#Armed Career Criminal Act

[mwpetersonlaw]

Navigating Divorce: Choosing the Right Legal Support in Boston and Salem

Search Massachusetts for a seasoned and sympathetic Sexual Assault Attorney. You need just look at mwpetersonlaw.com. We struggle for equity.Salem needs a solid defence against criminal accusations. You need just look at mwpetersonlaw.com. Our seasoned attorney champions your rights.

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[augustinbluex]

shoplifter

Pairings: Step Dad Mark x Security Guard Jeno x afab Reader

Summary: when you got caught stealing in a sex shop, you thought you'd earn another lecture from your stepdad. however, the lesson was not what you’d excepted

Genre: smut

Warnings: noncon elements, unprotected sex (be safe!), anal sex, rough sex, threesome, stepcest, double penetration, face slapping, pussy slapping, humiliation, degradation, fingering, dirty talk, spanking, squirting, creampie, overstimulation.

Word count: 3k+

THIS IS NOT YOUR TYPICAL GIRL DINNER. READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION

You sat there, your gaze fixated on the ticking clock, the anticipation clawing at your nerves. The wait was killing you—you’d been caught in this stupid fucking store, having maybe tried to leave without paying. The rent-a-cop had seized you, dragging you into the dimly lit backroom, but you managed to pull the name of Mark Lee out of your pocket like a desperate trump card. A way to escape the clutches of this predicament. The guard had glowered at you, reluctantly agreeing to make the call.

Mark would undoubtedly give you hell for this, yet he would also ensure that this embarrassing incident remained hidden from prying eyes. He wouldn't want the world to know that his step-daughter had been caught in the act of petty larceny within the confines of a sex shop.

So, all you had to do was wait.

The guard had given you a hard time when you dropped Mark's name. As if your father—no, your stepfather, you had corrected him—being who you claimed, he was automatically invalidated any suspicion. According to the guard, if your lineage held true, you could afford those tantalizing toys and bottles of lubricant. And perhaps, on some level, the thrill of doing something forbidden excited you. You had made sure to emphasize that point, emphasizing both the ‘naughty’ and the ‘excited’.

Too bad your criminal career apparently went bust on your first heist.

Voices echoed outside the closed door. There was an edge to Mark's voice, a tone that sent a shiver down your spine. The guard, on the other hand, seemed to find immense amusement. Telling the rich and powerful that their children got busted stealing sex toys probably was the highlight of this guy’s week.

"Hi, Mark," you greeted him, mustering a demure smile as the door swung open.

"You have no idea how disappointed I am in you," he responded, his gaze cold and piercing. Gesturing towards the desk, he continued, his voice laced with disdain, "I've already had a chat with Jeno here... but I'd like to hear it from you. Did you steal these items?"

His eyes settled upon the incriminating evidence displayed on the desk—the dildo and the bottle of lube, silent witnesses to your foolishness. You merely shrugged, a nonchalant gesture that seemed to catch him off guard.

He sucked in a sharp breath. "You've been acting out, breaking rules since..."

"Since my mother died," you finished his unspoken words with a bitter edge.

The truth was, you had been defying rules long before that tragic event shattered your world. It was just that Mark had finally taken notice of your rebellious streak, particularly after he started sending you to that exclusive, expensive school and footing the bill for your reckless driving tickets. It had hurt, realizing that he only seemed to experience distant emotions—distant disappointment, distant pride, distant everything. But it wasn't you who had changed when the loss struck.

Still, you couldn't help but resent his attempt to guilt trip you using your mother's death. "Save the 'since your mom died' lecture for the drive home," you said sharply.

Mark scowled, a realization dawning upon you that you had never seen him truly angry. He had always kept his emotions at arm's length—detached disappointment, detached pride—those were the only versions of him you had witnessed lately. "Why did you do this?" he demanded, his voice laced with frustration.

"Because I wanted the damn dildo," you replied matter-of-factly. Your words hung in the air, unapologetic and unyielding. It didn't faze Mark. You even contemplated mentioning how lonely this summer would be since he had forbidden you from seeing those he deemed "bad influences."

"I understand, you know," Mark said, his voice devoid of its usual robotic tone. “And you could’ve paid for it, you have the money. I wouldn’t have judged you. We all need a release.”

You maintained your stance, reiterating and emphasizing your reasons. He just simply nodded. As you prepared to urge him forward, his hand landed firmly on your shoulder, and Jeno, the guard, promptly shut the door. 

“Mark, wha–”

Confusion tinged your voice as you questioned what was happening, but the air in the room suddenly grew colder, the atmosphere thick with tension.

"As I mentioned, I spoke to Jeno," he began, his voice chillingly detached. "He won't pursue legal charges, and I've taken care of the stolen merchandise. However..." He paused, his words hanging ominously in the air, "I believe it's time for you to learn a lesson."

In an instant, the fabric of your shirt was torn away, leaving you gasping in surprise. Before you could react, Mark forcefully maneuvered you across the room, bending you over the edge of the desk. Shock and fear coursed through your veins as you struggled to comprehend his actions.

"What are you doing?" You exclaimed, your voice trembling with a mixture of confusion and fear.

He leaned in close, his grip tightening on a fistful of your hair. "Sweetheart, we all have to control our desires and restrain our darker impulses," he whispered, his words laced with an unsettling intensity.

Your voice quivered as you registered the pressure against you, feeling something hard pressing into you. "What?!" you managed to utter, your mind reeling from the sudden turn of events.

“I’ve watched you prance around, debasing yourself, and I tried to reign myself in, thinking you just needed time. Time’s up.” With a forceful grip, he tore your skirt away, leaving you exposed and vulnerable. "You've continued to defy me, and now it's time for you to understand the consequences of letting others have their way."

You tried to twist and strike him, but the guard grabbed your arms, wrestled them behind your back, and cuffed them. “Your daddy paid for some more toys as well.”

You struggled in vain, yelled your head off, and screamed when a hand dipped underneath your underwear and rubbed your pussy. It was only when Jeno cut you off by forcing a cloth into your mouth that you realized that it was Mark’s. You thrashed and moaned when a finger entered you. Your body shuddered, going very still when the next one entered, stroking inside.

“I wonder if this will be an effective punishment. She seems to be enjoying it.”

You shook your head and let out a furious growl until Mark pulled you up, working you over with his fingers. “You’re already wet, huh?” He asked, though it didn’t feel like a question. It felt like an observation, like he’s commenting on the weather and not your obvious arousal. “Jeno, come look at her. She’s so needy.”

“Fuck, she’s so turned on by this.�� Jeno said, licking his lips as he looked down at you. He grabbed your bra and tugged, straps biting into your skin until they gave way. You squealed when he pinched a nipple. Sobbed when, while fondling that breast, he put his mouth on the other.

You shook your head. This was not happening. Your stepfather and some rent-a-cop were not raping you in a backroom at a sex shop. You were not, despite Mark’s assertions, ‘dripping wet’. You did not like being manhandled by two guys who knew what they were doing.

This was not happening.

You looked up, seeing Jeno pull his shirt over his head and toss it aside. Your eyes immediately went back to the odd stains in the ground when they landed on Mark. You were certainly not intimidated by seeing your stepdad’s cock.

“This is your place of business, Jeno. So I’ll let you pick, which hole do you want?”

Okay, he had humiliated you, fondled you, but your stepdad wasn’t going to fuck you. He wasn’t going to team with some random asshole to fuck you.

“Ass.”

“Grease her up.”

You stiffened at that. Jeno tossed a bottle—that lubricant you stole, over to Mark, who had managed to wrestle your panties off you as while warding off your attempts to kick him. You tried thrashing and wriggling when they held you down and two slick fingers pressed into your ass. You never let anyone there before, and you were not going to let it happen now. You tensed, clenched, and let out a cry as the man forced his fingers inside you. Someone slapped your ass hard.

“It’ll hurt more if you keep being a stubborn bitch.” Jeno growled.

An angry, forced cough from Mark, and he corrected himself. “It’ll hurt more if you keep being stubborn.”

Apparently his stepdaughter was not a bitch, even if he was going to rape you. That was almost funny. Then your ass was slapped again and again. Mark fingered you roughly, forcing his digits in and twisting. Eventually, you yielded, relaxing your muscles. It did not go unnoticed.

“See, baby? You can be a good girl.”

Jeno stood up and walked over to the chair, sitting down and motioning towards himself. With a grunt, Mark hoisted you over his shoulder—damn, he was in shape—and approached. As much as you tried to break free, you couldn’t. Then Mark positioned you, and Jeno put one his hands on your hip. Something much thicker than those fingers pressed against your ass. You let out a muffled attempt at a “no” as you were pulled down.

He was big.

You yowled, planted your feet on the floor and tried to stand; only for Jeno’s arms to loop around your waist and pull you back down.

”Goddamn… Relax your stiff little body, you bitch… My cock won’t fit if you are so tight.” Jeno grunted into your ear and then moved his hand to your chin, taking out the gag. His thumb slipped inside your mouth, pressing at the back of your throat.

Somewhere in the back of your head as you were lifted up and down, you were thankful for that—hopefully he wouldn’t last long.

You didn’t think you could last if he didn’t finish right quick.

“Tell me how good I’m fucking your greedy little ass.” Jeno growled into your ear, a hand flicking down to rub your clit.

Your legs were struggling to stay wrapped around his, and you whimpered against his neck. Getting no response, his hand that was rubbing your clit now slapped you across the face, and his thrusts slowed yet got harder as he slapped you once more.

“What the fuck did I say? Tell me how good I’m fucking your ass!” He yelled, grabbing you by the chin to look up at him.

Your eyes stung with hot tears from the pleasure, already feeling the all too familiar knot in your stomach forming. “Please! It feels so good! M’want more!” You said through gritted teeth, whining in pleasure as he slapped you across the face once more.

“You dirty fucking whore, giving you my cock and you still want more, hmm?” Jeno knew you were close, he could tell from the way you tightened around him and from your breathing pattern. Your eyes flicked over to Mark, who now was walking over to you.

“Oh? Seems like our little whore’s enjoying this better than I thought.” He said, “I had a feeling you had the makings of a true anal slut here.”

You heard a loud ‘smack’ followed by a sharp stinging sensation exploding all over your pussy as you were  suddenly spanked. Causing it to clench around nothing.

“Shit. You were right man, she’s so fucking tight. She really might be an anal slut by the end of this.” Jeno grunted, laughing. His hips never stopped moving.

“Really now,” Mark chuckled as he cupped your chin, “Anything you want to say to that, baby?” 

“Th-That’s not-” You knew you were full of shit, but your pride didn’t want to admit to something embarrassing like that. With a gasp, you found yourself in a headlock. Your back was pressed against Jeno’s front, his forearm applied pressure on your windpipe.

“Now, now, it’s not good to lie like that.” He licked your face, gnawing at your earlobe. “Bad girls like you should be punished.” 

“I-I’m… N-Not a bad…” You tried to deny it, but the harsh grip around your neck made it hard to get the words out. Yet in some ways, you could only think about how good this was feeling. Causing your pussy to quiver and your ass coiling around.

Mark smirked with an amused brow, “I’m sorry, don’t think we caught that.’

“I-I’m…” 

The man leaned in closer, “Hm?” 

“I’m… bad… girl..” You uttered. 

They glanced at each other and grinned while Jeno grabbed and groped at your breasts, giving your chest a nice fondle. 

“Speak up slut,” he twisted a nipple causing you to moan, “So that we could hear you.” 

You looked up, tears started falling down your face. “I’m… a bad… girl…”

“That’s our girl,” The two cheered, laughing loudly at how cock-drunken you were. “Glad to see you’re finally realizing your true calling.” One of them said. 

“With that said, I think it’s high time I gave you a little reward.” An evil smirk curled Mark’s lips. You wriggled, trying to get off as he traced his fingers against your pussy. “Just as a curiosity, have you ever taken two cocks before?”

“No,” you said, out of breath.

“Yeah, thought so.” He grabbed onto your hips lining his cock up to your cunt, while Jeno leaned you back a little.  

Fuck. Mark smirked and watched as your face twisted into something horrified. 

“Look at that, your old man is coming to join in. You gonna behave for him? Hmm, princess?”

With those words leaving Jeno’s mouth, it sent you over the edge completely, nearly screaming as you came right when Mark shoved his cock in your pussy. He hissed with how tightly you were clenching around him. Your back arched high, and Jeno continued to pound into your ass. You choked and gasped for air, the pleasure became too much for you to handle.

“P-please… S-stop!” you stuttered pathetically, squeezing your eyes shut and trying to push Mark away with your legs. 

You were stuffed past the point you thought you would burst. They started out uncoordinated, being bounced up and down the big guy’s cock while the other slammed in awkwardly. But they soon found a rhythm, each withdrawing at the same time, and slamming you down on their cocks tougher. Over and over.

It was overwhelming.

“Look at your slutty fucking stepdaughter, Mark. Such a little whore,” Jeno laughed, continuing to abuse your ass with his cock.

Mark smirked as he flicked your nipple, “Does your daddy’s cock feel good inside you, princess?” then gave it a painful twist. “Wanna be a little cumslut?”

You just moaned in response, unable to form coherent words.

“I think,” Jeno reached up and pinched at your other nipple, “your daddy asked you a question.”

“Yes! Yes, I wanna be your little cumslut, please.”

Everything happening all at once was making you lose your breath. You could feel the coil tightening in your stomach. Both of the cocks hitting that sweet spot inside you. Before you even had time to react, you saw white. Your whole body lunged forward as you came around both of their cocks again, soaking them. Words couldn’t even leave your open mouth, your brain not working properly.

“Jesus Christ,” a voice said, and you couldn’t register whose. “Did you see that?”

“Yeah,” another one came. “She squirted with two cocks fucking her. Such a dirty slut, aren't you?” Several slaps landed onto your face. You assumed it’s Mark because of his position.

You couldn’t think straight anymore, body shaking pathetically under him.

“T-too… much,” you whimpered through gritted teeth, your knees moving to try and push Jeno away.

Mark roughly forced his cock back in your pussy, his own orgasm so close. With sporadic quick thrusts, Jeno bottomed out inside your ass, and you could feel it all, warm and coating every inch of your walls. You were screaming, and he held his cock inside you for a few moments before slowly pulling out of you, grunting and panting as he regained himself. 

Mark’s hand wrapped around your throat, squeezing hard and grunting as you clawed at his hands. “Gonna fill you up with my cum, and you’re gonna take it all, right princess? Gonna be stuffed full of our cum?” He growled into your ear, before straightening again.

You couldn’t think straight anymore, sobs and moans escaping your lips as he fucked your sensitive cunt. Within seconds, Mark thrusted one last time into you before you felt his thick load spurting inside of you. He let out an animalistic growl as he came, grinding his hips slowly against you.

When he finished, he paused a while, nipping at your neck. Then he pulled out, and you were shoved off Jeno, sent sprawling into your stepfather. He gently laid you on your side. You laid there, face pressed against the filthy floor as clothes rustled.

“Again, thank you for calling me in on this, fuckface.” Mark said. The hell? He knew the fucking rent-a-cop.

“No worries. I didn’t believe her when she dropped your name—the picture you showed didn't quite match up.”

Picture? You forced yourself to look at the two, both half-dressed.

Mark had opened his wallet. “It is a few years old. She started dying her hair shortly after it was taken. Started wearing contacts, too.”

“What?”

“Ah, baby. Yes, me and Jeno go fairly far back.” Mark said, nodding. “I have a lot of business interests, and that means a lot of varied social circles.”

“So… about her…” Jeno said, trailing off.

Mark shrugged, contemplating the situation. "I'll leave her in your hands while I head home to fetch a change of clothes for her. Once that's done, we can make a few calls to ensure the lesson continues."

A whimper escaped your lips, particularly as Mark referred to leaving you in Jeno's "care." As if on cue, he dumped a bag containing chains and clamps onto the desk, casting a wicked grin in your direction. You instinctively tried to edge away, but Mark leaned in closely, lowering himself to one knee.

"Luckily for you, summer vacation has just begun, so you won't miss any school while you're grounded," he stated firmly, his tone holding an unusual warmth. You shook your head, refusing to accept what was unfolding before you.

"Baby," he continued, "it's crucial for you to learn that actions come with consequences. However, you're a smart girl, and with proper guidance, I'm confident we can improve your behavior."

[dramioneasks]

Top 10 Most “Kudos-ed” (Completed) Fics on AO3 of 2024:

BLOODY, SLUTTY, AND PATHETIC by WhatMurdah - E, 21 chapters, Words: 195,969 - “In my humble opinion there’s only three things that men should be and that is bloody, slutty, and pathetic.” And, on a good day, Draco Malfoy can be all three. When war heroine Hermione Granger and Azkaban-tattooed war criminal Draco Malfoy are forced to wed as part of Shacklebolt’s controversial Reconciliation Act, they openly fight the match and each other—their public brawls breathlessly reported by the press. Secretly, a deeply traumatized Draco delights in Hermione’s attention and pines for a real marriage with her—even as her forced proximity to the Black family magic irritates the cursed scar Bellatrix left on her arm, reminding her why she can never truly trust or forgive him. Then Hermione discovers that Draco’s blood will soothe the scar . . . and Draco is willing to trade his blood for her body. (With post-war blood purity politics, black market potioneers, Pansy Parkinson’s career advice, the Malfoys blackmailing Hermione’s Wizengamot opposition, BDE Neville Longbottom hunting Death Eaters, a slutty Theo Nott serving as Draco’s right-hand man, and Crookshanks loose in Malfoy Manor.)

The Gallows by gillianeliza - E, 23 chapters, Words: 47,332 - Five years after the Battle of Hogwarts the Ministry of Magic has one more wizard to bring to trial: Draco Malfoy. However, it's not a trial they're after, it's a spectacle to celebrate the end of the Death Eater regime with the execution of their final prisoner. When Hermione realizes their plan, she halts the trial and invokes The Gallows Law — an ancient law that pardons any pureblood male without an heir if a witch will marry him. What Hermione isn't ready for is the reality of bonding a broken, shell of a wizard and her new life as she moves into Malfoy Manor as the new Lady Malfoy.

Meet Me In Dreamland by sinflower81 - E, 39 chapters, Words: 229,631 - If there’s one thing Hermione Granger is good at, it’s using magic to fix her problems. And this time, her problem is sex. Luckily, she has the perfect solution: a locket enchanted with the Patented Daydream Charm. Whenever she opens it, she’ll find herself in Dreamland, where she can live out all her filthiest fantasies risk-free. The magic is a bit tricky, though. For some reason, Malfoy keeps showing up there with her. Thank goodness it’s only an illusion—if that was really him, she would never live it down. Meanwhile, Draco is determined to figure out who the fuck is cursing him to suffer through highly realistic, erotic hallucinations of his secret childhood crush. When he finds the culprit, there will be hell to pay.

The Missing Sister by singularritae - M, 75 chapters, Words: 652,727 - The owl appeared late at night and left just as suddenly, he recognised the handwriting immediately and ripped open the envelope. She is yours. If something happens to us, I want you to hide her. Name her Hermione, for she will have my last libation before I sleep and be the messenger of dreamers. Moony and Mary know. Three words. Three words that forever changed the course of the war.

A Gallows Marriage by MilaBelle - E, 31 chapters, Words: 162,244 - “Glee was the last thing she felt staring into the empty eyes that should have been a bright grey. His face had always looked pointed and sharp, but now that gave way to gauntness. His hair, which he had been so particular about in school, hung long and limp. It reminded her of how his father had looked in his mugshot. How he had wanted to be just like his father growing up. And now he was, maybe more than ever. A ghost.” After doing more than her fair share in saving the Wizarding World and bearing the scars of what it cost, Hermione Granger thinks she has earned herself a little respite. But when a charismatic albeit chaotic Theodore Nott convinces her to use an old law to save a dear friend who is about to meet the Dementor’s Kiss, she simply cannot stand by and watch. Follow Hermione as she navigates a world that still believes in blood status, a marriage to save the life of an old enemy and the hurt that comes with surviving.

an ever-fixed mark by ninepiecesofcrait - E, 28 chapters, Words: 208,118 - It was a comedy of errors how Hermione Granger ended up engaged to Draco Malfoy, really. A series of unfortunate events. // Malfoy looked at his bloodied hand and the ring on the cobblestone floor, and sighed. “Well, Granger.” Grey eyes finally raised to look at her. “Now look what you’ve done.” // [while working to break a curse in malfoy’s cellar, hermione accidentally touches an enchanted betrothal heirloom from the noble house of black. things rapidly fall apart from there.]

The Best Mistake by Chels_Writes_a_Fic - E, 26 chapters, Words: 127,444 - Hermione Granger does not make mistakes, at least not often. After making the biggest, dumbest, most horrible mistake of her life, Hermione must deal with the repercussions while keeping her relationship with her Auror partner, Draco Malfoy, strictly professional. He, of course, has other plans. Amidst a resurgence in Death Eater activity, the likes of which Britain hasn’t seen since the First Wizarding War, Hermione will come to realize that the mistake she’s made with Draco might not be so bad at all. It just might be the best mistake.

disparate by Stars_in_motion - E, 4 chapters, Words: 40,708 - au where omegas who go neglected by their alpha for a long time often go into breakthrough heats when being around a different, compatible alpha who displays one (1) caretaking trait around them "You– you brought me supper?" Malfoy eyed her warily. "Don't look so stricken. Do you think I haven't noticed you've been starving yourself for days? You were at your desk when I arrived this morning and haven't moved since." He opened the box of fruit and plucked out a single grape with his sinfully long fingers. Still seated in her desk chair, Malfoy loomed over her entirely so she couldn't look anywhere else. Sometimes it was easier to forget how large he really was. "Now eat."

Mind the Bump by Soap1 - E, 28 chapters, Words: 84,050 - Hermione Granger and her colleague (and, though she sometimes hates to admit it, her friend) Theo Nott, are busy at the Research Institute for the Alchemical Sciences, working together on an innovative, though secretive, project that more than one person might like to get their hands on. She doesn't have much time for dating, and certainly isn't ready to think about starting a family. But after an exciting, though unexpected, one-night stand, she finds herself pregnant. With Draco Malfoy's baby. As her research continues, as her pregnancy progresses, will she be able to make room for Draco in her life?

Détraquée by Hystaracal - M, 108 chapters, Words: 728,097 - "All her growth was the conveying of a corpse of hope." (From 'The Rainbow', D.H. Lawrence) This is a story about coming into one's own, a meditation on the twilight of girlhood and the violence of crash-landing into womanhood. Follow Hermione as she navigates through the quagmire: Saving the world, getting top grades, falling in love, lust, and a whole lot of trouble, and comes out of it hopefully (at least) partially sane.

[hxney-lemcn]

This is Home — Osamu Dazai x gn! reader

summary: reader and Dazai's bond grows, feelings are revealed and Dazai shows a rare moment of vulnerability.

tw: mention of Dazai being suicidal, slight angst (mostly fluff), slight hurt/comfort

a/n: I hope I didn't write Dazai's character wrong. He's such a complicated character and I made him super lovesick so oops. Also this is super self indulgent (tbf I always write the reader in relation to how I would act).

wc: 3.3k

Master List

Your life outside of work wasn’t too exciting. After coming home from a stressful day of talking down a hostage situation or tracking down a criminal ability user, you were grateful for the peace you found at home. The Armed Detective Agency wasn’t what you expected to do as your career, but you weren’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Besides, after dealing with troubling situations all the time, laying down in bed and watching whatever managed to keep your attention was all the more gratifying. 

It was funny looking back, when you had been afraid of growing up lonely and bored. You got more than enough excitement at work, and you almost saw your colleagues as family. You truly loved them, they were everything (which was a bit sad but you digress), but you also enjoyed the tranquility of your home. The time you had to yourself was something you always appreciated. 

Today was one of those rare peaceful days. It was the weekend and you all were given a much needed day off. You had been letting your top coat dry, being careful as you scrolled through your phone, tv playing something in the background. Your pet cat laid peacefully on your feet, her cute little head snuggling into your legs. Days like these were your favorite. The weight of your job was lifted momentarily, soaking in as much of this relaxing feeling as possible. 

What you hadn’t fully expected (you can never underestimate what he’d do) was for Dazai to pop into your bedroom…at least he had the decency to knock on your bedroom door before entering. How did he get into your apartment? Lock picking. He totally lock picked your door. Much to his amusement, you hadn’t even batted an eye at his appearance. He hadn’t done this before, but from the way he acted around you in the office, this was bound to happen. Your only grief was that your cat had jumped away in apprehension of the ‘stranger’. 

Dazai let out a gasp, eyes starry as he noticed the nail care products that were on your bed stand, “You do your own nails? I always thought you got them professionally done.”

“Nah,” You shrugged. “You think I have the money or time for all that? I’ve been doing my own nails for as long as I can remember.”

“You’re so talented,” Dazai praised, jumping onto your bed next to you. Taking one of your hands in his own, he took in your work, even though it was just one color he was staring like it was the most fascinating artwork he’s ever seen.

“Want me to do yours?” You asked, unsure why he was so enraptured with your usual nails. You always tried to keep them nice. You could neglect any other aspect of your health, but you always tried to keep your nails looking good. You weren’t sure why, but maintaining them was relaxing, as well as a routine that calms you down. 

“Would you really,” Dazai gasps, now clasping your hand in his, an exciting grin dazzling his beautiful features. “You spoil me truly, Abelia.” That was something only Dazai called you. His fawning over women had slowly fizzled out, the pet name belladonna long forgotten. Instead, he had turned that attention towards you tenfold. If someone needed Dazai (mainly Kunikida), the first place they’d look was wherever you were. He would constantly drap himself over you, complimenting you and fawning over you. It was weird, you weren’t used to such attention, but you had started to look forward to the next time you’d see Dazai. You soaked up any and all attention he was willing to give you, while he had been doing the same. 

You looked up Abelia, unsure what that was. It was a plant, just like belladonna. But except being the name of deadly nightshade, it was a flowering plant, a part of the honeysuckle family. It was a unique, but heartwarming nickname that you had grown fond of quicker than you’d like to admit. It was hard for you to fully comprehend if Dazai actually was interested in you, or if this was his weird way of showing you affection. Although as mentioned earlier, he had stopped his flirting with women altogether, which made you wonder if he was okay (he’s just whipped for you). 

“You can pick out any color you want,” You motioned to the small rack of nail polish you owned. You had more than you needed, but that gave Dazai a wide variety. You watched him, the warmth in your eyes clear as he made a show of what color to pick.

“Ahh what do I choose?” He sighed, hands pointing to different colors. “There’s so much to choose from.” Suddenly, he perked up, picking up a color and quickly sliding up to you. A grin formed on your face as he waved the sparkly pink color in front of your face. 

“I’m warning you now, those sparkles are a pain to get off,” You warned, grabbing your nail file and cuticle cutters. “I had to scrape them off even after all the nail polish was already gone.”

“All the more reason,” Dazai smiled, watching as you fully turned towards him. Dazai didn’t hesitate when you held your hand out towards him, placing his in yours. Your touch always warmed him in a way he hadn’t felt before, the simplicity of your routines is what drew him in. That wasn’t to say you were boring, it’s just all he had known was chaos. If he wasn’t the center of chaos, he would create it. You were the complete opposite. You gave Dazai a taste of something he thought wasn’t meant for him, and he was slowly becoming dependent on you to show him more. A world that isn’t bloody and terrible, a world where he can be loved even with the terrible things that he’s done. A world where he’s with you. 

Dazai didn’t pay any attention to the tv, warm chocolate eyes watching your every movement. How you gently filed his nails into a nice looking oval shape (he couldn’t believe how better they looked just after the first step). How your eyes would dart to the tv every so often to keep up. How you made sure he wasn’t hurt when you clipped his cuticles, he was in slight awe at how you made it look so easy. Finally you put on the base coat. It had been thirty minutes and Dazai was already feeling a bit antsy. Sitting still wasn’t really his style even though he could be the laziest motherfucker alive. You were just so close, and he felt like it was a crime that he hasn’t held you close yet.

Even though Dazai knew his feelings for you ran deeper than they should, he hadn’t been able to tell you. Yes…he was kind of obvious, but he could tell that you would always interpret his affection as nothing but friendly. It was amusing and frustrating at the same time. He wanted to move past this stage, for you to be his, and him yours. Yet he was held back, knowing he didn’t deserve such kindness. How many people has he killed that wanted the same? How many people has he killed that had that warmth, only to extinguish it? 

At the end of the day, he still felt that hollow feeling. He didn’t really care about whomever he killed, they were just blank faces adding to a number. That alone made him feel guilty, because he knows you wouldn’t see it as such. You were so kind, kind enough to see a monster like him and care. He’s been shown the light time and time again within the ADA, and you only furthered that. At first it was hard for Dazai to understand the difference between the brutality of the Port Mafia and the ADA, but it slowly became clearer over time. You had been the nail in the coffin, showing him the true beauty of protecting someone. You had become a shoulder to cry on for many victims, almost crying with them sometimes, sharing their pain. He didn’t understand how you did it, but he’s trying to learn. 

That antsy feeling in Dazai slowly rose, the way you gently treated him as you continued to apply the polish to his nails only fueling the feeling further. That warm, fluttery feeling was getting worse and you were his outlet. Oh how he wanted to hug you, cuddle you, squeeze you tight to get those feelings out of his systems. What a predicament he put himself in. 

“Careful!” You gasped, holding his hands still with wide eyes. “I just put on the top coat, you gotta let it dry.”

“How long will that take?” Dazai whined, a pout forming on his pretty lips. 

“A while,” You replied, waving his hands to help them air dry a bit faster. “I don’t have an exact time, I mostly just wing it. When you can tap your nails without them sticking to each other is when they’re completely dry.”

“I don’t know how you do it,” He whined again, dramatically swaying as you continued to hold his hands still. “How am I supposed to live without you in my arms?”

“You survived 22 years,” You teased back, a sly grin on your face (Dazai thought he was going to die at the sight). “I’m sure you’ll live.”

“You’re so cold,�� Dazai bemoaned, tilting his head back (but making sure his hands never left yours). You found yourself stuck holding Dazai’s hands until his nails fully dried. You had almost let go and he nearly ruined all your precious work. It was nearly dinner by the time his nails dried, and you found yourself making plans with him. 

“Take out or should I actually try to make something?” You pondered, looking into your fridge to see if the latter was even possible.

“Take out,” Dazai replied instantly. Glancing at him, you watched as he beckoned you towards your couch, arms stretched out like a child asking for a hug. Although this was the first time either of you had done anything like this before, it felt completely natural, almost like this was how it was always supposed to be. 

“Alright,” You shrugged, closing your fridge and approaching the man that took up your couch. “I’m kinda craving pizza, what about you?”

“Pizza is fine,” He mumbled, gently pulling you to lay on top of him. You felt yourself fluster slightly, unused to such an intimate hold. Yes Dazai would cling to you almost 24/7, but this was in the privacy of your home, and without the company of your friends that kept you grounded, it felt like the moment was more tender.

Taking out your phone to the best of your abilities, you kept making sure Dazai was okay with your decisions (he would eat dirt with you if you asked). After you confirmed everything, he had started playing with your hair, making almost completely melt into him (he had quickly found your weakness). Dazai watched with fondness as your eyes fluttered as he scratched gently at your scalp, it was so cute how you tried to act so nonchalantly (it worked greatly to his advantage that you were also touch starved). 

At that moment, it felt like your relationship with the suicidal detective had shifted. An understanding washing over the both of you. You had both been the others this entire time, you both were just too cowardly to speak it outloud. The warmth in your chest hurt so nicely, enjoying every second that Dazai’s nimble fingers twirled your hair around, never wanting him to stop. Unfortunately for you both, the pizza arrived quickly, causing you to pry yourself off Dazai as he tried to tangle you into him further.

“I have to get the pizza,” You grumbled, the more responsible of the two.

“Fine,” Dazai relented, allowing you to stand up properly. 

…

You couldn’t hide the lovesick grin on your face as Dazai showed everyone his nails the next work day. Atsushi complimented him, albeit hesitantly, asking when you did them. Dazai held the most shit eating grin when he mentioned you both hung out over the weekend, causing Atsushi to sweat. The look on Atsushi’s face as he looked at you read ‘my condolences’. 

If you thought Dazai was clingy before, he was basically a leech at this point. That day had changed him, and he found himself becoming more selfish. He wanted to call you his. He wanted to be yours so badly, the thought of you both sharing more domestic moments consumed him. 

Such a moment happened after work. Dazai was feeling particularly romantic, and who was he to deny you such affection? You deserved the world and he would give you no less. He brought you to a park, a thick blanket and a bag of food for you two to share (he sadly couldn’t find a picnic basket in time). Since your work day ended at five, the park wasn’t too full. Parents were starting to take their kids home and some people were having their evening jog. Dazai had brought you to a more quiet area, placing the blanket beneath a tree. 

You felt flattered at the amount of attention Dazai had put into this. The blanket was a nice thickness so it wasn’t super uncomfortable to sit on the ground, the foods were your favorites and Dazai currently held a chocolate covered strawberry up to your mouth.

“Say ahh~” He giggled, clearly amused with the situation. You opened your mouth hesitantly, feeling embarrassed at the situation. This wasn’t the first time someone’s fed you something, albeit it wasn’t often, this scenario was more intimate then anything you had experienced. 

“Is this a date?” You couldn’t help but ask after you swallowed the berry (it was delicious). Normally you’d shy away if the topic was brought up, but at the moment you couldn’t find it in yourself too. After that domestic day, the way Dazai treated you was warmer than normal, and it felt 100% genuine. He had desensitized you to the notion of dating him, and it seemed to work in your favor. 

“If you want it to be,” Dazai hummed, grin widening.

“I don’t mind,” You replied, picking up a sandwich. “As long as that’s also what you want.” 

His heart fluttered, an occurrence that had become normal in your presence. The fact that you wanted his full consent, even though he’s the one that planned it warmed him. You were so sweet he could feel his teeth rot. If anything, he should be asking you if you really wanted this. Even though you knew he was an ex-Port Mafia executive, he didn’t think you truly understood the sins he had committed. What he’s done without a second thought. The sadistic acts he did for fun. You had nearly cried over a song about a rat being killed, how would you react if you heard the details of his crimes?

You had sensed the change in Dazai’s demeanor. The shine in his eyes dulled, even if everything else hadn’t changed. He suddenly looked drained, the eye bags under his eyes were dark. At first you were worried that he didn’t want to date you, but that thought seemed silly. It then dawned on you that the charming, lovely Dazai might have been feeling inadequate. 

“Of course,” Dazai smiled, masking his feelings as quickly as they appeared. “I would be honored to be yours, Abelia.” He grabbed both of your hands, holding them up to his cheek as he swooned dramatically. A smile tugged at your lips as you noticed the polish on his nails, they had slightly chipped, but they were still nearly intact. 

Sliding one of your hands out of his grip, you caressed his cheek (a bold move on your part), “You know I care for you, right?” His dark eyes widened, a small blush rising over his cheekbones. Your thumb gently rubbed his cheek as he kept your other hand clutched in his own. 

“You shouldn’t,” Dazai muttered, letting you see a fraction of how he felt. He wasn’t sure why he admitted such a vulnerable thought so quickly. It was like the honesty in your eyes had compelled him to tell you the truth.

A frown tugged at your lips, unwavering adoration filling you, “Everyone deserves someone to care for them.”

The determination in your eyes, your kindness, it had all caused Dazai to turn into a gooey mess on the inside. You said such astounding things with such a strong truth. He knew you meant what said.

“Everyone?” Dazai repeated, raising an eyebrow, trying to lighten the atmosphere. 

You paused, thinking of some bad people from history that were definitely not worthy, but decided to stand strong (or your defense could easily be dismantled), “Everyone.” You noticed that the shine of despair still clouded in his eyes, his smile unwavering. That’s when you realized he truly didn’t think he deserved to be loved and cared for. Taking your other hand out of his grasp, you held his face in your hands, a seriousness taking over you.

“You may have done bad things, you may have hurt people, but you’ve changed,” You stated, staring deeply into his eyes in hope to get through to him. “And as long as you try to be good, to atone for what you’ve done, then you deserve a second chance. Osamu Dazai, you are not a bad person, and you deserve to be loved.”

The formidable Osamu Dazai, the carefree, lazy, unbreakable, cunning Dazai had cracked. And you, sweet, loving, caring, kind you had been the one who managed to break him. He had never expected to hear such kind words aimed towards him, he never had expected to show anyone his guilt he carried. He never expected to have someone like you in his life, who would love unconditionally. He thought people like that were fools who were oblivious to the horrors of the world, but you fought frontline and still smiled and loved ceaselessly. 

A bittersweet look fell onto your face, and when he felt your thumbs brush something wet away from his cheek, he realized he was crying. Something he had never done in front of someone else. He supposes it was a sign of how deeply he trusted you, when he thought you couldn’t get any kinder, you had shown him that some people simply didn’t have evil in them. Yes you could be selfish, no you weren’t perfect, he knew you were insecure and sometimes your kindness was due to you being a people pleaser. He had seen you become devastated at the thought of someone not liking you, how you’d do something for someone at your own expense because you want them to be happy. For someone who was extremely independent, you were still quite dependent on others' views on you, for someone so trusting, it was hard for you to fully trust someone.

“This was supposed to be a romantic date,” Dazai sighed, a small pout on his lips.

“I think this went quite well,” You replied. You smiled gently as you lifted a strawberry up to Dazai’s mouth. “Say ahh~”

Dazai couldn’t hold back his delighted giggles, happily chomping on the strawberry you offered him. He felt lighter than he ever had, who knew telling someone your problems could make you feel better, even if it's just slightly (get therapy man, it works). You had managed to endear yourself even more to the bandaged man (if that was even possible). If you wanted to get rid of him now good luck, he wasn’t letting you go anytime soon.

If only he could mutter those three words that rested at the tip of his tongue.

[thepenultimateword]

Skin Crawl Part Two

Part One

CW: bugs, shedding skin (the description has the possibility of grossing people out)

Hero pinched themselves hard in the thigh, managing to snap our of their gawking stupor.

Ok. This was real. Villain--their Villain--was here and a criminal and apparently in a relationship. Not that that mattered, it wasn't like they'd ever been anything anyway. It'd been 8 years, and Hero had gone on plenty of dates in that time too; it would be weirder if Villain hadn't, so smooth and beautiful and interesting as they were. And Hero was the one who cut contact, so they didn’t really care what Villain did or who with, though maybe they should be focusing more on the criminal part of things, namely the imminent danger they would be in if they were found out, not just as a member of the agency but as Hero.

"Y-you don't want to make an appearance?" Hero said, attempting composure. It was not their best work.

"And ruin all your hard work?" Villain said with a tsk. "Despite what you think, I'm not that ostentatious. Come."

Hero sauntered closer, uncomfortably aware of their longer gait. Shedding one's skin could do many things, but it could not alter height. Bones were stubborn, painful things to change. Most people didn't notice a few-inch difference, and slouching, heels, or any manner of things could hide it. A familiar face blinded even the closest of friends and family. After all, shapeshifting wasn’t exactly a go-to suspicion. But Villain knew. Eight years ago they'd gotten good at picking Hero out of a crowd. If anyone was to notice that Remy was too tall, it would be them.

They consciously shortened their steps.

Villain dropped into a seat behind their desk, tossing the moth wings to either side of them. Hero carefully stepped over the curling tails and hesitated behind the criminal's shoulder. They were even more breathtaking up close. Hero had to fight the urge to run their hand down the velvet stretch of one wing. When had they learned to extend their power this way? At least, Hero had to assume the new appendages were due to their power. Abilities tended to have more angles than expected when properly trained. Did that mean Villain had found a trainer? Hero couldn’t imagine it. Their old friend had been so sensitive about using their gifts in front of others, and they’d had no relevant career plans to motivate further development. Though obviously neither of those things were the case now with Villain a criminal and flaunting their buggy affiliation to the world. People could change a lot in 8 years. Maybe Hero just didn’t know them anymore.

Had they been standing here too long?

Lover, Hero! they snapped internally. You're their lover! Do something lovers would do!

Their insides twisted.

They had played lovers dozens of times in their career and all that role entailed. Stepping into another's skin was like stepping into another reality, completely separate from their own. It didn't matter what they did or said, it wasn't them. But suddenly the idea of touching Villain hitched their breath in their throat, and they knew that reaction didn’t come from being Remy.

They would not slip through the cracks in this mask.

Hero gently draped themselves across Villain's back, wrapping their arms tenderly around their neck and tucking their chin against their lean shoulder. Hopefully, Vilain couldn't feel their heart pounding violently into their leather duster.

The centipede on Villain's shoulder took the opportunity of a new nearby surface and skittered up Hero's cheek, tangling its long body between the strands of their hair.

"You can quit the act," Villain said, shrugging Hero off. "No one else is around."

Quit...

Hero's stomach dropped. Did Villain know? How long? When they touched them? Since they entered the room?

"I--"

"And yes, I've checked for cameras. I don't accept building rentals from your family without thoroughly looking it over first."

Hero blinked.

Wait.

No.

They weren't referring to Hero's act. They meant Remy's. Remy's act of affection. Because... Oh. Oh! The relationship was fake!

The relief was intense, unexpected, and quickly smothered. They had a job, and if Villain was a part of it, that was too bad, but it didn't change anything.

Hero hastily grasped for the little they knew of their cover's personality. They'd hosted this party, their family rented this building, and they looked great in a silver ribbon tie.

"Well,” they said sitting on the edge of the desk and crossing one leg cavalierly over the other. “You can never be too careful. Also bug." They tipped their head toward Villain. "Bug."

Villain sighed and parted Hero's hair with careful fingers, manicured nails just scraping their scalp, and plucked up the centipede by its squirming middle. Then, tipping their head way back, they swallowed the entire massive creature in one gulp.

“John Macias is here.” They held up a rose gold tablet to Hero’s face. The screen displayed several panels of camera footage taking place in and directly outside the building. “And Lottie Blake.”

Hero knew both those names. The first was a generous donor to the agency. His funds had bought them a new combat training gym and updated the medical wing. He'd hinted at making the donations more regular, so now he was invited to every banquet, award ceremony, and exclusive event the agency held; he had even been given an extensive inside tour of the facilities. The press and the higher-ups liked to make a big fuss over him, but somehow Hero had the impression he wasn't giving money out of the goodness of his heart. As for Lottie, she was an ex-hero turned celebrity. Hero had been a rookie when she stepped down from the role of team leader and agency posterchild and turned to modeling and influencing, so they'd never met personally. However, they had enough associates in common for Hero to know she had been well-loved.

"Ok, so what's next?” Hero said. The faster they figured out Villain's plan, the faster they could get out of this situation.

“Your favorite part," Villain said. "Shopping.”

***

Hero had been prepared for many things tonight, but they had not prepared to be kneeling on the floor of Lottie Blake’s walk-in closet, rapidly stuffing designer heels and dresses into a garbage sack.

"You take the upstairs, I’ll take the downstairs,” Villain had said once inside--a disconcertingly easy task since Miss Blake's security was with her at the gala. A few guards were posted at the door and around the perimeter of the glamorous building but none had thought it very important to look up.

Villain's wings were even more gorgeous unfurled, pitch black against the night except for a faint silver lining that caught the moonlight, creating a glimmering outline from underneath. If that wasn't enough, the things were enormous, even larger than Villain's armspan. Hero supposed they would have to be to get them into the air, especially holding Hero under the arms. Once again, Hero had feared exposure by the difference in weight, but Villain hadn't said anything.

Inside there had been cameras, but a swarm of ants could look an awful lot like static when they crawled right against the lenses.

Hero shoved one more pair of glittery heels into the sack and then crawled to the closet door, peeking out into the bedroom to ensure they were alone. Finding the room empty, they fished their earpiece out of their pocket and pressed the call button.

"Hero?" came Other Hero's voice.

"So I figured out the heist," Hero said. "It's a robbery. The gala is just a distraction for both Lottie Blake and John Macias while Villain breaks into their houses."

"Seems like a lot of work for something as simple as a robbery."

Hero shrugged but then realized that Other Hero couldn't see them. "Maybe. I'll keep you updated when I find out what Villain is stealing. They're downstairs." A sudden image of the other agency members bursting in flashed across Hero's mind. Shoving Villain down. Crumpling those long moth wings like tissue paper. Revealing themselves as Hero. They suddenly felt nauseous. "I should probably stay undercover for as long as I can. That way I can gather more info."

Other Hero paused. "If you're up to it, I won't complain. But we can't just let criminals rob prominent agency affiliates."

Not if they wanted to continue getting donations.

"I think we should allow at least one hit, so Villain doesn't get suspicious," Hero said. "But we're going to have to come up with a plausible reason to alert Macia's security. One that doesn't involved Villain getting arrested."

"Leave that to me," Other Hero said. "You work on keeping your cover."

The call cut off, leaving Hero in anxious silence on the closet floor.

"Remy."

Hero's stomach leaped and they peeked out of the closet a second time. Villain stood in the bedroom door, carrying nothing but an apple.

They took a large bite and jerked their head behind them. "Ready?"

Hero pushed themselves to their feet and swung the garbage sack over their shoulder."Yeah. Let's go."

Villain peered at the sack as they headed out onto the bedroom balcony. "Quite the haul this time."

"You said to take the upstairs, so I took the upstairs." Hero gave them another quick once over. "Did you get everything you wanted?"

Villain fished a sleek black thumbdrive out of their pocket, rolling it over their fingers with a smile. "You could say I'm satisfied."

Not just any robbery then. But what info could Lottie Blake have that a criminal wanted. She wasn't exactly secretive. In fact, she seemed to enjoy flaunting every little detail of her life. Perhaps it was bank account information? Or past hero records?

No, they shouldn't overthink, all in good time.

"Good," they said.

Villain shoved the drive back into their pocket and stepped up behind Hero, casually wrapping their arms around their middle. Hero held their breath.

Calm down, calm down. You are Remy. Remy is not in love with Villain. Are they?

Villain's chest pressed sturdy and warm against Hero's back as they unfurled their wings, and that second pair of arms, or legs, grabbed their hips, securing them completely as they took flight. Hero had been too focused on their weight the first time to notice just how much care Villain put into transporting them comfortably, no dangling lower-half or painful pressure on one point of their body. Villain had always been thoughtful that way, not that anyone back at school recognized it.

What would it have been like to do this back then? To be held as themself. Before the secrets. Before the fallout.

"Do you ever get tired of it?"

"What?" Villain said.

"Being able to fly. Is it just normal for you? Or is it always amazing?"

"I thought it made you sick?" Villain said.

Hero choked. "Right. It does. But objectively, flying is amazing. So I was just curious. Forget it."

Villain's wing movements were soundless. And along with the long pause, all Hero could hear was the breeze brushing past their ears. Great. They'd screwed up.

"It's always amazing," Villain said suddenly. "I'm not saying I don't take it for granted, but if I was to ever lose this... It would be unbearable."

Villian had always been trapped in their life. In more ways than one. By parents, by circumstances, by expectations. Even if Hero was tricking them right now, possibly leading them into another cage, they were happy that Villain had found some freedom. Is that what had turned him to crime? A search for freedom?

"Villain--"

"Crap." Villain pulled up higher into the sky. Blue and red lights bathed the entire street in flashing blue and red.

Hero cranked their neck back to look up into their frowning face.

"How did they figure out we were coming?"

"Do you think someone saw us at Lottie's house?"

"Maybe. But even so, I don't know how they would've figured out our next target."

"Coincidence? For all we know everyone was tipped off, not just Macias."

Villain didn't respond to that. They just sighed heavily. "Well, that's that ruined."

"What do we do now?" Hero asked tentatively. "Go back to the party?"

"No point. The heroes probably have set up a trap. Hotel?"

Hero's insides went electric. Did Villain not have their own place? What about Remy? Didn't they have a rich family? But the way he was asking made it sound like a plan, not spontaneity. Great, Hero really hadn't wanted to wear this skin overnight.

"Hotel." Hero agreed. "But when you say that, you mean two separate rooms, right? Because you know I need my space--"

"You have your room, Remy."

"Ok, ok, just making sure."

A few minutes later, Villain landed them in an alley. They walked the rest of the way to a hotel just up the block. Not too shabby, but nothing extravagant either.

"Give me your jacket," they demanded just before reaching the door.

"What?"

"Your jacket. Unless you want thrown out before we even check in. People don't always take kindly to a bugman walking through their door. Especially hotels."

"Right!" Hero quickly shrugged off their wool, black coat, and passed it over to Villain. Villain threw it gingerly over their shoulders. It was a bit small for them, so the woman at the desk stared at them a bit strangely, but Hero supposed it was better than moth wings and an extra pair of legs.

Rooms 203 and 204. They walked together up the flight of stairs, stopping just outside their doors.

"I'll check the drive tonight and let you know what I've found in the morning," Villain said.

Or Hero could find out now and report it to Other Hero before morning.

"I could help."

"Ha! No offense, Rems, but I don't trust you with my laptop. You've broken my technology one too many times."

"Ah, well, I offered. Don't complain that I didn't help tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Remy," Villain said, rolling their eyes.

Hero knew that Villain wasn't talking to them. Not really. But for a moment it was so reminiscent of their teenage years. Staying up late. Not wanting to go back to either home.

Their heart squeezed. "Goodnight."

They gently shut the door and let out a long breath as they trudged over to the bed, flopping down face first.

What a nightmare. They couldn't wait to be back in their own skin. They forced themselves off the bed and into the shower where the evidence would wash away quicker. They stripped out of their clothes and rolled their muscles gingerly feeling the skin loosen like wet plaster. It sloughed off in dead sheets, revealing a more freckled skin beneath. Within a few minutes they were back to themselves again, They grabbed a towel from the hook, leaving the water running to break up the shed skin and wash it down the drain.

As they exited the bathroom, Hero dragged the table chair to the vanity and surveyed their face in the mirror. They tugged gently at a stubborn piece of skin, half-peeled under their right eye.

Next, they rubbed at their throat ponderingly, weighing pros and cons. Eventually, they decided to leave the vocal cords intact. Their throat might feel weird and cottony in the morning but hacking up bloody tissue was the last thing they wanted to do right now. Not to mention they’d just be shifting right back tomorrow. Best not to put too much strain on them by overshifting

A loud rap on the door made them leap in their seat.

"Just--just a second!"

They looked rapidly around the room. Clothes…clothes… Where were their clothes?

Hero scrambled toward the bathroom, snatching up water dropped outfit, chasing as the fabric caught on their damp skin. After a lot of hopping and maybe also a bit of fabric stretching, they strode to the door.

They were already grabbing the handle when they remembered their face.

The bit back another curse, and their face exploded with prickles as the newly shed skin encased them once again. Just in time to meet Villain’s off-in-thought face.

Their expression snapped back to alertness with the creak of the door.

"Hey, Remy--"

They froze.

"What?" Hero said, heart pounding. Was the face wrong? They’d spent so long studying it today, surely it wasn’t wrong?

"You're bleeding."

Hero felt their face. Sure enough, a warm streak of blood smeared across their forehead.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Oh, yeah. Just cut myself. You know...shaping my eyebrows."

"Right..."

Hero pressed their palm over the tear and with their other arm leaned casually against the frame. "Did you need something?"

Villain stared at them a moment. "Just curious if you wanted something from the vending machine. I'm asking the desk for an extra pillow and thought I'd grab some drinks or snacks or something on my way back."

"Uh, yeah, sure. Maybe a Coke?"

Villain smiled. “Sounds good. I’ll be back in a couple minutes.” They paused. “I’ll bring back a bandaid too.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“Sure.”

As they stepped away, Hero quickly shut the door. Had Villain reacted strangely? Were they overthinking because of their close call?

Hero sped to the mirror turning their head from side to side. Yep, still exactly like the picture, well except for the cut across her forehead.

There would have been no reason to question them, right? They probably didn’t need to call Other Hero and worry them over nothing.

Hero sat back on the bed, only vaguely annoyed that they’d need to rushed part of their body all over again. The annoyance was eclipsed by the gnawing worry inside of l them. They really hoped they hadn’t gotten anything wrong,

[treedaddymcpuffpuff]

Excessive Force : Tom Ludlow x Fem Nurse Reader (COLLAB W/ THE INCREDIBLE @johnwickb1tsch) - Chapter One

Summary : After you treat him in the ER, Officer Tom Ludlow asks you out. You turn him down, thinking you know his type, but he’s not willing to take no for an answer. In fact, you find out he’s more than willing to abuse his authority in his pursuit of you. Maybe Ludlow seems like an asshole, but when you are drawn into a dangerous conspiracy that could go all the way to the top of the LAPD, he might be the only thing that stands between you and a shallow grave.

TW : Abuse of authority, alpha male, sexual harassment, the word “no” is not in this man’s vocabulary

The ER is overflowing tonight. There was a huge drug bust down on South Hampton Avenue that ended in a fire and gunfight: turned out to be a big enough debacle that they had to call a code black throughout the hospital, which basically means, at least for you, no breaks or time between patients. In times like this, charting even takes a back burner thanks to a hospital policy where everything you learned in nursing school flies out the window and you don’t have to document what you’re doing. 

It’s a good thing, because you don’t have time to log onto a computer let alone write something down with pen and paper. Burn victims, gunshots, every bed full, people boarding in the waiting room and hallways with broken limbs and makeshift pressure dressings on bullet holes and stab wounds.

The once chemical, pristine floor and walls now look like something from a SAW movie, and you’re not much better off. Bloody, dirt caked scrubs, exhausted, sweat stains. You’ve probably done more chest compressing tonight than you have in your entire career leading up. And you’ve seen more people die tonight… well, more than you’d like.

You wipe some tears off your cheeks, pretending it’s sweat, before walking into the lobby to catch the stragglers. “Thomas?”

“Call me Tom.” He’s a cop, still in uniform, sitting on the floor with a big puff of gauze pressed into his shoulder. You kneel down beside him. 

“I’m y/n, can I take a look?”

“Sure.” He winces, pulls the bloody dressing away to reveal a big, messy gash slicing into his left shoulder. It will need stitches, that’s for sure, but other than that it looks like a fairly clean cut. 

“Knife?” You ask him, pulling back on his shirt. 

“Some fucking idiot crackhead with a sword, actually,” he grits. 

You laugh a little bit. “I’m having a hard time believing that.”

“So am I.” He tries to grin at you, but it comes out more like a snarl because of the way you’re poking and prodding at him. 

Maybe it's just because you're exhausted, you've had a terrible night, and you hurt all over, but you can't help but notice how handsome this man is, even after his own ordeals on the mean streets of the City of Angels. He watches you with sharp dark eyes that miss nothing. You almost feel sorry for the criminals who find themselves on the receiving end of that stare. As it is, you almost feel a little unnerved yourself, until you notice a sparkle of humor for you in those dark orbs. However, you still get the feeling like he's studying you while you are tending his wound.

“I gotta stitch this,” you tell him, a little shy under his gaze, now. 

“Are you good at that?” 

You’re kind of in your own little world when he asks that, looking at his arms. Solid and big. Nice veins. It takes you a minute to register that he even said something. Yeah, you chastise yourself, why don’t you just start fucking drooling while you’re at it? 

“Good at what?” 

His grin tips higher. “Stitches…” 

“No, but I'm going to stab you repeatedly with a needle anyway…”

He chuffs with laughter. “You just seem a little distracted.” The way he smirks at you, you just know you're caught out. Get it together, you scold yourself. Maybe act like a professional instead of oogling the nice police officer.

“Sorry. It's just been a really long night. I promise, you're in good hands.”

“Looking forward to it,” he answers, with a beam of direct eye contact that nearly brings you to your knees. 

This is where you catch your lucky break, because this is where you start to get annoyed. Mostly, at yourself, but partly at him too. He clearly knows how attractive he is. He's just that kind of asshole. And it's been fucking forever since you've gotten laid, because the world is just so full of assholes… It's not fair, the way he uses this advantage to tease you, when you feel like an extra in a Rob Zombie film. You do your best to appear unaffected as you walk away to retrieve supplies. You also pretend not to notice him staring at your ass, which, okay, you have to admit, it’s a little bit of a confidence boost. 

It’s almost stupid to put towels under his arm as you spray him off with sterile water - this floor could actually use it. You get the edges pink and shiny, uncake the blood and the viscera. Grateful for the distraction - distraction from the big, brown eyed cop who won’t stop looking at you. 

He has that type of stare that has weight to it. You feel it, on your skin– and you hate to admit it– in the aching throb between your legs, which is the last thing you need to be distracted by right now. Ah, the stupid lady parts, always making their vote known at the worst possible time. 

Even though you let the anesthetic sit for a while, modern medicine can’t account for all the pain. He’s wincing and grunting while you tug his open flesh back together, and those gruff sounds are not helping this whole being attracted to him situation. You feel like your skin is on fire from his overwhelming stare, from the noises coming out of that long throat. Christ, he’s not even touching you…

“You alright there sweetheart? I'm the one under the needle.”

You look at him, some of that anger escaping in your tone. “Please don’t call me sweetheart.” 

“Sorry. Been a long night for me too.” He lifts one of those sculpted dark brows at you, and you feel it as your heart tries most earnestly to tap dance right out of your fucking chest. 

You sigh, narrowing your eyes so that he knows he's not in the clear. Unfortunately, he just seems to find that adorable, those dark eyes sparkling like black diamonds. 

“Just…let me finish you off so you can get out of here.”

“Didn't know you performed that service here,” he quips with a smirk, and you're almost relieved he drives this final nail into his coffin, even if the suggestion makes a spear of desire shoot through you. 

“I'm starting to side with the crackhead now.”

“Ooo, ouch,” he snarks, unaffected. “Take your time, this is the most fun I've had in a while.”

You decide not to answer, concentrating on your work. This man has a quick comeback for everything, you have a feeling. Worse, you kind of doubt a girl like you has a chance in hell of outmaneuvering him.

As you're bandaging him up, he senses your time together is coming to a close. His demeanor changes a little– if you didn't know any better,  you'd think he was sad about it. “Thanks for stitching me up,” he says, surprisingly humble. He rolls those big dark eyes up to yours, and you feel your resolve to be a stone cold professional crumble–a little.

“You're welcome.” It's possible your touch on his shoulder lingers just slightly longer than it should. 

“Hey…” He clearly feels bold enough to catch your hand in his. And holy shit, that hand. Your little mitt disappears in his, wrapped up in long, blunt fingers. The things you bet that hand could do to you…

It's definitely not a helpful thought.

“Any chance I could give you a call sometime?”

Your initial, knee-jerk reaction to this question, from this fine-ass man, is Yes, please and thank you. You're sure he sees it in your eyes, the way you're practically ready to sit up and bark for him.

But then, past experiences raise their hands to the situation, and how grateful you are. 

You know this guy's type, you convince yourself. Handsome, and macho, and they think they're so cute they can say anything and you'll just keep eating out of the palm of their hand, grateful to be their girl. You've starred in this show before– and it always ends in tragedy, with your heart in shreds, and them shrugging you off before moving on. 

Not tonight. 

“Sorry, but…I think it's best we keep this professional.”

Why does it hurt to say it?

You expect him to sulk, maybe even get mean, the way so many manly men do when a woman bruises their fragile egos. However, it seems this man is different. He just smirks, and you realize with a skip of your heartbeat, that he is not deterred at all.

“If you say so, sweetheart.”

With your heart in your throat, you have a feeling this is not the last you see of detective Tom Ludlow.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 14, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 15, 2024

Five years ago, on September 15, 2019, after about a six-week hiatus during the summer, I wrote a Facebook post that started:

“Many thanks to all of you who have reached out to see if I'm okay. I am, indeed (aside from having been on the losing end of an encounter with a yellow jacket this afternoon!). I've been moving, setting up house, and finishing the new book. Am back and ready to write, but now everything seems like such a dumpster fire it's very hard to know where to start. So how about a general overview of how things at the White House look to me, today....” 

I wrote a review of Trump’s apparent mental decline amidst his faltering presidency, stonewalling of investigations of potential criminal activity by him or his associates, stacking of the courts, and attempting to use the power of the government to help his 2020 reelection. 

Then I noted that the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), had written a letter to the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, on Friday, September 13, telling Maguire he knew that a whistleblower had filed a complaint with the inspector general of the intelligence community, who had deemed the complaint “credible” and "urgent.” This meant that the complaint was supposed to be sent on to the House Intelligence Committee. But, rather than sending it to the House as the law required, Maguire had withheld it. Schiff’s letter told Maguire that he’d better hand it over. Schiff speculated that Maguire was covering up evidence of crimes by the president or his closest advisors.

And I added: “None of this would fly in America if the Senate, controlled by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, were not aiding and abetting him.”

“This is the story of a dictator on the rise,” I wrote, “taking control of formerly independent branches of government, and using the power of his office to amass power.”

Readers swamped me with questions. So I wrote another post answering them and trying to explain the news, which began breaking at a breathtaking pace. 

And so these Letters from an American were born.

In the five years since then, the details of the Ukraine scandal—the secret behind the whistleblower complaint in Schiff’s letter—revealed that then-president Trump was running his own private foreign policy to strong-arm Ukraine into helping his reelection campaign. That effort brought to light more of the story of Russian support for Trump’s 2016 campaign, which until Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine seemed to be in exchange for lifting sanctions the Obama administration imposed against Russia after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. 

The February 2022 invasion brought renewed attention to the Mariupol Plan, confirmed by Trump’s 2016 campaign advisor Paul Manafort, that Russia expected a Trump administration to permit Russian president Vladimir Putin to take over eastern Ukraine. 

The Ukraine scandal of 2019 led to Trump’s first impeachment trial for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, then his acquittal on those charges and his subsequent purge of career government officials, whom he replaced with Trump loyalists. 

Then, on February 7, just two days after Senate Republicans acquitted him, Trump picked up the phone and called veteran journalist Bob Woodward to tell him there was a deadly new virus spreading around the world. It was airborne, he explained, and was five times “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.” “This is deadly stuff,” he said. He would not share that information with other Americans, though, continuing to play down the virus in hopes of protecting the economy.

More than a million of us did not live through the ensuing pandemic.

We have, though, lived through the attempts of the former president to rig the 2020 election, the determination of American voters to make their voices heard, the Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd, the election of Democrat Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, and the subsequent refusal of Trump and his loyalists to accept Biden’s win. 

And we have lived through the unthinkable: an attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob determined to overrule the results of an election and install their own candidate in the White House. For the first time in our history, the peaceful transfer of power was broken. Republican senators saved Trump again in his second impeachment trial, and rather than disappearing after the inauguration of President Biden, Trump doubled down on the Big Lie that he had been the true winner of the 2020 presidential election. 

We have seen the attempts of Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress to move America past this dark moment by making coronavirus vaccines widely available and passing landmark legislation to rebuild the economy. The American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act spurred the economy to become the strongest in the world, proving that the tested policy of investing in ordinary Americans worked far better than post-1980 neoliberalism ever did. After Republicans took control of the House in 2023, we saw them paralyze Congress with infighting that led them, for the first time in history, to throw out their own speaker, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). 

We have watched as the Supreme Court, stacked by Trump with religious extremists, has worked to undermine the proven system in place before 1981. It took away the doctrine that required courts to defer to government agencies’ reasonable regulations and opened the way for big business to challenge those regulations before right-wing judges. It ended affirmative action in colleges and universities, and it overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion. 

And then we watched the Supreme Court hand down the stunning decision of July 1, 2024, that overturned the fundamental principle of the United States of America that no one is above the law. In Donald J. Trump v. U.S., the Supreme Court ruled that a president could not be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his official duties.

We saw the reactionary authoritarianism of the former president’s supporters grow stronger. In Republican-dominated states across the country, legislatures passed laws to suppress Democratic voting and to put the counting of votes into partisan hands. Trump solidified control over the Republican Party and tightened his ties to far-right authoritarians and white supremacists. Republicans nominated him to be their presidential candidate in 2024 to advance policies outlined in Project 2025 that would concentrate power in the president and impose religious nationalism on the country. Trump chose as his running mate religious extremist Ohio senator J.D. Vance, putting in line for the presidency a man whose entire career in elected office consisted of the eighteen months he had served in the Senate.

In that first letter five years ago, I wrote: “So what do those of us who love American democracy do? Make noise. Take up oxygen…. Defend what is great about this nation: its people, and their willingness to innovate, work, and protect each other. Making America great has never been about hatred or destruction or the aggregation of wealth at the very top; it has always been about building good lives for everyone on the principle of self-determination. While we have never been perfect, our democracy is a far better option than the autocratic oligarchy Trump is imposing on us.” 

And we have made noise, and we have taken up oxygen. All across the country, people have stepped up to defend our democracy from those who are open about their plans to destroy it and install a dictator. Democrats and Republicans as well as people previously unaligned, we have reiterated why democracy matters, and in this election where the issue is not policy differences but the very survival of our democracy, we are working to elect Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.

If you are tired from the last five years, you have earned the right to be.

And yet, you are still here, reading. 

I write these letters because I love America. I am staunchly committed to the principle of human self-determination for people of all races, genders, abilities, and ethnicities, and I believe that American democracy could be the form of government that comes closest to bringing that principle to reality. And I know that achieving that equality depends on a government shaped by fact-based debate rather than by extremist ideology and false narratives. 

And so I write.

But I have come to understand that I am simply the translator for the sentiments shared by millions of people who are finding each other and giving voice to the principles of democracy. Your steadfast interest, curiosity, critical thinking, and especially your kindness—to me and to one another—illustrate that we have not only the power, but also the passion, to reinvent our nation.

To those who read these letters, send tips, proofread, criticize, comment, argue, worry, cheer, award medals (!), and support me and one another: I thank you for bringing me along on this wild, unexpected, exhausting, and exhilarating journey.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[gilbirda]

Friendly neighborhood vigilante. Chapter 19

BatmanxDP crossover. JasonxJazz

[Read on AO3] [Read on FF.net]

Based on this post

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----

Bruce watched them giggle, her face red, as both probably remembered something that happened between them. He didn’t know what they were talking about — there was so much he didn’t know about them, or about Jason — but it was grounding how easy she talked about… about Red Hood, with the same love in her eyes that she reserved for Jason.

He felt so stupid for thinking that Jasmine wanted to harm his son. He would still observe, of course, just in case; but he knew acting and he knew that Jasmine was not putting up an act when she smiled back at Jason’s grin.

“How did you two meet?”

Jazz didn’t acknowledge when the others got quiet and looked at him. “I think a few weeks after I moved in. We ran into each other in the elevator.”

“Ah yes. I remember thinking you were weird.”

“Hey.”

“I mean— an outsider moving so close to Crime Alley? I was half convinced you’d be killed in a week.”

Jasmine huffed, playfully slapping her boyfriend’s arm. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know that now, but when you told me you worked at Arkham I—”

“You said, and I quote, ‘And you are still alive?’”

“You work at Arkham?” Bernard jumped where he was sitting next to Tim on the other sofa. “Wha— How?”

Jason made a gesture like “see? I’m not the only one”, the smirk not leaving his lips. Bruce couldn’t remember the last time he saw him smile so much.

“I came to Gotham because I saw they had an opening. Well, it doesn’t surprise me now that I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Everyone ends up dead or quits their job in that place.” She shook her head in, a slight frown on her face.

“Then why haven’t you? Quit, I mean.”

She thought about her answer for a moment. Bruce leaned in, interested in what she was going to say. He remembered her application explaining her interest in Gotham’s rogues and how they came to be.

“Many things? I always wanted to work in the mental health field,” she looked down, sighing, “not necessarily criminal psychology, but since this job was close to what I do back in the Infinite Realms I thought I could learn something new.”

Close to what she did? What was her role in this Team Phantom she mentioned?

“Also,” she continued, “Gotham’s rogues kind of grow on you? Some of them just need a healthier outlet, or to be dedicated an amount of time that nobody is willing to do in Arkham. Because of course they don’t,” she rolled her eyes, making a vague gesture with her hand, “since high management is more focused on embezzling donations and trying to get their foot into the Mob business.”

The others, who had heard her mention that when Bruce went to Jason’s apartment the previous day, leaned in at the new information.

“She has powerpoints.” Jason crossed his arms. “And a hit list.”

“Is not a hit list.” Jasmine quickly clarified. “I don’t have proof, yet, but I will. At this point I just want to see Dylan’s career ruined out of spite.”

“He hates you with passion.” Bruce observed, remembering the disdain and thinly veiled hatred Dylan had towards Jasmine. He had been obviously trying to convince him she was a maladapted naïve young girl that was going to get herself killed. “I think he actually wants you dead.”

Jasmine scoffed. “If he wants me dead that much he has to do it himself.”

It was like a mirage — the way she crossed her arms, the raised eyebrow, the daring smile. Was she so much like Jason or was it something she unconsciously copied from him?

Either way, it was actually very cute.

“And the rogues haven't tried to kill you?”

She turned to look at Duke, shrugging. “No yet? I know some of them dislike me, but in general they tolerate me just fine. I think they are waiting to see me snap, or at least Edward said so.”

“Riddler?”

“Yeah. He has this interesting —” she made a face, indicating that wasn’t exactly the word she was thinking “ — way of displaying affection. Last Friday, when the breakout happened, he was the one who told me to be prepared with a ‘I’d hate to see your brains splattered on the wall, doc’.”

“So he knew beforehand and told you? And you didn’t stop him?”

Several looked at him, a warning in their eyes. Bruce backpedaled quickly, relaxing his shoulders on purpose.

“Part of my job in Arkham is gaining their trust. Treating them like people helps, some lower their guard once they see I’m not afraid of them, others are all about their secrets. Secrets are expensive in Arkham,” Jasmine’s eyes were cold and her body language collected, “Ed risked a lot just by telling me. If it was known that Riddler is a snitch then he would be out of the market. Is a delicate game.”

Duke was nodding along in agreement. Jason was still glaring at Bruce.

“And what if any of them turn on you? You can’t trust them.”

He knew he sounded paranoid, but he had tried to help them before. He had tried to invest that time and that effort Jasmine was talking about into helping them instead of just tossing them back to Arkham, but it was the same story over and over again — they could change and be better, but circumstances always brought them back in an endless cycle not unlike his own.

“I can take care of myself.”

Before anybody could stop him, Damian threw something at Jasmine. It was fast, and when they heard her loud gasp Bruce was completely ready to rush for the first aid kit in the nearby bathroom.

“That was not nice, kid.”

Damian huffed. “Not a kid.”

Bruce watched, mesmerized, how Jasmine yanked a pocket knife from the back of the sofa right where her head would have been if she didn’t somehow dodge it in time.

“Oh hey, it’s Jason’s knife! I thought I had lost it.”

She held the pocket knife like it was the most precious thing in the world, closing it with care. She said it was Jason’s?

“Tt, how careless about your weapons can you be? Took it as evidence after you threw it at me.”

“Ohhh, right. Sorry about that. I was kinda running on adrenaline back then.”

“How did you move so fast?”

Jasmine shrugged at Bernard. “At the house where I grew up, the first thing you learn is how to dodge fast.” She put the knife in her pants pocket. “And the second is how to kill before you are killed.”

To his credit, Damian looked impressed for a second. It was refreshing next to the worried glances of everyone else.

“What do you mean?” He had to ask, concerned.

No one missed how she took Jason’s hand in hers.

“I assume everyone heard us? Last Tuesday.”

Bruce remembered feeling righteous hot rage as he took her to the Diner. Her panicked face when she saw the documents. Her voice shaking as she begged Jason to believe her.

“Yes.” He swallowed the discomfort.

If Jasmine was hurt by what happened, she didn’t show. “My parents were… neglectful. There is no way around the sobbing backstory,” she chuckled, “but even if their lack of lab security has made us what we are today, my brother and I were raised in a hostile environment.

“They mixed samples with food, storing them in the same fridge. They worked on dangerous machinery in the kitchen and living room. They left children unsupervised in a lab full of chemicals and sharp objects.”

She was glaring at her own hands as she kept talking. “As you know, ectoplasm can bring things back to life. Even food.”

“Food?” Tim didn’t look convinced.

“I learned how to fight by re-killing the Thanksgiving turkey every year. And dinner.” She added after considering. “So many dinners.”

Stephanie was the first one to start laughing. Tim and Bernard followed, and soon everyone was chuckling at the absurd picture her words painted.

Bruce wasn’t laughing, though. It wasn’t as bad as the insanity they were used to, no murder cults or sadistics fathers, but still not something that sat well in Bruce’s mind. What kind of childhood did she and her brother have when they weren’t safe in their own house?

“Of course after the portal and with how things escalated it was less about survival and more about fighting to subdue and capture ghosts.”

“Not killing them?” Cass asked.

Jazz was shaking her head. “Back then all that came through the portal were troublemakers and supervillain wannabes. Later on we learned that a lot of them were testing Danny and more like training him in his new powers. We only captured and threw them back into the portal.” She sighed. “It wasn’t until we got more involved in the Realms and saw that there was so much more going on, that it was a whole dimension with complex societies and power structures, that we understood that to have actual peace the task wasn’t as simple as it looked like.”

Cass blinked, not wasting a second to ask. “Can ghosts be killed?”

Jasmine’s posture became tense. “Yes. Liminals, ghosts and— and other beings in the Realms. Is less about death and more about… ceasing to exist.”

They knew there was more going on with that statement. Was Jasmine some kind of executioner? Was that why she was so tense?

Bruce wasn’t sure how to feel about that. There was so much he didn’t know about her, about her life, about the Infinite Realms. There was a whole dimension with people, and some of those wished to cross over and do harm. Others had committed their life to protect a balance he didn’t know existed, probably paying some kind of price.

He wanted to ask so many things — what was her role in the Team? Who was she? Any event the Justice League should know about? How did their society work? What does the Underworld look like?

But he couldn’t ask that.

Not yet.

“What is your hometown like?”

Jasmine looked at him with relief in her teal eyes. He had said the right thing for once.

“Amity Park, the most haunted town in America. Or ‘a nice place to live’, as the sign says,” she smiled. “Is very different from Gotham. It’s sunny, for starters,” there were a few chuckles, “and it has always been a weird town. The Veil is thinner there, more than Gotham, and it has never been out of place to have ghostly encounters there.”

“So what? The dead walk among the living?”

She nodded at Dick. “Pretty much, yeah. ‘Dead but not gone’, we always say. After the portal ripped a door between dimensions there is so much ectoplasm around that almost everything that dies comes back soon after.”

“And Gotham? You said the Veil is thin here too.”

“Gotham is, uh, weird? The Veil is thin here, but there is so little ambient ectoplasm. Ghosts here are not as strong as they are in Amity Park, but there are so many ghosts everywhere anyway. As stubborn in death as they are in life, I guess.”

There was certain pride blooming in Bruce’s chest at her words, even as his mind latched on to the fact that the dead in Gotham tended to come back to life. Made him wonder how many people he knew had become ghosts.

Were his parents still around? Were they watching him, the man he had become? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what they would say to him if he met them now.

If he asked Jasmine would she help him? He had messed up things with her, he knew, but she was an easy and close way to answer those questions.

No. Not yet.

“You said the Manor is haunted?”

Jasmine chuckled. “Very! I was unsure if I would need to set up wards here but I think your ancestors have it covered. Nothing will enter here if they don’t wish to.”

Bruce didn’t miss how she could enter the house. His family accepted her, approved of her. Or maybe it was because she was influential?

“So if you could enter it means they like you?” Dick voiced his thoughts.

“Or has it something to do with you being a supernatural influencer?” Steph leaned in.

“What are you, by the way?” Tim had a certain glint in his eyes, like he did when he had a new mystery to solve.

Jasmine blinked at the quick questions, overwhelmed, opening her mouth.

“I remember certain agreement that tonight was not supposed to derive into an interrogation.” Alfred interrupted her from the door. She smiled at him. “Also, dinner is ready.”

Bruce watched as all his kids stood up and walked out of the room, his eyes stuck on how casually Jason entwined his hand with Jazz’s after he helped her stand up, how his eyes were soft on the edges when he looked at her.

She was talking with Steph about something, Bruce caught a few words but he wasn’t big on social media and it sounded like some kind of Twitter scandal. Jazz laughed at something Steph said. Jason smiled a little too, adding his own opinion.

“It's amazing, right?”

Bruce turned towards his eldest. “I didn’t know he could make that expression.”

“There is something about her,” Dick shook his head, “I don’t know how to describe it.”

Yeah. Bruce knew what he meant — there was a certain edge about her, something clearly made different. Even if he didn’t know what he knew about her now, he understood that she would not pass as a normal civilian like Bernard did, for example.

Jasmine was someone that could understand their world, and yet, she was not a hardened warrior. She showed softness and kindness even when thrown a knife to her face. She loved Jason and wasn’t afraid to show it. She still smiled even after all the things she went through.

It took a certain amount of bravery to be like that. To still care after… after everything.

Jason needed someone like her in his life.

Bruce cared about him, he loved him so much, but he didn't get the same results when they interacted — Bruce was so unsure about every word, every move, and in the end he made it worse in every interaction. He had stopped trying, but maybe that had been a bad call on his part.

He would observe them and try to understand how they made it look so easy.

***

“I actually don’t mind an interrogation.” Jazz was the first to speak as they all sat down.

“Don’t.” Jason frowned at her. “They don’t know how to stop.”

“Bold of you to assume I don’t have my own questions.”

They grinned at each other, remembering a conversation a long time ago, where she said she wanted to study the bats like a bug.

“Have a little bit of faith, Little Wing,” Dick said from where he was sitting next to Bruce.

“Faith? In you?” Jason glared at his brother.

Jazz gently put a hand on his, turning to look at Dick. “About your question, and the following ones— Yes, permission to enter is a big thing for ghosts. Especially a haunt. Gotham is… hm,” she looked up to thank Alfred when he passed by with her food, “thanks. Anyway, a haunt is a territory that belongs to a ghost. The more powerful the ghost, the bigger the haunt. They can share the haunt with weaker ghosts that cannot maintain a haunt, for mutual protection, but at the end of the day the more powerful one calls the shots.

“Gotham, the city, is a giant haunt that belongs to one Spirit. Without her approval nothing goes in. Or out.”

There were raised eyebrows at her words, but Jazz kept talking, making wide gestures with her hands.

“There are highly charged places, like this Manor, where a bunch of ghosts would congregate and have a mini-haunt inside Gotham, if the Spirit allows it. Arkham is another, for example. That one is a bit more cursed, though.”

Figures.

“And this… Spirit,” the word was pronounced slowly, like Bruce was trying to get used to it, “controls the city?”

“Gotham, the Spirit, is… old.” She made a face. “She may have been powerful, very powerful, once upon a time; but with all the magic cults and the pollution and the, well, situation of the city, she’s not what she was. She won’t die, yet, but Danny still wishes to help her despite our differences.” She sighed. “It’s in the list of stuff to do, which grows by the day.”

There was a beat of silence as they processed her words. Jazz looked around nervously, distracting herself by pushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

Cass, who was sitting on Jazz’s other side, didn’t miss how her ear was slightly pointed.

“Eat.”

Alfred manifested besides Bruce, glaring at him until he picked up a fork and shoved potato salad in his mouth. Then he nodded and left. Bruce swallowed and cleared his throat.

“So the city is dying because of us?”

Several of his children glanced at him, expecting the usual spiral about the sins of the father, yadda yadda.

“Hmmm, is it more like a feedback loop at this point? Gotham cannot deal with the stuff sapping her energy, not anymore, and those bad influences on the citizens create a constant stream of crime and evil that tire her out.”

“So if the Spirit is cured then all crime will disappear?” Tim frowned, disbelieving.

Jazz was already shaking her head before he ended his question. “No. People’s choices cannot be controlled, just influenced. Gotham’s ghosts are not powerful enough for possession, just nudging minds here and there. Whispers here and there. If Gotham were at full power and she could catch all of the troublemakers, it wouldn’t completely erase humans’ ability to do good or bad. Is still their choice.”

She paused for a moment to try the potato salad, chewed and swallowed.

“She’s very fond of you guys. Protective.” This raised a few eyebrows and a big smile from Cass and Dick. “She actually threatened us to not even think of touching any of you or she would throw hands.”

“I mean—” Whatever Tim was going to say with a big smirk and raised eyebrows was lost when Bernard elbowed him so hard he doubled over. “Betrayal.” He wheezed.

“Could you win against her in a fight?” Steph’s eyes were shiny at the prospect of Jazz fist fighting the freaking city to gain Jason’s hand in marriage.

“I don’t think so,” Jazz tilted her head. “I’m very rusty and she is an old city. She may not be what she once was, but she wins just by experience alone.”

“Bummer.”

Jazz shrugged. “Believe it or not, I had no intention of fighting anybody when I moved here.”

“Could have fooled me,” Jason deadpanned, chewing. When he swallowed, he added. “I’ve never seen anybody choose violence as fast as you do.”

Jazz blushed, pointing her fork at him like she was going to stab him with it. “I take that personally, mister ‘this is my territory and I’ll kill you if you trespass’.” She imitated his voice, mocking even the modulated effect.

“You are the one to talk!” It was his time to blush. “You were going to kick me out! In front of Timmy!”

“He was hurt, I couldn’t let you start a pointless fight in my apartment.”

“Oh I remember this one.” Bernard chuckled. “Tim ripped two of the stitches because he insisted he was good enough to continue.”

“Of course,” Jazz scoffed at the crimefighter. “How long did it take? Ten minutes?”

“Fifteen.”

“Yeah, figures.” She shook her head in disapproval, which Bernard imitated. “Resting is a big part of the healing process.”

“THANK YOU!” Bernard’s face illuminated, leaning over the table to take Jazz’s hand. “Finally! Someone with common sense!”

“I guess you have had to do the same speech—”

“Plenty of times, yeah,” he chuckled. “I’m actually an EMT. Decided to go that career after dumb dumb over here came bleeding to my apartment one too many times.”

Jazz nodded in understanding. Bernard nodded in understanding.

Tim and Jason looked at each other, realizing at the same time that letting these two meet had been a bad idea.

Dick chuckled nervously, his mind going to a recent time Jason had been bleeding to death in Jazz’s apartment. He decided to change topics, and fast.

“So,” he cleared his throat, “you said you figured out Jay’s identity, how did that happen?”

Jazz hummed, cutting a bit of her steak and chewing it as she thought her answer. “I mean,” she started when she swallowed, “there was the obvious, but circumstantial, stuff. Unexplained income. Odd hours. Too many coincidences. Jason not knowing how to properly hide his stuff—”

“I am not—”

“ — but what was solid proof was his blood.”

Jason, who wanted to protest her obvious jab at his person, froze mid sentence.

Duke choked on his salad. Bruce almost choked with his water.

Jazz froze too, slowly looking up from her hands cutting another piece of steak. She looked at Jason with a nervous smile.

“Forgot to tell you about the blood thing, huh?”

---

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[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Trumps of the Tropics: Brazil’s Far Right Plots Its Return

As president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro was often called the Trump of the Tropics, an association the Bolsonaro family actively cultivated. From the moment he was elected in 2018, he loudly celebrated the United States — in his first year in office, he even saluted the U.S. flag — but he saved his most intense loyalty for one American. When he met President Trump at the United Nations in 2019, he told him: “I love you.”

Before assuming power, Bolsonaro was an anti-democratic ideologue and former military man with a decades-long career in politics; Trump was a real estate developer and a media personality. But over the six years that Bolsonaro drove the news cycles in Latin America’s largest nation, he gave journalists a long list of reasons to equate the two men. Both made a show of praising authoritarian leaders, past and present, and liked to style themselves as defenders of law and order while acting as if the rules didn’t apply to them. Both formed an alliance with the religious right late in their careers and enlisted their sons to help push their respective agendas. Both frequently took to Twitter to attack their enemies, troll traditional media and rile up their supporters. And both retreated to Florida when things got tough.

For decades, the Brazilian right had looked to the United States, and when Donald Trump began to transform the rules of political discourse, it took note. “We learned to have the courage to speak up,” says Damares Alves, an evangelical pastor who served as Bolsonaro’s minister of human rights, families and women. “We began to be more incisive on the question of abortion. We learned we could be more direct about the question of arming the population. We realized we could take a tougher stand against the left-wing transformation taking place across our continent.”

As president, Bolsonaro seemed eager to import as much of the MAGA movement to Brazil as possible. So when Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to protest a “stolen” election, many Brazilians worried that Bolsonaro supporters might try something similar. That’s exactly what happened. On Jan. 1, 2023, when Bolsonaro’s opponent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, leader of the left-wing Workers’ Party, took office, Bolsonaro skipped the ceremony, holing up instead in the Orlando suburbs, at the home of a mixed-martial-arts fighter. For weeks, Bolsonaristas had been camping out around the country, under banners calling for an “intervention.” In an echo of Jan. 6, they chose Jan. 8 to occupy and attack government buildings in the capital, Brasília, even though the transition had already taken place and the buildings were largely empty. Military police officers arrested more than 1,000 people, and Lula quickly reasserted control of the country.

Bolsonaro, like Trump, now faces a host of criminal charges for trying to impede democratic elections. Trump has been convicted in one case, but only Bolsonaro has been deemed ineligible to run for president. In June 2023, Brazil’s electoral court ruled that his attacks on the voting system disqualified him from running for any political office until 2030. He is now facing hundreds of other court cases. In February of this year, authorities confiscated his passport after arresting several former aides accused of plotting a coup, making another escape to Florida impossible. Bolsonaro took refuge for two nights in the Hungarian Embassy in São Paulo, perhaps hoping to leverage his relationship with Prime Minister Viktor Orban (one of many friends he shares with Trump) if flight became necessary.

While Bolsonaro is barred from the political arena — at least for now — the movement that he unleashed is very much alive. Bolsonaristasdid well in the election that he lost, demonstrating that the movement was bigger than the man, and they now have real power at federal and state levels. Because congressional politics in Brazil are byzantine — there are 23 parties in Congress, and members can shift allegiances quickly — it would be difficult for Lula to govern even if Bolsonaro’s right-wing Liberal Party were not the largest party in the legislature. As things stand, the Bolsonaristas routinely complicate things for Lula, as they try to pull the country back to the far right.

In 2023, Bolsonaro’s allies began working to create a kind of Bolsonarismo sem Bolsonaro, or Bolsonaro-style politics without Bolsonaro. In interviews in the capital late last year, a rough philosophical and tactical division emerged. One group wants to show that it is moderating its positions and committed to responsibly governing the country; another is doubling down on the kind of fiery rhetoric that drives engagement online and reproduces tropes familiar to observers of right-wing media in the United States.

Continue reading.

[blackghostm2o]

I was reading the Hays code out of curiosity and it made me think of why PotO ‘43 and ‘62 aren’t really compelling adaptations.

Let’s look at this excerpt:

“That evil is not presented alluringly. Even if later on the evil is condemned or punished, it must not be allowed to appear so attractive that the emotions are drawn to desire or approve”

“evil and good are never confused and that evil is always recognized clearly as evil.”

“That in the end the audience feels that evil is wrong and good is right.”

Now let’s take these 2 Phantoms in consideration (both of them become the phantom because of some acid got on their faces: in ‘62 an accident while committing arson, in ‘43 they throw it at him after he murdered someone):

The ‘62 one (Prof Petrie) is the more ‘gentle’ of the two: he acted “evil”, but he wasn’t the one making the killings (a mute was)

The ‘43 one (Enrique Claudin) went on a murder spree (consider that during the movie he killed more people than ALW!Phantom during the musical).

Both of them get punished (showing how evil is wrong and recognising evil as such), but with a difference:

- Petrie got killed in a self sacrificing act to save Christine (was this here name here? Maybe Maria?… Idk). The chandelier was falling on Christine (let’s call her like that) and he shoved her away getting crushed by it. So maybe this man was not completely bad (remember that he doesn’t kill here).

- Enrique Claudin gets crushed when the cellar crumbles on itself, while the 2 heroes and the damsel in distress run away. No redemption and a pretty horrible way to die (they recognise his musical genius tho, iirc).

You could argue that Petrie got his redemption, like Lerik did, but the thing is that they made him “more chill” (notice how slapping Christine was not a really big deal here), because otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to redeem him, his actions would’ve been too heinous to do that.

Now bear with me a little… Ik that PotO 1925 was pre-code (it has started being seriously enforced in 1934), but the Erik shown there (a demented criminal, who killed multiple people) got an ending that is very in line with these policies. Was it because the test audience were probably people like the ones who made the code? Maybe some higher ups of Universal or other influential people who had to ‘uphold morality’ etc ? Idk, but it makes me wonder.

Now… The alluring part… The musical surely shows that (maybe the novel on a lesser extent), here is totally absent:

- On ‘62 there’s no element of love between the Phantom and ‘Christine’, no romantic triangle (one of the key elements of the story they were adapting) and the Phantom is such a jerk to Christine, full on slapping her when singing like shit etc…

- On ‘43 he’s just plain creepy (ik that you could say that Lerik is creepy too, but this has a different vibe, especially considering that Claudin was living normally before the acid) and his interest for Christine are barely elaborated on. On ‘43 you could also argue that the multiple changes to the story didn’t help.

Maybe the restrictions of the code made these 2 adaptations fall flat compared to others.

(This doesn’t really have anything to do with the previous stuff that I said, but I want to point it out)

In the Hays code they were making sure to cancel every instance of sexual freedom, or, for example, having something like an independent and strong woman; this makes me think about the ‘43 ending. In PotO ‘43 Christine decides to pursue her career, Anatole and Raoul decide to go out for dinner together arm in arm.

Was it a way to safely (during the film they mostly have the typical male/female roles and this is at the very end) stretch the boundaries of the code (being a bit against the whole family and woman/men roles thing)? Or was it just for the shits and giggles? The same 2 questions go for the relationship between the two men throughout the whole movie.

Idk… Just wondering

[dilemmaontwolegs]

The Best Lies || Max Burnett

Summary: The first time you met Max you were a cyber security specialist for your family company, a leader in the tech industry. Max was the reason that life was shattered and your career down the drain. When Max returns to your life in need of your help you find yourself needing to decide whether people truly deserve second chances. Warnings: 18+ only, NSFW, where to begin...there's criminal activity (cyber crime, trafficking, conning), violence, sexual themes, plot twists. WC: 9.4k

You looked around the auditorium and saw which students were paying attention and which were busy doodling in their notebooks. Wrapping your knuckles on the podium, a few heads darted up and you pinned them with a knowing look before continuing your lecture. “The brain is a complex computer that is constantly uploading information from the world around you, mostly subconsciously. It’s function is to keep you alive, and that means it is searching for signs that something is amiss.

“There is a reason people trust their instincts, it is the brain accepting the information it has received and deemed something to be safe. But, with some manipulation and understanding, the brain can be lied to.

“Now, who can tell me what the best lies are?”

The bell indicated the end of the lecture and the students all began closing their books or packing away their laptops. There was no keeping their attention for a minute longer and you spoke louder so they could hear you over the noise. “Next week we will be discussing how to lie to the brain, so read up on the material that will be emailed out to you this evening.”

Most of the students had already disappeared before you had unclipped the microphone from your lapel and you gathered the textbook you had used for reference only to find a man sitting comfortably in the front row. He definitely wasn’t one of your students, with his expensive cashmere overcoat and shiny loafers. He screamed ‘investment banker’ or ‘hedge fund manager’.

“The ones that hold a kernel of truth,” he said as he stood up. “To answer your question.”

“Yes, Max, I don’t need to be reminded that you are the best liar I had the displeasure of meeting.” You closed the textbook with a little more force than was needed before taking a deep breath as he closed the distance between you. 

He turned up the charm as he smiled at your reaction and his eyes darted to your lips. “From what I remember, there was a lot of pleasure involved.”

You shoved the book into your satchel and zipped it shut before crossing your arms. “Cut the bullshit. You didn’t come here for a stroll down memory lane.” 

“Aw, I mean, I wouldn’t say no if you wanted to really relive those nights,” he said with an arrogant snicker as he ran his knuckle across your cheek. When he received no reaction from you he dropped the act and stepped back with a sigh. “I need your help.”

A laugh erupted at the admission and you held a finger up to stop him talking further. “So let me get this straight. You, Max Roberts, the man who single handedly ruined my life, wants my help?”

“It’s Burnett, actually, and I wouldn’t say I ruined your life, professor.” He spun around with his arms out and looked at the huge auditorium that had only minutes earlier been packed with hundreds of students. “Things worked out pretty well for you.”

“Of course, not even your name was real.” You scoffed to yourself. “I’m doing so well; I’m only estranged from my family, unable to form any meaningful relationships because I trusted the wrong man and in therapy twice a week. Yeah, it worked out really well.” You rolled your eyes and turned away but he caught you by the hand and stopped you. 

His thumb caressed your knuckles and a flash of surprise flitted across his features before he hid it. “You still wear the ring.”

You tore your hand from his and shoved it in the pocket of your blazer but it was too late. “It serves to keep me from making the same mistake twice. Now leave before I call security.”

“You know, it wasn’t all a lie.” He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. His fist uncurled and your breath hitched at the diamond wedding band that matched the engagement ring on your finger. “I wouldn’t have bought this if it was.”

You shook your head vehemently as the spotlights hit the diamonds and they sparkled brightly. “You’re still lying.”

“Did you ever take it to a jeweller?”

“Why would I do that?” you asked with a scoff. “So they could laugh at me too when they tell me it's worthless.”

“Look, I know I’m a terrible person, I won’t argue with that, but I messed up.” He looked genuinely guilty as he dipped his head and peered sheepishly through the long dark strands that fell over his eyes. “I was…myself when I was with you.”

A familiar burn of resentment grew when your foot lifted to take a step forward but you caught yourself before you could move closer to him. Like the sun, it was impossible not to fall into his orbit but you fought the pull of gravity. “I think you are starting to believe your own lies.”

The doors at the back of the room opened and Professor Stafford walked in with his briefcase and an arm full of textbooks to prepare for his lecture of Criminology 401. The arrival brought back your common sense and you swung your bag over your shoulder before jerking your head to the other exit. 

“My office,” you ordered, knowing delaying the conversation would only mean he found you at another point in time. You would give up your free hour between lectures in the hopes you wouldn’t have to see his face ever again.

Max looked curiously around the room, lingering on the bookshelf, before he dropped into the chair across from your desk and crossed his ankle over his knee. Those intelligent blue eyes took in everything and you could practically see the cogs in his brains turning with what he was learning in the silence. 

“What do you want, Max?”

He let a small piece of his perfect facade fall away so you could see the fear in his eyes as he leant forward. “I have a problem, one that is time sensitive, and you’re the only person that can help me.”

You should have outright refused, in fact the words were on the tip of your tongue but instead you asked, “And if I don’t?”

Max licked his lips and tried to smile but it was constricted to a small twitch at the corners. “Then my lawyers will be in touch to settle my estate and you will once again be very, very rich.”

“It’s the least you could do after what you did to my family,” you growled but the words tasted bitter at the thought of him being dead, even though you had wished for that very thing on your darkest nights.

“I know, I know.”

“Your little posse of thieves could surely help you out, you were awfully chummy with them. What do you need me for?”

Max sucked the air between his teeth and pursed his lips. You were suddenly nervous and reached for a pen to fidget with while you waited for him to speak. “I had a job lined up with a bank, but the man I had on the inside had an accident. He was a security analyst.”

The pen in your hand lost balance and tumbled onto the desk as you bolted to your feet.  “No, no fucking way, Max! I am not a con artist, and I’m not going to be a part of this.”

He pointed to the wall of framed qualifications as he argued, “You know it all already, you studied this. Freud, Festinger, Bandura.” He listed off the authors of the works that filled your bookshelf.

“And before this I was an expert in cyber security but it still didn’t stop what you did to me. It was humiliating, Max, you ruined my name. Do you understand that? Do you even stop to think about the innocent people you have hurt while you play dice with their lives?” You already knew the answer as you spun your chair to look out over the campus beyond the window. “I only studied Cognitive Psychology so I could understand how you could make such a fool of me.”

Max’s shoes were quiet on the carpet as he rounded the desk and turned your chair to face him. Dropping to his knees, he bowed his head until it rested against your knee and your fingers itched to run through his hair just to see if it was still as soft as it used to be. 

“I’m sorry,” Max murmured, the words so foreign from his lips that you couldn’t comprehend he had even said them until he repeated himself over and over. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

You didn't want an apology. In all the years since he had ghosted you and left behind a steaming pile of muck you only wanted one thing, an answer. “Why?”

Max sat back on his heels and wrapped his arms around his knees as he looked up at you, his lips parting only to close again as he struggled to formulate the words. “I was scared.” You waited for him to expand but the silence dragged on until you cleared your throat and lifted your brows, spurring him to continue with a proper explanation. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not to me,” you growled, angered by the question.

“I fell in love with you, goddammit. It wasn’t meant to happen, but it did and…I ran.”

“You ran, that’s the understatement of the century,” you huffed as a headache began to form at your temples. 

“I know it's not what you want to hear, but the reason you believed everything I told you was because too much of it was the truth.”

Those were the best lies. And goddamn if it wasn’t working again as you felt the instinct to believe him even after all he had done. No matter how well one trained the brain, the heart was still easily betrayed. 

“Your life is really in danger?” you asked quietly as you worried on your bottom lip. “No lies.”

“Cross my heart,” he said with a morose nod as he drew his finger across his chest. 

The debate in your head was far shorter than you would have liked for such a monumental decision but you couldn’t stand idly by knowing you might be able to save him from whatever mess he had got himself into.

“If I do this, I never want to hear from you again. If you see me in the streets, you pretend you don’t know me.” He looked ready to argue but another glare kept his lips sealed before he nodded. “Okay, tell me what you need me to do.”

The cheap polyester pantsuit itched your legs with each step into the Hartmont Brough Bank and you tugged your lanyard out to show your staff ID to the security guard. The sleepy man barely looked up from his newspaper before hitting the buzzer to let you into the office space behind the tellers.

“You must be the new cyber security analyst,” a portly gentleman greeted with a smile while looking for your name tag. 

“Ashley Jenkins,” you lied smoothly.

Confidence, that was the key. If you looked shady or uncomfortable the alarm bells would start ringing in the manager's head. 

“Welcome to HBB, Miss Jenkins. I’ll show you to your cubicle and get you introduced to the team. It is rather small but they are close knit.”

He continued to rattle on about the office dynamics and where to find the bathrooms and the staff room. You barely paid any attention as you scanned the office space and watched the other staff interacting.

“Here you are.” He finally came to a stop at an empty booth and gave him your thanks as you stepped inside to open the laptop that was ready and waiting. “Email should be set up already but if you have any issues call down to IT.”

“I think I can take it from here,” you said, probably knowing more about fixing computers than the IT team anyway. 

You were left to settle in and run through a checklist of audits, scanning each system for any malware or vulnerabilities. With a name like Hartmont Brough it was no surprise the clients of the bank were the top 1% of the wealthiest men and women in America and they expected their money and investments to be protected by the best.

It was worryingly easy to slip back into the life you had left but if you had used your real name there was no chance the company would have hired you. The entire tech industry used your family name as a cautionary tale or, more appropriately, a horror story. All because of Max and the sweet lies that rolled off his tongue like honey.

The modest apartment that had been rented under your fake name smelt like heaven when you opened the door. After the long day spent learning the names of everyone in the building the last thing you wanted to do was cook but you lost your appetite at seeing Max standing in your kitchen. 

Hearing the door open, he looked over his shoulder and smiled. “Welcome home, sweetheart. How was your day?” 

You dumped your handbag on the table and shrugged off the blazer before crossing your arms. “What are you doing here, Max?”

“Making your favourite,” he said, showing you the contents of the frying pan before tossing them expertly in the air to catch them. 

Your scowl softened as you sashayed towards him, his bottom lip tugging between his teeth as he watched your hips swaying intently. Reaching past him, you turned the stove off and ran your hand up his arm to his chest. A smirk grew on his lips and he stepped back as you gently pushed him out of the kitchen. 

Max walked backwards past the table and the curve of his lips only grew as he came closer to your bedroom door. There was only a moment of surprise when his feet crossed the threshold and he turned to see you had led him to the hallway before slamming the door in his face. 

“Thanks for dinner!” you called out as you shoved the deadbolt across and went to enjoy the hot meal he had made. 

It was late by the time you had finished creating a fake social media presence in case anyone at work looked into ‘Ashley Jenkins’ but the next job couldn’t wait until tomorrow. 

All the hardware stores that you drove past were closed but you found what you needed at Walmart and made your way back to the apartment to change the barrels in the door lock. Knowing Max, he would have no qualms about letting himself in again and you would probably wake up to find him lounging on his side of the bed.

No, not his side of the bed. The other side of the bed. He didn’t have a side anymore.

A headache was forming from lack of sleep and the coffee from the staffroom was nowhere near strong enough to survive on. Your nights were spent recording lectures and readings along with marking papers and answering questions that your students emailed in. It had only been two weeks and you weren’t sure how you were going to keep this up when Max had given no timeline on when his con was going to be complete. 

“...what can I say, happy wife, happy life,” a familiar voice trickled through the office and you shook your head. 

“Great, now I’m hearing his voice,” you muttered under your breath before taking another gulp of the burnt filter coffee. 

“It was nice to meet you, Mr Jenkins.”

The headache seemed to explode from your head and manifest into a 6 foot man that was grinning as he carefully waved to your manager, two takeaway cups of coffee in his hands and a brown paper bag tucked under his arm. 

“That had better be a triple chocolate muffin,” you grumbled as you took the bag from him. The mouthwatering scent of the freshly baked treat wafted up as soon as you opened the bag and a moan slipped past your lips when you confirmed it was exactly what you had been hoping for. 

Max bent over you to place one of the barista coffee cups on your desk and his cheek brushed yours from the closeness. “Now why don’t you introduce your husband to your colleagues, sweetheart?”

You controlled the burst of anger that rose in your chest and suppressed the urge to roll your computer chair over his toes as you adapted to the new information he had conveniently left out in all the conversations you had. “That wouldn’t be very professional of me, honeybun.”

Unfortunately, the others in the office were drawn to the smell of strong coffee and baking and their heads popped up one by one but there was one in particular that Max zeroed in on. 

Brent Mathers, Relationship Manager and the answer to the question you had been wondering since you arrived. Brent was the mark. 

You locked your computer before pushing the chair back and felt the warmth of Max’s hand on the small of your back, a familiar weight you had once leaned into and almost did on reflex. The heat grew as his hand remained fixed to you while you introduced him to your team, making your way closer to the mark. 

He had obviously done his research, but you expected nothing less from Max, and he casually managed to work Brent’s interests into the conversation until they were chatting like old friends. It was a reminder of how easy it was to fall under Max’s spell and the wake up you needed to move away from his electric touch.

“No way,” Max gasped with false surprise and threw his hands up. “I have season tickets to the Knicks but Ash won’t come with me and I hate going on my own.”

“I would rather waste my time doing anything other than watching basketball. And, on that note, I am going back to work.” You pressed a quick peck to Max’s cheek before heading off.

“See what I have to deal with,” Max joked, earning a laugh from Brent. 

“Well, if you ever want some company I won’t turn down a seat at the game.”

“I’ll hold you to that. Here, lemme get your number, there’s a game Friday if you’re up for it?”

And he was in. Game, set, match. Max had won and Brent didn’t even know it.

“You’re a natural, baby,” Max purred in your ear as you walked him to the elevator after he had successfully wormed his way into Brent’s life. “Improvising like that isn’t easy. I’m proud of you.”

You wished you could blame the tremor in your hands on the caffeine in your system but you wouldn’t lie to yourself. Especially not when the elevator arrived and Max dipped his head to yours and kissed you with lips that were just as soft and full as you remembered. 

Brent wasn’t the only one in trouble.

Your finger hovered over Max’s phone number and you chewed your bottom lip as you debated tossing the phone from your reach but common sense lost and you pressed the green button. If you had changed your mind it would have been too late as he answered on the second ring.

“It’s late.”

“Can’t sleep.” 

There was a constant hum in the background and you wondered if the call had dropped from how long he was silent for. Maybe he was watching the same window to the past when you would call him during your night shifts, or maybe he was distracted by whatever life he had outside of the con. 

“You called me,” he finally said before you heard the squeal of tires and a honk of a car horn. 

“I know. I,” you caught yourself and sighed as you stared at the phone, the seconds of the call growing, “nevermind, I shouldn’t have done that. Goodnight Max.”

“Wait,” he called out, a thud echoing in the background. “I’m outside.”

The buzzer rang a second later and you tossed the blankets back to answer the door, still not quite believing it was Max on the other side until it swung open. The phone was still pressed to his ear and you both flinched at the high pitch whine they made before ending the call and you laughed nervously. 

“I didn’t think you would come.”

Max stepped inside with a lopsided grin and kicked the door closed. You had been frozen at his arrival but his entrance had left his body almost flush to yours and he closed that distance by curling his arm around your waist and tugging you against him. 

The words about to fall from your mouth were stolen as his lips crashed against yours and you forgot what you were going to say when your hands came to rest on his hard chest. Your lips parted as he deepened the kiss and you ceded control to him when his tongue danced with yours. 

Clothes disappeared with each step towards your bedroom and you lost yourself as your hands acquainted themselves with Max’s body. 

“This was a mistake,” you whispered to the dark room, unsure if Max was still awake or not while you lay in his arms, your head on his chest. 

“People like us don’t make mistakes, we make choices and we stand by them. You knew what would happen if you called me and you still did it,” he murmured back with a deep, sleep-laden voice. His arm curled tighter around you as he rolled onto his side and tipped your head back so you could see his eyes boring into you in the dim moonlight. “But if we had to choose a mistake, mine would be that we didn’t do this sooner.”

You closed your eyes and brushed your lips softly against his before speaking, “It won’t happen again anyway. You’ll be gone soon, off to your next con and I will go back to my real job.”

He caught the hint of bitterness in your tone and propped his head up on one hand while the other traced delicately along your spine until goosebumps prickled across your skin. “Can you go back, after this month, could you really go back to being a boring professor? You can’t tell me you haven’t enjoyed the thrill.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you said as you sat up. “It’s wrong.”

Max groaned and flopped back on the pillow. “You can’t cheat an honest man.”

“That hurts,” you grumbled, grabbing your silk robe to cover yourself and put space between you both.

“Y/N, I didn’t mean you.” He crossed the room and trapped you between his body and the wall. “You were never the mark, sweetheart.”

“I was just collateral. Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

Max sighed and dropped his forehead to yours. “I’ve apologised already, what else do I have to do to make it right?”

You took a deep breath and looked him dead in the eyes. “Tell me everything.”

Max sucked in his bottom lip as he pushed off the wall and walked over to the window to see the city sprawling below. “Only if you quit. Quit your job and work with me.”

“I can’t just quit!” 

Max’s frown reflected on the glass before he faced you. “You can, you just don’t want to. You’re afraid.”

“I am not,” you argued before sighing in defeat. “Okay, maybe a little, but the last time I trusted you it bit me on the ass.”

Max’s shoulders dropped and he took a heavy seat on the edge of the bed. His fingers laced together and he leaned forward on his elbows deep in thought. 

“Brent isn’t the mark.” You blinked dumbly at his admission, waiting for him to continue. “He has two clients who have amassed their considerable wealth by trafficking sex workers to Europe using their shipping companies.”

“You’re suddenly a philanthropist?”

“God no,” he scoffed. “I’m not planning on taking them down. I just need to get their contact details and pass it on to the people who want it, badly. They can deal with them.” 

You nodded in understanding. “The people who are threatening you.”

“I’m going to clone Brent’s phone at the game Friday night, give it to the boss and get the hell out of New York.” He finally looked up from his hands. “I want you to come with me.”

Friday Evening

“It will be highly encrypted so the cloning could take a while, half an hour at the most, and the devices need to remain close to each other, working 2-3 feet,” you explained again to make sure Max fully understood the parameters of the clone phone. “If they are separated, the copying will pause for up to 30 seconds. If they don’t come back within range in that time then you will have to start again.”

Max straightened the cuff links at his wrists before centering his tie and nodded. “I got it. How do I look?” 

You slipped the phone into his pocket and plucked a wayward piece of lint from his shoulder before flattening his collar a little more. “Criminally sexy.” 

Max smirked and patted his pockets to feel his keys, wallet and phone. “The game should be finished by 9.30 and I’ll meet you at the Rose Park Motel at 10.”

“Be careful,” you murmured as your stomach twisted in knots. 

“Always,” he said softly, cupping your cheek in his palm. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.” You swallowed the lump in your throat as he walked out of the apartment that had been boxed up in a matter of hours last night. If everything went to plan you wouldn’t be coming back here again. 

You sat in front of your laptop, the last item waiting to be packed and finished what you had been typing before hitting enter and closing the lid. You zipped the bag shut and slung it over your shoulder ready to leave for the last time before feeling your phone ring.

“Mr Hansen?” you answered, confused at the call out of work hours.

“Oh, Ashley, thank god you answered,” he rushed out. “I really need your help. Can you come to the office?”

“Yeah, of course, I can be there in 15 minutes.”

“Good, great, thank you,” he stammered before hanging up in a hurry.

Head office should have been empty when you arrived but most of the cyber security team, the senior leadership team and the bank’s lawyers were bustling about when you pulled your chair up. 

“…no ransom yet…”

“…targeted every weakness…”

“…could it be Anonymous?”

You peered across at Floyd in the cubicle next to you and found intricate lines of code filling his screens as he searched for the hacker that had compromised the bank's software. “Do they really think Anonymous hacked the bank?”

Floyd barely looked up from his screens as he continued to type and talk, “No idea but, if it is, it makes you wonder who the rich folk are that use this place. Anonymous don’t waste their time looking into petty crime if you know what I mean.”

You scooted closer and whispered, “You think there’s dodgy stuff going on?”

“Who knows?” he said with a shrug before pausing to turn to face you. “I just know that we have dealt with black hat hackers before but this has the suits proper scared.” 

Floyd focused on something over your shoulder and spun back to his screen as the heavy feet of Damien Hansen arrived. “Ashley, I need you to focus on the Online Portal system and make sure it hasn’t been compromised, as I’m sure you’re already aware of the situation.”

“On it,” you confirmed as he ran a handkerchief over his clammy forehead and rushed into the conference room where the lawyers were waiting. 

Cracking your knuckles, you logged into the computer with your credentials and got to work. Two hours passed by in the blur as you checked the code of the Online Portal system for any tampering and just as the clock was about to strike 10pm a cheer rose from Toby’s desk opposite. “It’s gone!” 

The entire office seemed to swell as one of the owners and his posse of lawyers surrounded the small cubicle while Toby explained the virus had ‘expired’. 

Floyd leaned back in his chair and stuck his head past the privacy barrier between your desks. “No one makes a program as complex as that and sets a timer for it to end.”

“It makes no sense,” you agreed despite checking the lingering trace yourself and seeing that was exactly what had happened. “Unless it’s a warning?”

“You there, Miss, what do you mean ‘a warning’?” Mr Hartmont asked as he fixed his eyes on you from Toby’s desk.

You looked around and shied away as all the attention was suddenly on you before clearing your throat and giving your opinion, “Well, there was no ransom and it didn’t target the personal details of the clients. What if it was just getting a layout of the system as a whole?”

The co-owner narrowed his eyes and you looked at Floyd for backup. 

“Imagine a military operation,” Floyd said. “Before launching an attack they do the reconnaissance work so they know what they are heading into.”

You mouthed ‘thank you’ to Floyd as Mr Hartmont’s eyes widened in understanding. “That is something we will certainly take into consideration when we decide our next move.”

The hoard of suits retreated back to the conference room except for Mr Hansen who came and thanked each of your co-workers. “We will need some of you to work through the night, just while we are on high alert, but you will be well compensated.”

“Shotgun!” Floyd called with a grin at the thought of a bonus pay followed by Jessica and Danny. 

“No thanks,” you said with a yawn. “My husband will be waiting up to tell me all about the Knicks game. Actually, on second thought I’d rather work than hear about that.”

The guys laughed and shook their heads but Jessica gave you a look of commiseration before waving you off. 

“Thanks again for coming in,” Mr Hansen said as he walked you and Toby to the elevator. “You are both real assets to the company. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, see you on Monday.”

You parted from Toby in the staff car park with a polite goodbye before racing to the motel Max would be waiting at. 

Your palms turned clammy against the steering wheel and your pulse quickened at the nervousness that was festering. 

You were running late. 

What would Max think?

Your phone had been tossed into the East River as you crossed over so your location couldn’t be traced. Someone would surely start looking when you didn’t show up at Hartmont Brough Bank on Monday morning, not that they would find anything. 

You pulled into the Rose Park Motel and looked for Max’s sleek Mercedes but found most of the spaces empty and the others had rusted, beat up cars in them. 

Your watch said 10.22pm.

“Where are you, Max?” you asked under your breath before walking to the motel reception. “I’m looking for my husband, he booked a room here. Maxwell Roberts?”

The woman sitting behind the desk rolled her eyes and tucked her strangely hair behind her ear. “If your husband booked a room here it ain’t to bring his wife.” She pointed to the sign on the wall that had the room charges per hour. “Sorry, honey.”

She gave you a look of pity but you ignored it as you reached into your pocket and placed a few crumpled notes on the table. “I’ll take one for an hour, please.”

There was no surprise she didn’t take any of your details down, not when you saw a hooker stumble into the reception with a client. They wouldn’t want to use the motel for their illegal soliciting if they had to leave a name and credit card for ID. 

Taking the key that was slid across the chipped formica countertop you made your way to the room, only stopping to grab your laptop from the car. 

The room was as dank as you expected and you chose to use the rickety drawers as a stand up desk rather than sitting on the bed and risking whatever bugs and fungi lurked in the blankets. The wifi was insecure and slower than you were hoping but it would be enough to find what you were after. 

Max would have thrown his cell phone away before he even got to the game and kept only the clone phone that held all the information he had surely been successful in stealing. There was no way he would have discarded it already so you were going to find it, and find him. If he thought he could leave you high and dry for a second time, he had another thing coming.

You jumped at the knock on the door and grabbed a bread knife from the kitchenette before looking through the peephole to find Max with his hands in his pockets and a bored look on his face. “Open up, sweetheart, it’s chilly.”

“What the hell?” you hissed as you opened the door and closed it quickly behind him. “You were meant to be here an hour ago.”

“Brent kept taking calls, some emergency at work,” he explained as he kissed your forehead and saw your laptop open. “Had to take him out for a drink to finish the cloning.”

“I was about to start looking for you,” you admitted much to his amusement. 

“You thought I’d run?” he guessed with a pout, his eyebrows crumpling together as he tugged you by the hips and into his arms. “I thought you trusted me?”

“I do,” you hurried to reassure him and erase the sad look in his eyes. “I do trust you, or I wouldn’t be here.”

Placated, he released you to grab the go-bag you had brought into the motel and shut your laptop lid. “We should go, the handover is in a few hours and we have a drive ahead of us.” He left it at that and went to check out of the motel while you climbed into his car.

In this side of town without wheel locks your car was almost guaranteed to be stolen and the sooner that happened the better. It would be one less thing to dispose of that was linked to Ashley Jenkins.

Max was grinning as he slipped into the driver's seat and his happiness was infectious. He reached over the gearbox and laced his fingers with yours as soon as he was on the road, his fingers moving to the beat of the indie music playing on the radio.

“You should sleep,” Max suggested as the city light disappeared and the houses turned to farms. “We won’t be there for a while yet.”

“Where exactly is there?” 

He spared a second to glance at you away from the road before giving the answer, “Boston.”

His clipped tone gave you the impression he wasn’t interested in the conversation or answering anymore questions so you fell silent and rested your head against the window to try to sleep. Exhaustion won and you only woke up when the car came to a stop outside a stripclub.

“Um, what are we doing here?” you asked as you unbuckled your seatbelt like he had and grabbed your bag from the backseat. 

“Wait here, Y/N. I’ll be back in a minute.” He was already out of the car without waiting for a reply and you gave him two seconds head start before climbing out after him. He licked his lips as you caught up and looked ready to give you another order but was interrupted by a very large bouncer. 

“You're late,” he growled in a voice that was far softer than he appeared to be. 

Max waved a hand in your direction. “Women, what can I say? Tell him I have what he wants.”

“Tell him yourself,” the bouncer replied as he opened the velvet rope and jutted his head to the stairs that were sign posted as ‘Staff Only’. 

You were halfway up the first flight when Max turned and stared down at you with pursed lips. “What didn’t you understand about ‘stay in the car’?”

“I didn’t just work hard for a whole month so I could stay in the car at the end.” You pushed past him and continued to climb the stairs until you reached the first floor and paused to see where Max would go but he was still where you left him, tapping a finger to his lips deep in thought. “You’re already late, remember?”

His head fell back with a groan before he took the stairs two at a time until he reached you. “Fine, but keep your head down.” He curled his arm around your waist and turned down a corridor. “These men don’t mess around.”

They proved him right the moment Max knocked on the door and stepped into the large room with a glass wall overlooking the stripclub below. Two more burly guards stood just inside and a devilishly handsome man sat behind the huge mahogany desk. 

With just a flick of his ringed finger, the boss set his men into action and one tore you away from Max while the other sent a hard punch to his gut. 

“You’re late, Max,” the boss said as he rose to his feet and buttoned his suit up with deft fingers. “We had a deal.”

“Dev, I’ve got what you want,” he countered as he pulled the cloned device from his pocket and clutched his stomach. “It just took a little longer than expected.”

Dev took the phone with a small laugh. “You think I didn’t have eyes on you? I have been watching you the whole time.” He threw the device on the ground and stomped his heel on it until the glass crunched under foot. “Bring me the girl.”

“No, no, leave her out of it.” Max moved to intercept you as the guard dragged you closer to Dev but he was quickly winded by another punch. “She doesn’t know anything.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Dev ran his finger down your cheek and you shivered at the strangely intimate touch. “She’s very beautiful, isn’t she, Max. Do you actually care for her or is she another distraction while you make deals behind my back?”

Dev reached into his pocket and pulled out a small stack of photos, tossing them to the floor at Max’s feet. His face fell passive as he stared at the images of him shaking hands and smiling with some strangers, he didn’t even bother to deny the allegations.

“Now, where does that leave us?” Dev asked as he walked behind you and sent the guard back to the door. You dared not look at what the man behind you was doing as you felt his presence close, instead you locked eyes with Max and hoped to see some sort of plan forming in those depths.

“What do you want?” Max asked after breaking away from your stare. 

Dev sucked his teeth and you jumped as his large palms came to rest on your shoulders. “Those scumbags have been taking my girls, butchering the ones they don’t sell. Maybe I should give you a taste of how that feels?”

The grip on your shoulders tightened until a small sound escaped your lips and Max jolted forward. “Or, you tell me everything you know about them.”

Max raised his hands to try to diffuse the situation as he spoke softly, “I don’t know anything, I swear.”

You saw the faint sheen of dampness on his palms and his upturned collar fluttered slightly from the rapid increase in his pulse while his pupils dilated. Even after you had been threatened he was still lying, putting you at risk. You shouldn’t have been surprised. 

Something more powerful than rage hit you square in the chest, something you had felt once before - betrayal.

“He’s lying,” you uttered quietly, knowing Dev’s face was close to yours from the warm notes of whiskey that lingered on his breath. Dev’s fingers lifted in surprise and he spun you around to see your jaw clenched in anger, lips pressed to a tight line.

“Not the devoted, lovesick little girlfriend after all.”

“I have a thing about being lied to by him,” you said as you lifted your chin higher and stared back into the searing grey eyes of the boss. “Hurting me won’t get you what you want. He obviously doesn’t care.”

Dev chuckled and dipped his head closer to whisper, “We’ll see about that, won’t we.”

You were shoved away from him and into the arms of the guard who began to drag you from the room. The need to fight flooded you and you kicked your legs out, trying to grab anything you could, but it was fruitless. You couldn’t break the hold that kept your arms pinned and Max was blocked by the other guard. 

“Louis, take her to my private room,” Dev said as you passed the threshold, throwing you a wink before he shut the door. 

“Let me go, please, I have money.”

“I don’t need your money.” Louis laughed as he opened the door to the room next door and started to place you down gently. “Relax, Dev doesn’t hurt women.”

You stilled as your feet reached the carpet and you saw a window into the office. A one way mirror that you hadn’t noticed when you were inside the room. “It was a ploy.”

The guard pressed his finger to a button on the wall and Max’s voice came through on the vent that opened near the ceiling, “Look, I brought her into this but she had nothing to do with it. Let her go and I’ll tell you what I know.”

Surprise nearly knocked you off your feet as he bartered for your freedom and you stumbled away from the window and into a metal chair. 

You had spent years wondering if any of what he said to you was real, if he had even cared when he stole millions from your family and ruined your career. Then, again, when he showed up out of the blue in your auditorium, you had doubted his feelings for you. But finally, you had your answer. Only you weren’t sure it even mattered by now.

“Tell me first, then I’ll let her go. Unharmed, of course.”

Max ran a hand through his hair, messing the dark strands before unbuttoning his suit jacket and dropping into a leather recliner. “They know you want information about their boss.”  

“How did they know that?”

“Because I told them,” Max admitted with a tight-lipped smile. “And they gave me a tonne of cash for it.”

Dev tutted and took a seat at his desk. “Always thinking about the money aren’t you, Max.”

“Your boyfriend is a bit of an asshole,” Louis commented as he took a seat beside you. “What do you see in him anyway?”

“It’s none of your business,” you muttered as you watched Max tell Dev everything. He explained how he approached Dev’s adversary, figuring he could make some money out of the exchange as well as use the threat to draw you back into his life. Every word he spoke caused your stomach to drop further and you turned to Louis. “Did they really kidnap your dancers?”

Louis gave a tense nod. “They take homeless girls too. No one reports them missing or cares when they show up dead.”

You turned your attention to Max who was cold and unsympathetic to the horrible acts that were happening while he rolled in the cash playing both sides. He even had the audacity to look smug as he sat there comfortably. You suddenly realised that although he actually loved you and you had been slipping back into those feelings, it didn’t change the fact he was an asshole. An asshole you could no longer stomach spending the rest of your life with, no matter how thrilling an adventure it may be. 

“Hey, where are you going?” Louis asked as you shot up from your seat and stormed back to the office. 

The door slammed open and Dev cocked an eyebrow at your entrance while Max frowned in confusion. “You piece of shit,” you growled. “You lied to me!”

“Sweetheart, I don’t know what they’ve said about me but you can trust me,” Max said softly, like he was talking to a skittish horse that was unbroken.

“They didn’t have to say anything,” you said as you stepped closer to Dev. “You did enough of that yourself.”

“I suppose I should’ve warned you how thin the walls are in this room,” Dev said with a smirk. 

You reeled in your fury as you pushed emotion aside to focus on the facts. “You told me you would be giving him the phone so they could deal with the traffickers.”

“I say a lot of things, sweetheart.”

“I know,” you said with a humourless laugh. “Trust me, I know. I guess that’s why I didn’t completely believe anything you told me. You always did tell the best lies.”

Max straightened up in his seat and his eyes narrowed as his head tilted. He was desperately running through the memories of the last month trying to figure out what the vague threat was. 

Turning your back to Max, you faced Dev and crossed your arms. “There’s a laptop in the car downstairs, send one of your men to get it and I will do better than just getting you contact information.”

“Y/N, no, what are you doing?” Max interrupted and tried to rise from the chair only to have his shoulders pinned by the guard behind him before he patted Max’s pockets to find the car keys. “What did you do?”

Louis caught the keys that were thrown his way before slipping from the room. 

The atmosphere spiked as Max squirmed under the pressure of the grip but you couldn’t find any enjoyment in his discomfort, even if he deserved that and more. 

“May I?” you asked Dev as you nodded to his empty chair. 

The seat was still warm as you took a seat and the scent of his cologne stronger like it had permeated the air around his desk from the long hours he spent working. You could already see he was a boss who cared about his employees, even if it appeared he was some kind of ring leader, and he looked exhausted beneath the confident stance and 5 o’clock shadow. 

The inquisitive stare was broken when Louis swept into the room with your laptop bag and carefully placed it on the desk, moving Dev’s keyboard aside for you. 

“What are you doing?” Max asked again, a hint of true fear in his voice as it peaked.

“I really hoped you had been honest with me.” You didn’t even look up as you continued typing. “I was ready to leave everything, go anywhere with you…but there was always that doubt.

“That’s what my lecture was about the day you came to my class. Instinct and intuition.” Dev circled around his desk to stand behind your chair but unless he understood coding script all he would see was lines of nonsense across the screen. 

“What is all this?” Dev asked as he leaned over the chair to look closer as if it would suddenly make sense.

You glanced up over the screen to lock eyes with Max. “Last night while you were with Brent I hacked the bank to trigger their security procedure.”

“Why?” he asked.

“In case you failed. I couldn’t just go digging around where I shouldn’t, it would’ve raised some red flags. But once they’ve been hacked? It’s a free for all to search every file, software, system.”

You hit enter and the window switched to the home screen of SAP; the accounting software that held all the information about every client of Hartmont Brough Bank from their name, address and tax code to their bank account number and balance. 

“Holy shit,” Dev said breathlessly. “Who are you?”

You held out your hand for him to shake as you formally introduced yourself, “Y/N Y/L/N.”

His eyes widened in recognition of your surname. “As in Y/L/N Enterprises?”

“Not anymore,” you huffed as you narrowed your eyes at Max who was fuming in the chair. “Give me their names.”

“You don’t want to mess with these people,” Max growled through his teeth.

“That’s what you said about him too,” you said as you gave Dev an appreciative once over, “but he seems pretty decent to me.” 

Dev smirked at the compliment and Max thrashed against the hold on him as he argued, “They won’t just kill you, they will make you watch every one you love die first before they gut you too.”

“Dev?” you prompted as your fingers hovered over the keys waiting to search the portal for a name.

Max gave up trying to get through to you and turned his attempts on Dev. “If you tell her who they are you might as well put a gun to her head now.”

That gave Dev pause and you were shown another glimpse of his moral compass. Placing a hand on his arm to get him to look away from Max, you gave him a reassuring smile and said, “They won’t be able to trace this to me. He’s just trying to save himself because the target will be on his back.”

His grey eyes scanned yours for a moment, searching for a hint of a lie, before he gave a small nod and stood up. “Adam Bethel and Kristian Svensek.”

You started with Adam and whistled at the bank balance that had put your family’s fortune to shame. “Would be a waste to just erase it.”

“Here,” Dev said as he opened his internet browser on his phone and found a charity that supported survivors of sex trafficking after rescuing women. “Give it to them.”

Max groaned and dropped his head at the thought of stealing all that money and not keeping a cent of it. The thought made you smile because he was right when he said you enjoyed the thrill of playing spymaster but being Robin Hood was even better.

You entered the banking details for Agape International Missions and made the donation anonymously before moving onto Kristian and giving his sum to Shared Hope International.

Sitting back, you stared at the screen and smiled with satisfaction, the final balance: $0.01. 

“600 million dollars,” Max grumbled and gave up fighting, falling back into the chair. “You just gave away 600 million dollars.”

“Nope, I just invested it,” you corrected as you exited the hidden backdoor you had built into the system while you were supposed to be scanning the Online Portal last night. “And if Adam or Kristian report the money missing then they will have to somehow explain where the money came, something I am sure they don’t want the authorities looking into.”

“There’s still billions more just sitting there! Why don’t you just take it?” Max pleaded and you saw the manic gleam to his eyes. He was hooked, like a heroin addict, he was addicted to this life and would stop at nothing for his next fix. 

“Because I’m not like you.” You realised that there would be too much temptation for someone to copy your code to keep the backdoor in place in the system so you erased it before closing the laptop shut. “It’s over, Max.”

“You really had me fooled,” he chuffed as he rose to his feet and this time the guard let him. 

“Doesn’t feel great does it?”

Max ran his tongue across his teeth before pointing to Louis blocking the door. “Are we done here or what? It’s been a long night.”

Dev nodded his head to Louis and the man moved aside for Max who paused on the other side. “I trust your new friend can help you get back to New York, forgive me for not wanting to take you there myself.”

“I can manage just fine on my own.”

“So I have found,” he muttered as he sauntered off down the stairs.

“Wait,” you shouted and rushed after him as you remembered something. “You should have these.” You pulled the engagement ring and wedding band from your finger and tossed them to where he had stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “Sell them if you need the money that badly.”

He stared as the rings resting in his palms, the diamonds sparkling in the laser lights that escaped the door to the stripclub that was beginning to close. His shaking fist closed tightly around them before he threw his head back with a bitter laugh and tossed the worthless rings out into the street. 

“Goodbye, Maxwell Burnett,” you said as he turned to the dark streets and you watched his silhouette until it disappeared. 

Six Months Later

“Nature vs Nurture. What makes us function as we do? How is our cognitive reasoning influenced? Are we wired to behave the way we do through inherited genes or from the environment we are subject to? These are the questions I want you to think about before we return next semester. For now, enjoy your vacation and happy holidays.”

The classroom was far smaller than the auditorium you had lectured in at Fordham University but you had settled happily into life at Boston College. You closed your textbook as the room quickly emptied, each student eager to leave campus for the term. You couldn’t blame them, you were just as ready to take a break after the year you had endured.

Shoving your book in your bag, you slung it over your shoulder and pushed away the thoughts that encroached uninvited. Every now and again you wondered where Max was, what trouble he was getting up to. You couldn’t help it. He was your first love and no matter how many years passed he could still worm his way into your thoughts, perhaps he always would. So long as he stayed out of your life, you could handle the rest. 

The bang of the door closing had you jump and you spun around too quickly, your heavy bag throwing you off balance, but a strong pair of hands caught your waist and kept you upright. 

“Everything okay?” Dev asked with a frown before scanning the room to see if there was a reason you were on edge.

“Lost track of time in my own little world. I’m fine,” you reassured him with a quick kiss. “What are you doing here anyway?”

Dev pulled out his phone as he explained, “Your program got another hit, it found them.” A pixelated image of two young women appeared on the screen, taken from an ATM security camera, but the facial recognition matched the last two of Dev’s dancers that had gone missing months ago. “It was taken in Kosovo. Louis’ gone to check it out before he calls Agape but it will take him a while to get there.” Dev’s excitement was palpable as he pocketed the device and wrapped you in his arms. 

The bag slipped from your shoulder and thudded to the ground but you didn’t care as you threw your arms around his neck and squealed with joy. 

“I just had to come and tell you the news,” he murmured between kisses. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Max was right - you couldn’t just go back to the mundane life of a professor. But you couldn’t be like him either, cold and calculating without remorse. You chose to be better, you chose to do better. 

“I told you we would bring them home.”

Matt Bomer as Dev:

[intertexts-moving]

still thinking abt what happens next. its such a good dissection of blame + morality+ perpetuation of cruel cycles. however i have to admit i don't particularly subscribe to the main body of commentators ' "everyone is scheming and has awful intention" take. i mean. hanlon's razor.-- milo obviously dismembered a dead body. which frankly in no world sounds better than saying he killed her. like, he is obviously culpable of that + incapable of processing that culpability but it's jarring to see everyone immediately locking onto gage as some kind of evil and actively manipulating from the start mastermind. they seem pretty obviously to me to be a preexisting Type Of Guy: isolated, miserable, (obsessive) parasocial relationship w/ people who Do, in fact, Exist, and aren't fake characters in a story (haha). his treatment of milo seems way more in line w/ that kind of "genuinely ignorant of how normal friendships and relationships work" than "secretly plotting your demise "-- the weed & crossbow thing read as familiar to me. pressuring, yes, but not actively so. thats just like... the way people are? the way u act when you're kind of awkwardly acquaintances/frienfs w someone and u invite them 2 partake in ur hobbies. just sucks that gage's hobbies are literally only stalking murderers + getting high w the nastiest bong u havr ever seen + shooting white monster cans in the woods with a crossbow. the effect is negative, obviously, because milo is a fucking basket case on a ton of medications with a criminal record for sawing off a girl's arms and the looming threat of inpatient if he doesnt behave over his head. not downplaying the other thing btw that's in a different category imo & while the kiss itself wasnt inherently a Bad Thing to Do imo their reaction & justification absolutely was.. still kind of weird 2 me that it appears like there's a bigger sympathy for claire (dealt with the trauma by becoming a transphobic turning point usa girlie who uses her sister's notoriety to advocate for punishing minors in the justice system even worse & treating her gf like shit) than gage (obviously fucked in the head minimum wage worker with no bar for what a normal interaction or relationship looks like at all.) OR vikki (trans woman of color whos career! is to stir up shit! even if she was kind of a cunt!) anyway the milo / claire parallels are baller i love when people fucking hate each other but are so similar... girl its been nine years stop sticking your fingers in your own bloody wounds stop it stop it stop it! when will u stop reliving the trauma ever day for its own sake. (claire's self harming actions here are obviously infinitely worse because she is like,,, Actively Hurting So Many People. and for what! so she can wear awful dresses and get hit on by oily white senators and drag the bleeding dead weight of her sisters body around everywhere she goes?) ahhh what ever. good book i have to pack now.

[dramioneasks]

GUYS i want to recommend this new fanfiction. Just read it yesterday and i think it's really worth it.

It's BLOODY, SLUTTY, AND PATHETIC by WhatMurdah

https://archiveofourown.org/works/52884502

Thanks!

Summary:

Summary:

“In my humble opinion there’s only three things that men should be and that is bloody, slutty, and pathetic.” And, on a good day, Draco Malfoy can be all three. When war heroine Hermione Granger and Azkaban-tattooed war criminal Draco Malfoy are forced to wed as part of Shacklebolt’s controversial Reconciliation Act, they openly fight the match and each other—their public brawls breathlessly reported by the press. Secretly, a deeply traumatized Draco delights in Hermione’s attention and pines for a real marriage with her—even as her forced proximity to the Black family magic irritates the cursed scar Bellatrix left on her arm, reminding her why she can never truly trust or forgive him. Then Hermione discovers that Draco’s blood will soothe the scar . . . and Draco is willing to trade his blood for her body. (With post-war blood purity politics, black market potioneers, Pansy Parkinson’s career advice, the Malfoys blackmailing Hermione’s Wizengamot opposition, BDE Neville Longbottom hunting Death Eaters, a slutty Theo Nott serving as Draco’s right-hand man, and Crookshanks loose in Malfoy Manor.)

[fountainpenguin]

Been bingeing T.U.F.F. Puppy and Bunsen Is a Beast while I've been sick. Here's a liveblog of highlights I enjoyed:

Every line of dialogue in these shows is fantastic...

- "You don't need to breathe- You just need to obey my every command." - "In the interest of our friendship, which is way more important to me than anything in the world... I'm taking the speedboat. Think about it- You don't want the hassle of owning a speedboat!" - "I've been nice this year. And by 'Nice,' I mean I've kept my more sinister acts on the downlow through deception, deceit, and occasionally framing others." - "This is the greatest moment of my brief life!" - "Anywho, Santa... You're looking buff! Have you been hitting the gym~?" / "Are we seriously doing this?" - "To protect my standing on the nice list, can you please refer to me as Marsha during this particular evil mission?" - "You guys have to save Christmas! ... I would, but I'm in a box and I'm 5." - "You don't need to know the laws when you're a criminal. Or a baby! Just a little fun fact I thought I'd throw out there." - "I know you are lying to me... Your status says I'm lying to The Chameleon." - "You voluntarily touched me in an affectionate way!" - "I love our new crib! It was an impulse buy. (Gasp)- We should steal a baby to put in it!" - "If I'm so dumb, how come I've been getting away with slowly poisoning you?" - "You're going down for armed robbery!" / "They're not armed." / "Are you kidding me? Have you seen this man's guns?" - "Let me leave! I'm not even helpful!" / "I'm never helpful and I'm still here." - Okay... Such good animatic redraw material.

- So many silly characters, many of whom look like cinnamon rolls but would actually kill you. I love them. I should finish my 'fic WIPs. Dudley's later flanderization-characterization still makes me sad... He cared so much about working in Season 1 that he couldn't settle down on vacation. He'd explore, he'd volunteer for things, he obsessed about paperwork... That's who he is... He was good at his job. I miss him.

- Who do you think has the higher kill count: Chameleon eating [confirmed sentient] bugs his whole life, or Keswick wiping out his home dimension? ... I guess it would HAVE to be Keswick because he would've killed the bugs too, huh?

- I really love the worldbuilding vibe of "You're allowed to kill other creatures, but if the ambulance is called, everyone is treated equally." Yeah, we sell flea collars and body spray. Yes, the Chief got incredibly sick when Dudley wore a flea collar into work; that is a thing that happened.

- Making one of the main characters a flea was pretty fantastic in itself, let's be honest. How many anthro shows have a bug main character (unless the show is all about bugs), and how many of them have a special mobility aid thing that magnifies their appearance, keeps them off the floor, gives them extra strength, etc... It's great.

- I love the Chief's monitor cart:

Why does it sit in chairs? How can he use the hands? Outrageous.

- It's heavily implied that even the creatures that look and act feral are actually sentient, which just makes Kitty bringing the Chief dead mice as a form of affection so much darker...

[cnt'd]

- How on earth did The Chameleon get invited to career day to speak to little kids about being a super villain? Whose idea was that?

- I love "Guard Dog"- It's probably my favorite episode. So many good quotes, such a goofy set-up, you get to travel outside Petropolis, it delves into some of the in-universe witness protection lore... It's great.

- I love Chameleon snuggling with Dudley because they're handcuffed together and he's cold-blooded. I like the end when Kitty is handcuffed to 5 people at once, but Dudley leaving her that way feels justified because she left him for the entire ride to Petsburg.

- I particularly enjoy Kitty only having 4 limbs, so Larry and Francesco are both chained to the same leg. I feel like they could very easily rip that off, especially with how often Francesco tries to eat stuff.

- I wanna talk about Chameleon's side hustle of going on dates with people who ask him to shapeshift into their dream person.

- Wannabee was forced out of the auditorium halfway through his evil scheme so the students could have play rehearsal.

- I will never be over Wannabee gushing over how cool he thinks it is that he can make honey and that he will outright tell you he makes it mouth to mouth. They could've given us bees passing the honey by hand, but no... No, we get to see them do it mouth to mouth and Wannabee brags about it. Hilarious.

- My adoration for Birdbrain is also growing. What do you mean he's lonely and cloning himself to save his species? What do you mean he can just walk into T.U.F.F. headquarters and shred their files for his nest material because he's endangered and they can't hurt him? That's hilarious.

- I think I said this years ago, but I really like how there's no romance between Birdbrain and Zippy. He hates her equally to all his other henchmen. Everyone he works with is useless, so he leaves them in the car with the window cracked instead of bringing them to heists. Man wants a partner and kids so bad, he puts up with the most annoying people you've ever seen... He hates them so much...

I can't stop thinking about the B-plot in "Pup In the Air" of Birdbrain trying to keep his deposit on the house he rented, but his henchmen just keep making terrible choices-

- Every time I think about how Owl's name is Terry, it just cracks me up. I don't think Birdbrain knows Owl and Bat have first names because the only two things they ever say are "Who?" and "Where?" so they can't communicate who they are as people.

- Also, shout-out to the commitment to Bat being blind. Unclear if he uses echolocation... He just kinda runs around. Why on earth does he have a gun?

Bonus screenshot to highlight Bat's gorgeous wing design:

- Why don't Owl and Birdbrain get feathered wings? DO they have feathered wings? I assume they don't, because Owl flies like this:

And we know Birdbrain can't fly, but his arms don't become wings either:

- Obsessed with Snaptrap having the power to erase minds and the only time he uses it is when wiping the minds of critics who were mean to his dancing clone.

- Some of these hero-villain relationships are so good... Dudley broke The Chameleon out of the holding cell so they can enter a two-person contest. Dudley pretends he's been poisoned and The Chameleon just goes along with it because it makes him look like a cool villain. Kitty gets dance lessons from Snaptrap... Dudley and Snaptrap were roommates... Snaptrap dated Dudley's mom... Dudley dated Birdbrain... They are so goofy.

- Speaking of Dudley dating Birdbrain, that episode cracks me up for many reasons, but one of them is definitely "Dudley getting in the way and being a pain even when he's trying to do his best job being sweet and helpful." "I'm blowing kisses~ And now they're hitting you~" /starts jabbing his fingers all over Birdbrain while Birdbrain's driving

- Can't stop thinking about how much I love Larry. Him and the evil crew he pulled by being a silly brother-in-law <3 I wish they would've delved into the Larry & Snaptrap are brothers-in-law thing in-show (It was only confirmed in outside trivia iirc), but... them.

He sit:

This would make a great "Draw the squad" meme, actually.

Oh, I just looked it up to see if I could find a source (because it was years ago that I read this fact and I suddenly worried it wasn't real). No direct source link, but here's what I found on the Wiki:

I've always assumed that means he's married to Pat since she's the only confirmed sister Snaptrap has-

But like, I think about this all the time... The Snaptraps are canonically a crime family, so did Larry know what he was getting into? Are they on good terms? They're not divorced. Is it a forbidden love? I still want a huge rivalry between the rats and the shrews... It would be so funny...

We know Snaptrap and Francesco share a bunk bed (or at minimum, a room with bunkbeds in it). I assume Larry goes home to see his wife, right? We know she's an actual successful criminal who thinks her brother is a failure, so, like... why does she let her husband hang out there where he's being tormented daily?

I watched the episode where Snaptrap gripes that Larry's face scares off girls, but like... that's so funny. Is it because he's married? Some of the other members of D.O.O.M. - like Ollie - are sad that girls don't talk to them, but Larry doesn't, like... ever discuss that. I wish he would've bragged about being married. I think it would drive Snaptrap up the wall. Maybe he does. I really wish we would've seen Larry at the Snaptrap family reunion. Larry, your wife...

I doodled Larry with his Murray hair because it's cute when he ties it back :)

- It will never not be funny that when Larry defected and founded his own league of villains, he broke the entire crimefighting system by refusing to call in advance to tell T.U.F.F. what he was about to steal. Overnight sensation. Everybody hates him for that.

- Once upon a time, I joked that Larry probably worked with his brother-in-law instead of his wife because Snaptrap's crimes are smaller, so Larry probably gets out of jail sooner and can spend more time with the kids, house, etc. Knowing what we know about what a meticulous planner he is when he takes over, I think that sounds about right. It's all one big, elaborate thing... That's very Larry.

- There are so many little moments of the Snaptrap-Larry hatred I enjoy, like how they play word games together and Larry just gets in his face about it. Larry rarely communicates directly with T.U.F.F. (barring the episode he's his own villain), but in "Girlfriend or Foe," he jumps on the call just to brag about how he's beating Snaptrap in the game and I think that's fantastic. Even back in "Share-a-Lair," they were playing word games.

- In the truth syrup episode, Snaptrap admits he doesn't actually hate Larry, but he's hard on him because he thinks Larry has the most potential to be evil... but Larry straight-up confirms that he's been putting black widows in Snaptrap's gym bag. It's so funny to me... Snaptrap is mean in predictable ways, but do not mess with Larry. He'll get you back.

- I like how they went on a gameshow where Snaptrap had to guess Larry's secret desire, and it was-

The reason they lost out on their free vacation to Maui was because Larry stuck a rattlesnake in Snaptrap's pants at the airport and they couldn't get on the plane. He just can't help himself... He hates him so much. I just love them. He sit...

Why does Larry just have access to rattlesnakes and cobras? What does he do in his spare time?

- I like when Snaptrap breaks out of the holding cell to get snacks and then he goes back. That's always great.

- I love how committed Mikey is to being president of the Beast welcoming community. He has ONE JOB and he's going to do it. He loves his gift baskets. What do you mean Muckledunk's biggest export is silent whistles and they sell 9 per year? What.

- Everything Mikey says is fascinating to me. Also, within the first ~60 seconds of knowing him as a character in Episode 1, you get so much... He's an extravert, he does his research, he knows his town history, he plans ahead, he gets excited when he doesn't mess up his prepared speech, he's savage for no reason... It's great. Flawless character introduction.

- Like... Just the entire dynamic of "Bunsen is the first Beast to come to human school - and he's a member of a species known for eating humans - and it's on Mikey to make him feel welcome, not just as a fellow student but as an authority figure" is really interesting to me. Most of Bunsen's friends throughout the series are Beasts, which makes sense- Bunsen's actually pretty shy. Like... you wouldn't guess it by looking at him and his role as comic relief, but he's definitely less social than Mikey.

This screenshot just tells you the whole series dynamic:

It's Mikey and Amanda at each other's throats and Bunsen anxious in the background. SO funny. I also watched "My Gym Partner's a Monkey" years ago (and a little bit of "Squirrel Boy"), and both those shows lean into the "human is the comedic straight man and the non-human is the wild one" vibes.

But no... not Bunsen Is a Beast. It's Mikey who's the energetic, off-the-wall wild card. Bunsen just lives here. He's straight-up just a nerd who got sent to human school. Love that for him. Mikey's driving this car, but Bunsen keeps him from plowing into buildings and lakes.

Literally your best defense against Mikey is that when he gets too excited, he faints. This happens in multiple episodes.

Bunsen has such incredible "Perfectionist, told he's mature for his age" vibes... In Episode 1 when he almost eats Mikey, he whimpers, "Sorry, Mikey... I failed to co-mingle..." Everything in Bunsen's plot line comes back to "If you screw up, we can kick your whole species underground again." That's so much for a little guy. Ugh. My heart. I think he'd get along fantastically with Hazel. Mikey would be a lot for her.

- Every time Mikey and Bunsen try to say something in sync, but fail to do so, it's funny to me...

Your honor, this is a show about friends and kindness...

- I totally forgot the person Amanda invited to school for the "someone you wouldn't normally hang out with" event was someone with a restraining order against her. That's objectively hilarious.

- Cracking up at Mikey asking Amanda for break-up advice. Also, Bunsen warned him that if he tried to have a break-up talk with Willa, she might just eat him, and Mikey did it anyway. There is one thing this boy will not compromise on and it is "I am not comfortable with this. Stop coming onto me." Love that for him.

- I forgot Mikey got invited to a dance by Bunsen's cousin and he was so terrified he stopped breathing.

- "Extremely horny rich girl" & "Guy who will lure her in with promises of kisses and then dodge at the last second so something horrible happens to her" is such a funny combo. Mikey-Amanda rivalry, you will always be famous to me... You cannot get Mikey to accept her flirtations... He would sooner chew his arm off, I think.

- I can't believe Mikey threw Amanda off Santa's sleigh. Flying above the city. Really high. On purpose. Of course he would.

- I always forget Bunsen's house was just, like... built in the middle of the decorative roundabout piece.

- Mikey sending his own clone to run his conspiracy club is still one of the funniest plot set-ups I've ever seen. I didn't see it coming because Mikey was bringing in clones for every club he's in, but... yep. I can see how this went wrong. Mikey is such a terrible dad to his clones; it's so funny. He just dunks on them every time he sees them.

- I like how Nerd Mikey is equally as unhinged as regular Mikey. Logically he would be - He's a clone - but what is going on inside his head... Sir, you can't just leave school property to go back in time...

- What do you mean Mikey is in the "Amanda Stares at Mikey and Makes Tiger Growl Sounds" club. I mean, by default he kind of has to be there, but that's so funny...

- Totally forgot Mikey wants to write a song called "Hey Mom- Get Out of My Room." His hatred for his clingy parents plagues him constantly.

- Amanda- "I'm going to watch Munroe change his shirt. Raowr." / Mikey, screaming- "I will DIE in this shirt!"

- It is SO funny that even if you ask him directly, Bunsen will avoid questions about whether he eats people, but his first instinct to smelling Mikey covered in barbecue sauce is to tell him he smells delicious, and his first response to his BFF Wolfie suggesting they eat Mikey on a plate of noodles is "That does sound good." Hey. what.

And Wolfie knows Bunsen's hesitant about it, because he blatantly calls Mikey delicious, removes Bunsen's eyes, and tries to eat Mikey while Bunsen's looking for his eyeballs. Later he actually does get him in his mouth. And Amanda. omfg Wolfie...

We literally get to see a health class short film that's like "Let's talk about people-eating urges and feelings of guilt that come with it!" omg. Bunsen, why is that in your house? Why was that already on your person? Do you wanna talk about it?

I wonder if BiaB would've done better if it had been played with Invader Zim vibes. These shows have similar energy, but Zim has the colors and music to match its dark vibe. BiaB also gets pretty dark, but the colors and music make it so peppy and cheery... I think that's silly. You can tell it's got FOP energy (Sweet on top, horrifying underneath).

- Bunsen has so much anxiety about following rules even when they're in direct conflict to his happiness... He is doing his best...

- Forgot Bunsen is personally offended to learn that humans don't give Santa gifts, because Beasts give gifts to their present-giver. He just has such a strong sense of personal justice and loyalty...

- I cannot get over Bob slowly fading from the timeline, but continuing to report the news anyway. He's flickering, gradually losing his legs, but he acts like nothing's wrong.

They brought him a stool because his legs got disintegrated... They throw things through his head..

- I can't believe Amanda almost put a kitten in a woodchipper.

- Mikey's parents are so overprotective, distant, and weird about him, they canonically have not given him The Talk about where babies come from. He doesn't know his middle name.

- I LOVE how Mikey's relationship with his parents is just, like... him screaming that he wants them to back off and let him grow up. They just spy on him with a drone. "Stalked by his parents" is such a silly thing to do with your main character.

- They leave him at home to fend for himself, but still micromanage what he's allowed to do (Ex: He can own a llama and a scary praying mantis, but not a dog). Heavily implied they avoid their son because germs. There is no doubt in my mind they will continue spying on him when he's an adult. That's rough, buddy.

- Is Mikey a kleptomaniac? He just steals things... Amanda's dog. A shopping cart. He took some guy's lamp for no reason. He just took it on his way out.

- It's not like "Mikey is a massive guilt-tripper" was new to me, but it's still SO funny to watch him blatantly take advantage of Cosmo and Wanda even after Timmy repeatedly asked him to stop wishing. Timmy gave him an inch and he fought for a mile.

- Perfect depiction of the Mikey-Timmy relationship:

Mikey, please stop running Cosmo and Wanda ragged- / I totally hear you. No <3

- Mikey is older, but Timmy is unquestionably the more sensible and responsible one of this duo. Which is horrifying.

iirc, the "Beast of Friends" crossover took place when Season 10 was airing, though it's probably pre-Chloe since she wasn't there. Consider: Timmy resisted Chloe as a godsister because Mikey had already turned him off to the idea of sharing fairies.

- I totally forgot Mikey got sent to the future once. I can use this...

- Timmy calls Mikey "kid who's older than me" because Mikey didn't like him just saying "kid"

- Mikey adored the crossover. I think Timmy's glad he didn't have to hang out with Mikey any longer than he did. Just in August, I scrapped my "Best. Day. Ever." prompt for the 130 which was about Mikey running Timmy ragged, but... I kinda want to bring it back. Mikey is exhausting. He will break you down.

- I like how Mikey was excited by everything Timmy showed him, but Timmy was uneasy about Bunsen's house; it's Timmy who took charge of trying to explain things as realistic to his confused dad. Mikey literally did not care if people were put off.

- I still think it would be funny if Mikey and Dev switched drones for a day. Also, you'll see this in my Dale character profile on the sideblog, but my headcanon is that Mikey grew up and went into security with a pinch of robotics on the side (taking after his parents), so he just, like... bothers Dale. They met as kids when Mikey tagged along on an installation trip for the Dimmadomes, playing into my long-time headcanon that all the rich people in Dimmsdale have wild security systems because of Mikey's parents. Dale does not like him. Mikey's been mailing Dale Waffle House coupons for 20 years. There are no Waffle Houses in California.

- Mikey would snap Peri like a toothpick. He's just a lot and I cannot imagine a world where Peri has the patience for him.

Anyway, thanks for reading my liveblog. Silly, silly...

[techbonnie]

I had a concept in my head, No Idea if I'm gonna follow through with it or not. I've always wanted to do a Mafia AU type thing but never found characters I felt fit.

None of this would be canon compliant in anyway shape or form lmao

some Bios under the cut

The Fazbears

First we've got the Don, the Boss, Fredbear "Goldie" Fazbear. He's the godfather, his family and Springs, have been part of this operation since the days of Al Capone. The police have been trying to get him for years , they've never been successful. He's a ruthless criminal and a strict father to the Freddles: Junior (Freddy), Teddy, and Ned (AKA Nightmare). Fredbears family diner is more or less a functional resturaunt but mostly acts a shell corp for his money laundering.

The eldest of the sons is Fredrick Fazbear, To his buddies (Bonnie, Chika, and Roxy) he's merely Freddy (Never Fredbear). To his brothers and Father Freddy is Junior. He grew up best friends with Bonnie and Foxy. He's set to inherit the "business" from his Father, he knows better than to "go against the family" but it doesn't stop him from wanting to leave the life with Bonnie on his arm and not have to worry about being raided at any moment.

Teddy Fazbear (Toy Freddy) is the youngest of the three and while he is younf he is a Capo in the Family. He's annoyed that his father wants Freddy to inherit the buisiness instead of him. Its all Teddy has always wanted. Goldie promoted him to Capo at 16, he saw promise from his youngest. But he's still young and very enthusiastic about his assignments. Goldie believes that Teddy has some growing to do before he can name him his successor.

Ned "Nightmare" Fazbear (Nightmare) He's the middle son, but the biggest. The boy is built like a brick house. He has no drive to be head of the family, but is more than willing to act a bouncer/bodyguard/ muscle for either his father or brothers.

The Bunny's

Spring "Bonnie" Bunny, Joined the Family at 16, when his father insisted. Was best friends with Fredbear, and eventually went to college, had to drop out after the mother of his children got sick, hospital bills piled up and Spring had to return to the family, tail between his legs, luckily Fredbear understood that he couldn't get in trouble with the law, with two kids reliant on him, and a sick wife with expensive hospital bills, Fredbear opened the diner and let Spring head the restaurant.

Bonnie Bunny, named after his Dad sort of. Spring tried to keep Bonnie out of the business, but then found out about Bonnie and Freddy's relationship and is doing his best to protect his son, and Freddy, from Goldies wrath should he ever find out. Bonnie was trained in Cello, Bass, and Guitar. He loves music and wants to pursue a career in music with Freddy, but has a back up of business major (If the music doesn't work out he wants to own a bowling alley). Currently Bonnie is a college student(On the college Bowling team), and works the Bar and Ice cream Parlor at Fredbears family diner.

Theo Bunny, named after their mothers father. He was young when Mrs. Bunny died. He doesn't remember her much at all. But he was a prodigy when he was younger, played Violin, his brother taught him Guitar. He knows about Freddy and Bonnie's relationship and often blackmails his brother with it, threatening to tell Goldie. So Bonnie almost always gives in to what ever Theo wants.

[nightkitchentarot]

Christmas Kindness

Don Lambert worked at a small newspaper in Kansas nearly 50 years ago when an example of Christmas Eve kindness made its way onto the front page. He submitted the story to Good News Network (GNN) in 2020, saying, “It has a message that is important to us every single day. Kindness is all around us.”

Here is Don’s recollection of the events from December 24, 1973.

I was a cub reporter at the time—not yet seasoned enough to have learned that an act of kindness, whether large or small, is sometimes found in the most unlikely of places and at the most needed of times.

On Christmas Eve, ‘The Boss’ had made this deal. If we all got our work done early, he would put the paper “to bed” a few hours early, giving us employees a few extra hours to be with our families.

Since I had the police beat, my main task was to check in at the local police department to learn whether there had been a crime such as a bank robbery or jail break to inform the public about.

“Nope, nothing here,” the police chief said anticipating my first question, adding with a chuckle, “It is too cold for the local criminals.”

As he did every morning, he handed me the police blotter, a hand-written list of the calls made to the police department. With my finger, I went down the list. Mostly piddily, as usual. There was, however, one entry which caught my attention from the North side, the poor part of town. A husband called to report his family’s clothes had been stolen.

How terrible, I thought, especially on this day. The next day, an entry from the same man, reporting that all of their clothes had been found. I had a hunch there might be a story there. I asked the officer, “You know the scoop?”

“Nope,” he replied. “In that neighborhood, you never know.”

I hopped into my Volkswagen Beetle and made a beeline to the neighborhood in search of the crime scene. With a notepad in one hand and lead pencil in the other, I knocked on the door.

I said I was hoping to write a story about her “incident.” She was holding a baby in her arms, two little boys were hiding behind her skirt.

She explained that this had not been a good time for her family. Her husband had been ill and lost his job. Preparing for Christmas, she washed all their clothes. The dryer was on the fritz again, the landlord hadn’t gotten around to fixing it. She could have taken the wet clothes to the laundromat on the other side of town. “But,” she whispered, “that costs money.” Instead, she hung them on the clothesline behind the house.

When she checked a short time later, she discovered that all of the clothes were gone. Stolen! That was when she called the police for the first time. A couple of hours later, there was a knock at her door. By the time she got there, no one was there. Instead, there was a large cardboard box at the front door. In it were all the clothes: dried, pressed and folded. And there was a note: “Wish we could do more. Merry Christmas.”

Arriving back at the newspaper office, I hollered out for the first—and only—time in my career, “Hold the presses!”

“This better be good,” the Boss growled.

“Since your story is late,” the crabby layout person said, “best I can do is try to squeeze it into page 7.”

“Page 7,” I shrieked. “The obituary page? No way!” I insisted, “My Christmas story goes on Page 1—and put it above the fold.”

My late-breaking story had delayed everything about an hour. By the time the press was warming up, the carrier boys were arriving, some with shiny new Schwinn bicycles, others with beat-up hand-me-downs. Each boy would fold about a hundred newspapers and tuck them into a canvas bag over his shoulder, to be tossed onto awaiting front porches.

When the printing began, The Boss and I were the only staff members remaining. He pulled the first one off the press. There it was, My Christmas story on page 1—above the fold.

“Good job,” The Boss said with a rare smile and even rarer pat on the back. “Because of your story the whole town will have a better Christmas—and so will I.”