had one. Michael really wanted a break from the fighting.

“Stop.” Grace rested her forehead on his and exhaled against him as he released a heavy breath. They both were in desperate need of a teeth brushing. “I'm not upset about last night. You didn't say anything stupid. Well, you told Calum that he was too scrumptious to ever feel lonely and we all thought that was bizarre, but it's fine.” Grace weaseled her hand out from under Michael's and wrapped it around his knuckles, bringing it up to her dry lips for a kiss.

“Then what is it?” His nerves hadn't subsided in the slightest.

Grace inhaled as deep as she could, just the way she did when she tried her first cigarette: closing her eyes, sucking in until she felt her ribs ache, and then releasing slow enough to worry if she looked cool or not to the strangers around her. She noticed how anxious Michael looked and knew that she had past the point of no return. It wasn't as if she could just smile, shrug, and say, 'Nothing, nevermind.' He would either force it out of her or have a pounding rock in his chest for the rest of the day.

“Are you looking forward to a day with Molly tomorrow?” Kissing his knuckles again, she asked as casually as she would ask him if he wanted milk in his morning coffee or not.

“What?” Michael's eyes remained wide while his eyebrows thickened over top of them. “Um, I guess?” She was being weird, but Michael knew better than to point that out to her. “I don't know. She's a baby. She's my best friend's baby.” Michael didn't really have any feelings about it. It wouldn't be the worst by any stretch of his imagination, but he could think of many other activities that he would enjoy more.

“I'm just checking.”

“That's what you wanted to talk about? My interest in babysitting?”

“No...” Shaking her head, Grace grew meek for a second. She was always bombastic. There was nothing shy about the aspiring actress. It was, perhaps, Michael's favorite thing about her. Even if no one else thought she was a star, she refused to not shine.

“Grace, what's going on?” He laughed and poked at her stomach as she started to fold the blanket she was under between them. Michael had to fight to find her body that he had been tangled up with just seconds before.

“I'mpregnant.” She grumbled from behind her teeth that were locked behind shut lips and covered by the top of the sheets. Her eyes watched Michael, but he just leaned his head in to try and hear her better.

“What did you say?” He squinted at her if that would help his hearing. It was hard to hear her behind all her layers of armor, but his chuckling at her strange behavior wasn't doing him any flavors either. Michael pulled down the blanket from her chin as Grace said it again, only making him laugh more.

She prepared herself with a heavy breath again and threw her hands over her face, releasing the two words together again. This time she wasn't met with any poking or wrestling from Michael. She couldn't hear a breath from him, his laughing had stopped entirely. Grace spread her perfectly manicured fingers open and spied Michael through the openings between her index and middle. He was staring at her stunned, but somewhat suspicious with his left eye widened just slightly bigger.

“Did you just say what I think you said? Did you say that you are...? Grace...?” Michael checked slowly, watching her nod. Once her chin was completely engulfed by her neck and the bed sheets, Michael laid back down and put his own hands over his face, mimicking how she was just a moment ago.

Grace sat up with fear, her hands down on her knees as she tried to study Michael's hidden face just as he had been doing with hers moments ago, “What?” She snapped. “What is it? What are you thinking?” Her biggest fear was that he had the same questions she did. Grace instantly figured that Michael thought she would be the worst mother in the world even though he once told her before they had sex that he thought she would be an incredible parent, that he hadn't known if he wanted to be a dad himself until he took up with her.

“I'm thinking I can't wait to show them Howl's Moving Castle...” Michael admitted once his hands were down by his sides, exposing his rosy cheeks. Grace didn't have a second to ask him what that was before he had her pinned down, straddling her hips and kissing her face from chin to forehead. “This is crazy!” His best friend just tied the knot the night before and now he was finding out he was expecting. Michael felt like he was going to explode. He was the sun screaming into their room, but louder. As Grace laughed beneath him, he thought about running around the room in his underwear and then taking to the halls. Michael calmed down for just a moment and rested his head on her shoulder, breathing in her natural scent as his mind reeled through different movies he was going to introduce his kid to, matching Metallica shirts he could dress them in, and teaching them all the words to his favorite songs. They would have to move out of their condo and into a house. His kid was going to have a backyard and basement. “I'm going to practice throwing Molly in the air tomorrow and catching her. That's what Dad's do.” He whispered against Grace's skin, his excitement dancing out of the softness in his voice. He hadn't noticed,  but Michael had put both his palms flat on her stomach, feeling nothing and everything all at once.

“Ashton would kill you if you dropped her.” Grace chuckled back, her head cheek resting on top of his bedhead. “If Simone didn't first.” She mused.

“I can't wait to tell them.” He said unaware that those two already knew. “Oh shit, my parents are going to freak out. Let's take them out for dinner tonight?!” He popped his head up so quickly that Grace barely had time to move her own.

“Wait. You're not scared?”

“No!” As if she was insane for asking, Michael shouted. “This is awesome. Our kid is going to have your gorgeous face, my taste in music, and they're going to be amazing. This is the best.” He couldn't believe she wasn't jumping up and down like he was.

“I'm terrified.”

“That's probably normal. You could talk to Simone about it.”

“What if I'm like my mom?” Very seriously, Grace asked. He softened again, realizing just how real her question was. They so rarely discussed Grace's family. She had once changed the subject to Charles Manson when Michael asked about her parents because that was more pleasant for her. Michael was silent for a moment before shaking his head to and fro' like a dog trying to dry off after running through the backyard sprinkler.

“Nope. No. I don't need to know that lady to know that won't happen.” Michael crawled up onto his knees and  found both her hands, curling them up in his. “You are supportive and protective, you are tough and kind at the same time. This kid is so lucky. There is nothing even remotely monstrous about you. You were built for anything.”  He watched as she believed him, her eyes adoring him while her fears were released through her lips warbling.

“You always know what to say.” She sighed. It was times like these that she understood why songwriting came so easy to her husband. He had a way with words that could calm anyone down. It was mind boggling to her that he was the same man who could make dick jokes at the wrong moment and talk with his whole foot in his mouth sometimes.

Michael leaned down and kissed her, slowly and sucking on her bottom lip before quickly letting go to pull the covers off of her and kiss her exposed stomach with a loud 'smack'.

“Can we run around naked now? Come on! Come on!” He lifted up her arms and bounced on the bed, her smile allowing laughter to erupt wildly from her mouth. Unbeknownst to her, Ashton was right. There was nothing to worry about. “This is awesome! This is awesome!”

[dragongoddess13]

31 Days of Halloween Prompt Challenge Day 20

Day 20

Captain Canary

Witch/Witch Hunter AU

Ao3

xXx

She had been hunting him for three years now. Sara Lance, the sheriff's daughter. The girl who didn’t fit any mold, so she broke them all out of spite. She was hellfire in a petite body, a force to be reckoned with. A woman on a mission. Scorned and dangerous and worst of all out for blood.

His blood.

Leonard had first laid eyes on Sara in a tiny town out west, aptly names Starling. It was small for a boom town, but a boom town it was and like any boom town it was ripe for the picking.

His team wasn’t human, his out casts, his rogues. They fell from the pages of myth and legends, striking fear into those who would oppose them.

All except her.

Leonard had gotten close to her because she was the sheriff’s youngest daughter. Courting her would ensure he had inside information on Starling's law enforcement. What he hadn’t counted on was getting attached, regretting his actions in deceiving her. When they left town with their catch, he had an ache in his heart and a weight on his shoulders.

He didn’t realize she’d followed them until a few months later. They were planning a new heist, inserting themselves around town when everything went to hell. They were ambushed by the deputies and taken into custody. Sara had been on the balcony across the street, overlooking the tin jail house, when they were taken in.  

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, big brother.” Lisa told him later through the bars of their adjacent cells. The weight of Sara’s withering stare still haunted him. He was ashamed to admit the pain he felt when he saw just how much hatred she harbored for him.

“Told ya that girl would be trouble, boss.” Mick added. “She’s too wild.”

xXx

Leonard had worked out their meeting down to the last second. Her family's home was small, not much for her to take care of. So, by noon she was usually out of the house, making her way through the woods that bordered one side of the territory.

Leonard followed at a distance, observing her as she descended a shaded path into the hidden valley below. He’d staked out the area after the first time he’d watched her disappear down there. It was mostly sparse grass, with towering pine trees, thick enough to explain the lack of grass. Large boulders dotted the landscape and encircled a midsized lake.

He’d seen her carrying a pack with her that day, concluding that she planned to spend the afternoon by the lake eating lunch. What he hadn’t expected was to turn the corner on the path toward the lake and find her discarded pack and clothes on the surrounding shore.

Leonard quickly recalculated, approaching the shore where she’d dropped her pack. He expected a memorable meeting, something he could apologize about later when they ran into each other in town, leading to a witty back and forth over the incident, thus securing his place in her mind. Instead, when she noticed him, she smirked, wading a little closer, the water just barely covering her chest.

He should have walked away then, called off the job, packed up his crew and moved on to the next town, but she intrigued him and Leonard’s curiosity had always been a fault he couldn’t shake.

xXx

After the break out they’d all separated. Leonard could see Sara was only out for him and he wasn’t going to take his crew down with him. The other’s were hesitant to leave him and Mick and Lisa put up a fight, but in the end they all trusted him to do right by them, no matter what form it took.

In a group, Leonard was much safer, but now he was forced to work a bit of magic to protect himself and with a blood line like his it was guaranteed that someone even more unsavory than himself would notice him. So now, not only was he dodging the woman he’d scorned, but also his father’s enemies. Dozens of men looking for revenge or leverage on Lewis Snart for one of any number of reasons. He was almost tempted to let Sara catch up with him. Nothing she could do to him would ever compare to what Warlocks and Witches and all manner of Mythical Creatures would do to him in some fruitless attempt to get the upper hand on his father. A man who could careless about what happened to his children if it didn’t benefit him in someway.

Leonard was reduced to pickpocketing to survive whenever he ventured into a town. He avoided the big ones just in case and mainly kept to himself. If the politics in one town seemed unstable, he didn’t bother to stay, keeping on the move and out of sight.

Leonard didn’t know how Sara managed to keep up with him. Whether her fury was driving her to move faster or subconsciously he wanted her to catch up. He knew, deep down, that he wanted to see her again, that he wanted to go back and change everything; change his fate to that when he rolled into Starling it wasn’t as a thief looking for a score, but a man with a chance as love. Something he could not afford to have, no matter how many banks he robbed.

xXx

“What do you want in life?” Sara asked him one afternoon by the lake. A few weeks had passed since their first meeting and Leonard would soon have to admit he was stalling his crew.

“That’s certainly a loaded question, isn’t it?” he replied.

“No, it’s not.” she said it so assuredly, he believed it instantly. “It’s simple. What do you want out of life?”

“Well, I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.” he told her. “What do you want?”

“Room service.” Sara replied, stretching lazily and laying back on the picnic blanket.

Sara hummed. “I want to leave this town and travel the world and never settle down and live on room service and the excitement of not knowing what’s next.” she told him and damn him if he didn’t understand exactly what she meant.

Damn him if he didn’t want to give that to her.

xXx

It all came to a head six months later. Leonard was exhausted, he’d been riding all night trying to escape a gang his father had double crossed and ended up hiding out in an abandoned mining town. He needed a place to sleep for a few hours, to rest his horse. He knew better than to sleep deeply, but after days on the move he can’t help it.

Leonard woke up a few hours later, and realized he couldn’t move. His hands were bound to an iron bar stuck in the wall beside him and all of his packs are across the room. The small shack he held up in earlier is lit only by a small fire in the wood burning stove at the center of the room.

He assumed his father’s enemies had caught up with him, but then he realized that all of this was too well planned for the impulsive men chasing him.

“Why have you waited so long?” he called out into the darkness.

“I was watching you. The way you watched me.” Sara answered. He followed her voice across the room.

“Sara,” he began, not sure which of the numerous speeches he’d rehearsed he was going to use.

“Don’t,” she cut him off, stepping into the light. “Nothing you say will change my mind about what I have to do.”

“And what do you have to do?” he asked.

“Kill you.”

xXx

“He’s a crook, babygirl.” Quentin said, pulling his rifle off the rack. “He’s just using you to keep tabs on me and my deputies.” he continued oblivious to Sara’s struggle to keep the tears at bay. “My deputies are dealing with something at the Queen ranch. I’m going out to find their camp. I want you to stay here.”

“No way, I’m going with you.” Sara insisted. “You can’t go out there by yourself.”

“Sara,” her father sighed. “Can you honestly tell me that you can go out there and be objective about him?”

Sara hesitated and it was all the answer he needed.

“Stay put sweetheart. I’ll take care of this.”   

xXx

“That was the last time I saw him alive.” she explained. “He didn’t come home that night, so the next morning I went out looking for him.” she paused. “I found him by the lake, our lake.” she looked at him with such hatred it burned right through him. “When I got back to town to get help they said the post office had been robbed, nobody knew who did it, but I did.”

“And yet I haven’t found any wanted posters.” Leonard replied.

“Well, I couldn’t let the Marshalls get in my way.” she told him.

“So you weren’t the one who tipped off the Sheriff a few months back?”

She shook her head. “No, that surprised me too.” she stepped closer, crouching down beside him. “I need you free to get what I want, because no court can give you what you deserve.”

“Sara, we did rob the post office, I won’t deny that, but I didn’t kill your father, nor did anyone in my crew.” he defended himself. “Murder is messy and draws attention to us. If we had been confronted by your father we would have run, especially if he had come after us alone.”

“Is that so?” Sara sounded skeptical, her anger growing. He watched as she reached for something at her back. “So this isn’t you family crest burned into the hilt of the knife I pulled out of my father’s back?”

xXx

There was an outcropping of rock hidden on the far side of the lake. They’d found themselves there that afternoon. It had been three weeks to the day that they’d first met and Leonard knew things were going to fall apart soon if he didn’t make his move.

Be he didn’t make his move that day, instead, he made a mistake. Lying there together, her head on his shoulder, the sweat on their skin cooling in the gentle autumn breeze, he knew it.

“What is this?” Sara’s voice was soft, satisfied, her fingers lightly tracing the pattern tattooed over his heart.

“My family crest.” he replied, sadly.

“Is that a bad thing?” she asked.

Leonard chuckled. “Depends on who you ask.” he told her, rolling on top of her.

She wanted to ask him about the other marks, the scars, but he was doing all sorts of distracting things with his tongue and the thought left her.

xXx

“Sara,’ Leonard began, his tone grave. “You need to put that down.”

“And why is that?”

“Because it’s cursed. Have you been carrying it this whole time?”

“So you killed my father with a cursed blade?” she exclaimed outraged.

“No, Sara, damn it, put it down it’s clouding your mind!” he screamed and it startled her just enough for her to drop it. “I didn’t kill your father Sara, but I might as well have.”

“What does that mean? What is going on?”

Leonard sighed. “I don't’ supposed I could convince you to untie me before I explain?” a look was the only answer he needed. “Worth a shot.” he shifted around a bit, trying to get comfortable. “That knife belongs to my father, the head of our clan.”

“Clan?”

Leonard nodded. “I’m descended from a long line of witches, directly descended for the bloodlines of Salem. Our blood is royal in magical terms, though there isn’t much left of our family. My father turned to theft, further driving our family under. He took my sister and I with him and when I was old enough, I took Lisa and escaped. He didn’t like that, claimed we abandoned him, cut him off, so now, whenever we’re in the same area, he tries to mess with us, mess with me and my plans.”

Sara shook her head. “But why would he kill my father. It did nothing to stop you, to hurt you.”

“Believe me,” he replied bitterly. “It did plenty. He succeeded quite well this time.”

“How so?”

She watched him shift to get comfortable and sighed. “Hold still.” she instructed pulling a small knife from her boot and cutting him free.

Leonard rubbed at his wrists to relieve that ache.

“What do you mean, he succeeded?”

Leonard hesitated, stalling as long as he could. And when he couldn’t stall any longer; “First rule of any con, don’t get attached to the mark. You were the mark.”

“I don’t understand.” But Leonard could see that she did.

“I had what we needed for the heist within a week and a half.” he continued.

“But you were there for a month.”

“I actually considered abandoning my crew, giving it all up. Taking you away from there. We’d live on room service, see the world, just the two of us.”

“But you didn’t.” Sara replied.

“I’m just a thief, Sara.” he told her bitterly. “You deserve better.”

“So, your father saw us, saw how you felt and killed my father to frame you, to make me hate you?”

Leonard nodded and neither of them said anymore for awhile. Leonard eventually got up, kicking the knife across the room as he walked to his pack. He dug out some food and his water skin and they ate a meager meal.

“I’ve been carrying this anger for months. How could I let it go so easily?” Sara asked sometime later.

“The knife. My father used it to kill my grandfather and while he lay dying he uttered a dark spell. It draw the worst of you to the surface, makes it hard to think clearly. For you, it drove your revenge. My father actually has a special sheath for it, to keep it from affecting him.”

“I still feel angry.” she added.

“And i doubt that will go away anytime soon.”

“I’m alone now.” she sounded so small, so scared. “My parents are dead, I don’t know where Laurel is, not since she ran away with the Merlyn's’ son. I’m alone.”

Leonard moved closer, his side pressing against hers. “You’re never alone, Sara.” he reached over and took her hand, entwining their fingers. Sara buried her face in his shoulder, letting the tears fall uninhibited.

xXx

When Leonard woke the next morning, the space beside him was empty, cold. Sara had clearly been gone awhile. Her pack was gone and so was his father’s knife. He didn’t need to read the note she’d left to know where she’d gone.

He packed quickly, riding off after her and praying to whatever deity would listen that he would get to her first.

xXx

“I can’t let him get away with this.” Sara told him. They’d been in this position many times before, side by side, limb tangled up, heart beats just returning to normal.

“And what would you do?” he asked. “Go after him the way you came after me?” he sighed. “You can’t stop him Sara, he’s too strong, too depraved.”

“So what would you suggest I do, let him go, let him get away with what he did?”

“I’ll never let him get away with this Sara.” he told her. “But wouldn’t your revenge be sweeter if he saw you happy despite everything he did to destroy that?”

“You said it yourself, Len, he’d never going to leave you alone; leave us alone.”

“No, he won’t and think it’s time I finally did something about that. The first step, however, is showing him he has no power over us.”

Sara didn’t respond right away, her fingers absently tracing the tattoo on his chest before jumping to the scars.

“You may be right.” she finally agreed.

Satisfied , Leonard settled down, eventually lulled to sleep by the light touch of her fingers.

[junkremovalauth-blog]

Dabblers in the Junk Removal Business get Crushed

Don’t “Try Out” Junk Removal

One of the things we hear every week from people looking to get into junk removal is that they want to get in and try it out. Some want to dive in but have a spouse who is encouraging them to hold back and just “try it out.” In most businesses, this is the wrong thing to do and will likely lead to failure before you even really get started.

Some of you might ask why you should dive into the water when you can just wade into the shallow end first. You’re not wrong. You should never just dive right into the water without first making sure it is clear of debris and dangerous animals and that it is deep enough for you to dive in without hitting bottom. You should also make sure you are in good enough health and capable of swimming back to the top. And you better make damn sure you know the way out of the water too. Or you could walk into the shallows, slip on a rock, bust your head open, and die. See, dead before you even get started. Don’t let your junk removal business slip on the rocks. Get your info and dive in.

Don’t be an Ordinary Business Thinker

I’m about to expose myself here to a lot of ordinary business thinkers. A lot of practical business thinkers. A lot of reasonable business thinkers. The thinkers who tell you to try out a concept and see if it works. The thinkers who tell you to diversify your investments in case they don’t work out. I’m gonna tell you that just trying something out is an extremely poor business move and should be avoided at all costs. If you’ve determined something is worth doing, you need to make a commitment to get in there and do it right.

So, why is trying something out such a bad move?

1. There is no commitment: Compare two gentlemen who are interested in learning how to start a junk removal business. They do their research, determine they are interested in this business, and decide to get started.

Business owner number 1 concludes that he has a pickup truck, a fairly strong back, and a son who can give him a hand hauling some junk. He’s gonna buy a cheap trailer, put up a Craigslist ad or two, and see if this thing works out.

Business owner number 2 has realized there is some serious demand for junk removal in his and other markets. There is some stiff competition in his area, but he understands that’s a good thing. That means there is demand. He sees that other companies have proven junk removal works in his area. He’s ready to commit. He goes out and purchases a Junk Removal Authority start up package for $7,500, buys a new truck, gets a great website, rents a warehouse/office spot, and hires four employees.

What’s gonna happen when the going gets tough (which it will)? What’s gonna happen when business gets a bit slow, an employee quits, a truck breaks down and requires thousands to fix, the city doesn’t allow his commercial vehicle to be kept at his house, he damages somebody’s property, etc.? What’s gonna happen when shit happens (which it will)? Who is more likely to persevere? The guy who eased in to try it out, or the one who fricken committed? The answer is obvious. The one who committed to his junk removal business is much more likely to succeed. Why? Because he has more to lose. The very reason Business Owner Number 1 started the way he did was so he could limit his losses. By limiting his losses, he could very well prevent himself from ever realizing any gains. “No pain, no gain” holds very true for businesses.

2. You are unable to rise above the pack (because nobody knows about you): Let’s say Business Owner number 1 hasn’t gone out of business yet. Shit hasn’t hit the fan yet and both owners are still running. They both start at the exact same time.

Business Owner Number 1 puts up a Craigslist ad, plays around on Facebook Marketplace, and waits for the phone to ring. He gets several phone calls and customers are always asking about price. He books a few jobs and does them. He removes some concrete and estimates the job at $300. The customer thinks he’s crazy so he settles at $200. It takes him and a helper two hours to load. As he pulls away he’s thinking, “that’s not bad. Two hours of work and after fuel and labor I’ll probably make about $150.”

Then he takes the concrete to the dump and faces $250 in disposal fees. He just worked for several hours to lose $100. After leaving the landfill, his tire blows out as a result of some debris from the landfill. He spends $150 to change out the tire. He isn’t so sure about this junk removal business right now.

Business Owner Number 2 has a slightly different start. Armed with the firsthand experience and knowledge of how a successful and large junk removal company is run, he is sure of himself and his investment. He knows how to market to customers, how to quote jobs, and he has a reliable vehicle. He’s using the Pay Per Job program and that starts to bring him instant business. He gets to a quick garage clean out job on his first day. It’s about a full load, so he charges $550. It takes him and a helper about 30 minutes to load. They are able to donate and recycle some of the items on the truck. His disposal fees are only $30. He has two more jobs scheduled for later that day. One is an attic clean out that takes about an hour and he brings in $350. The third job is a hoarding clean out job. He’s had a good day and has made good money. He’s got some jobs coming up over the next few days, too. He looks at the hoarding job and quotes it at $3,000. The homeowner replies, “no way am I paying that much for junk removal!” Business Owner number two leaves and heads back to the shop having profited a few hundred bucks throughout the day. Not bad!

Business Owner Number 2’s day went better because he knew how to get attention, knew how to quote jobs accurately, had seen firsthand that customers are more than willing to pay hundreds of dollars for junk removal, and because his prices were higher, he was able to pay for great advertising to attract these customers. He went into this business expecting to lose some money at the start and with the knowledge that he must spend money to make money. To make it in junk removal, spending money is a must. You will not get the majority of great junk removal customers through free advertising. The majority of Craigslist customers are extremely cheap and the jobs are extremely laborious. The people on Craigslist are often do-it-yourself types and cheapos. The only reason they are calling you is because this job was too shitty for them to do themselves. That’ll cause you to get out of the business fast!

Business Owner number two had cash left over at the end of the day. He then took most of that money and put it back into advertising for more exposure. He isn’t making much at the start, but he is setting himself up for a great future business. He is getting known. He is rising above the dozen or so other companies in his market that aren’t willing to make the commitment he is making. He’s gonna be tough to beat in the long term.

3. You aren’t willing to do what the competition isn’t doing: To stand above the rest of the dozen or so junk removal companies in your market, you have to be willing to do things and make sacrifices that the competition won’t. Business Owner number two already made a decent investment in training and support with the JRA startup package. That was the first thing he did that his competition didn’t. He and his wife then made a commitment that they would not miss a junk removal call if at all possible. He committed to answering the phone at 3 AM, during dinner, on their anniversary, and while having sex. Business Owner number 1 has less to lose and said he was only answering phones between 8 and 5 and only if it was convenient for him. If he’s eating lunch, the call can wait. I can promise you that most of your local competition won’t be doing that.

4.) Your growth will be stunted or drawn out over a much longer period of time: Since you aren’t as well-known and are underquoting jobs, you don’t have the money or the means to reach more people and to expand. You have fewer current customers, which means you will have less referral and repeat business later on down the line. You are extending out the growth of your junk removal business by years due to your lack of commitment. Folks, we ain’t living forever. My father always told me the old saying of “If it’s worth doing then it’s worth doing right.” Do it right, folks.

All it takes to do wildly well in this business is commitment and sacrifice at the very start. For about the first two years, you should dedicate your life to your business. There will be slow and tough times. But if you make that commitment you are much more likely to push through to success.

By year 3, you will hardly ever be on the truck if you’re doing things the JRA way. You’ll be making between $80,000 and $120,000. By year 5, you could have a full time manager in place and be clearing over $200,000 a year yourself (Based off experience – not a guarantee. Your ability as a business owner, your market, and economic conditions can make this figure vary tremendously). You aren’t gonna come anywhere close to those numbers if you dabble. And chances are you won’t stay in business for much longer than a year or two.

Is There a Time to Test Your Business?

You might wonder what a good situation would be in which you just try out a business by using a cheap pickup and trailer. That might be a good option if you don’t have a job that pays much of anything now, have no savings, no way to borrow any money, and you just need to get started. If that is the case, you should go out and do whatever is necessary to start your business. But don’t mistake this for dabbling. The individual who uses this approach is committing all they are able to commit. The dabblers are the ones who could be doing more but don’t. In this case, this person is maxing out what little resources they have to build a business. Their drive and determination might see them through. That was the case with me at Junk Doctors. I pushed through. But if I was going out on my own now with the resources I have now, I would have known a lot more a lot sooner and grown much quicker.

The other situation where easing into something might be a wise move is when you are doing a proof of concept. For example, JRA and the Pay Per Job program is a proof of concept. After a few months, it has proven itself and we have discovered a really unique way to help service business owners get in business, grow their business, learn, and acquire customers. And we are getting out of proof-of-concept mode and about to make a huge investment to help us stand above the pack. This will help us distance ourselves from competition that is sure to spring up once they see the direction we are about to go. For us, now is the time to commit so we can rise to a point where we can dominate a market. Otherwise, somebody else could join the market, run faster than we are, spend more money than we have, and beat us. We are moving as fast as we can right now to keep that from happening. With junk removal, hundreds of other companies have already proven it works. It’s up to you to COMMIT and make it happen.

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