#Criminal Connection

[barragerofarrows]

Plans

The Delano: Loft | 20 Rooms | Alex D: (Andy!!!) Nguyen: BOOKED

4,500 STEPS PER LOFT

[wistfulwatcher]

emily prentiss + her waning tolerance of getting close to killers

[mortalstrife]

Animals! Brutal! They deserve no mercy. Strike them down! Follow them to their base and kill them, all of them!🔺I did not realize similarity was required for the exercise of compassion. They are afraid. We wish only to do what we can.

minvember prompt 3: crowd

[hitlikehammers]

Steddie Missed Connection AU

feat. Craigslist-trawling-wingwoman!Robin + earnest-LA-transplant!Steve + rockstar!Eddie ✨ inspired by this actual Craigslist love story

It’s always about a 50/50 shot when Robin starts making her little back-of-the-throat squealing noises. Up to a certain pitch, Steve could pretend he had his AirPods on noise cancellation mode.

Once she reached fire-alarm-screeching levels, it overrode the settings and boom: he lost his fall guy.

Thanks, Apple.

But that’s where they are, and the squealing plus the screen in her hands, plus the way her leg’s bouncing against the table they’re both sitting at—which would have overrrode Steve’s AirPod excuse in about a minute because she’s gonna start splashing his glass of orange juice in a hot second—but all of it lumped together?

He’s lucky he’s retained his athletic reflexes post-high school—maybe only because of being joined-at-the-hip with this particular platonic soulmate, really—because by the time she’s swinging her iPad from its case to plop right down in front of him?

At least he’s quick enough to save his overnight oats from becoming aluminum-flavored when she drops the goddamn thing down without warning—caseless, the heathen—and makes indecipherable noises Steve thinks he’s maybe only heard at the zoo as she taps her nail with an migraine-inducing click on the screen.

Steve…supposes this means he’s obligated to look.

He sighs, fully expecting a dumb meme or a ‘cute TikTok’ because he knows who he fucking lives with; he reaches across the table and unfolds his glasses—really, assaulting him with this before he can even get his contacts in…

And it’s a…webpage. Like: just a webpage. A boring webpage, even. Definitely not matching up with the…squealing and table-sized earthquake of bouncing knees. He squints, tries to make it make sense.

Oh. Wow. He didn’t…

Steve did not actually know Craigslist still existed, let alone that people still used it. He was pretty sure the things for sale were always just kidnapping plots with extra steps, and then also that finding a person you walked past that one time was an FYP problem to solve. But.

Here, in front of him, in black and white and honestly like no other color:

Steve squints; it was posted this morning, but only just. Like 4am. So the last afternoon for there to be a one o’clock hour was—

Yesterday.

His yesterday was uneventful. Went shopping with Robs. Filled up the freezer and overbought shit again so they had a kind of massive and wholly mismatched dinner with the leftovers nearly popping open the fridge door. Can’t take the Midwesterner out of the man or woman, apparently.

Definitely nothing like the day this poor soul on a maybe-less-dead-than-presumed website had had. But Steve won’t pretend his heart doesn’t clench a little when he finishes reading because…it’s cheesy.

But Steve’s always been into that romantic…stuff.

“That’s very sweet,” he lands on commenting before passing the tablet back to Robin, who’s staring at him with frankly terrifying eyes. Like: lost-your-fucking-mind eyes.

“Steven.”

“What?”

“Steven.”

“Robin.”

He won’t even pretend he doesn’t jump with the metal slams on the wood where Robin narrowly misses flipping his bowl of sadly-abandoned oats with her iPad again when she slaps it down in from of him and points frantically yet again.

“Look at the location.”

Steve tilts his head.

Oh. He’d just looked at the time. And it’s not like the location in the title was…unique on its own.

“Huh,” he huffs with a shrug when he sees their part of the city listed in the main link up top. “Coinkydink.”

Robin’s growl starts deep, like a diaphragmatic thrum and Steve would be terrified of her if she were anyone else.

As it is: he’s only mildly unsettled. Specifically because the growl rumbles so���long.

Like at least a minute before she screams bloody fucking murder:

“My hair was in the buns!”

And the way she screeches it, and the maniacal twitch of those eyes…she’s saying more than those words, with those words.

Which means Steve has to put in effort to follow her coded message style of communicating, fucking hell. He hasn’t even eaten his breakfast.

He tries to think it through, at least manages to down his glass of OJ so it can’t be a sacrifice to flying iPads when he thinks he…

“Wait.”

Steve frowns. Robin just blinks.

“You don’t,” he shakes his head, or starts to, it’s a slow motion thing; “you don’t like honestly think,” but even as he’s saying it, the look in her eyes starts to make sense, and answers for him:

“This is not about me.”

Because: seriously.

“We were laughing!” Robin is immediate with her rebuttal, still in her screeching era. “No one else was there!”

“Because we specifically time our shopping for when people are at lunch on a weekday,” Steve counters quick, tries to cut her off at the pass; “a statistically slow window of opportunity for us to debate the list!”

“We write the list to avoid debating,” Robin answers in a more sedate, be reasonable now, dingus tone before she shakes her head and scowls and:

“Stop distracting me!”

Yep, back to the screeching.

“Why were you even on that fucking site?” Steve sighs as he crosses his arms and leans back in his chair.

“Steven,” Robin says again in that fucking tone that always means he’s missing the biggest, far-more-important point but does jack shit to help him find it.

“Robina.”

“Not my name, eww.”

“Well, now you know how I feel when you make up a middle name for me,” Steve sticks his tongue out very maturely to her scrunched up face: “they’re never even nice ones,” he adds, because they’re really not; “and I do know that was your next move so,” he smacks his hands opposite the screen on the table in front of him in victory as he crows:

“Denied.”

“This isn’t basketball,” Robin’s working her tongue around her lips inside her mouth, which is always deadly foreshadowing; “you didn’t block my shot or whatever—“

“Didn’t I?” Steve pushes because, well, one, he did, and two, the original conversation was absurd even for them.

“Maybe it was so empty because his security was there.”

Steve frowns. The tone’s too…even. No. No: too haughty.

“The fuck does that mean?”

“I said he looked like a rockstar,” she leans to grab back her tablet and poke near the top, obviously switching browser tabs: “so I did some digging.”

“Robin, what city do we live in?” Steve asks as she works, because yes, Steve remembers seeing a very hot fucking dude staring less in their direction than looking dumbstruck-lost as hell, and he’d considered walking over to ask if he needed help—Midwestern transplant to the bone—which was accompanied by the stray I’d fuck that gorgeous toothpick silly, but in the paper product aisle, like on the 48-count pack of Charmin, he looks soft under all that leather—then both thoughts were swiftly abandoned when the toothpick’s eyes met Steve’s and Steve maybe had to force himself to finish laughing at a joke he can’t remember now, that Robin told, because his skin felt like it was burning a little except the sun had poked behind a cloud, and his throat, it had like, it had just, it—

It just felt…weird.

He does remember that.

“But we don’t see rockstars every day,” which is fair, their neighborhood in particular is less music biz than others.

“Plus, look at this!”

Then she’s shoving the iPad back in front of Steve: it’s a TMZ shot or some other pap photo that’s more than half blur. It is indeed the parking lot at their Costco. And it does…feature a toothpick-esque figure looking similar to the one Steve remembers, but it’s more from the back than the side. And like, anyone can wear that much black in the summer. It’s a free country.

“And look at him!”

She split-screens to a Wikipedia article about a band even Steve’s heard of, if not for listening to them himself. It…he glances at the paparazzi shot.

Lead guitarist of Corroded Coffin Sighted Getting Groceries Just Like Normal People in Mar—

And then he looks back to the wiki: okay. Same band name. The guy with the guitar in the photo looks…

He has the same hair.

“Don’t tell me it’s just coincidence.”

Steve rolls his eyes.

“It is just coincidence.”

“Steve.”

Steve feels his face sour.

“I know that tone,” because he does. It never leads to things he enjoys.

“You’ve thought about him.”

“He was gorgeous,” Steve thinks he surprises her with his honesty but like, what does he have to gain by lying? Plus:

“LA’s is like the plastic surgery capital of the fucking world, it’d be kinda sad if a lot of people generally weren’t pretty.”

“He wasn’t that kind of pretty.”

And fuck if they don’t share a brain cell; fuck if she doesn’t see right through him.

“And that’s not why you’ve been thinking about him.”

And fuck if she doesn’t know Steve, far too well.

“I never once said I’d been thinking about,” he hears the words and knows they’re weak, goddamnit.

“You never had to,” Robin smiles a little and taps an annoying finger at the screen again, that’a somehow flipped right back to the Craigslist ad thingy.

And she’s actually not entirely right, because he hadn’t thought much about the gorgeous toothpick man with curls Steve wanted to be smothered by, suffocate in like a pillow. But when he did?

He’d thought most about how he looked soft, on the inside. Thought wild and idiotic things like maybe his soft could match Steve’s soft when no one else’s ever had and he was always left bruised for it, more than once near-unhealable, and maybe they could, like, if their softnesses matched, then like—

Something.

But Steve always comes on too strong, wants too much, hopes to hard and way too fast, though this shit might take the cake, there: so it was idiotic and he’d left that train of thought to derail on its own and—

Did that come on too strong?

His gaze snags on the words, those exact words up on the screen and he’s very tempted to start growling deep in the pit of his stomach, take a cue from Robin’s absurdity.

“Don’t you have a class to get to?” Steve asks, looking pointedly at the clock on the microwave: he knows she does. Pottery making. For self-edification.

She scowls but looks—swears colorfully because it’s later than she thought as she jumps up and goes to presumably…do whatever she does in the bathroom to get ready to leave and look her lesbian-luring best before she gets smattered in wet clay.

Steve remains unclear on whether that look’s more or less attractive to the specific ladies she’s trying to bait.

Either way: it prompts Robin to drop her one-woman campaign insisting Steve’s soulmate of the romantic flavor is calling our desperately into the void of the internet. But it also, however, has the…side-effect of making the time itself an obvious thing. 11:09.

Rob’s gonna take the car, she’s got…supplies and stuff.

Why that’s important is…lost on him.

He could debase himself and brave the bus, if he got off at Washington and—

What the fuck.

What. The. Fuck.

Steve very forcefully shoves Robin’s iPad back across the table and doesn’t think about anything, especially not the numbers, like the number 214, like two hours and fourteen minutes until—

Steve nearly chokes himself on his fucking spoon with how violently he shoves it, full of oats, between his lips. As if he can shut his brain up as easy as he can his mouth.

It…actually kinda works. He might have chipped a tooth.

——————

In the end, Steve is proud of himself for being reasonable and having standards. He doesn’t take a fucking bus to meet a stranger in a Costco parking lot, Jesus Christ. Come on.

He books an Uber.

(And yes, he and Robin agreed no solo Ubers for a month to save up to have the air conditioner looked at before it copped out on them because their landlord only gave a shit if it was dead-dead and yes, maybe she’d gone so far as to put their account on a hold you had to call and remove to avoid temptation—though of the two of them, she definitely had the bigger problem—but little did she think on the fact that while you had to link a phone number, you could just use Google Voice and make a new account and no, Steve’s not insane, or a hopeless romantic, or almost-asking-for-heartbreak-on-the-regular, thank you very much.

He is resourceful. And it’s only like $15 with tip. It’s a quick ride.)

He asks to be dropped near the back of the lot, and takes the walk up slow. Almost goes the long way, straight into the store. Almost turns back entirely.

But then he sees those curls.

And his throat does the…the weird tight thing for no fucking reason, and his feet don’t ask permission to walk in the direction of the man standing…less dumbstruck, now. Even from the back it’s clear.

Now: he’s waiting.

Steve can barely breathe, can’t fucking swallow for the state of his throat, but his feet still aren’t waiting for permission, so it’s only fucking seconds before he’s close enough to catch a whiff of cologne and then—

“Sorry,” Steve ducks around the man from behind and reaches out automatically to steady him when he startles. “Hey, sorry, you just looked like maybe you were looking for something?” Steve smiles as open, as reassuring as he knows. “Just wanted to check if you needed any help.”

Keep it casual, Steve, keep it fucking friendly and extra polite and—

“Oh my god.”

The guy barely breathes it out, his eyes so wide, and Steve doesn’t know why he hasn’t moved his hand from the guy’s arm but Steve can feel the electric current that runs through him, like the finest grade of trembling. And electricity, right, it travels. Conducts.

In case you felt your heart skip just one beat, didn’t even have to full-on stop—

And even that proximity to this man is nothing compared to hearing his voice, low and a little syrupy even as he stares in shock, in disbelief—and oh. Oh, but what was it the guy had written in his post? About feeling the earth move a little, or like, rewiring your cells just for meeting eyes?

Steve, he’s…

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

“You’re here.”

Steve blinks, rocked back to the moment to deal with the new tilt of the globe and the spontaneous realignment of his insides later. This guy’s looking at Steve like he’s unbelievable, like he’s miraculous, like he’s…

Sunshine.

“I’m here?” Steve asks, a little breathy, a little curious.

“I,” the guy swallows, lips shiny as he bites at them, fucking adorable; “I saw you, umm, yesterday and I maybe, well, possibly I wrote some,” he fumbles and sounds like he’s building up to eventual hysterics, so Steve acts wholly on instinct and reaches further now to catch at both his hands.

“Relax,” Steve breathes out with a smile, and doesn’t overthink smoothing his thumbs over the guy’s knuckles, just in case it soothes him.

“My friend,” Steve lets go with one hand and grabs his phone to show the page he’d loaded on the ride here; “she was convinced it was you, about me. I wasn’t, so,” he shakes his head quick when something falls in the guy’s face, something dims: oh, umm, no.

He cannot have that.

“Not trying to catch you out or something,” Steve exhales it warm, as reassuring as he can, with his whole chest as he grabs the guy’s hands in both his own again—since he seemed to not mind; “just,” and Steve shrugs even as he smiles a little, less self-deprecating with it than he’d probably have landed on if the guy hadn’t reacted to Steve’s hands on his by clinging back so tight:

“Just a little hard to believe, is all.”

The man barely lets the words settle before his jaw drops almost comically and he demands, high-pitched and somehow still rumbling, something commanding in it nonetheless:

“How?”

Like it’s unimaginable. Like Steve reading that post and walking into this lot and striding up to a perfect stranger—who may or may not be very famous but that’s actually not even a little bit of the point—but a stranger who would want to see him—

But then Steve’s meeting the guy’s eyes again; hadn’t wholly realized he’d been staring at their hands more than anything. Those eyes are like the night sky, swirling and endless and sparking in the right slant of light, and Steve feels them like a welcome, like a cushion of the stars, like a safe landing in a chaotic universe.

He doesn’t even know this man.

But he thinks…yesterday. Yesterday, his heart didn’t stop, not like this guy had written, but Steve understands now what it did do instead, the thing he did remember, the tightness in his throat: his heart didn’t stop.

It just surged upward and took up residence to pound at his trachea where it tripped instead. Which is kinda where he’s back to right now.

“Could I,” the guy’s voice is rough, shaky, and so is he, Steve feels it where he’s still got his hand gripped firm; “would it be too much to ask if I could hug you?”

And he huffs a breath, and it sounds too….too small, like he’s afraid or ashamed and it pings something hateful, but so much more protective in Steve’s blood just to hear it as he confesses on a end of an exhale:

“I just want to know if you’re real.”

And Steve didn’t grow up a hugger, but he sure as shit’s grown into one; he’d be one of those people standing in the city with a ‘Free Hugs’ sign without much convincing. But this guy.

This man in front of him who may or may not be famous, is definitely a stranger either way save that he poured out some lines on the internet that maybe exceeded the term ‘heartfelt’ by a mile, who may or may not be standing in here, inside this moment, for something like fate because…Steve did feel it.

Maybe he didn’t think twice about the immensity it could have, not in the moment, because he’d been shopping, and Robin’s story was funny and maybe he was just struck by his luck in living a life with his platonic soulmate and knowing joy; surely your heart can trip for that and just because it never had before, just because it did this one first time when he crossed eyes with a genuinely beautiful man who left Steve with half-a-second’s certainty that looking any longer would flay wide this unknown person’s soul for Steve to sift through: but Steve felt things like that easy, always had. Romanticized nothings like it was a profession.

But it never hit like this had, has—is—before, if indeed this is actually anything—

And Steve’s heart is still tripping but it’s back in his chest, and he knows it because where he’s pressed against this guy’s kinda-gasping chest, now, close and tight? Maybe Steve’s never paid attention before, or maybe Steve’s just never…touched like this before, even if all they’re doing is hugging in a fucking parking lot.

But.

He’s pressed there and his heart’s tripping in his chest and he knows it wholly and fully because he can feel this man’s heartbeat next to his own—and where it should be a battle, because it’s pounding, both of them are, one side literally against the other?

It feels like a caress. It feels like, like…

Steve closes his eyes tight because they start to sting with the single word it feels like: impossible, absurd, but…

Here he is. He’s never felt someone’s heartbeat pressed up against his own before. Definitely never felt—never dreamt—that it could feel like it fits.

He leans back when he thinks he’s got a hold on the hopelessness of his tender-hearted absurdity, but the guy is staring at him already when he does and suddenly Steve’s got a handle on absolutely nothing except his pulse jackrabbiting some more but then also feeling…like it lost something. Like it’s not complete.

And the man, he’s staring with those eyes so wide again but now it’s like he’s…it’s kinda like he knows. He knows his eyes are going to let Steve flay him wide open.

It’s like he’s begging Steve to…look. To look and less to take, and more to…have.

Maybe, maybe to keep?

And…how?

“Do you feel it?” the guy whispers, those deep dark eyes so big: just these vulnerable, bleeding hearts on main. “Even just—“ he tries to walk back, to open it all up wider, desperate and hopeful and Steve hears all of it because it’s all written in the same key as all that Steve knows, all that Steve is. Somehow.

Somehow.

So Steve blinks, too many times before he grabs the man harder and drags him in again to hold, hold, hold until the heartbeat on either side of Steve’s ribs is reaching for the other, touching. Until they’re holding on, too, and once they do, then he can whisper, warm and maybe wet in the crook of this man’s neck, this stranger who’s holding onto his heart now, unfathomable, as he speaks words he doesn’t have to think about first to know they’re going to shift the world again, this time so they both can know it in the souls of them together, all at once:

“I feel it.”

For @hbyrde36, who requested 'Missed Connection AU' at my HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @nerdyglassescheeseychick @swimmingbirdrunningrock @goodolefashionedloverboi @sanctumdemunson @theheadlessphilosopher @lawrencebshoggoth

divider credits here and here

💫 ao3 link here

[lilliesthings]

One thing I keep thinking about is that Reid joined the FBI below the minimum required age right? But he also failed a bunch of qualifications in the academy. So he was not only the wrong age but also not exactly qualified and it's safe to assume Gideon is the one who got him in despite all that since he is the one who convinced him to join the FBI. Reid certainly couldn't have forced his way in lmao

But why? What was the hurry when it seems he could have used those extra years of experience? It always felt to me like he was very much pressed for time to get this job Right Now, and the only reason I can think of it that maybe it was immensely difficult to pay for Diana's care in these years ever since he was 18, and perhaps Gideon was sympathetic to that while also seeing potential in him.

[anxi04]

give me a damian and tim who act like they hate each other but they’re just constantly on the same wavelength

they’re not allowed to patrol together cause criminals start ending up even more traumatized than before. tim makes the plans and damian executes them FLAWLESSLY

their missions together end with a blown up building, a flawlessly completed mission (even with said blown up building), damian with a new stray, and tim with a new criminal connection. also with damian trying to stab tim who’s paying for their ice cream instead of going back to the cave for their report

[thatpyroblogs]

Funny idea I'm just going to jot down here for future musing.

What if, after having been a god for awhile, Diomedes decides he wants to be mortal again so he can die and join his friends in the underworld. He's granted this request and lives on earth as a mortal for a little while before dying a natural death. Upon which he immediately finds himself not in the underworld like he expected, but instead finds himself in a weird unknown place on fire next to a bewildered Odysseus.

[amethystroselily]

Undertaker is out here making whatever the fuck his deal is everyone’s problem and then every time someone asks him to elaborate on anything he’s like “please respect my privacy 😒”.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

"The alliterate one was yelling at a producer after the interview." 🤔

Well of course she did 🤪

By the way, it is past time for Jane Pauley to retire. Jane couldn't see the difference between Sparry's hand & his thigh : "...and I see you touch your HUSBAND'S HAND in just the way I knew you would be looking after one another."

Someone is Off Script 🤪😂

HAPPY Meg: to speak about her fake unaliving & the tell tell: "I wasn't expecting that..." She had a SCRIPT on the ready, along w/yet another veiled threat to the BRF

ANGRY Meg: Pauley said, "the 2 of you, a modest beginning it's NOT an army (yet). What are your ambitions?" This was the 1 time Pauley went off script.

Like vinegar in Meg's mouth: "you have to start somewhere..." BUSTED!

This "network" is a smokescreen, an illusion. The Meghans are tragedy vultures who grift off the pain of parents whose children are deceased. They intend to exploit these parents to pass legislation like KOSA, to criminalize online criticism and monitor social credit scores

Tragedy Vultures

Oh look, she's latched onto another mother of a deceased child. 🤔 ⚰

Q-Where did these TRAGEDY VULTURES meet the bereaved parents?⚰

A-They met these bereaved parents in October 2023 in NYC for the 2nd annual World Mental Health Day. archeFRAUD Partnered with Project Healthy Minds (Carson Daily) to target the potential activism of this niche group of bereaved parents who experienced the unthinkable----a child gone too soon.

archeFRAUD plans to use their website and resources as an online hub of "connection" for the parent bereavement stories. The financial backers are: the radical left NAACP, Boston's radical left Fairplay, ParentsSOS, Center for Humane Technology, George Soros Open Societies Foundations, Omisyar Network, Craig Newmark Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Ford Foundation, Pritzker Family Foundation, Pritzker Innovation Fund, Parent's For Safe Online Spaces, David's Legacy Foundation, etc.

They intend to use untouchable stories of sorrow & death to bully Congress into criminalizing online criticism. This has been a longtime mission for elites like noprah, tyler perry, hollyweird stars, celebrity & political island visitors made up of wealthy elites who do illegal deeds in the shadows. These groups have been on a 20 year mission to go back to the comfort & secrecy of the pre-internet era. They are desperate for their wicked deeds to remain in the dark, but they need forward facing idiots like Meghan & Sparry to serve as their mouthpieces.

ME-gain & Sparry are tragedy vultures, grifting off the grief of bereaved families. Their mission to "raise awareness by sharing these parent stories" is to criminalize online online users for "hate speech" aka any criticism of ME-gain via the digital online town square. The NAACP is money laundering to meet the elites digital justice goals. Please contact Congress to Stop KOSA.

The October 2023 Comments under this Access Hollyweird video are GOLD!!

[razmerry]

this is a genuinely vulnerable, touching, and emotionally powerful moment of seeking out connection from jason to dick until you remember that being "all back to normal" refers to when jason got digested by an alien, trapped in a goo egg, and then turned into a tentacle monster that ate people

[ninjasmudge]

someone definitely did this already but it made the monkie artblock lift

[ancha-aus]

RealAgeAU Drabble - Therapeutic

New drabble drop. The awaited conversation between Dream and Ccino. @spotaus you ready for another gut punch for Dream my friend :D

First Drabble Prev Drabble Next Drabble

no edit or beta! :D

*-------------------*

Dream tugs on his vest as he glances at the cafe door.

He sees more people leave. As they have been for the last half hour.

It is fine! There is no reason to be nervous! He is just going to visit a place where someone works and lives who may have been kinda friends with Dream's brother!

The same brother that Dream has been actively working against because he was so convinced he knew better what was going on and instead of talking to his twin Dream decided it was smarter to trust other people's opinions who Dream had only known for a while and who were not close to his brother at all!

The same brother that seems to have disappeared and who Dream is no worried sick about while everyone around him celebrates his disappearance! Again because Dream messed up his job!

Dream leans against the wall and tries to calm his racing soul "it is fine. it is fine. it is fine. the worst that can happen is him telling you to get the fuck out and never return." which would include dream losing his one possible lead to find his brother.

Happy thoughts.

...

Dream shakes his skull. no. No forced happy thoughts. that is part of the reason he is struggling this much now.

Dream takes adeep breath and mutters to himself "let the fear be there. let it be with you. but don't let it consume you. don't let it keep you from doing what you wish to do." a bit of an exercise that Blue's Undyne had thought of for him. As she also struggles mentally with quite a few things.

Dream nods to himself and slowly nears the door to the cafe. a glance inside. just to make sure he isn't still busy. damnit the cafe is empty.

Well! Here goes nothing and everything!

He pushes the door open.

Ccino looks up and speaks with a practised smile "Welcome to the Cuddly Cat-" he stops and stares.

Dream tries to look calm but can't help himself as he slowly raises his hand and gives it a tiny wave.

Ccino's shock transforms into a glare as he hisses out "Well if it isn't the god that didn't even bother to read his own job description.".

Dream can't help but start laughing. It is almost a relieve! so many people had been trying to cheer him up and reassuring him that everyone messes up and that what he did wasn't that bad. It is so much better. He hadn't realised how badly he wanted at least one person to actually hold him accountable. To actually look him in the face and just straight up tell him he messed up.

Dream smiles brightly at Ccino as he answers "I know right? I made a mess of things… It is just…" he takes a deep breath. the hard part. Why he came here and hoped Ccino would have info. Because over the last few weeks a memory had suddenly stood out to him. cats who all looked and acted so much like others who Dream knew "I heard you have... very special cats and i was hoping to meet them?"

Ccino hesitates. Ccino keeps glaring at him but then his sight turns slightly and Dream can see him eye a piece of paper. Dream glances at it and sees his own pamphlet. He had left them in every universe he could think of to give everyone a quick update.

It is still a lot of work to continue clean up all the hatred he had unknowingly spread and promoted but it was a start.

Ccino sighs but he waves him over "make sure to turn the sign to closed please."

Dream blinks before smiling brightly as he does just that. he steps fully inside and turns the sign.

Ccino goes around quickly and closes the curtains and everything. Then he walks over to a table and just takes a seat.

Dream joins him at the table and smiles "thank you so much for doing this."

Ccino huffs as he leans on his fist "I figured you would keep bothering me otherwise."

It hurts to not be trusted nad Dream wonders if Nighty had to feel this daily. First in their own universe and than still in the multiverse. for over 500 years. actually being able to feel how everyone hated and distrusted him.

Dream rubs his hands "I... i would have respected a no... if you want i can still leave." he doesn't want to lose this chance... but he can't make stuff even worse. He just misses his brother so much. had missed him for so long already.

Ccino just waves it off and looks at him expecting.

Dream swallows and looks around the cafe for a moment before looking back at Ccino "I... i remembered that some of your cats were... special... in their looks and acting.. .and I was wondering... is it a coincidence or..."

Ccino snorts as he leans back "Yes. they are counterparts to other outcodes and important players in the multiverse. No i don't specifically look for them or get them or make them." he rolls his eye lights "They just show up at my front or back door and i let them stay. Sometimes some leave again."

Dream gives a slow nod and manages to gather his nerves "is... is... Is my brother's? Is my brother's cat okay? I... I can't remember seeing his cat and it is my brother! He is a god he has to be important and be here at least." he can't keep the desperate hope in anymore.

Ccino shrugs "being a god doesn't necessarily mean they show up here. it would be rather busy in here otherwise as there is a surprising large number of gods." he huffs and dream can hear Ccino mutter "with multiple universes completely focussed on making gods and having gods."

Dream alughs and nods "that is fair... it is just... i remember seeing a cat that was.. well... me.... I figured.. .there is no way that i would be there and not Nightmare."

Ccino snorts and grins "Every protagonist needs an antagonist after all."

Dream glares at the table before shooting him a glare "no not like that!"

Ccino tilts his skull and grins "relax. Antagonist doesn't automatically mean evil or anything. it means they are someone who goes against the protagonist and their goal." he shrugs "seeing as we both know nightmare had been right and you were wrong. he was still the antagonist in your story."

Dream shakes his skull "he wasn't!"

Ccino glares at him "it isn't like you left him any other role to play."

it hurts so much to know that and Dream glares "i know! Okay?! I know I messed up. I just want to find him and apologise. i need to tell him i am sorry and that he was right." that Dream lvoes him. that he is sorry. and that... that it is okay if nightmare hates him... that dream would deserve that but dream needs to make sure that nightmare knows he is sorry. that Dream regrets everything and is trying to make it right again.

Ccino stares at him before sighing and getting up. he walks towards the cattree and Dream feels his hopes fall. he is going to be send away... not even a single clue and-

very angry cat meowing as Dream watches his own counterpart cat be pushed into a side room and the door to close. Next ccino goes to the counter. He dips behind it and Dream hears a cabinet open.

After he hears panicked meowing as Ccino rises again. in his arms a large cat. maybe a main coone? but Dream feels himself start to hope as he can spot four large tails and one slow blinking cyan eye.

That is... oh fuck... that actually is!

Ccino wlaks over as three cats follow him on the ground. Dream looks at them and it is pretty obvious it are Killer, Cross and Horror. Dream wonders why they are following when he sees the cat and feels his soul grow cold.

Nightmare's.... his cat looks sick and tired.

Ccino sits in a chair closer to Dream as he gently pets the cat. Nightmare's cat purrs and leans into the touches.

Killer's cat jumps on the table and meows loudly before marching over to Ccino's side and nudging his arm. Ccino stops with petting and Killer's cat stands partly in Ccino's lap to nuzzle and clean ngihtmare's cat.

Dream looks at ccino "waht... why is he...?"

Ccino answers softly "sick? tired? older? I don't know. I have no idea what caused this..." he loks so sad as he pets the cat "I never saw anything like this before..."

Dream remembers his own weakening powers. the way he had been slowly but surely loosing his own powers and magic as he has lost his domain.

This confirms it... Nightmare's also lost his... but he was being kept alive by said magic and powers.

Dream raises a shaky hand "can i... cna i try to heal him?" anything. please let him try.

Ccino looks very unsure and loks at the cats before looking back at the door where Dream can hear his own cat version scream its head off.

Ccino sighs and nods "you can try. nothing the vet did seemed to help him much. he is just... much older now according to him."

Dream still tries. he first pets the cat gently. the goop feels strange but comforting. Dream never thought he would think of the goop like that. he had believed for so long that the goop had taken his brother from him. that it was something to be removed. But if the goop was just the apples magic trying to keep him whole? How could dream hate it? How could he hate something that saved his brother?

Now it is his turn.

He holds his hand near the rib cage of the cat and he can see NGihtmare's cat shoot him a suspicious look.

Ccino chuckles "i wouldn't touch a cat's belly if i were you. that is a very strict no-touching zone for most of them, no matter who you are."

dream shoots him a smile "that is okay. i wasn't going to touch him there." and even if he wouldn't mind too much. he focusses the little magic he still has and tries to heal the cat.

His magic doesn't touch anything that could be healed. according to his magic everything going on wiht the cat is natural and normal. there is nothing to heal.

Dream frowns as he pulls his hand back and looks sad at nightmare's cat. Dream can't even help him like this...

Ccino sighs but seems unsurprised "I figured as much... don't feel bad. the vet already tried healing magic himself. I just try to make sure he can relax and rest."

Dream frowns at the door "why keep... my cat version away from him?" doens't he hear how desperate his cat is calling for nightmare's?

Ccino looks to the side and shrugs "i mean... before when these two got near each other your cat would... well... attack... all the time. It was saver for both to keep them seperated. and now wiht him weaker... I just didn't want to risk it." ccino pets the old cat.

Dream's hand forms fists as he glares down. his sockets itch with tears but he forces them in. this isn't about you. this isn't about you. your brother is dying somewhere. this isn't the time to make this about you or your pain. you don't even have the right to feel the pain. you are part if not the whole reason this happened.

Ccino gets up and takes nightmare's cat with him again. Dream wants to stop him. beg him to just let him hold his brother's counterpart. if only for a little while. but he doesn't.

Dream remembers how his own aura and the goop could get when they met in battle. he doesnt want to risk making it worse.

ccino returns to their table. also the other three following him gone again.

Dream feels hopeful and stares at him "his... his gang cats stay with him?"

Ccino blinks but grins "yeah. all the time. there is always at least one wiht him."

Dream sighs and smiles "that is good... that... that should mean he has them with him now right? that he isn't alone?" at least?

Ccino shrugs "it means there is no animosity between them all. that they all care. that is all i am sure about."

drema nods and rubs his arm "why... why don't people remember this? I get why you don't tell but how come no one notices?"

ccino shrugs "i am not sure how. people just don't. if anyone is willing to hurt someone within the cat group? they just.. don't notice or remember. it is why i am even willing to have this conversation. you remembering implies you won't hurt him."

dream feels himself relax and nods "i won't" never again.

Ccino nods "i figured... but that is what i know. i don't have any othr information for you."

dream smiles "that is okay... he is alive... and most likely not alone. that is more than i knew before." he may not be able to find nightmare fast. but he has a place where he can go to check if nghtmare is still alive. and then while he waits for their meeting. Drema can work on himself.

He can work on teaching the multiverse the truth and find his own calling.

Dream can work on his own trauma nad heal.

All while he searches for his brother.

This? This just showed that it isn't too late. His brother is still somewhere and there is time to fix this mess.

It won't be easy. but he can fix this. and that gives him hope.

*-------------------*

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[wistfulwatcher]

Ever since I was arrested, I have sold out every value I've held dear. And when you do that, it gets harder and harder to tell the difference between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory.

[hauntedheroines]

Since we are on the subject of making the finale better, has someone mentioned that "Galadriel's share of guilt for Celebrimbor's demise and Eregion's destruction" should have been addressed by Sauron at their last confrontation?

Yes, mental palace. Yes, no one liners from Galadriel. But mainly: an entire season disastrous for the heroes because Galadriel was too ashamed of her partnership with Sauron to tell the other elves, including Celebrimbor, exactly who Halbrand was when she had the chance, by the end of season 1.

No way in hell would Sauron not use this to guilt-bind her to him further, nor should he do any different, storytelling-wise.

The emotional weight to Galadriel, nor to mention it keeps that dark twist that makes her an engaging protagonist.

I could argue it's the main theme of the season and perfect follow up to season one's: Galadriel, through her worst qualities, continues to resemble her enemy and further aid him.

[mismatched-sockss]

holy fuck, after reading this post it clicked that this could be the reason Emily wants Rossi - who doesn't even want to - to take over instead of JJ who already has done an incredible job as acting unit chief before. she doesn't know Luke told JJ about the new BAUgate since she ordered him not to and if JJ were to take the position, she'd most likely find out.....

[sincerelybubbles]

rip spencer reid. you would have loved nyt games