#But Jesus fucking christ anyone with more than a single brain cell could have figured this shit out

[xproskeith]

Yknow... I'm gonna say it.

It's so fucking funny to see multiple people I knew RAGE against voting for Kamala because of some kind of purity politics (which let's be honest will never be a thing by virtue of them being fucking politicians) and/or the handling of Palestine and are now acting so shocked and outraged and sad about her losing and Trump winning.

I'm sorry, but what in the actual FUCK did you think was gonna happen by carrying on like that? No, it's not all on the 3rd party voters. That much is very evident. But yknow I'm sorry you don't get to post like that for MONTHS and then act all surprised and upset because Trump won.

[luna-eclipse2000]

“Don’t you dare throw that snowball- Goddamnit!” Jean Kirschtein x reader

“(Y/N), let’s go! There’s so much snow on the ground!” Sasha says excitedly as I put on my coat and gloves. “I’m coming! I’m coming!” I tell her as I finish up. “You. Me. Connie. Building a snowman.” Sasha plans what we’ll do. “Sounds good to me. Is it just us or... or is anyone else gonna help?” I ask her slightly awkwardly. “Nope. Just us.” She responds but then I see a devious smirk make its way onto her face. “Unless you want a certain horse to help out. Would you like that? Being so close to your other horse?” Sasha teases. “Will you shut up?” I ask her all flustered now as I push her slightly. “I’m your best friend. I’m allowed to tease you mercilessly about the guy you like.”

“Oo, Little Mr./Ms. Perfect has a crush, eh?” We hear Jean pitch in from the wall beside us. I turn quickly to face him. “How much did you hear?”

“Bye now!” Sasha says loudly before running away. “Sasha-!” I call after her, but it’s useless since she won’t come back. “Damn her for leaving me alone with him.”

“Just when Sasha said that she’s allowed to tease you mercilessly.” Jean responds to my question. I nod. “So, what were you gonna do out here?” Jean asks me. “I was gonna help Sasha and Connie build a snowman but she kinda ditched me, as you know.” I tell him as I look over my shoulder at my two friends playing in the snow. I look back at Jean. “What about you?”

“I was just going to watch everyone have fun since no one would want to hang out with me, but now I’m thinking of helping you build a snowman to get back at Sasha.” Jean tells me. “Wait, you want to help me?” I ask him. He nods. “Of course. I was hoping you’d be out here anyways, but now I get to hang out with you and have a battle against those single brain celled idiots.”

“Then let’s do it! You start on the bottom, I’ll do the middle.” I tell him and then we get to work. “How’s it going, (Y/N)?” Connie asks me as I push my ball of snow around. “It’s going great because Jean and I are going to out-snowman you and Sasha.” I tell him. “Impossible!” Connie denies. “Sasha and I are gonna make ours better than yours.”

“Keep telling yourselves that!” I tell him as I continue to roll my snowball. “Alright,” Jean says as he stops rolling his ball. “I made the base bigger than theirs since they finished theirs before us. We got the advantage.”

“Good thinking! I’ll continue on this and you start on the head.” I instruct and continue to roll for about another minute or so. “There we go. Come help me lift this up. I don’t want it to break.”

When I get no reply, I turn my head to try and find him. When I do, I notice his signature shit-eating grin on his face which gets me suspicious. If that wasn’t enough, both of his hands are behind his back. “What’s in your hands?” I ask cautiously. He shows me a snowball in one of them and I immediately know what he’s about to do. “Jean, don’t you dare throw that snowball-“ I warn but I get a heap of snow to my face. “Goddamnit!”

I wipe the snow off my face. “Alright, you’re gonna get it, Kirschtein!”

“Ah, shit!” Jean shouts as I make a snowball and chuck it at him. He falls over from the impact. “Ha ha! Victory is mine!” I exclaim. He gets back up and makes two more snowballs. The first one hits my chest so I turn around to protect my face from being hit again. Instead, I get one thrown at my ass and the snowball actually makes it sting. “Fuck, my ass!”

“Gladly.” I hear Jean mumble. “What?” I ask him to see if I heard correctly. “What?” He asks back. I see Sasha and Connie both have their jaws dropped open, telling me that they heard exactly what I did. “What did you say?” I ask him. “I said nothing. You can’t prove anything!” Jean quickly defends himself. “Oh ho, I know exactly how to get it out of you.” I say darkly and grab a handful of snow. I rush forward and shove it down his shirt. “Jesus Christ!” He shouts from the sudden coldness. “Tell me what you said!” I order. “Never!”

Jean begins to run away so I grab more snow and chase after him. “Tell me now or I’m gonna freeze your dick!” I threaten. “Fuck that!” He shouts as we run into the forest. “You’ll run out of breath eventually!” I remind him. “You too, idiot!” Jean counters. I start to get closer to him but I feel my foot get caught something and I start to go down. “Ah, shit!”

Jean turns around a bit to watch but doesn’t realize that I’m falling on him. We both fall into the ground and I sit up to figure out what just happened. That’s when I realize that I’m straddling his waist. We both blush red but Jean breaks out of the trance first and flips me over, then pins me down.

“Ha! Now you’re not shoving snow down my pants.” Jean says full of relief, but he still has that cocky tone to his voice. He then moves both of his legs so he’s straddling me instead. “Let me go, Jean.” I say as I struggle against his grasp which he only tightens. “I don’t think I will.” He responds. “I quite like having you right where you are now.”

I shiver. “Are you cold?” He asks me. “Well I am lying in snow.” I say. That’s a complete lie. These jackets are too thick to make you get cold just from lying in for a few minutes. It seems now that he has this... dominant look on his face. “How about I warm you up then?” Jean asks. My face goes even redder than before. “How?”

He leans down and presses his lips against mine harshly. It surprises me but I quickly start to kiss him back. We continue to makeout for a good minute or two before Jean pulls away so we can catch our breath. “I’m very warm now, thank you.” I tell him. “No problem.” He says and rolls off me so we’re lying side by side. “Think you could warm me up more often?” I ask him. He nods. “That’s doable.”

“So...” Jean starts. “This makes us a thing right? I mean, only if you really want to because-“

“Yeah. We’re a thing.” I say to shut him up. “Who knew that the cocky Jean Kirschtein could get so awkward when it comes to romance?”

“Shut up.” Jean orders as he gets up. “We should head back before Sasha and Connie get the wrong idea. Or before Captain Levi finds us and gets the wrong idea.”

I nod and stand up. We walk back to our snowman hand in hand.

[aellynera]

Frayed Wires (Nathan Bateman x Reader)

FRAYED WIRES (Nathan Bateman x Reader)

(so i decided i may turn the drunk texts thing into a series? i decided at least to do one with Nathan because...well...it’s Nathan. the poem he quotes is Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was incidentally married to Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein (or: The Modern Prometheus) which is also kind of appropriate for Nathan and anyway i sat down today and this happened.)

Word Count: 2122(ish)

Summary: All you want to do is sleep. All Nathan wants to do is talk.

Warnings: Language, naturally.

(Nathan’s texts are in bold. Your texts are in bold and italic.)

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

You reached blindly for your phone as it rattled on the bedside table. You had no idea what time it was but you did know it was the middle of the night, your phone should not be going off, and you had gotten entirely too little sleep. Like, maybe two hours worth. You were so tired and groggy that you made the mistake of checking your messages before you actually even thought about what you were doing.

Do you ever think about the meaning of life?

I mean like really think about it.

Why we’re here, why the sky is green and the grass is blue?

No wait that’s not right.

You sighed and buried your face in the pillow. It was 3:27 in the morning and Nathan was texting you. Which was just odd anyway, since he knew where your room was and it was much more his style to just walk in and start a random conversation with you in person. 

He was probably drunk.

And now he could see that you had read the messages, so you were going to have to reply, or he really would show up at your door. Technically it was his door, it was his house, you just worked for him and stayed there, but the point was you were not in the mood to deal with him at all right now, and most decidedly not in the flesh.

You rolled your eyes before sending him a reply. You really should just ignore it, but...you were annoyed. Nathan was annoying. And it was now 3:30 in the morning and you were going to push a few buttons. Figuratively AND literally! your sleep-deprived brain cheered.

And things like why is water wet and air is invisible?

YES exactly see that’s why I want you.

I’m sorry?

Your brain. I want to pick you up. Your brain I mean. Pick your brain.

You just want me for my brain, huh?

You have a very nice brain.

Yep, Nathan was definitely drunk.

Not that him being drunk was anything out of the ordinary. But a few hours ago, when you were both in the lab testing some of his most recent ideas about the AI code, he had seemed...normal? Well, normal for Nathan anyway. He wasn’t irritated, he wasn’t condescending, he was actually (you honestly could not believe you were even thinking this) pleasant to be around.

You had been working for Nathan as his personal assistant for a few months. It was a promotion for sure over being a code slinger in a cubicle, but sometimes you honestly wondered what made you say yes to this bizarre existence. It was a beautiful house, beautiful scenery, interesting and highly intellectual conversations...when Nathan was sober.

There was also something you could never quite put your finger on. Something that was shifting as the weeks went on and you spent more time working alongside Nathan in the lab. As you spent evenings eating sushi and steaks and whatever else you were in the mood for that night (most nights, he actually let you choose the menu, you realized.) As you took afternoon walks around the estate, just taking in the scenery. As you debated various philosophies and ideas and theories and tried your damndest to prove Nathan wasn’t always right about everything. He almost seemed like he appreciated it all, but he would never say anything.

And you weren’t about to open that can of worms. Especially when he wasn’t sober.

How drunk are you right now?

On a scale of shitfaced to really fucking blitzed I would say I’m feeling no pain.

Jesus Christ. Well that was obvious. It was obvious just from the fact that he was texting you. Nathan was so uptight about security and data leaks and wiretapping and signals being hijacked (he’d admitted to doing it himself, so he did have a point) but had decided, after much insistence from you, that rigging the cell phones to only work inside the compound was an acceptable idea. It was so vast, you’d said, and what if something happened and one of you was all the way across the house or down in the lab, how were you supposed to let the other person know? It made sense at the time.

Now you were vaguely regretting it.

You could count on one hand the number of times you’d actually considered your boss to be pleasant to be around, and you still had your thumb left over just in case you needed to add to that tally.

At least personality wise. He was definitely pleasant to look at. Very pleasant.

You coughed and cleared your throat. That was not a line of thought to travel right now. The proper course of action was to get him to stop texting you.

A few minutes passed in glorious silence. Maybe a new, shiny thought had occurred to him and he was madly writing it down on a Post-It note. Maybe he just got bored and went to get a new drink. Maybe he’d finally just passed out and---

What are you thinking about?

Dammit. How to make you shut up, your brain snapped back. How to get you to let me sleep. How good your arms and shoulders look in that tank top after you’ve been hitting that punching back and you’re flushed and sweaty and…. Oh no. No no no. Stop it right now, brain.

Nathan hated to beat around the bush. Straightforward was the best policy with him, right?

How to get you to shut up and let me sleep.

Wonderful, glorious silence for exactly forty-six seconds.

Bro...that’s...so not cool.

Okay, this was getting ridiculous. Why were you participating in this? Why was he? You narrowed your eyes and looked toward a corner of your room. You hoped he could see you glaring into the camera that you knew was there and that he was watching while he was texting you. If not, you were sure he would watch it in the actual morning and you hoped the look was withering enough to make him think twice. Probably not. Because this was Nathan Bateman.

Your incredibly narcissistic, incredibly intelligent, incredibly attractive...stop it brain.

But he was pushing your buttons right back. Neither of you could ever really back away from an exchange like this..

I’m not your “bro”, Nathan. Please knock this shit off.

Dude, it’s a figure of speech.

I’m not your dude, either. Please just stop talking.

What’s wrong with dude. Dude is a gender neutral term, anyone can be a dude. Guys are dudes, chicks are dudes, dudes are dudes

Yeah, well, you’re kind of being an asshole, dude.

Dude. Chill.

Turning my phone off now.

No, wait, don’t. I’m sorry. I’ll stop.

Now that was...unexpected. Nathan Bateman just apologized to you? For being a drunk asshole in the middle of the night? Your eyes narrowed again. Suspicious.

You’ll stop texting me so I can go back to sleep?

No not that. I’ll stop calling you dude.

Oh for the love of...you closed your eyes and briefly considered the merits of hurling your phone at the surveillance camera.

Nathan, seriously, can we please just leave this until the morning?

A whole minute of wonderful, glorious, blessed silence this time. You couldn’t believe he might be considering this.

You were right.

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away

If a brain cramp was an actual thing, yours would most certainly be doing it now. You could barely even process it. He was drunk as hell and he was quoting poetry to you? You supposed you probably shouldn’t be entirely surprised, he’d quoted Oppenheimer once in a worse stupor (which you could only quantify because he had actually passed out that time.)

Are you fucking serious right now.

What.

Are you fucking quoting Ozymandias to me right now?

I am.

You couldn’t get the color of the sky right earlier, and now you’re just flawlessly quoting philosophical Romantic poetry at me?

I am.

You are not a normal person, Nathan Bateman.

What is normal anyway, besides really fucking boring? Who wants to be normal?

I would like to be somewhat normal, at least between the hours of midnight and 8am.

See, I knew there was a reason I liked you.

That was the second time he said that, you noted. You found it hard to believe. Nathan liked his work, his routine, his own brain. He liked talking about his work and how smart he was. Other than telling you that you were doing a great job, he barely handed out a single compliment, and if he somehow accidentally did, it was so backhanded you weren’t sure you could actually define it as one.

You mean you like my brain.

Well, yeah, your brain is fucking amazing. It has to be if you work with me.

I work for you, Nathan, not with you. But thanks?

No, no, see, that’s where you’re wrong. You work with me. We’re like partners. None of that employer employee bullshit.

Oooookay now I am one thousand percent sure you are completely piss drunk.

I am but that doesn’t make it any less true.

You could almost hear him saying those words in your head. You could see the way his eyebrows went up, the intensity in his eyes, the way he held his finger up to make the point.

The thought made your brain go slightly fuzzy, and not from exhaustion. Because now you were wide awake. Damn him.

Okay, Nathan, I’ll bite. What do I have to do to get you to stop doing this right now?

There was a pause before he answered, and you swore you’d heard a phone alert that wasn’t your own. It sounded like it was coming from...oh no, he wasn’t…

Getting tired of typing. Can I come talk to you for a while?

Are you outside my door right now?!

You heard the phone chime very clearly this time. He was, definitely.

I am.

You sighed, deeply. So deeply.

Is that really a good idea?

I think it’s a great idea.

Nathan, being serious here.

You could have sworn you heard him sigh from the other side of the door. He could have just come inside. It was his house, his keycard worked on all the doors.

But the door didn’t open.

So am I. Please can I come in? My mind just won’t shut off and I really am fucking drunk but talking to you is helping but tired of typing shit out, I’d rather say it to you.

I wanna see you. And tell you how sexy your brain is.

And that I like you for more than your brain.

And you knew in that instant there really was only one way to get him to shut up. And it was to just let him talk. It made sense, in an oddly Nathan kind of way. What’s the worst that could happen, really? He’d come in, you’d talk, he’d eventually pass out, maybe you could get a couple more hours of sleep, and then in the morning you’d either talk about it on a very deep cerebral level or you’d just pretend it had never happened at all. 

A press to the door release button on the side of the table and the latch let go. The door opened, revealing Nathan standing on the other side. Still wearing what he’d been wearing in the lab earlier that night, black lounge pants and that tight white henley he seemed to love so much. The corner of his mouth turned up in the most miniscule of smiles, but it was there.

You were about to toss your phone back onto the bedside table, when the text alert went off again. You shot an exasperated look in his direction, but gamely checked the message.

Did you mean what you said before? About biting?

You glanced up at Nathan and saw that the sliver of a smile had taken over most of his face and his eyebrows had raised to emphasize his question.

You didn’t say anything. You didn’t text him back. You just nodded your head to the empty spot next to you in your bed.

You had a feeling you weren’t going to get any sleep tonight after all.

~end~

taglist: @anetteaneta​ @rosemarysbaby13​ @darksideofclarke​ @girlwiththemostcake​ 

(taglist is open, let me know if you’d like to be tagged for future fics)

[socoolraywoodbloghere]

Full of Yourself

Y’all ever get consumed by the ghost-of-writing’s-past and impulsively stay up way too late writing a fanfic all because you wanted to use one set of dialogue you thought would be funny? So anyway, here’s wonderwall

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20024296

Ray hesitated in front of the door. This was dumb. It was arguably a breaking of their unspoken rules of privacy. He and Ryan didn’t ask stuff directly, certainly not in actual words. They just, you know, took what they were given when they were given it, let the other know they were there and would listen and would care. It was a good system. One that resulted in Ryan knowing things about Ray no one else ever has and maybe ever will. Ray likes to think it also goes vice-versa. But this was bugging him. Bugging wasn’t even the right word for it, this was eating at him, slowly and surely, every second of every day, and making him hollower and hollower by the minute. He needed to get this addressed.

The worst part was he seemed to be the only one who didn’t know who it was – who on earth did Ryan like? He knew the guy too much and knew the tells too well to not know his attitude was definitely the result of some kind of crush. Ray’s been through it too himself, he knows exactly what stage Ryan’s in: smack dab in the thick of the finally-having-accepted-he-likes-them-but-not-yet-met-with-the-crushing-reality-that-to-have-anything-happen-would-require-the-mortifying-ordeal-of-being-known zone. Ray zoomed past that post like a couple months ago and has landed in the knows-Ryan-will-never-return-his-feelings-but-will-enjoy-his-time-with-him-nonetheless-if-bittersweetly position on the rode o’ heartbreak. Recently it’s felt less like a road and more like an ouroboros, but the metaphor still stands.

Every time he tried to get info out of the others, they gave him this frustrating look of, “I know, but I won’t tell you, and it’s withering that you don’t already know,” as they swore they knew nothing of the sort. Which, honestly? They can go fuck themselves about that. Why are they all such assholes about this? There’s literally no reason to be, especially since Ray’s been so careful to hide his feelings so there’s no way they can know he has, like, a personal investment here.

So now he’s here, last resort. Actual, verbal communication. He’s already tried to talk himself out of it, told himself Ryan would tell him if and when he wanted to. He wasn’t owed this information. It was probably someone he didn’t even know (didn’t want to think about if that would hurt more than knowing them). It didn’t matter who it was, he was going to be happy for the guy anyway. Be there for talking about it no matter how much it hurt. Keep his heart hidden and let Ryan be happy – Ryan deserved to be happy.

And yet, Ray still wants to know. He just- he just wants to know, is all. So… you know. He guesses he’ll just… ask. Politely.

Ray took a deep breath and knocked on the door, some part of him wishing Ryan wasn’t actually home even though he knew for a fact he was.

There was a grunt from the other side of the door and Ray finally properly steeled himself. “Yo,” Ray called. There was a moment of shuffling sounds and then the door was unlocked and there was Ryan. His hair was a little mussed in its bun, the permanent bags under his eyes were no worse than usual, his t-shirt looked soft and his jeans were the dad-est thing Ray’s ever seen a serial killer wear in his life. Like usual, Ryan stepped aside and just let Ray into his room, not a word needing to be said.

When had this become their usual, Ray wondered. It’s not like they did anything when they hung out. Mostly Ray slouched improperly on some piece of furniture and/or floor. Sometimes tapping at his phone or DS, sometimes staring off into space while he fidgeted with something. Ryan’s room was quiet. In Ryan’s room Ray felt like he could relax. Ryan’s room had plants and blank walls that he wasn’t responsible for thinking about customizing. It was definitely weird that Ray found the idea of decorating or even properly living in his room stressful, but he did. Those pressures weren’t in Ryan’s room.

Plus, Ryan’s room had Ryan – doing something on his laptop, tapping away on a phone, tinkering away at something on his desk, reading a book like some kind of literate person. Sometimes Ryan would put on a movie and Ray would wander his way over and find himself leaning on him to watch it. Sometimes Ray would bring his switch and demand Ryan try to beat him in Mario Kart.

Sometimes Ray would knock and Ryan wouldn’t be doing so good, but for some reason he still let Ray in, as if having Ray there was better than not. Ray still hasn’t figured out why, but he does his best during those times to just quietly be there. He’d leave if Ryan asked him to, go if Ryan didn’t open the door. But Ryan never shooed him out. It’s just their usual.

Or, at least, it’s their current usual. If Ryan’s interested in someone, well, he really wouldn’t need Ray moping around to cramp his style. Probably wouldn’t be at the penthouse that much either anyway, and Ray’s not so desperate as to break into a guy’s room (not yet at least…). Ray takes a moment as he enters the room to mourn their usual, something he didn’t even realize he’d had to do till just now.

Yeah, Ray’s going to end up taking all of this super well. This is such a super good idea. He’s so fucking smart and good at things, Jesus Christ.

Ryan closed and re-locked the door – a motion one should typically fear when done by the Vagabond, but somehow being locked in a room with Ryan was probably Ray’s #1 pick for top-ten-places-that-give-him-emotional-and-physical-security. Ryan returned to where he must have been before Ray knocked, on the bed doing something with his computer. Ray always found it kind of funny (kind of cute) that no matter where Ryan was sitting, he always had perfect posture. Ray was positive that if he managed to make it to old age he’d pay for his slouching in back pain, but Ryan would be good to go for years. If they make it to then.

Ray considered, just for a moment, chickening out and just living with not knowing. Just enjoy this day and the next until it was over. But the gnawing in his stomach hadn’t let up for a single second and he knew he couldn’t do that.

Ray leaned against the desk and crossed his arms lightly, a flimsy physical barrier to the hurt to come. The distance between the two of them was a few feet, but somehow it felt like a chasm. Ryan looked up from his laptop for just a moment and then again, taking in Ray’s posture. That was another thing – Ryan could read him like a book. Ray could hide anything from anyone, but for some reason Ryan could always see right through. There wasn’t a point to putting up a façade for him, so Ray found himself not doing it. Now Ryan watched him, waiting for Ray to be ready to say what was on his mind. Ray studied the carpet.

Well, have to start this thing off one way or another.

“So, I, uh, heard you started to get interested in someone…” It was blunt, for sure. Not Ray’s usual beating around the bush, saying everything but what he wants. He doesn’t have to be direct, Ryan somehow catches his drift no matter what, but in this matter, he doesn’t know how else to say it.

Ray finally tore his eyes from the carpet to look at Ryan. Ryan’s face was in a red-hot blush and he stared owlishly at Ray. Well, there’s his answer, there’s his confirmation. As much as Ray knew that Ryan must surely like someone, some part of his heart was holding out for him to be wrong, for Ryan to have absolutely no interest in anyone. But the look on Ryan’s face makes it clear that he’s got a crush, and honestly probably a real doozy of one too.

Ray’s heart crumbles into dust in his chest. He wants to leave right then, go back to his stupid room and just not come back out. But still his morbid curiosity needs to know: Who? Who gets to have Ryan when Ray can’t?

“Must, uh, be a pretty good looker, to get your attention and all…” Ray mumbled to the floor.

And then, Ryan scoffed. Scoffed! And suddenly Ray looked up at him, now red in the face (from embarrassment or indignity, Ray wasn’t entirely sure).

“Well aren’t we full of ourselves?” Ryan said, still red in the face and now looking at the carpet himself. What?

“What?” Ray said, confused.

“What?” Ryan said, now looking up again in confusion, but it was a confusion as to why Ray was confused, which just confused Ray more.

“What do you mean?”

“Well you just called yourself good looking, so…” Ryan trailed off, now looking anywhere else once more. Huh?

“… No, I meant the person you like?”

“Right,” Ryan said, brow furrowed and looking up again, “You.”

“What?” Ray said.

“What?” Ryan said.

“What?” Ray said again, and for half a second, he thought it was clicking. Then his brain decided to immediately short circuit, however, so he lost it.

“You didn’t know already??” Ryan asked, confused. Know what? What would he know already? Know that Ryan liked him?

What? What!? What?

Ray didn’t really process it, he didn’t have time, he felt defensive. His one working brain cell decided that responding was more important than processing.

“No!! How was I supposed to know if you didn’t tell me!!” Ray shot back, because that was a fair point, actually.

“I-I thought that was why you were here!”

“No! I just wanted to know who it was I needed to be jealous of!” Ray’s last braincell needs to shut the FUCK up and stop being honest. But it’s pointless because his stupid self decided Ryan is safe enough for no façade. Idiot.

“Jealous? Why would you need to be jealous?”

Now it was Ray’s turn to scoff, “I! Because! The guy I like liking someone else is something to be jealous about!” Can he make it any more obvious?

Ryan was about to say something back but then he seemed to stop, the wheels in his head screeching to halt. They rewound until he came back with an unexpected sentence, looking at Ray with an unplaceable emotion that looked a lot like hope mixed with whiplash, “Wait, you like me?”

“Wha- I- Well,” Ray sputtered, somehow growing redder in the face by the second. This was all going downhill so fast and the breaks were yet to be found, “Y-yeah, of course I do!”

“What do you mean ‘of course’, I didn’t know!” Ryan said – not angry, just, Ray doesn’t know, he supposes flustered? That’s definitely how Ray felt.

“W-well- Now you do! And I didn’t know you liked me, so there!” Great come back, Ray. You showed him.

“Yeah, well, now you do!” Ryan said, equally as eloquent and now crossing his own arms. He looked damn near a pout too.

Ray buried his head in his hands. How had this gone so bad so quickly. There it is, suddenly out in the open. He told Ryan he liked him. Now everything was definitely ruined. Their usual was definitely done forever effective immediately and he still didn’t even know the answer to the question he came in here for.

Somewhere deep in the recesses of Ray’s brain a miracle occurred. What was thought to be the last-remaining brain cell stumbled upon one of its own kind. Shocked by the discovery of one-another, they wasted no time in producing what was long regarded as an extinct species within the confines of Ray’s mind – a single coherent thought.

Ray looked up from his hands at Ryan, wracked by his revelation. “Wait…” Ray said, finally catching on, “Y-you like me?”

Ryan looked like he was about to start the cycle over again when he caught the look on Ray’s face and suddenly softened. Softened the way Ray couldn’t help but notice only ever happened around him. Could he actually…?

“Well, yeah,” Ryan said, and Ray had never seen a more earnest man in his entire life. “Of course I do.”

The chasm between them somehow crew deeper, yet Ray suddenly wanted nothing more than to cross it. There’s no way, though, no way he could have this.

His arms uncrossed themselves. He squeezed the edge of the desk.

“W-well, th-that’s good.” Ray fought to keep himself looking at Ryan as he spoke. Fear and trepidation and hope and yearning built his heart back up. “B-because I like you too.”

“Y-you do?” Ryan asked, and now ray couldn’t help but smile, because here they go again. Ryan being nervous made Ray calmer. You don’t get nervous over things you don’t mean.

“Yeah,” Ray said, his voice now soft. “Of course I do.”

There was a quite moment of silence, more in awe of the moment than anything else. They just watched each other, not knowing what to do.

Ryan rose from where he’d been sitting on the bed and suddenly the chasm collapsed into absolutely nothing and Ray was walking the three steps to him without even thinking about it. Ray’s arms found Ryan’s shoulders and Ryan’s hands found Ray’s face and they stood there a moment, looking at each other – so close, the way Ray’s wanted to be a billion times before. Could they really? Were they really allowed? No way, Ray was tempted to think, they don’t get fairy tales. Do they? Ryan’s blue eyes washed out those thoughts and left nothing behind but unmistakable want.

“Can I kiss you?” Ryan asked, the ghost of his whisper rolling over Ray’s lips and raising goosebumps.

It was so fast for them, neither liked to plunge headlong into things. Both needed things to be taken slowly.

And yet Ray felt like they’d already done that part. They already have gone slow. They already know each other. They already trust each other. Ray’s waited so long for this. Ray wondered if Ryan has waited for this. The look in his eyes says it all – yes.

Ray smiles. “Of course you can.” And then there isn’t a single inch between them.

 --

 Bonus content:

After making out for a bit the raspberries suddenly start and then someone starts tickling and they just end up collapsing in bed play-fighting and laughing and the L-O-V-E word is still very scary, but the looks in their eyes say what they mean.

[littlewerewolfsmutoven-blog]

Malpractice

Explicit | 4,542 words | hypnotism/non-con | archive of our own

Summary: Derek Hale is a defense attorney with a shady reputation and mind control abilities. Stiles Stilinski is a prosecutor at the same courthouse and ends up under the control of Derek for lewd purposes.

The courthouse was where law and fairness was supposed to join together in holy matrimony. Unfortunately, that’s not the way things worked in Beacon Hills. Well….it worked sometimes, just not whenever the infamous criminal defense attorney, Derek Hale, was working over a courtroom. That’s just the way things worked….not that anybody was quite powerful enough to call out the shady workings behind Derek’s work.

See, Derek didn’t always know that he could push thoughts into the heads of people around him. A telepath, a master of hypnotic induction, a thought-pusher, and mind controller…they were all essentially the same thing. But the point of the matter is that Derek found out he could control people’s minds early on in his academic career—accidentally pushing his professors into giving him passing grades, pushing cashiers to casually forget to ask him to pay for what he bought, pushing strangers into giving up their valuables…etcetera.

Derek was powerful. Over the years, he had mastered his power, using it for things that some would consider to be reckless and downright disgraceful. And yet, Derek enjoyed having the world around him in the palm of his hand. It helped him get through the days. It helped him get through law school. It helped make him wealthy. It helped make him bigger than anything and anyone in the world.

As far as the Beacon Hills Courthouse was concerned, Derek Hale held the notorious reputation for never losing a single case in his entire history of practicing law. Of course, nobody knew that he was a mind-controller. And before anybody could even dare to draw up that kind of conclusion, Derek was ready and willing to scramble up somebody’s mind—erase memories and replace them with something else.

It was easy.

But for those that remained lucky enough to not fall directly into Derek’s immoral path of lobotomizing random strangers, Derek was known around the courthouse as a talented defense attorney with a knack for the law. He was known to be slick, cunning, sharp, well pieced together, and a force to be reckoned with. Nobody wanted to challenge him.

Now, Stiles Stilinski was a bright-eyed prosecutor, with a good score of court successes under his belt. He was incredibly skilled when it came to maneuvering himself around the courtroom—dancing his way through cross-examinations and winning over jury pools like he could do it in his sleep. He was a natural talent—a real attorney, with real skill, who believed in doing the right thing, fighting for justice, for peace, for liberty, the whole shebang.

And yes…Stiles had heard all the horror stories about the big bad wolf, Mister Derek Hale, the defense attorney from Hell. And no…Stiles wasn’t intimidated. He had come across tons of tricky combatants in his days as a prosecutor. He wasn’t going to let the spotless track record of some random attorney scare him away from doing his job.

But like so many others before his time, Stiles was completely unaware that Derek Hale wasn’t some normal, run of the mill, casual defense attorney. He was much more than that. He was a real…real threat. A supernatural entity with immense power…and no, some happy-go-lucky prosecutor with a promising future wasn’t anywhere close to a challenge for Derek.

Derek was going to have some fun.

+

The preliminary trial was about to begin. Stiles settled into his corner of the room, patiently waiting behind his podium, eyeballing the surrounding court guests, officials, and the judge—all of which were waiting for Derek’s arrival. Stiles couldn’t actually believe that the big, scary defense attorney with a perfect track record was nowhere to be found. But in Stiles’ mind, he considered it a good sign of being able to knock Derek down a peg.

And with only a few minutes left on the clock before the case would be called before the judge for review, Stiles just shook his head in disbelief. Tardiness was an insult to the law, an insult to the court, and an unforgivable insult to the presiding judge. He couldn’t wait to see how Derek was going to explain his unprofessional performance to the judge.

“I apologize.” Derek called out, sauntering into the courtroom to stand at his podium. “Forgive my tardiness, your honor. The traffic was a living nightmare.”

“The traffic was a living nightmare? Of course, it was.” The judged spoke slowly. “We can all understand the trouble. All is forgiven, Mr. Hale.”

Stiles eyed the “celebrity attorney” in bewilderment. What? He just blamed traffic for his tardiness and the judge let it fly without any sort of warning? Sure, Derek was as charming and as physically attractive as he had heard around the rumor mill. He was tall, dark, broody, and smooth—obviously light on his feet, confidently smug, and clearly beloved by the biased ass judge who didn’t even care that Derek strode into the courtroom late.

Unbelievable.

Derek settled behind his podium and rattled noisily through a stack of papers, to which nobody dared to shush him or comment on the amount of noise that he was making. Before he had even walked into the courtroom, he had infiltrated everybody minds—everybody except for the newest toy of the bunch—Mr. Stiles‘do-gooder’ Stilinski. Everybody else was tucked away in an inescapable haze of low brain function for the time being.

The gavel banged down atop the judge’s desk, capturing the room’s foggy attention. Derek watched as Stiles opened up with his introductory statement, carefully analyzing the man. There was so much enthusiasm and fire inside Stiles. Derek shadowed himself into Stiles’ mind for just a moment, taking a peek around.

“Your honor, this court joins together to discuss the case of Mr. Hale’s client—Jackson Whittemore—a man who has been charged with committing heinous crimes.” Stiles began passionately. “On January 28th, 2016, Mr. Whittemore drove to the grocery store what was located at the corner of his current home address, and as our witness’ testimony will explain—”

“—that we can’t take anything the prosecution’s witness says as being trustworthy, your honor.” Derek interrupts, leaving Stiles to quickly fumble over his words into silence. “I’ve brought the court Mr. Stilinski’s witness’ medical records, which you will find to be quite interesting, as they show that multiple psychiatrists have noted this witness is a compulsive liar.”

Derek held up a blank piece of paper, showing it to the surrounding courtroom audience, before walking it up to the judge’s bench. Clearly, it was a blank piece of paper, but it didn’t matter, because Derek quickly pierced into the judge’s mind to make him see medical records. In fact, he made everybody in the room see the medical records…except, for Stiles.

“Your honor—” Stiles exclaimed, slightly confused as to what kind of game Derek was playing.

“The evidence brought forth by the defense is damning, Mr. Stilinski.” The judge revealed. “And considering the fact that you have only brought us this one untrustworthy witness, there is no other choice but to motion forward for a trial.”

The judge banged the gavel down atop the wooden bench, setting forth a date for the official trial, before dismissing the room. Stiles remained behind his podium, utterly dumbfounded as he watched the entire room clear out. He was lost for words. What kind of foul joke was at play? That was just a plain, completely blank piece of paper. He felt as though he was losing his mind.

Though….not quite.

Stiles shook some clarity into his foggy brain and quickly cleaned up his podium, packing up his suitcase and grabbing his thermos of morning coffee before racing out of the empty room to interrogate Derek. He was determined to figure out what the hell was happening. The last thing that he was about to do was lay down and let Derek get away with whatever brand of malpractice he was playing around with.

“Could I borrow a moment of your time, Mr. Hale?” Stiles shouted smugly, running up to stand directly behind Derek’s imposing form.

Derek smirked to himself before even bothering to turn around. Now, it was time for him to have some fun with the fresh-faced prosecutor, who had no idea what the fuck was going on in the world around him. And after peaking into Stiles’ inner thoughts, his memories, his desires, his aspirations—Derek saw it all. He was able to tell that Stiles had never had a mind-reader poking around inside of his delicate, intelligent brain before….but he was practically destined to like it.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Stilinski.” Derek offered, turning around to face Stiles.

“Yeah, sure.” Stiles scoffed. “Do you mind telling me what kind of shit you’re trying to get away with here? Passing off a blank piece of paper as medical records to help your case? Getting the judge to play along with your blatant malpractice? I’ll have your fucking ass out of his city and rotting in some dank prison cell.”

“You’ve spilled your coffee.” Derek stated calmly. “You should be polite and apologize, and then clean up the mess that you’ve spilled all over my shoes, don’t you think?”

A feeling of fuzziness quickly clouded Stiles’ mind, momentarily freezing him in his train of thought. He stopped talking, staring deeply into the bright green of Derek’s eyes, whilst his brain twisted and bent to the gentle push of a demand from Derek’s hypnotic power. And then suddenly, Stiles’ hand unclasped its grip on his thermos of coffee, causing it to fall. It clattered loudly against the hallway’s marble flooring, splattering hot liquid across the sleek surface and onto Derek’s shoes.

“Jesus…Christ.” Stiles mumbled foggily, instantaneously hit with a wave of apologetic concern. He set down his briefcase and then reached into his pocket, pulling out a clean handkerchief, before kneeling down before Derek’s coffee-splattered shoes. “I apologize, Mr. Hale. I don’t know what happened. I can be so clumsy sometimes.”

“Don’t beat yourself up too much about it, Mr. Stilinski.” Derek cooed, watching Stiles work himself into a sweat as he furiously buffed and shined the dirty leather shoes. “You like being a bit submissive and you’re quite talented with your hands.” He spoke, implanting new characteristics into Stiles’ thoughts for later.

“I do.” Stiles mumbled. “I am.”

“My shoes look as good as new…now, what was it that you were saying again when you confronted me?” Derek questioned sarcastically. “Oh, you were praising my vigor, my confidence, and my enthusiasm during the preliminary.”

“Oh yeah. That was it.” Stiles agreed, standing up. He tucked his soiled handkerchief back into his pocket. “Your talent in the court is unlike anything that I’ve ever seen, Mr. Hale. I appreciated being able to bask in the shine of your brightness. And the way that you got my witness thrown out? It was absolutely genius on your part.”

Derek chuckled to himself, studying the blank look masked over Stiles’ hazel eyes and the look of controlled contentment across the young prosecutor’s face. He reached out towards Stiles’ face and pressed the pad of his thumb against the corner of the other man’s lips, wiping away the bead of drool that had accumulated there. It wasn’t too noticeable, but it was just a tiny effect of Derek’s influence.

“You seem like an enthusiastic young attorney.” Derek noted, thumbing across the plush stretch of Stiles’ bowed lips. The boy didn’t even appear to notice. “I would be delighted to watch you work through a mock-trial of what you’ll present during the real thing…in private, perhaps?”

“Anything…” Stiles responded loosely.

“Music to my ears.” Derek noted.

Derek took a moment to do some flip work inside of Stiles’ mind, blanketing most of what had just transpired—restoring Stiles back to his fired up personality. Although, Derek made sure not to erase anything, just hide things. Stiles would go on with the rest of his day like normal, thinking that he had stormed out of the courtroom and successfully ripped Derek a new one for the stunt he pulled with the piece of paper.

“—so fucking think about that, you insufferable asswipe!” Stiles sneered, snapping back to his original train of thought, before Derek mashed around with his mind.

+

A couple days later, Derek showed up on Stiles’ doorstep during the afternoon—completely unannounced. He knocked politely, waited, and smiled wickedly when Stiles actually opened up the door with a sour scowl spread across his face. Derek didn’t expect anything less, however. He was prepared.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Stiles interrogated. “And can you hurry up with whatever dumb explanation you’re about to give me? I’m supposed to be down at the courthouse in thirty minutes to meet with a client.”

“You were going to give me a performance—a mock trial.” Derek explained, watching as Stiles face dropped blank as the implanted memories came forward inside of Stiles’ mind.

“Oh, yeah.” Stiles acknowledged, gesturing for Derek to step inside. “Come inside, Derek.”

Derek stepped inside Stiles’ house, taking in the relaxed interior design of the comfortable bachelor pad. As he walked around the house and took in the sight of each room, Stiles followed behind like an expectant zombie—as if waiting for another thought and demand to be queued up inside of his thought processes. But really, Derek was just trying to find the perfect place to fool around.

Upon entering the dining room, Derek smirked to himself, glancing down to the sturdy wood of the large dining room table. There was more than enough space to do some things. Trouble was right around the corner, but so was pleasure and so was entertainment.  And seeing as how Stiles had thirty full minutes of nothing to do before having to get down to the courthouse, there was time.

Derek walked up to the side of the wooden table and looked down upon the set table decorations, pausing for a moment, and then deciding that Stiles would clean up the mess later anyways. He slammed down one of his arms onto the table and slid it across the surface—pushing off all of the decorative placements, silverware sets, plates, and the large vase of fresh flowers that had been centered in the middle of the table.

Despite the loud crash and the new mess that was piled up on the hardwood floors, Stiles didn’t react. He just stood expectantly at the entryway to the dining room—all dressed up in his expensive, professional suit and tie, which was of course used to make a good impression on clients and fellow acquaintances at the courthouse.

Derek hopped up onto the table and sat down comfortably. He scanned Stiles’ body up and down and then decided to actually get into the action. Derek clapped his hands, pulling Stiles’ undivided attention, and then told him that he was in the courtroom, before the judge and jury, making his case against the defendant.  

Stiles immediately jumped into action, straightening his posture and dipping into his calmer, sterner voice. He passionately began to plead his case against the defendant, actually arguing and making valid points to an invisible judge and jury, as he paced back and forth across the dining room—completely unaware that he was under the hypnotic spell of a rival attorney.

“Mr. Whittemore walked into that grocery store with the intent to harm others.” Stiles argued seriously, blankly staring past where Derek sat patiently and at a judge that wasn’t there. “Nobody would bring a gun into a grocery store, a place where families and innocent civilians are shopping, if they didn’t plan on doing something horrendous. This is an incredibly simple case, it’s cut and dry, there’s—”

“Good, keep going—” Derek interjected, watching as Stiles continued with his spiel, yet remained receptive to Derek’s commands. “—but come take my dick out of my pants and suck me off….just remember, you’re still making your case.”

Stiles continued to speak about the case, talking sternly to an imaginary jury about how there’s nothing accidental about shooting an innocent civilian in a grocery store, whilst following Derek’s exact command. He dropped to his knees, settling himself in-between Derek’s spread thighs, and unpacked the man’s thick cock—not missing a beat in his imaginary case.

“You have talented hands, remember?” Derek pushed, watching the way that Stiles wrapped his hands around Derek’s unfathomable thickness, doing his best to stroke the beast of a cock for all that it was worth.

“The proof is here in black and white, it’s everything that you need to make a decision—” Stiles enunciated mindlessly, unable and unwilling to break away from where he continued to softly stroke his hands up and down Derek’s throbbing cock.

“Take my cock into your mouth…” Derek ordered. “…don’t let the jury sway away from the point you’re trying to make.”

Stiles surged downward, eagerly swallowing down a large portion of Derek’s cock with relative ease. He found a rhythm quickly, bobbing up and down, and letting the immoral defense attorney thrust deep into his sensitive throat. The sounds of gags and choked coughs filled the space, whilst Stiles continued on his boring courtroom preaching every time that he pulled off of Derek’s length for a breath of fresh air.

Derek watched in amused silence. There was something so funny and ridiculously hot about how Stiles would gag and choke and pull up for air, mouth red and stretched and wet with spit and pre-cum, only to immediately breathlessly talk about morals, about the law, about justice, and putting away a dangerous threat to society. And Stiles didn’t even quit—he just kept going, running his mouth, fucking his mouth, even though his voice started to run hoarse and ragged.

Eventually, the whole courtroom soundbites from Stiles got old and boring and obnoxious, so Derek cut it off. He let the boy suck in cock in regular silence, taking in the not-so-innocent sounds of lewd slurps and coughs. Stiles made some pretty noises when he was all fucked out of control. The polished prosecutor was sloppy and desperate when a big cock got waved in front of his face.

Derek delighted in his power—instructing Stiles to do all kinds of things. He ordered Stiles to take his cock to the hilt and repeat the action again and again, laughing hysterically as he watched Stiles try to successfully do as he was told. Stiles managed for a while, taking Derek to the hilt. And Derek liked it. He watched as Stiles’ face turned bright red and splotchy with tears, with bulging veins on his face, and a deep bruised bulge in his throat whenever he had the cock in his mouth.

But then Stiles passed out and Derek rolled his eyes, lounging back atop the table until Stiles found his way back to consciousness. And to his surprise, as soon as Stiles woke up, he immediately went straight back to deepthroating Derek’s dick—slow and steady, yet perfectly executed. In fact, it seemed as though the boy was actually learning and adjusting and developing some kind of extra stamina and tolerance to the whole thing.

“Get sloppy.” Derek instructed, watching the thought infiltrate Stiles’ mind.

Derek pulled his phone out of his pocket and started to browse the internet for something more entertaining. He started to pay little attention to the change in Stiles’ blowjob performance style following the new order. Stiles was making all kinds of loud, lewd sounds, which were sure to upset the neighbors. But Stiles really did get sloppy—his strokes got wilder, he spat down on Derek’s thick cock, sucked passionately at Derek’s balls, and moaned like a straight up whore.

And then Derek realized that Stiles was about to be late for his appointment across town at the courthouse. Derek alerted Stiles to the news, watching panic spread across the boy’s messy face, even whilst he continued to work his mouth on and around Derek’s throbbing cock. But eventually, Derek instructed Stiles to freeze in place and stick out his tongue—before Derek finally unloaded across Stiles’ face.

Before Derek let Stiles go about the rest of his day, he once again reworked pieces of Stiles’ memory—making him actively ignore the memories of getting down on his knees to serve Derek like some common cocksucker. But Derek also instructed Stiles to leave the house and head down to the courthouse with the fresh load of cum splattered messily across his face and that he could only leave his car to walk inside the building once he cleaned his face up by scooping the spent load into his mouth and swallowing.

+

A few months later, the actual trial commenced.

“I hope you’re not expecting to pull any kind of shady ass ‘blank-paper’ tricks this time around.” Stiles snickered, stepping over to the prosecutor’s table, whilst glaring down Derek. “This is a new judge, buddy. He’s not on your payroll.”

Derek shrugged as if in agreement with Stiles’ words, unbothered by the nonthreatening nonsense that spewed from his mouth. He sure wasn’t talking all that shit when he was choking himself breathless on a fat cock. It almost made Derek laugh…but it was all good. The trial was only beginning.

The trial went on strong for the first fifty minutes and a simple recess with nothing out of the sorts. Derek didn’t push any thoughts or sway any of the revelations. He let things play out normally. But when it was time for Stiles to jump into his closing statements for the jury, Derek let loose with the outlandish “fun and games”, putting into motion something that he had thought up only a few minutes prior.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury and of this great court,” Stiles boldly started. “We’re heard the facts, we’ve seen the evidence, we’ve heard from the defendant himself regarding what went down on that cold January night—”

“Keep going on with the trial, think nothing out of ordinary about what you see.” Derek interjected, interrupting Stiles’ speech. “Now, Stiles—show the court the tight little ass of yours.”

Stiles continued to speak to the jury and the judge as he continued to deliver his closing statements, although this time, they weren’t invisible and none of this was happening in his dining room. And whilst Stiles, the jury, the judge, and the court audience continued on as if nothing was out of the norm, Stiles also started to follow Derek’s secondary direction.

He continued to speak, completely unconcerned. As far as Stiles could comprehend, everything was normal. But Stiles rounded the prosecutor’s table and unbuckled his belt, dropping his pants and boxers down to his ankles—kicking them off and out of the way. He bent over the solid wooden edge of the table and stuck his ass out to the judge, continuing to address the jury as he reached back with his hands and spread the plump globes of his ass open to reveal his tight entrance.

“Get on top of your prosecutor’s table and sit, lay back, spread your legs, and finger yourself.” Derek instructed calmly, still pretending to listen attentively to the tired, repetitive law bullshit that Stiles continued on about.

But Stiles followed in direction and hopped up onto the table and did as he was told. He started to finger himself, slowly at first, but faster when Derek demanded it so. All the while, he pled for the jury to keep their own families in mind and think about how awful they’d feel if somebody let the murderer of one of their loved ones walk free—mixed up with the occasional, involuntary moan that Stiles let slip when his fingers prodded against his prostate.

Derek rid himself of his own pants and unbuttoned his shirt, leaving the suit coat, leather shoes, and socks on his body. He walked across the room to where Stiles was unable to stop fingering himself atop the table and ordered everybody to continue on with the proceedings. All the while, Derek climbed up onto the prosecutor’s desk and laid himself out, instructing Stiles to climb on top of him and passionately begin to fuck himself on his cock for the audience.

“You’re going to be loud—unapologetically loud. You’re going to fuck yourself on my cock like it’s all you’ve ever wanted to do.”  Derek whispered into Stiles’ ear.

Stiles did as he was told.  

He rode the hell out of Derek like it was the last he was going to be able to do before keeling over dead. Stiles took every inch of Derek’s thick cock with hungry enthusiasm, desperate to fill his guts with the monstrous length and girth of the same hellish defense attorney that everybody had warned him about. Of course, that logic wasn’t accessible inside of Stiles’ mind. His mind was clouded and twisted and bent into something made of only pure lust and submissive desire.

Meanwhile, the standard court proceedings went on around Derek and his fucktoy as if nothing was out of sorts. Which, was basically the case, considering the fact that Derek had infiltrated the minds of everybody in the room, willing them all into believe that it was totally normal to watch the case’s prosecutor get railed by the defense attorney. None of them would honestly remember it anyways.

The jury was released to their chamber to cast their decision of ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’, whilst Stiles and Derek continued to perform uninterrupted for the rest of the court. Without anything to do but wait for the jury to reconvene, the entire court just watched with blank, emotionless expressions as Derek fucked up into Stiles’ ass.

Stiles bounced around, but eventually become unresponsive to Derek’s further demands. It was fatigue. Stiles’ mind had become so overloaded and cluttered with hidden-away memories and instructed demands, that his brain just stopped being able to function under Derek’s immediate control. Fortunately for Derek, Stiles’ mind was locked on the last command that he had been given—which had been to ride him and ride him and keep going until everything was done and over.

Stiles did as he was told—screaming and moaning out into the empty void, surrounded by his peers, strangers, his superiors, and jurors. And as the jurors returned to their box with the final verdict to the case that Stiles had wanted so badly to win, Derek and Stiles found their orgasms together in one collective shout of ecstasy.  

“Not guilty.” One of the jurors announced.

Stiles breathed heavily, sloppily pulling himself off of Derek’s cock—feeling the flood of hot cum rush out of his abused hole and sputter messily against the back of his thighs and legs. He chuckled to himself, stumbling forward to stand in the middle of the courtroom —before the judge, the jurors, and the defense attorney—utterly delirious, swaying around with an unbalanced stance.

“I won.” Stiles remarked breathlessly…and then collapsed down to the carpeted ground in a pool of Derek’s cum, half-naked and covered in a perverted mess…for a much needed nap.

[wilddragonflying]

Deep in the Glowing Sea

Came up with another OC lol

Standing on the edge of the Glowing Sea, Kaili frowns at her Pip-Boy, ignoring the soft clicking of the Geiger Counter as she studies the map. “Look pretty thoughtful there,” Nick comments, dusting his hands off from where he’d been gathering some herbs. He carefully stores them in his pouch before moving closer. “What’re you looking at?”

Kaili nods south-west. “I know we’ve already been out there to talk to Virgil, but… A friend of mine worked in a lab close to the crater. I just, I’m wondering if there’s anything left.”

”It’s probably buried,” Nick muses, and Kaili rolls her eyes.

”I know. But I’ve got several fusion cores, and my armor’s right here, and you’re with me, so you don’t have to worry about the rads,” she argues. “I just want to go see.”

Nick grins at her, amusement clear in his eyes. “Well then, let’s go. Preston will let you know through Radio Freedom if you’re needed, and Gage and Hancock can get in touch with you with the Nuka-World radio.”

Kaili nods then, course set, and turns to step into her power armor with determination and nerves fighting for dominance in her gut. Nick’s probably right; odds are, there’s nothing left of that lab. But now that Kaili’s thought about it, she has to know.

It’s an arduous trek through the Glowing Sea, and not for the first time Kaili grumbles - in between fights with radscorpions, bloodbugs, and the occasional deathclaw - about how nobody in the Wasteland apparently decided that working vehicles were a good idea. Eventually, however, they reach where the lab should have been, and find only a mound of dirt. Neither of them say anything, the silence between them filled with the sound of a distant radstorm and the click of the geiger counter in Kaili’s Power Armor. Kaili stares at the mound, grateful that the Power Armor shields her expression from Nick; she’s not sure what she’s feeling, resignation perhaps, but she doesn’t want him to see it, not yet.

”Huh.”

Kaili glances at Nick. “What?”

”Look up there,” he says, raising a hand to point at where -

”Huh. Now what are still-working cameras doing up here?” Sure enough, there’s a blinking red dot on the side of the camera Nick’s spotted, nestled in a small alcove in the dirt covering the rest of the building. It’s aimed at them, and whether or not there’s anyone in the building watching, it’s a sign that there’s something down there.

”Bet there’s an access tunnel somewhere,” Nick says thoughtfully. “I’ll go right, you go left?”

Hefting her rifle, Kaili nods. “Sounds like a plan.”

They end up finding the tunnel at the same time; it’s only a small thing that leads to a locked door, but it’s on the opposite side of the building from the one they’d approached, and Nick makes quick work of the lock, gaining them access.

The inside is booby-trapped out the wazoo. There’s bathroom scales, grenade chandeliers, tension triggers, trip wires, flamer traps, fragmentation mines, plasma mines, basically every kind of explosive or trap that Kaili’s encountered, it’s here in this building. It’s slow going disarming as many as they can, triggering the ones they can’t from a safe distance, but slowly but surely they work their way down. “This place is amazingly well-preserved,” Kaili observes, studying a chart on a wall that’s barely yellowed with age.

”Almost as well-preserved as you,” Nick teases, and Kaili gives him a shove, mindful of the extra strength the armor gives her.

”Very funny, tin can.”

Eventually, they make their way to the third floor, having systematically cleared the first two, and when they emerge from the stairwell - the elevator lights had been on, indicating they had power, but had apparently been disabled - they’re greeted by a sight that neither of them had really expected, despite the evidence.

There’s a ghoul waiting for them, hunting rifle in hand and pointed directly at Nick’s face. “Who are you?” she demands without preamble, and Kaili frowns behind the helmet, trying to place the voice.

”My name is Nick,” the synth answers, holstering his pistol and holding his hands up in the universal symbol of ‘I come in peace’ that doesn’t seem to do a whole lot to reassure the ghoul.

”And your companion? Step out of the armor,” she orders, gaze flicking to Kaili, who carefully bends down to lay her rifle on the ground before complying; this deep below ground, in the shelter of the building, the rads are reduced enough that Kaili feels comfortable leaving for a few minutes. Kaili mimics Nick’s position, but the last thing she’s expecting when she steps around the armor and the ghoul gets her first good look at Kaili is what she gets: “Fucking hell, what the fuck?”

Kaili feels her eyebrows raise. “I beg your pardon?”

”Jesus shit, it is you. Couple new scars, but still.” Now the rifle gets tossed aside as the ghoul strides up to Kaili, stopping an arm’s length away. “Christ, look at you. The fuck happened, did you get stuck in a fridge somewhere?”

Kaili can’t help the way she chokes on a laugh, remembering the kid she had actually rescued from a fridge, but she shakes her head. “No, I was - cryogenically frozen. Iced.”

The ghoul’s eyes narrow, then she snaps her fingers. “That Vault they built up by your place,” she concludes, nodding when Kaili does. “Well hell, you’re looking damn good for - what is it now? Two hundred forty-five, give or take? Hell of a lot better than I am, anyway.”

And fuck, Kaili can barely hope, but… “Meghan?”

The ghoul smiles ruefully. “Yeah, that’s me.”

Kaili’s moving before she realizes what she’s doing, hauling Meghan in close. “Holy shit, you’re alive,” she breathes, burying her face in the crook of Meghan’s neck as her best friend does the same. “My God, I came out here just to see, but I didn’t expect - “

Meghan laughs bitterly as they pull apart. “Yeah, me either. Hell of a shock, it was. You mind introducing me to that hunk of metal over there? He don’t look like no synth I’ve ever met.”

”Oh!” Kaili grins, moving to sling an arm around Nick’s shoulders. “This is Nick Valentine, he’s a second generation synth from the Institute. Actually a prototype of the third generation, I think. He was implanted with the memories of - “

”That poor bastard whose fiance got shot,” Meghan finishes, the pieces obviously slotting into place. “Well hell, pleasure to meet you.”

Nick shakes her hand with a bemused smile while Kaili rolls her eyes. “So you've been here since the bombs dropped?” Nick asks.

”Yep,” Meghan answers, popping the ‘p’ just like Kaili remembers. “Me and about… oh, two dozen scientists and four dozen guards were living here around the clock, working on a project funded by some anonymous client who was rich as Midas. Building got buried in the blast, about half a dozen people died immediately, another dozen died of radiation poisoning. The rest of us turned into ghouls, but… Well, being so close to ground zero, the ones who never spent any time away with me on scavenging missions went feral fast.” Meghan’s mouth twists into a grimace. “Saw how other ghouls like them acted around normal people, learned there was no coming back after one of the doctors did a necropsy - he didn't feel right calling it an autopsy, ‘cause the brains were so rotted the people had become nothing but animals. We all decided to put anyone who went feral for good down, and since I was the most experienced with weapons after the last security guard went feral…”

”Shit,” Kaili breathes, reaching out to lay a comforting hand on Meghan’s shoulder; the ghoul gives her a half-hearted smile.

”I led the scavenging missions,” she continued. “went north, out of what I found out people were calling the Glowing Sea. Got away from the worst of the rads fairly regularly and picked up new information, made new friends.”

”And getting away from the rads helped keep you from going feral,” Kaili finishes.

Meghan nods. “Yep, near as I can figure. I’m the last one of the scientists who survived the blast, and I’ve been alone going on… twenty years now? Something like that, I didn’t keep track,” she says, waving a hand. “But! Before Dr. Bradley died, we finalized the latest design for the project we were originally contracted for.”

Kaili blinks, but Nick beats her to replying: “You kept working on that for over a hundred and fifty years? Without being paid?”

Meghan shrugs. “We were engineers and scientists, of course we did,” she chuckles. “C’mon, lemme reboot the elevators and I’ll show you what we designed.”

”What… are we looking at?” Kaili asks, confused; back in her power armor, the click of the geiger counter in her ear, she eyes the flat black slabs before her. “They look a bit like panels, but…”

”Sol tiles,” Meghan announces, patting one fondly. “That’s what we built. They take energy from the sun and store it, and then we’ve got some other bits and bobs to convert it into something that can be stored in fusion cores and cells.”

”Holy shit,” Nick breathes, crouching down to examine the underside of one. “How efficient are they?”

”Well, these are.. fourth generation, I believe,” Meghan says, gesturing to the corner to her left. “Over there is the first one. These are about twice as efficient as the first one we built. Enough for a single tile, out on an average day’s weather for about ten hours to store enough energy to fill two hundred fusion cores. Not that I have two hundred fusion cores just lying around, that’s just what the numbers project.”

”Holy shit,” Nick repeats, Kaili echoing the sentiment.

”This is… It could completely change the Commonwealth.”

”I know,” Meghan says, expression twisting. “But I only have materials to make a limited number, and no idea how to find any more. And the materials are really hard to work with and move very far, and I don’t have any way of getting my truck out of the garage and to the Commonwealth.” She pauses when Kaili and Nick whirl around to stare at her. “What?”

”You have a working truck?” Nick demands.

”Of course; we kept a truck, a car, and a cycle in good condition after the bombs fell, but we could never get the parking garage cleared out well enough to even get the cycle out,” Meghan says. “Why?”

”Well, none of the trucks lying around work - “

”Ugh, I know,” Meghan groans. “I’ve taken a look at most of them; they’re too hard to cannibalize for parts, apparently, because most of them have the bits to make them go, they just don’t have an energy source, and no coolant for the fission cores. None in any filling station, either; it’s all evaporated.”

”How do you get yours to run then?” Kaili asks, curious.

”Converted it to run on fusion cores,” Meghan answers. “Well, me and one of the other scientists. Nice gal, good with her hands. Want to see it?”

”Hell yes!”

”He’s not the prettiest thing, Vega, but he’s nice enough,” Meghan says, opening the doors to the garage and leading the way past the defunct vehicles. “Kept him and the other car and cycle over here by the workstation, just to make it easier to work on them when we needed a distraction.” Meghan opens the driver’s door long enough to pop the hood on the shipping truck - whose trailer is in just as good a shape as the truck - to show Nick and Kaili the modifications. “He can’t sit idle for very long or the cores start overheating. Has to be moving, get air flowing over them to cool them off. But even then, he still can’t go more than about fifty miles, not that we’ve been able to see how accurate that is.”

Kaili makes an appreciative noise, turning to look at the rest of the garage as Nick takes a closer look at the insides of the truck, talking with Meghan. Kaili leaves them to it, following the road through the middle of the enormous - no surprise, considering what Meghan told them about the size of some of the parts they had shipped in; apparently their client had the garage custom built after redesigning the entire lab - parking garage, all the way to where the ground of the Glowing Sea blocks the entry way. “Hey, Meghan?” she calls back, studying the dirt in front of her.

”Yeah?” Meghan answers, footsteps echoing as she comes closer.

”How deep is this?” Kaili asks, gesturing to the blockage in front of her. “I mean, how far from the surface are we?”

”If we could dig straight up? Probably about thirty feet or so,” Meghan answers. “But the truck can only handle so steep an angle, so probably quadruple that, maybe more, if we were going to dig a tunnel. We never bothered with it, didn’t have the supplies necessary to build supports, or the equipment needed to just dig a valley.”

Kaili hums thoughtfully. “Bet if we could convince Sturges to come down here with a team of Minutemen he could clear it out,” she muses.

”He is a handy human,” Nick agrees, having followed Meghan. “Would need to find a lot of hazmat suits, though. And some good equipment.”

Kaili waves a hand. “Of course; you know neither of those are any problem, though. The storekeepers all love me.”

Nick snorts. “They love the business you bring,” he corrects, but doesn’t argue. “Percy and Myrna could probably lay their hands on some hazmat suits and tools.”

”This is great and all, but what about getting out of the Glowing Sea?” Meghan pipes up. “The terrain is rough as hell, and I don’t have a map.”

”What about the Vault 88 Pip Boys?” Nick suggests, and Kaili nods.

”There’s a couple extras, I think. Wouldn’t be too hard to get one set up with a modern map and down here for you,” she says.

Meghan considers that, then grins. “Well, if it means I might be able to test out my stuff in a more real-world situation… I’m in.”

Meghan stays behind, unwilling to leave her lab behind just yet, but with the help of Radio Freedom, Kaili is back within a few days, Sturges and several Minutemen in tow, along with their equipment. Kaili helps Meghan get her Pip Boy set up, and then leaves her to explore and play with it in favor of helping her men. She’d worn her Power Armor and had scrounged up several other fusion cores, enough to share among the older-model suits she’d collected over her two years in the Commonwealth.

With all that extra mechanical power at their disposal, it isn’t hard for Meghan and Sturges to direct Kaili and her men into the most efficient work pattern. It still takes several days, but with the shelter offered by the lower levels of the lab and the food they’d brought, combined with what Meghan had stockpiled over the years, it’s not a problem. When they’re done, Meghan tests the ramp with her other vehicle, a smaller truck. They’d elected to forego trying to build a tunnel, instead carving a valley into the Glowing Sea whose walls were supported by walls. After a few other adjustments, Meghan pronounces the ramp to her satisfaction, and fires up the shipping truck for the moment of truth. She, Kaili, and Nick are the only ones with the practical experience(in a manner of speaking in Nick’s case) of driving a vehicle, but Meghan doesn’t trust anyone else with her baby. It takes some careful maneuvering to get the truck through the rest of the garage, and then she holds her breath as they rumble from concrete to dirt, praying that the packed ground holds the vehicle’s weight.

Miraculously, it does - and for the first time in over two hundred years, Meghan sees daylight through the windshield of a vehicle. “I’ll be damned,” she breathes, grinning. “It worked.”

”It did,” Kaili confirms, coming up to the window that had long ago been broken out. “Now we just need to find a suitable route out of here.”

Meghan gestures behind herself. “Well, we packed this with food and equipment, and so long as we mark the route so I can retrieve more once we get out, we can just keep going; Sturges knows what to look for in the ground, now.”

Kaili nods, hefting her rifle. “I’ll let them know.”

There are several close calls, but with the mechanical muscle provided by the suits of Power Armor, the truck eventually reaches solid ground, its tires finally touching road once again. From there, the group makes its way northward to the Starlight Drive-In, where Kaili had built a large trading settlement that was quickly becoming the seat of the unofficial Commonwealth government.

When the truck finally pulls into the makeshift garage Kaili had built for it, brakes screaming in protest and engine groaning in relief as it’s finally allowed to rest, they draw quite a crowd. Meghan can hear the murmurs before she even steps out of the vehicle, and they only grow in volume when she does. Kaili is already stepping out of her power armor, hooking it up to a nearby frame as she does so before stepping forward.

”Now, I know you all have been very curious since I started building that garage,” she announces, and Meghan can’t help but smile a bit sadly at the image Kaili makes in her General uniform; she’d always been a leader, and Meghan just wishes that Nate and their other friends could have seen her like this, though preferably in better circumstances than post-nuclear apocalyptic. “A couple of weeks ago, Nick and I went into the Glowing Sea to find a building I had known about before the bombs dropped. We didn’t expect to find anything, but we did: An old friend of mine, Meghan.”

Meghan steps forward, giving a small wave when Kaili gestures to her. “I was a scientist and engineer, before the war,” she starts when Kaili doesn’t say anything, just looks at her expectantly. “Several of us were contracted to find a new means of energy; our client didn’t trust nuclear energy - rightly, as it turns out.” She waits while the snickers subside, and then continues, “We were all in the lab when the bombs dropped, and most of us survived that. The ones who survived became ghouls, but I am the last survivor. Before they died, however, we managed to fulfill our contracts and do a bit more.”

Meghan helps a Minuteman get a sol tile out of the track, helping him hold it up. “This is a sol tile - it collects energy from sunlight, and can convert it into a form that can be stored in fusion cells and cores, enabling them to be refilled until they wear out. This truck,” she says, pointing at the truck in question, “runs on fusion cores that were depleted, and refilled with solar energy. I hope to find the materials to make more of these sol tiles, so that I can rebuild more vehicles and help the Commonwealth continue to rebuild in a more meaningful way.”

”We’ve made great strides towards that end,” Kaili jumps in. “This settlement is proof of it. But if we can find the materials to build more of these tiles, we can make even greater strides.”

Meghan can tell that there’s dissent, some traders’ expressions suspicious, others downright mistrustful, but she’s faced those expressions and attitudes her entire life; this won’t be any different.

[theforgottengn]

Issues In Trust

Characters: November, Mike, Lima, Oscar, Romeo and Quebec

Word Count: 1,930

Trigger Warning: Slight Swearing

A/N: I really didn’t like where I was going with And Hope To Die so I came up with a new adventure for November and the team. Just like the other one this one takes place before Charlie joins them.

Summary: November and her boys are tasked with protecting a Navy SEAL. But in the world of espionage you never know who you can trust. Especially when the person you’re supposed to save won’t trust you. Click that read more if you want to.

XXXXX

“I seriously hate this guy,” Romeo said as he plopped down on the bed.

“Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.”

Even though Romeo stared at the ceiling and couldn’t see Quebec’s face he could sense the smirk in his best friend’s words. But the man had a point, even if he was just quoting a movie, and it was a good one. Emotions always made their job messier than it had to be. It was always better to leave emotions out of everything. Which was something the Raven was quite good at.

But that didn’t change Romeo’s feelings about their target.

In fact none of the wisdom Quebec could impart through movie quotes would change anyone’s feelings; not even his own. And neither could the calming mantras Oscar guided them through. From day one their current mission smelled fishier than the ocean. A Navy SEAL was being hunted by a terrorist cell and needed their help? His SEAL status checked out and the terrorist cell was proven to be real. As well as the cell’s connection to the petty officer and the team he worked with. Everything checked out just fine.

Except for Petty Officer Douglas Minkowski himself.

The man was on the taller side, six-foot-three, tanned and muscled. His hair and thin beard were both a dark brown, almost black, in color. Just looking at his dark brown eyes, as they darted around, anyone could tell that Minkowski was constantly on edge. He carried himself with such obvious suspicion of the world around him. But none could blame him.

They knew firsthand what that life does to people.

His suspicion wasn’t the problem they had with him though. It was how he took control of the mission. From the moment the team made contact Minkowski took charge of the situation. The original plan took a backseat to his orders. Instead of doing things by the rules they usually followed the team saw Minkowski on his terms. Spoke to Minkowski through his burner phones. They went to his safe houses.

One of the small run-down, total crap shoot of an apartments was, were Romeo and Quebec currently were waiting.

And now the spare burner, which sat peacefully inside the interior pocket of Romeo’s suit jacket, was vibrating like never before. Which only meant one thing. Making an assumption he sent Quebec away with a nod of his head.

“Here’s looking at you kid.”

Quebec winked and climbed through the open window and down the fire escape. The Millennium Falcon, a black M27 IAR sniper rifle and Q’s most prized possession, was slung across his back. The butt of the rifle was the last thing Romeo saw as his best friend climbed out of view. Romeo shook his head; heavily embarrassed by Quebec despite there being no one else in the room with them. Being best friends with Q was very trying at times and despite enduring years of the man’s oddities times like this were the most trying. Movie quotes in lieu of real conversations wasn’t as difficult as watching Quebec leave him to fend for himself.

I wish Q would just act normal for once and see that I need him.

Wait… what the hell am I saying?

That bloody idiot demands to go by the name of damn Bond character! Nothing’s normal about him for Christ’s sake!

“Leave it alone and focus,” he scolded aloud to himself with a heavy sigh.

Completely forgetting about the burner in his pocket Romeo tapped his comm. to life. His original plan was to talk to Quebec. Not even to really talk. Just find out if Q was where he needed to be. If he was ready. But, and most importantly, if Quebec would have his back when the time came.

Then the phone vibrated again.

He sat up on the bed and pulled the out the phone. But instead of looking at it he got up and walked to the small kitchen. He rummaged through the cupboards for a few minutes and then found a glass tumbler. Opening the fridge Romeo reached inside and grabbed a bottle of bourbon. Then he opened the freezer, grabbed a couple ice cubes and popped them into the glass. Pouring a good amount of the bourbon over the ice he twisted the cap back onto the bottle when he finished. Taking a sip he sighed and returned the bottle to the fridge. He thought about calling Quebec again. His finger hovered above his ear comm.

Thinking better of it he connected to November instead.

November here.

“It’s me. It’s Ro.”

Yeah, I know. Something wrong?

“No. Everything’s fine.”

Are you sure?

“Yes.”

Oh really? Then why isn’t Q answering me?

Romeo didn’t say anything; he had no idea what was going on in Quebec’s head. Shrugging slightly he took another sip. He let another minute pass by as he checked the messages that came through the burner. Even though they were speaking in code the urgency was quite clear.

What are they thinking? Hats are up and coming.

People may think I lie, but, I am not even worried.

Can you save a sample for me?

This is not good. Romeo thought to himself.

November ended the silence with a harsh clearing of her throat. The sudden sound pulled Romeo out of the scenarios he was running through his head. Minkowski couldn’t be trusted but there was the slight possibility that he was telling the truth about everything. After all his messages were very off-putting.

“Yeah?” he asked taking another sip.

What did you do?

“Me?!” Romeo asked shocked and almost choking on the bourbon. November’s accusatory tone was the last thing he expected. His mind, and all of its attention, was already split up. A part was worrying about Minowski. Another was worrying about himself. Another was thinking about how Lima was reacting to all of this. And another was thinking about Quebec. Not a single part was focused on the conversation with his leader.

“What makes you think I did anything to piss him off?”

‘Cause y’all bicker like an old married couple, Mike cut in.

“So do you and Li! And besides, who in the hell asked you in the first place, Mike?”

Nobody. But seeing as I’m the one who’s gonna get all y’all’s asses outta here if things go to shit I’da thought my opinion would count for somethin’

“Jesus fucking Christ I didn’t…”

Before Romeo could finish his sentence another set of texts came through the burner. But this time Minkowshi opted for plain English instead of the skip code.

They’re coming.

I know it.

Not safe.

On my way.

“Fucking damn it!” Romeo muttered to himself when he read the last text.

XXXXX

November, Oscar, and Lima were the ones away from the action. The three of them were currently holed up in another safe house near Minkowski’s apartment. It had the look of makeshift living quarters, but, they lived in worse places before so they didn’t complain. But they were far away enough to be very left out of the loop. Oscar and Lima were used to being on this end of things; they worked as they normally would have. November was not on the other hand. That was Minkowski’s doing and they did not like it.

Usually November was in there with the others; headfirst into the firefight.

“Shit.”

“What? What is it?” Lima asked; worry flowing through his voice.

“Minowski.”

November’s one word explanation was just enough to get Lima’s anxiety going. Shooting up from the cot where he sat he began spouting off questions. His face paled quickly and his mouth was going a mile a minute. But the others knew that his brain, and its worry, was going even faster.

“Minowski? What about him? Is he dead? Did the terrorists get him? What about Romeo? And Quebec? Are Ro and Q safe? What’s going on?!”

“Li, let November explain please,” Oscar calmly interjected.

“Oscar. Check the tracker Romeo put on Minkowski. Find him.”

“You got it.”

He opened up the laptop that sat on the small folding table in front of him. Opening the tracking program Oscar saw a small green dot blinking on the screen. He zoomed in on the image a few times. Romeo wouldn’t dare to call them with Minkowski near him so they couldn’t rely on his help. All they needed was a street name and a direction. They could figure out the rest from there.

“They’re heading south on Winnipeg Boulevard. It looks like…”

Oscar zoomed back out again and followed the trajectory. There was only one place they could be heading to.

“What?! Where are they going!?” Lima shouted.

“They’re headed to a nightclub.”

A few minutes later Oscar was watching everything from the security cameras inside the nightclub. Once they knew where Minkowski absconded with Romeo it didn’t take long to get a handle on things from their end. November had the wherewithal to send Mike to the target’s location. He was already there, parked in an alley across the street, watching things from the outside. Quebec was already with the two of them since he watched Minkowski arrive and depart with Romeo.

The team had not one inside man but three; things were looking up for them. Not to mention hacking into the poor excuse for a security system took less than five minutes. And now Oscar watched as Romeo and Quebec tussled with a couple of security guards. They were trying to get to Minkowski before things went from bad to worse.

“We’re gonna kill a guy today, isn’t that going to be fucking fun?!”

Lima chimed in with his usual anxiety; “Only if they survive to do anything. Which they probably won’t.”

“Have a little faith, will you?”

A worried sound escaped Lima’s mouth and he left the makeshift living room for the kitchen.

“Oscar, please. We aren’t going to kill him,” November said. She stood directly behind the Cobbler and also watched the security footage. They still didn’t know why Minkowski refused to let them help in their usual way. And besides their mission was to protect him at all costs. Killing him was completely out of the question.

Even if he headed into a nightclub and started beating up everyone.

The security camera feed was beyond poor quality. Choppy and full of static it was hard to tell how things were going. Flashing strobe lights had already made surveillance hard on their end. And if that wasn’t bad enough the nightclub was far beyond crowded. It was next to impossible to make out Romeo and Quebec in the mass of people.

“Somebody tell me what’s happening!”

November sighed and left Oscar to watch the feed. Someone had to calm Lima down. And since Mike was nowhere near them it was up to her. Having everyone keep their wits about them was a technical part of her job description. She was the team’s leader after all.

“Li?”

The Musician didn’t answer.

She entered the kitchen and saw him standing with his arms on the counter. He looked like he could barely keep his body propped up. His arms were shaking and his chest rose and fell rapidly. November could tell that he was on the verge of a panic attack. But she didn’t have time to do anything before things took a turn for the worse.

“Well, well, well…”

“What? What happened now!?” November shouted.

“The cameras just went black. I can’t do anything. I lost the footage. I lost them.”