#I have to remind myself that it's not going to be perfectly book accurate | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

waynes-multiverse · 2 years ago

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OH MY GOD! I’m positively obsessed with this story! I love it!!! If this were legit a book, it would be one of those I wouldn’t be able to put down, you know? The one you read and read and read and don’t care about food and sleep, and then suddenly it’s three days later, and your stomach rumbles and your eyes are red, reminding you that you do need to eat and sleep. But yeah, it’s that kind of story! 😍👏💚

More swooning below! 👇

Honestly, I know you said at the end that this part was sort of a filler, but I would read thirty pages of purely this. I love the manhunt and her hanging out with the boys and Annie and Kimiko. I could read way more chapters of this and not get bored, seriously. It’s that good! Gimme as much cat and mouse as possible. I thoroughly enjoyed this!

First of all, you nailed all the characters perfectly. Annie, Frenchie, Butcher, Hughie & M.M.! I laughed every time the latter mothered her or was anal about shit. Hilarious and so accurate! Five stars for a job well done! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

No, you weren’t former SAS, like Butcher. You weren’t CIA, or any other military alphabet soup.

Loved that line! Genuinely made me laugh 😂

I also pretty much laughed at every line Butcher threw out. From “granny fucker” to “not enough hugs,” it was hard to contain myself. And I love her character, her skill set, and how damn smart she is! To me, this girl is Liam Neeson in Taken. God forbid someone dares to kidnap her sweet sister. Butcher better respect her!

Everything is relevant, always. Even if it isn’t.

So true! And no matter what you think about Soldier Boy and his general attitude before he got kidnapped by the commies, forty years of torture certainly changes a person. He at least deserves a second chance to prove he might have changed, although he’s still pretty “macho.” But c’mon! The guy is over a hundred years old and missed out on tons of progress! How is he supposed to know any better if no one teaches him? Just knowing what he went through in Russia always breaks my heart. The guy needs a genuine hug and some understanding, not Novichok and a bullet, much less be turned back into a popsicle... 😔

In other news, I’m a fan of Soldier Boy’s South America tour so far. First Brazil where I’m sure he learned what a g-string and a Brazilian wax is before he moved on to goddamn Columbia (of course he did). Did he already find out about Netflix and catch up on Narcos? Either way, I bet the cartels are happy to host him, even though he might snort the whole country 😂

Her big blue eyes were vacant, her blonde hair caked with blood from a head shot.

No! Not Bette Davis Eyes! 😭 I love how caring reader was, though. She’s got a good heart in that chest of hers.

“I like it when they’re cocky,” you replied.

Me too, girlie, me too... 😆

[...] he seemed to be taking an extended vacation surrounding strip clubs, casinos, and other likely destinations for sex, drugs, and money.

As crazy as it may be, I genuinely love this guy 💚 Also love the fact that he robbed banks. Way to go, my hero!

“Whoever you’re looking for that isn’t me,” he said, injecting a fair bit of charm into his voice.

Wow. Antonio is becoming annoying quickly. And handsy. ADIOS ASSHOLE! A small part of me hoped whoever is watching her (SB?) might swoop in and save her all hero-like. *sighs* A girl can only dream... But good for her! She saved herself! Who needs men anyway? My little Liam Neeson surely doesn’t ❤️

“He had tenacity,” Frenchie remarked.

But of course, the French guy appreciates the Latino fire 😂

You didn’t want to go in, but you wouldn’t put it past Soldier Boy to get caught up in a mass orgy.

No, we really shouldn’t... 😅

Focusing on the far wall, you saw a leather chair by the window, with a still smoking cigar laid to rest in an ash tray on a small table.

Okay, seriously, this should not turn me on as much as it does. I’ve never gone for the douchey cigar smoker, but all I want is for Soldier Boy to slap my rear and order me to refill his drink. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Butcher, you’ll die first. Then the cum-guzzler.

DEAD!!! This one little note killed me. KILLED ME!!! I laughed so hard! Poor Hughie. He always gets the worst end of the stick 🤣🤣🤣 I bow to your feet and heavily applaud you for this one! 👏 (This is exactly why I could read endless chapters of this manhunt and this story. Hunt him around the globe. I’ll pay for the whole ride!)

“Maybe then you’ll—and let me not shock you here—meet someone,” Louisa said. “And finally put an end to that goddamn dry spell. What’s it been, like three years?”

I love her little sister 😏🖤

But mere feet above you, if you had only looked up to the roof, you would’ve seen a hunter lazily eyeing his prey.

DUDE! That ending!!! Glorious! Is it SB? Someone from his entourage? No, I bet it’s him. She caught his green eyes in that sexy af leather dress, didn’t she? I need help 😂🙈

I want more! MORE! If this had legit 10k words, I would’ve devoured it all the same 😍👏 Amazing, amazing job, love! Can you tell I’m obsessed yet? Sorry for that ultra long ramble. And that little sneak peek... 👀 Is it Wednesday yet? When is the next part dropping? GAH! 💚

Break Me Down - Part 1

Pairing: Soldier Boy/Ben x Female Reader

Summary: You’re a private investigator by trade, but now you happily sit at a desk — leading a surveillance team at Supe Affairs. After managing to end Homelander in New York, Soldier Boy escapes custody. You are recruited for the manhunt, joining Butcher’s team.

Truly, you joined the S.A. for the right reasons. But after you become his accidental hostage, Soldier Boy will break down every single one of them…

**To start from the Prologue.

Word Count: 5,200 Warnings: Some male skeeviness lol.

Part 1: The Game Begins

Two months ago…

You and M.M. continued to pour over all the records that the CIA had been able to pull on Soldier Boy.

This had been your life for the past month: locked in one hotel room after the next, up to your eyeballs in research. Or pounding the pavement in the sweltering summer of Brazil, on any whisper of Soldier Boy.

Right now it was the former. You all were piled into M.M.’s room, as it was the only one with a kitchen.

You smiled at Frenchie and thanked him when he offered you a steaming mug. At least you would finally get to experience Brazilian coffee.

You hiked a foot on the table where you and M.M. were working and sipped carefully; the mug was filled to the brim. Your companion eyed your pajama-clad leg, which only encroached an inch or two into his space.

“Excuse the fuck outta me,” said M.M. “Can you not?”

You briefly looked up from the (completely fabricated) biopic you were reading on Soldier Boy. “Hmm?”

M.M. gestured to your bare foot on the table. “Hello? What, were you raised in a fucking barn?”

With an amused smile, you lowered your leg. “I’m cramping up. We’ve been at this for six hours.”

“And counting,” Hughie said with a tired sigh. He and Annie had just come from scoping the local tourist spots and dive bars in the city. But it wasn’t for pleasure. You all had arrived in Brazil last night on a rumor that Soldier Boy had been spotted at a club a couple of days ago.

Annie heaved a sigh as she dropped into the seat next to you. She stole your paper fan on the table and tried to dry the sweat on her face and neck. You smiled and passed her your bottled water as well.

You and Annie had been “work friendly” at Supe Affairs. But now you felt like she had accepted you the most readily into the group. She seemed genuinely interested in who you were as a person as well.

Though you tried not to give too many personal details about your life, she had a way of disarming you, getting you to open up with her genuine willingness to listen.

You were friendly enough with Hughie and Kimiko as well, and you could also admit, you liked M.M. He was a straightforward man (and fun to tease with his anal idiosyncrasies). You got the most done with M.M. by your side. And watching him with Frenchie was pure entertainment.

Overall, you felt respected by them, even if you knew you weren’t as close as the rest of them seemed to be. You just hadn’t been on the team long enough.

The only one who mostly ignored you was Billy Butcher.

Butcher didn’t want you on the team. He’d made that pretty clear from the beginning.

What had his words been? Oh, yeah.

She’s a fucking amateur. Won’t last thirty seconds if, heavens for-fuckin’-bid, she encounters an A-lister like Soldier Boy.

You knew he considered you dead weight. But as Grace had told him, her track record speaks for itself.

No, you weren’t former SAS, like Butcher. You weren’t CIA, or any other military alphabet soup. But if there was one thing you knew how to do, it was tracking people down.

You were currently flitting through Soldier Boy’s sham career: the shitty music videos, the starlets, the ticker tape parades, and what precious little there was about his beginnings: about “Ben.”

You did find out that his family was from Hartford, Connecticut, and stupidly rich too. You found his parents’ names to go along with that.

And then it was a hop, skip, and a jump to him being unveiled as Soldier Boy.

“That is curious,” you murmured.

“Curious about the world’s most infamous granny fucker?” Butcher remarked. You slid him a wry look.

The fact that he tried to erase his past is interesting,” you said. “The details that aren’t here are just as important as the ones that are.”

Butcher hesitated a second, an ice-cold beer poised to his lips. He tipped it toward you in acknowledgement. “On that, we actually agree.”

“What do we know about his real life? Before he became Soldier Boy,” you asked.

Butcher sat down across from you and shaded in the details he knew, mostly about a disappointed father.

“Didn’t get enough hugs as a lad,” he surmised.

You suspected he was understating the truth. If there weren’t that many recorded accounts, pictures, or footage of Soldier Boy’s parents and home life, then he didn’t want people to know.

Interesting, you thought. Eventually Butcher got up to run down another lead that came in via text from Grace. Frenchie came back from the kitchen and saw how intently you were staring at your computer screen, eyes rapidly scanning.

“Ah,” Frenchie said, gesturing between you and the departed Butcher with a hand that held three alfajores cookies. “I see the same anal tenacity that fuels Monsieur Charcutier.”

You raised a brow. “My tenacity is for the case, not Soldier Boy.”

This wasn’t a vendetta for you. This was just business.

“For money,” M.M. correctly guessed, but his eyes held no judgment. “Been there.”

You sighed, smiling a little. Yes, you were doing this for money. They didn’t need to know anything more than that.

You liked this team well enough, but this was a job. The way you protected your family, and yourself, was by not talking about them.

That night, Frenchie’s ordered “package” arrived, courtesy of Grace. It was a healthy dose of Novichok gas—perhaps one of the only substances on Earth that could put Soldier Boy into a peaceful sleep.

Well, you didn’t know if it was peaceful, exactly. But he’d be asleep. That was all any of you cared about.

“At least it’s in proper containment this time,” M.M. said, examining the large cannister. Annie peered at it over his shoulder.

“I don’t know. My shitty perfume case seemed to hold it just fine,” she quipped.

You smiled from your usual seat at your computer. Annie came over with a sandwich for both of you. It was from the café down the street, and you’d been meaning to try it. Every time you stood out on your hotel room’s balcony, you could smell fresh bread and smoked meats coming from the café.

“Oh, yeah. How’s your sister?” Annie asked around a mouthful of sandwich. “She’s in college now, right?”

She had a good memory. Annie had heard you on the phone with your sister before you all left last month. You’d said one last goodbye, knowing it wouldn’t be safe to talk once you were locked into this mission.

While you were reluctant to answer Annie’s question, the others seemed distracted in the kitchen, fighting over who ordered chorizo and who ordered steak on their sandwich.

Still, you lowered your voice, even as a proud smile graced your lips. “She got into Julliard.”

Annie grinned and set her food down to give a little clap.

“She starts in the fall, so a few months,” you added.

“Aww, you’re glowing with pride,” Annie teased. And you laughed, but it was true. You wouldn’t hide that you were very proud of your little sister’s accomplishments.

“She’s worked hard, and she deserves it,” you said. Though your eyes dimmed. “I just wish I could help her celebrate…she’s on my case for taking this job.”

Quite simply, she worried about you. You were good at your job, but you were still human. She’d seen you come home banged up and bruised more often than you cared to admit…

Annie gave you a knowing look. “If you don’t want to be here, you don’t have to. I’m sure you can get other jobs—”

“Getting into school is just the beginning,” you said. “She’s got four years to go. Then her master’s. Hell, her doctorate if she wants.”

“There are scholarships…”

“It’s not enough,” you said with a sigh. It’s never enough.

“All right, lads,” Butcher said. He wiped his mouth with a napkin as he read off his phone. “The new Strongest Cunt in the World has been spotted. Suit up.”

“Where’re we going?” you asked, closing up your laptop.

Butcher shot you a wink. “Columbia.”

While on the private plane, you were the only one still awake as you continued to watch the archival footage with your Airpods in. Reel after motherfucking reel of Soldier Boy.

You really were starting to get sick of his smug face. He was clearly a good actor, if nothing else.

But then you came across the Russia files.

Part of you didn’t want to watch. You knew exactly what they were, and you didn’t want to see anything that would make you sympathize with him in your mind…

But your father’s training was ingrained in you—like fingerprints on your skin. Like a vice grip around your throat.

Everything is relevant, always. Even if it isn’t.

…That, and maybe your own insatiable curiosity won out.

So you steeled yourself with a breath, and you hit the play button.

Gradually, your eyes widened.

You had seen awful things—as a private investigator at your father’s firm, and at Vought.

You had filled your quota of blood and death. And you had already seen the footage of Soldier Boy blasting a tower full of people in New York with the nuclear power now housed in his chest.

You also knew what he did to M.M.’s family. But after watching several minutes of Soldier Boy's torture, hearing his struggle, his outbursts of rage, the ragged gasps for breath, the clawing, traumatized sounds...

It was like stereo between your ears, and it was...too familiar. Too much.

So you finally turned it off, closing your laptop with an unsettled breath of your own.

And you were unable to sleep that night.

When you all finally arrived in Columbia, you and the team surveyed the wreckage in the casino.

It was a fucking blood bath.

As you stepped carefully through the wreckage of bodies and gambling chips, you looked for clues. Anything that might tell you about what Soldier Boy was doing here (though you could guess), and however unlikely, where he might go next.

You were disheartened to find the body of a young woman. Her big blue eyes were vacant, her blonde hair caked with blood from a head shot. On further inspection, you found a small room key in her hand.

With a sigh and a gloved hand, you took the key. But you also closed the girl’s eyes.

You kept looking while the others had fanned out in the opposite direction. When you came across a small table that wasn’t turned over or splintered into fragments, you raised a brow. There was a napkin pinned to the top with a steak knife.

You yanked it out and examined the flimsy napkin. Noticing that you’d found something, Butcher came over to your side. He was much taller than you, fairly looming over your shoulder. You angled the note toward him.

Try harder.

S.B.

It was more than just a taunt.

It was the beginning of a game. And it made you smile.

“What the hell’re you smiling about?” Butcher asked.

“I like it when they’re cocky,” you replied. Butcher shot you a sideways glance, one that said you were maybe more deranged than even him.

“All supes are cocky bastards.”

You eyed him with a teasing grin. “On that, we actually agree.”

True to Grace’s word, she provided you all with the full extent of the CIA’s resources. While Butcher tracked down the hotel of the room key you found, you and M.M. were able to tap into any and all local street cameras and map out the likely points Soldier Boy had hit in this city—and where he could be going next.

According to the hotel manager, Soldier Boy had paid for a month’s stay, but hadn’t checked out after coming back for some of his belongings. The security cameras had caught him leaving his hotel room with a few men—armed ex-military types, and possibly his new entourage.

But the trail ended there.

Over the next two months, Soldier Boy continued to be one step ahead of you in the chase.

Though his movements were calculated (disappearing like a coil of smoke whenever you caught his scent), he seemed to be taking an extended vacation surrounding strip clubs, casinos, and other likely destinations for sex, drugs, and money.

And he’d evaded capture after hitting at least three banks on his way out of the U.S. alone.

At the current crap motel of the week, you shared the couch with Kimiko and Hughie while you surveyed traffic cameras.

“What’s the likelihood that he’s even still in Columbia? In South America, even?” Hughie asked. It was a good goddamn question.

“We have agents covering every major port and air hanger,” M.M. said. “If he wants to escape the continent, he’s gonna have to fight his way out, or rent a dingy and float his motherfuckin’ ass across the Atlantic.”

“I wouldn’t put anything past him,” you remarked. “What connections does he have?”

It wasn’t the first time you’d asked that question, but it was the first time you got a straightforward answer.

“Who knows,” said M.M. “He’s an ancient fuck.”

“Who killed all his old friends,” Hughie supplied.

“Well, his team, to be fair. I don’t think he ever had friends,” Annie said. “...Plus his old girlfriend.”

“What a spectacular bonfire that was,” Butcher dryly quipped.

Nice, you thought, heavy on the sarcasm.

You sighed. Clearly, you all would have to be prepared for anything.

When you weren’t pouring through surveillance, you took to the streets with Annie, playing the part of American tourists.

“Soldier Boy don’t know who the fuck you are,” Butcher had reasoned. He’d then pointed at Annie.

“Her fame as Starlight can get you two into whatever bar, club, or fuckhole that might’ve let him in. She’ll park it at a table, attracting attention. Meanwhile, you’ll circle around and look for him.”

It was actually a sound plan, and you could be a decent actor yourself. This wasn’t the first time you’d adopted a role to find your target, and on this mission, it probably wouldn’t be the last.

Well, a week later, the plan worked. You and Annie encountered a woman at a bar who waited tables at a nearby club, in Medellin. She’d served Soldier Boy just last night.

Medellin was considered the party city of Columbia, and for good reason.

Butcher had cleverly found your “disguise” for tonight, though you hadn’t liked the smirk on his bearded face when he gave you the shopping bag.

It turned out to be a semi-legal black leather dress, along with thigh-high boots possessing a sharp heel. Annie’s dress was just as short, and gold. With her blonde hair and shimmering makeup contrasting your black dress and smokey makeup, the two of you looked like night and day. Light and dark.

While Hughie manned surveillance in a rented van, parked outside the club, the rest of the team had found strategic points to cover in the club: M.M. was at the bar. Frenchie and Kimiko had found a table to watch the area in front of the stage, while Butcher was somewhere clinging to the shadows.

You followed Annie into the club. Once they’d recognized her as Starlight, they’d let her right in, and you by association. You didn’t envy her fame, but you could admit, it had some perks.

Inside, the club was dark and loud, and packed with people and streams of colorful light bouncing off the walls. This isn’t going to be easy.

Both of you scoped the area subtly before joining M.M. at the bar.

Well, you two found your own opening further down. Sitting next to him would be too obvious.

You subtly pressed a finger to the communicator in your ear while Annie ordered drinks.

“It’s gonna be hard to find my own ass in here,” you said to the team. You scanned the place and noticed an entire second and third floor. “This place is huge.”

“Then get crackin’, love,” Butcher’s voice reached you. You resisted the urge to roll your eyes. But you did take the vodka martini Annie offered you.

“Ah, you beat me to it,” a man said, his richly accented voice hovering near your ear. You turned your head and had to lean back a bit. You were met with blue eyes, tan skin, and an attractive smile. The man tipped an imaginary hat, letting his shoulder-length dark hair dip into his eyes.

“Good evening, mi vida,” he said. “I was gonna buy you a drink, but I see you’ve got one. Mind if I finish my beer with you?”

Inwardly you wanted to sigh, but you gave a flirtatious smile to keep up appearances. “Sure.”

“Where are you from?” he asked, and with a more teasing smile. “I’m having a hard time placing your accent.”

You affected a giggle. “Oh, really? You mean I don’t have a massive, neon sign over my head that says, ‘American Tourist?’”

“Well, maybe not neon,” he joked. “I’m Antonio.”

“I’m Jess,” you lied, shaking his hand. He turned it over and pressed a kiss to the back of your hand. Annie raised a brow behind you, but she sipped her drink.

Antonio must’ve been a local. His dark blue buttoned-down shirt, jeans, and boots were more casual than the obvious tourists with their flashing finery. And by his accent, you could guess that he was at least Latino. Columbian, most likely.

You were able to subtly dodge the question of exactly where you were from. And the two of you flirted for a few minutes while you continued to survey the people passing by, scanning the gaps between bodies.

When Antonio finally asked you to dance, you agreed. It would get you further into the club with a better excuse than walking around aimlessly. You turned to Annie.

“Catch you later?” you asked. She tossed you a wink.

“Yeah, girl. Have fun!”

You smiled and let Antonio lead you to the dance floor. But you discreetly used every movement to your advantage, looking beyond your dancing partner to continue your search. If Soldier Boy was here, you would find him.

“He’s not here,” said Antonio. It actually managed to jerk you out of your focus.

“Who?” you asked, feigning confusion.

“Whoever you’re looking for that isn’t me,” he said, injecting a fair bit of charm into his voice.

You actually felt your face warming up at that. The way he was looking at you now, there was very little doubt as to what he wanted. His grip on your hips tightened.

Part of you was getting impatient with this part of the game, but at the very least, he was a good dancer. He pulled you effortlessly through the cumbia, Columbian salsa dancing, even if he was starting to sweat on you.

But now, you could almost swear someone was watching. Though it might’ve been the sweat dripping down your spine, you felt that strange prickle on the back of your neck.

Well, besides Annie. You knew she was keeping an eye on you from the bar, as were Frenchie and Kimiko as they joined a poker game in the far corner, away from the dance floor.

Your gaze continued to flit through every corner of the room between spins and the movements of your feet and your hips.

But when Antonio’s hands started get a bit too familiar with the curve of your ass, you took his hands and used them to spin yourself. He brought you back in tight. A bit too tight.

“Come on, baby…” he whispered in your ear.

And you felt his hand slide up the inside of your thigh. He even had the audacity to try and slip past the lacey front of your underwear.

That’s when your patience snapped.

You grabbed his wrist and “accidentally” drove your heel into his foot. With precision you felt it land between two vertebrae.

The girlish yelp he made brought a flicker of a smile to your lips, but you covered it with a doe-eyed look and many bumbling apologies.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”

He all but shoved you as he limped away, cursing you in Spanish. You’d taken four years of it in high school, and you still only caught half of it.

Hiding your smile, you walked away and pressed a discreet finger to the comm in your ear.

“The stage front is clear. Scoping the back.”

“Wait for me,” Annie said. She was still sitting at the bar. “I think you broke that guy’s foot.”

“He had tenacity,” Frenchie remarked.

“All balls and no brains, as usual,” you muttered. “Stay there and look shiny, Annie. He’s less likely to recognize me, but he might come out to play if he spots a familiar face at the bar.”

“She’s right,” Butcher said to Annie. “Stay where you are.”

You made your way to the bathroom and scoped the hall. There in the privacy of the shadows, you adjusted the gun holster on your thigh. It was a miracle Antonio hadn’t felt it.

Not that a gun would do much against Soldier Boy, but you didn’t feel right without it.

Then you kept moving and dodged various couples making out (and more) on your way upstairs.

“Going up,” you informed the team quietly. The second floor was a series of rooms, none of which you wanted to pop in on without an invitation. But after you made it to the end of the hall, you turned a corner and noticed a door hung open a crack. Sliding it open, you found a wall of music there to greet you.

But that wasn’t all.

Inside was a room of people drinking and drugging and generally doing things to one another. You didn’t want to go in, but you wouldn’t put it past Soldier Boy to get caught up in a mass orgy.

You walked through the room, only taking in what you needed to with your eyes.

Focusing on the far wall, you saw a leather chair by the window, with a still smoking cigar laid to rest in an ash tray on a small table. Your head tilting with interest, you went over to the table and found another hand-written note.

Once again, you sighed. “He’s not here, guys. He bounced.”

Once you all regrouped with Hughie outside the club, you handed the note to Butcher with a grimace.

“You have a love letter,” you said. And Hughie too.

With a wry brow raise, Butcher looked down at the scrap of paper.

Butcher, you’ll die first. Then the cum-guzzler.

S.B.

That night at the hotel, after you'd showered and peeled off that ridiculous dress, you poured over the Soldier Boy files again.

You hadn’t touched the Russia ones since that first night, but you knew you were missing far too much. In order to anticipate his moves, you needed to understand how he thought.

You couldn’t do that if you didn’t even have the full picture of who he was. And the movies, the silly music videos, even the exploded skyscraper and Homelander’s death—none of it told the full story of Ben.

It didn’t tell you what he wanted. What he cared about. Why he was playing cat and mouse instead of just taking his stand, like his soldier persona would’ve demanded of his pride.

Or maybe that pride's just like everything else: a well-crafted costume.

A knock at your door jolted you out of your thoughts.

You got up to your feet, briefly looking down to make sure you were decently dressed (you supposed pajama shorts, a bra, and a tank top would suffice). You grabbed your gun and checked the peephole before you answered the door with a smile.

It was M.M. with a mug of tea for you. “I knew you’d still be up, killin’ those files. It’s almost morning, you know.”

You accepted the mug with a warmer smile.

“Aw, you do care,” you quipped. He rolled his eyes.

You laughed a little. “Seriously, thank you.”

He pointed at you.

“Go to sleep,” he said. You raised two fingers to your temple in salute.

“Sir. Yes, sir!” you joked. Really, you appreciated his concern. After hearing many a story about his daughter Jennine, and seeing how the rest of the team respected him, you knew that he was a good man.

And thanks to him and Annie, you were actually starting to feel like part of this team.

After you wished him goodnight (or good morning, at this rate), you closed the door to your hotel room, followed closely by your laptop.

You took out your phone, silently contemplating what time it would be in New York right now.

Well, it would still be very early in the morning. But you thought it was worth a try, since you had the time.

You dialed your sister, Luisa. While it rang, you remembered just how thin these hotel walls were. So you stepped out to the rickety balcony. Jeez, hope it holds my weight throughout this call.

When your sister eventually answered, she murmured your name sleepily in confusion.

“Hey, sorry for waking you up,” you said, feeling bad.

“It’s okay.” She yawned. “I should be up soon anyway. Got 8 am classes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”

“Ech. Screw that shit,” you teased.

“You’re the one sweating balls in South America.”

“I’d rather be drowning in my own sweat than listening to some old bag drone on for eight hours,” you volleyed back, and leaned against the balcony’s railing, even as it creaked suspiciously with your weight.

“You, my friend, are uninspired. You mean to tell me mosquitoes and drug cartels are better than Mozart?” your sister asked incredulously. Her sleepy voice was starting to lose some of its gravel as you two fell into familiar bickering.

“Wow, way to type cast. Not all of South America is about drug-running,” you pointed out.

“Aren’t there, like, entire shows about people shoving cocaine up their ass to get from Columbia to Miami?” Luisa asked.

“…Yes, but that’s not the point,” you said with a giggle. “And good guess. I’m actually in Medellin right now.”

“Are you supposed to tell me that?”

“Not really, no. But I don’t think you’ll sell me out to the cartels,” you joked. Or to the Russians, your mind added. That thought made your lips twist sourly.

“Anyway, are you okay? How’s school, really?”

“It’s good, sis. You know I’m good. I’m worried about you,” she countered, and you could hear the concern in her voice.

“You know me. I’m always good,” you replied with good humor. The silence on the other line told you that you hadn’t been quite convincing enough.

“When do you think you’ll come home?” she asked.

For what seemed like the hundredth time that night (or morning), you sighed. “That’s hard to say.”

The answering silence told you even more about your sister’s thoughts, and you felt guilty for it.

“I’m happy just knowing you’re doing so well. With school, starting your adult life, doing your thing,” you added.

“You need to start thinking about yourself,” she told you.

“What do you mean, Lou? I’m fine.”

It was Louisa’s turn to sigh.

“You know, I was so proud of you when you decided to leave Vought," she said. "When you finally got out from under Dad. When you started working at Supe Affairs…you seemed happy, like you were finally proud of yourself too.”

Emotion started to burn behind your eyes. Part of it was probably sleep deprivation, but you heard the sincerity in your sister’s voice.

She just knew you so well. And she wasn’t lying there—what she’d said was all true of you. But after the joke that was Victoria Neuman running Supe Affairs, you didn’t know what you could trust anymore.

Maybe not even your own judgment.

“But I really wish that you’d consider more than just your work,” Luisa said. “Like a hobby. Take a painting class. Go to karaoke, like we used to do in grade school after Choir practice. You have such a beautiful voice! Like Grandma’s was.”

“I’ll leave the performing to you, Lou,” you said with a chuckle. She was serious, however.

“Work isn’t everything,” she reminded you. Now her voice was firm. “You should go out with your friends. Go out with Annie! Rub shoulders with her celebrity friends.”

“Right.” You huffed a laugh. You’d been around plenty of famous supes while at Vought. You’d ran down the leads and tracked down the criminals, just for the supes to swoop in and “save the day.” You did the grunt work, and they claimed the credit.

You’d had enough of “celebrities” to last you a lifetime.

“Maybe then you’ll—and let me not shock you here—meet someone,” Louisa said. “And finally put an end to that goddamn dry spell. What's it been, like three years?”

“All right, all right.” You held up a hand of surrender, even if she couldn’t see it. You were grateful she couldn’t catch you blushing. “That’s enough about my non-life, thanks.”

You shook your head. Embarrassment actually clawed inside your belly.

Yes, it had been a while since you’d actually been with anyone, relationship or otherwise. You just didn’t have time to have a life, you’d reasoned. Working at Vought had been grueling, and your hours at the S.A., while better, were still demanding.

…Still, you could appreciate that your work-life balance left much to be desired. And that was on you.

Case in point, you were on this job.

You tipped your face heavenward, letting the sunrise spill some warmth on your face.

“But…I hear you, okay?” you replied with your eyes closed.

“You do?” she asked suspiciously.

“Yeah. When I get back, I…I’ll work on it, okay?” you said. “But I love you.”

“Love you too, sis. I should probably get going, but…please be safe.”

“Always,” you promised.

After you hung up, you finally opened your eyes.

That prickly feeling was back, almost like you were being watched.

You scanned around, but your human eyes didn’t find anything out of the ordinary in the sunshine pouring in between the rows of buildings.

In fact, you didn’t see a damn thing that wasn’t supposed to be there.

So you clutched your phone to your chest, letting out a deep breath. Then you headed back inside.

But mere feet above you, if you had only looked up to the roof, you would’ve seen a hunter lazily eyeing his prey.

AN: Ok! So a little bit slow in this chapter, but it’s all important setup.

In the next chapter, the reader meets Soldier Boy:

You laid a hand on his chest, fingers spreading between the open buttons, and felt his warm skin.

He glanced up at you with another challenging tilt to his head. What are you gonna do now?

You met that challenge, boldly leaning down to press a kiss against his lips.

Series Masterlist

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Comment below or send me an ask if you'd like to be tagged in this series! And follow me for more Boys fics (and other fandoms). I'm also on Ao3!

@deans-spinster-witch @this-is-me19 @waynes-multiverse @pallographsunspot @samanddeaninatrenchcoat @spalady26 @spnwoman @wirdbeimaufhebengebunden @syrma-sensei @muhahaha303 @123passwort @xoxovienna @magnificentnightmarehadi @lollag0w0 @globetrotter28 @nancymcl @ashbatz @yvonneeeee @fckinel

#fic rec #wayne reads #soldier boy x reader

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see-arcane · 2 years ago

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Jonathan Harker: The ‘Absolute Love Corrupts Absolutely’ Villain That Almost Was*

*LONG before Francis Ford Coppola’s Cinematic Gary Oldman Fanfiction

Spoilers ahead for the Dracula Daily enjoyers, because I’m whipping out all my literary receipts on this.

I recently finished speed-rereading Dracula because I have no self-control. In doing so, I got a refresher on quite a few incendiary factors of the book that time had dulled in my memory.

1. There’s a TON of ‘I’m not like other girls!’ and ‘men good, women dainty,’ and ‘What no I’m not projecting, honest, I just really like the words manful, voluptuous, manful, aquiline, manful, God, and manful again. –Bramothy Stoker,’ so brace for that from basically the whole cast. I’m blaming it partly on Bram Flakes’ own prejudices, of which there are plenty, and the fact that he’d clearly never met a thesaurus in his life.

(I appreciate everyone’s mental revamp of Mina as the New Woman to Lucy’s Classic Damsel, but…oof. Everyone’s in for a harsh Period/Stoker Accurate reminder.)

2. Brammy Pajamas was either hanging around some exceptionally devout Christians to write some of the second/third act scenes with everyone basically thrashing and wailing and falling on their knees and clasping/kissing hands as they pray to/thank God, all while thinking it was perfectly natural behavior for these characters…or he legit had no clue how any kind of ordinary human being, Christian or otherwise, would react to the situations he puts them in.

(Seriously, it’s not even that everyone’s devout, it’s that they’re all written to act like they’re in a soap opera where the only direction they got was to be as hammy and histrionic as physically possible. You’ll know the scenes when you see them.)

3. Jonathan Harker has not only been done dirty by every adaptation since the book in terms of being a main character, along with being the character to spend the most time with Dracula in close quarters, period, and being the love interest for Mina—his whole character arc by the second half of the book is the most blazing hot, “If my beloved is destined for damnation, I’m heading to Hell with her, fuck all else,” shit I have ever read in classic literature, full stop.

Not Dracula. Not any character based on Dracula.

Jonathan fucking Harker is the OG archetype for Love Corrupts (Violently), and the canon story avoided him going full tragic villain by t h i s much. You want proof? Let’s go.

NOTE: MAIN SPOILERS STRAIGHT FROM THE BOOK, SHIELD YOUR EYES

Here’s the part most Harker fans scream over, myself included:

“To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks.”

Good shit, good shit! Jonathan was already prepared to risk falling to his death from a cliff or being eaten by wolves rather than stay in Castle Dracula for a bloodthirsty eternity with the ladies. But now? Mina is quite literally his, “You are worth Hell,” Beloved. But there’s more. Fast forward to one of Team Fuck-Up-That-Old-Undead-Man’s first head-on encounters with the Count. As they’re waiting, Jonathan gets impatient, declaring:

“I care for nothing now,” he answered hotly, “except to wipe out this brute from the face of creation. I would sell my own soul to do it!”

He says as much in front of his Christian+ buddies who, by now, had pretty fair reasons to believe in the legitimacy of Hell and all its demons. Van Helsing is definitely startled and seemingly talks him down from such an oath. Key word being seemingly. Because we jump forward again to a point where Mina, in full saintly forgiveness mode (and apparently selectively forgetting Van Helsing’s history lesson about Dracula’s pre-vampire days being ones of a slaughtering tyrant), saying that if/when they destroy the Count, oh, how happy his soul will be to be free of his torment on Earth, et cetera. Jonathan Harker has a rebuttal to share. Namely:

“May God give him into my hand just for long enough to destroy that earthly life of him which we are aiming at. If beyond that I could send his soul forever and ever to burning hell I would do it!”

God forgives. Jonathan Harker emphatically does not.

Onward again, and he speaks volumes by what he does not say. Chiefly, there’s a point where Mina, now in full martyr preparation should the worst happen, makes the boys swear an oath to destroy her body if/when she succumbs and dies to Dracula’s vampiric poisoning so she cannot rise again as one of his ladies. The boys swear. Mostly. What we get from Jonathan is…

“And must I, too, make such a promise, oh, my wife?”

“You too, my dearest.” (Note: The rest of her paragraph here is full of the most knife-twisting, utterly warped martyr ‘pep talk’ I’ve ever read, and I have no idea how she/Bramarama thought it would remotely convince Jonathan this was all a reasonable and chill thing she was talking about. Anyway.)

It’s important to note that absolutely nowhere in the ensuing text does Jonathan ever speak the promise out loud. He does read the goddamn Burial Service at Mina’s request, which he barely chokes his way through. But he never makes the oath.

Another jump ahead. They are on the hunt for Dracula and, alas, have just missed him at a key point. Most of the gang are shaking their fists at the sky, cursing up and down. And what is Jonathan doing? Well, to quote Jack Seward, just before the epiphany…

“We men were all in a fever of excitement, except Harker, who is calm; his hands are as cold as ice, and an hour ago I found him whetting the edge of the great Ghoorka knife which he now always carries with him. It will be a bad look-out for the Count if the edge of that ‘Kukri’ ever touches his throat, driven by that stern, ice-cold hand!”

And upon discovery of the Count slipping them…

“Harker smiled—actually smiled—the dark bitter smile of one who is without hope; but at the same time his action belied his words, for his hands instinctively sought the hilt of the great Kukri knife and rested there.”

For context, by this point Jonathan had already come at Dracula with said Kukri knife a while back, having nearly landed the blow after charging out of the pack and nearly fucking gutting the Count. For extra context, this is a Kukri knife:

He’s just been walking around with that. For half the book. Plotting.

And, with all of this in mind, we can only assume Jonathan had two plans of action in mind.

Plan A, follow Van Helsing’s lead.

…Not counting the moment he almost bit the Professor’s head off for saying he had to bring Mina along with him to Castle Dracula. Another good scene which includes his very succinct reaction to Van Helsing’s suggestion, even if he does have to agree in the end:

“Not for the world! Not for Heaven or Hell!”

Anyway. If the plan works out, cool. He gets to kill Dracula, Mina is saved. Best case scenario!

But then there’s the unspoken, explicitly unwritten (in case his pages need to be read), but heavily foreshadowed Plan B. They cannot destroy the Count, in time or otherwise. Mina is now either a corpse waiting to awake as a vampire, or a vampire already. The others, true to their vow, mean to destroy her.

Jonathan Harker, true only to Mina, in whatever form she may take, still has that Kukri. And the element of surprise. And a full acknowledgment of the realities of Heaven, Hell, and his holding Mina’s continued existence above them, his friends, his sanity, his humanity, and himself.

In short, all your tragically romantic Draculas can kindly go fuck themselves with a wooden stake. Jonathan Harker is the first and best gothic horror example of a person in love to the point of madness, damnation, and willingness to deceive or destroy anyone who would endanger the one he loves. The only reason we never got to see it in action was because Stoker had to tack on a happy ending. If he hadn’t?

The census would be less four unsuspecting heroes and plus two newlywed vampires.

The End.

Suck on it, Francis.

#Jonathan Harker is a good boy a lovely young man and he Can and Will Kill for His Wife :) :) :)#seriously there's a whole other essay to go with how gloriously fucked up-passionate this stance is within both the time it was written #and the novel itself which is SATURATED with God Christ and more God #for this fucker to have gone through what he did in the castle on top of all the very clear proofs of divine VS infernal goings-on #this dude is flipping the bird to all of it #the whole mess (be it of God or the Devil or fucking Dracula)#none of it ranks higher than Mina in his mind #my guy is fucked up and I love him #jonathan harker #dracula #mina murray #mina harker #dracula daily #spoilers

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greenhikingboots · 2 years ago

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Hey, for the bts of Fic Writing : 4 10 12 15 17. Thanks and Happy New Year🥰❤️

LOULA! Thanks for playing along. I'm so flattered you care to know. Here are my lengthy answers because I do not know how to be concise.

4. Do you outline before you start writing? If so, how far do you stray from that outline? I outline but I stray A LOT. Wait, let me explain that more accurately. It’s more like a continuous cycle of outline, write and stray, publish a chapter, re-outline the next few chapters, write and stray again — and on and on like that. Usually the straying happens because I can’t commit to secret pining as long as originally intended. Like, I give in and let my characters reveal some feelings too soon, then I have to figure out how to make the later plot points I have planned fit into a different emotional context. Which sometimes means changing the plot points. And then! Because the other changes that have occurred, I often feel as though I can no longer include some gut-wrenching conflict I had planned. I'm like, “They've come too far for that buffoonery now." So I have to soften the blow instead. Basically, I’m not as good at letting my characters suffer as I’m “supposed" to be according to typical writing advice. But that’s when I remind myself it’s fanfiction and I'm here to have fun! So it's all good. ❤ 10. Do you enjoy writing dialogue, exposition, or plot, the most? That’s a question for me. I think I’m pickiest about dialogue because I value it the most. I mean, these are romance stories I'm writing, right? And people fall in love by connecting emotionally which happens in large part through dialogue, right? That’s how I see it anyway. So it’s a double-edged sword. Dialogue is the part I like least because I put pressure on myself and then overthink it. But it's also the part I like best because it’s so important and feels SO GOOD when it turns out well. Plus I just LOVE making Jon say romantic things to Sansa — in both understated and over the top ways. It's my favorite thing ever. BUT! I’ll also add that I have some stretches of exposition I’m really proud of. In Chapter 1 of Inevitable I did a big background information dump right away, which (to bring up typical writing advice again) is a no no, right? But I don’t care. I think the whole chapter flows really well and it sets up Jon’s characterization perfectly. AND! Him thinking he can never be as good as Ned or offer Sansa a relationship as good as her parents is the whole crux of the story dammit! And it’s all subtly included right there in Chapter 1. Hell, it’s all right there in the first sentence! And I’m proud of that. 🤪 12. Is there a trope you haven’t written yet but really want to? I had a S7/8 Fix It Fic that I took down while it was still a WIP. I re-worked and re-published the first half, ending it in a happy but intentionally ambiguous way. Mighty Love & Better Dreams — one of my less popular works, about 25k words if anyone is interested. But anyway, I’ve got another 12,000 words or so left — the second half of the incomple version I took down — that I’d still like to clean up and get back on AO3 someday. To finish it, I have to lean further into Political!Jon and Dark!Dany than I’ve done before, which I find intimidating (especially writing Dark!Dany. I agree that's how it'll go in the books, but how do I write it!? Someone help!) But like I said, I’ve got about 12,000 words already and a lot of it I really like. So it would be a shame to waste it, so to speak, by never finishing. So that’s my answer: Fix It trope featuring Political!Jon and Dark!Dany. 👀 15. A Hollywood producer tells you that they want to film just one of your fics? Which fic would you want it to be?

Sorry, this answer might not be fun because it isn’t a Jonsa fic. Also I'm going to cheat and say I want it to be a TV show not a film. No that that's out of the way... I have a Dramione story I took down quite a while ago, Between the Lines, because I want to eventually rework it and republish it. It’s got the makings to be a 300k word epic told in a non-linear way (which is an idea I revisited recently when I wrote A Good Chance) and a teen ensemble cast type thing, which is popular on TV, right? Also... okay I’ll admit it, I daydream about changing that fic enough you can no longer recognize it as fanfiction. Then I could publish it as a traditional, original book (slim chance but that's why I called it a daydream).

I’m pretty over Dramione though, so maybe if I started thinking of it as a Jonsa AU it’d be easier to to craft it into something new but with some of the important plot points I still like. Maybe?

Woof. Really letting my true self show here. How embarrassing! ☠

17. What fic are you most proud of?A Boy in His Cups might still be my favorite fic I’ve ever written — my first Jonsa one-shot. IMO, the emotional beats are a tiny bit rocky towards the end, but otherwise it’s a very polished fic (maybe because I’ve gone back and edited it so many times.)

It’s Jon’s POV with pining and angst and fluff and confession of feelings and it fits so well with canon concepts. So bascailly all of my favorite things rolled into one. I am the target audience and I just love it!! Maybe someday I’ll write a sequel from Sansa’s POV and call it A Girl in Her Cups. 💋 Holy cow! That's a lot of words. Did you even read it all? Won't blame you at all if not. Thanks again for the ask, Loula. You're a gem. XO.

#fanfiction #writing thoughts #asked and answered

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qslovebot · 4 years ago

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Midnight Escapade: Spencer Reid

Summary: Spencer Reid and the reader have been crushing on each other since they met, but neither of them cared to admit it. When doubled up in a hotel room for the night, reader tries to convince Spencer to go with her at 12:30am to get frozen yogurt to cheer him up and it turns into much more than a snack run.

Pairing: Spencer x Fem!Reader

Warnings/Includes: Swearing, mutual pining (a long time of pining leads up to this fic), food, mention of Sept 11, 2001, self-doubt, fluff, kissing

Word Count: 4533

The case was solved, closed, and finally, your eyes could rest. The case you had just finished was particularly stressful to not only you, but your fellow BAU members as well. You all hadn't slept for nearly twenty-nine hours and Hotch decided it was best you all got the rest you deserved at a nearby hotel.

The ride there, you struggled to keep your eyes open, but Spencer Reid was on another greatly interesting rant about a show he liked, so you figured you would try to stay awake to hear it. You always listened to him because a lot of the time, the rest of the team dismissed him and his oddly accurate monologues. They grew tired of Spencer talking so much about things they didn't understand but you were rather the opposite- and that's probably because you liked Spencer so much.

The two of you met when he was introduced to the BAU. Praised for his mind, he introduced himself to you with a shaky voice and a meek handshake. You instantly admired him from his geeky personality outwards to his tall, thin self with a face sculpted by artists. Little did you know he did the same, but immediately thought of you as out of his league, so he stayed quiet.

You had been friends since then, pairing up on cases as your minds seemed to work like a perfectly oiled machine when together. Like Penelope and Derek, you two were known for the science jokes no one understood and shared looks of adoration that the both of you somehow didn't recognize as romantic. But everyone else saw it.

Derek Morgan teased a lot. He talked to Reid about working with the 'pretty girl' every day, poking him in the side and messing with his hair. The geek and the girl who was smart as hell, but didn't make it her dominant trait.

A doctor and the outgoing agent who matched the loudness of Penelope Garcia at times at karaoke night. You brought more liveliness to the BAU- more music, more spinning, more levity in dark cases. Spencer was always trying to hide a smile when you walked in, trying to pretend he hadn't been waiting for you to bring him coffee each morning. You didn't need an eidetic memory to remember his order and that, for some reason, always sent him over the moon.

But you were here now, listening to him wrap up his story as you fought the sleep that was looming over you as the car came to a stop outside the hotel.

"-And that was the end of it all. I think it's so fascinating how they wrapped everything up into this intricate timeline of interactions and moments and backtracks. We should, uh, watch it sometime." He said as he hopped out of the back, holding his small bag and yours.

You sleepily hopped out after him, hoping you didn't look like you felt, because you truly felt like hell. "Yeah, I'd like that," was all you could really mumble out. He passed you your bag and you smiled your thank you.

Emily held you up by the shoulders as Hotch sent through the check-in information. "Some case, huh?" She laughed as you rubbed your left eye. "I suppose we can't make this a girl's night of post-case celebration if you're dead asleep."

You groaned, "You wanted to do that? Damn it, Em, I'm sorry-"

"You need beauty sleep, (Y/N). I'm not mad or anything, I'll just take a bath and pull out an adult romance novel." A smirk played on her lips as she raised her eyebrows. You chuckled tiredly. "Seriously, no worries."

"Did I hear talk of a romance novel?" Derek shuffled over. "Which one are we reading? 50 Shades of Grey?"

Spencer stepped in, "Did you know that 50 Shades of Grey is actually fanfiction written about Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Saga? If you go further back, Stephanie started Twilight as written alternate universe fanfiction where the emo-slash-hardcore band My Chemical Romance were all vampires. But My Chemical Romance was started by musician and comic book creator- who published a series of comics called The Umbrella Academy in 2008, unrelated, his name was - Gerard Way, who created the band to make music that expressed the trauma he was given from witnessing the twin towers falling on September 11th, 2001."

Emily looked at him, jaw open. "So Nine-Eleven essentially created a badly-written and toxic sex novel, years later?"

Spencer nodded, eyes flickering to you for a brief moment. Derek grinned at Emily, "So you have read 50 Shades of Grey, huh?" He teased. She swat at his wiggly fingers away as Hotch walked over, brow furrowed.

"Rooms need to be doubled up tonight. Morgan, you can come with me. As much as you may hate it, I feel like (Y/L/N) here might collapse on the spot, so we can't go anywhere else." He handed Spencer and Emily a key, expecting them to make their own choices. Of course, Emily knew exactly what she needed to do when Hotch walked off. You were about to turn and go with her, but she bolted off, reaching for JJ.

You looked up at Spencer Reid who had his mouth in a shy, straight-lipped smile. You both knew what this meant, but you were glad you'd get to crash somewhere, floor or not. The room was on the fifth floor, so you took the elevator with Spencer in silence that you were sure he was granting you until you reached the door of your room.

"I will... take the floor tonight," he said, sticking the key in the lock. "You're tired and I'm just going to get dinner and um... read."

His watch read 4:34 pm- it was so much earlier than you had thought, but you were almost collapsing. "I'm sorry," were the last words you could reply with before you walked into the room, got into the bed, and you were out, cold.

You had never had such a fulfilling sleep. You woke up feeling clean, fresh, renewed and restored. There was no groggy feeling that you had accidentally travelled to another dimension while asleep. The room was dim, except for the lamp that was on in the right corner.

When you peered over the edge of the bed, there was Spencer, laying on his stomach with few pillows under his chest and elbows, a book in his hands. He looked peaceful, quiet, calm. "Spence," you whispered. He practically jumped out of his skin and you couldn't help but laugh. "Oh my god, I'm sorry." You grinned.

He smiled sheepishly, setting down his book. "You're awake."

You nodded back, "How long was I out?"

"Since 4:34, so... 8 hours and 20 minutes. It's only 12:22am." Spencer sat up and against the wall while you adjusted yourself to sit cross-legged. You were still in your clothes from earlier and it surprised you to see Spencer in less preppy clothing.

Well, less preppy for him. No cardigan, no dress shirt, just a t-shirt that read 'math is as easy as pi' with the pi symbol made of cherry pie and his regular khaki pants. "Aren't you tired?" you asked, smiling from his shirt, back to him.

"No, uh, I actually got about four hours in the middle of your eight. I usually don't dream anymore but I actually dreamt I was falling, which is a sign of..." he stopped himself, but he was with another profiler, what was the use, you could already fill in the blanks. He continued, "Which is a sign of insecurity and inferiority, but I don't believe in dream analysis..."

You furrowed your brow, watching his eyes look down at his hands. "Are you feeling insecure and inferior, Dr.Reid, because need I remind you that 99% of the time, it's your brain that leads us to solve the cases."

He shook his head, "Thinking myself over, I'd-I'd say it doesn't revolve around work." The stutter was back. He hadn't talked to you with a stutter in months, you'd assumed it was just because he wasn't as comfortable around you then, but now it was back. Spencer Reid needed to be cheered up, something was wrong.

"Well you know you can tell me anything, right? I've kept secrets about my friends since grade one, I can keep yours." You slipped off of the bed and walked to your bag on the table in the far corner. You could feel Spencer's eyes on you as you went, so you shot him a smile over your shoulder. He reverted back to looking at his hands.

Through situations and being friends, you knew Spencer was insecure. He was bullied constantly as a child, some going as far as to strip him down and beat him. Disgusting, self-esteem-ruining acts you wished you could remove from his eidetic memory.

You took off your button-up blouse to stay in your white t-shirt that lay underneath. You hadn't the time to remove it before falling asleep. Thinking about that- you probably had bedhead too. Your balled-up shirt was shoved into your bag and you pulled out a brush in exchange, to get the knots out of your hair.

"I could really go for frozen yogurt right now," you said, running the wooden brush through your hair. Spencer narrowed his eyes at you, a little confused. "I haven't eaten dinner."

"It's nearly 12:30 am..." Spencer said. It looked like he was running through his vast mind to find a scientific explanation as to why you might have wanted frozen yogurt at half-past midnight. You let him, a teasing smile on your lips as you pulled the top bit of your hair up. "Are you pregnant?" He asked, out of the blue, entirely serious. Seemed like the only logical explanation he could find. You nearly choked on the air.

"No, Spencer, I am not pregnant!" You laughed. His face tightened as he went back to searching his mind. "I just want frozen yogurt. Regular cravings, not... pregnancy cravings. Are you coming?"

He looked at you, oddly surprised he was invited. "Why?"

"Why not?" You picked up his jacket from the hook and tossed it to him. "Nobody has to see your cheesy math shirt."

He smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck, but went right back to being analytical, a mumbling rant with hand gestures.

"The average half-cup serving of frozen yogurt alone has about 17.3 grams of sugar and plus various toppings, the sugar is upped to at least 25 grams. But, versus a half-cup serving of vanilla ice cream, the sugar is only about 14 grams and with toppings can be upped to about 22. Fat-wise-"

You interrupted him because this was seemingly the only way to lift his mood and he was making excuses to stay here and wallow. "Come on, for once, let's be able to act like the youngest members of the team. Once, Spence. I don't need a play-by-play on how much sugar is in it- though I did find that interesting-I just want frozen yogurt and I would like you to come with me. I'll pay for yours if you want any, just... please?"

He met your eyes with a curl falling down his forehead and quickly looked back at his hands. You'd been friends for nearly a year and four months and he still couldn't look you in the eyes for long. He really wasn't good at refusing you at all, either.

Spencer nodded and you practically beamed. Maybe this would help to take his mind off of what was bothering him, even if the distraction was brief. You jumped on the spot and slipped on your own jacket and grabbed your wallet, ready to go and by the door.

He had a small smile when the two of you stepped out, his hands behind his back. You locked the door behind you and the two of you walked silently to the elevator, careful not to accidentally wake anyone else in case they decided to peer out into the hall.

In the elevator, you turned and looked up at Spencer who was fiddling with his hands. "You look nervous, Spence. It's frozen yogurt, not a pretty girl."

"Well I'm with-" he stopped himself again and actually started laughing his breathy laugh, squeezing his own hand so hard his knuckles turned white while his cheeks and nose went a little pink. "You..." He finished, rocking on his heels.

You scrunched your nose, shaking your head. Though you mentally disagreed with him sometimes on your appearance, you smiled and looked back up at him. "Thank you. You're pretty too."

He shrugged himself further into his jacket, hands still wildly fidgeting. "Thank you..."

You both stepped out of the elevator the moment it got to the ground floor, looking for air that wasn't filled with odd tension neither of you could explain. You two walked through the lobby and into the cool midnight air outside, where things were open, dark, and still.

You shut your eyes for a moment and opened your arms to face the gentle, cool wind that blew your hair and hit your face gently. Inhaling deeply, you opened your eyes again to Spencer in a similar state, but much less relaxed looking. Instead, it looked like he was trying to calm himself down.

"Spence, you look out of it," you said, folding your arms over your chest. You had gotten him outside, now maybe instead of distracting him from whatever it was, you could help him through it. It was part of being a friend- profiling wasn't needed to see he was thinking long and hard over something that bothered him. "You can tell me what's wrong."

He started walking down the street toward the neon lights that shone bright with the word 'fro-yo', you stepped quickly to follow. "If I like a girl.. h-how am I supposed to go about telling her?" He asked, not even looking at you. His forehead was creased and his hands in his jacket pockets.

So this was about a girl he liked. Spencer Reid had a crush. Of course, you were oblivious it was you, but Spencer Reid was romantically interested in someone!

Yay?

An odd feeling of happiness came with finding this out and there was an uprising feeling within you like the first drop on a rollercoaster, but it lingered... and it was much less happy. You ignored it, of course, letting your outer emotions display themselves.

"Dr. Spencer Reid, the human encyclopedia- have you finally found a girl that puts you at a loss for words?" You teased, pressing the back of your hand to your head for dramatic effect, struggling to keep up with him.

His mouth twitched, "Maybe."

"Well, to be honest, Spence, just... tell her. Just go at it- ask to kiss her, maybe, then confess after. Or... or, you could confess, see how she takes it, then you can see if you should or shouldn't kiss her based off of if you get rejected or not." You told him, catching him by the shoulder to get him to slow down at the entrance of the frozen yogurt place.

He was much taller than you, so that came with him being that much faster, but that didn't matter now, he had stopped. Spencer looked at you, concern in his eyes, panic. You smiled kindly, "She won't reject you. I don't know any girl who would even think of it." Reassurance, because he needed it.

His eyes trailed to the ground and he ran a hand through his hair, opening the door for you. "And w-what do I say?" Spencer asked when you both went inside. You were the only two there and the cashier must have been in the back room.

You hopped over to the flavours, "I mean, whatever feels right, Spence. If you feel like going on a long, romantic, poet-written rant about how much you like her, do that. If you're afraid to bore her, you can wait for her to speak, but the truth is if she can't listen to you rant, she probably isn't worth going for."

He evaluated your words while you casually got yourself vanilla frozen yogurt. He also scanned the flavours, probably mentally shaming the company for marketing this as somewhat healthier. You giggled watching him try to figure out how to get the yogurt out of the machine as you put raspberries in yours.

"(Y/N), uh..." he said quietly, gesturing you over. The genius's mind was scrambled enough to miss the lever in front of him. You took his cup from him and pulled the lever, to which he made an 'o' shape with his mouth and nodded comprehensively.

"Chocolate mocha," you smiled, handing it to him as he stood there sheepishly again. "Good choice."

You spun back to your yogurt, adding a bit of honey over the top of it all. He followed, choosing raspberries as well, silently adding them. He still didn't seem at rest with the girl thing, you noticed by the way he was failing to open the scoop-box of cookie crumbs. He had long fingers, usually nimble ones, but not so much right now. Spencer was too stressed to work properly. Error in the system, you may have joked if things weren't so bad with him.

When you were both finished, Spencer tapped the little service bell on the desk and a little woman, maybe mid-30s came out wearing the merchandise of the shop. You both placed your cups on the scale and she weighed them for the price, but both you and Spencer pulled out your wallets.

He put his card out faster, so you swat his hand with your card and paid while he mumbled "Ow..." Of course, you checked to see if he was really hurt, but he had his small, crooked smile back on his face. He was okay, maybe he was feeling better?

Saying good morning/night to the lady, you both stepped back into the midnight air, starting to walk, but not back toward the hotel. You'd think with what cases you two had worked on you'd be a little warier, but with each other, you both felt safe. You walked a few steps, eating your yogurt, before Spencer spoke up again. "Is it a bad thing I'm so clueless as to what women like? Everything I know about women is scientific. Chocolate releases endorphins, flowers are associated with beauty and love, but... other than that... I don't know anything."

You swallowed your bite as Reid took his, waiting on your answer. Just as you always listened to him, he always listened to you. He probably valued your opinion over Derek's at times. You waved your spoon in the air when you spoke, "I wouldn't say bad. Everyone starts somewhere for everything. If anything, a man who is willing to learn is more attractive than one who wings it and doesn't ask comprehensive questions to up the relationship quality."

"Asking questions, got it. Should my confession include a gesture, though?" He spoke with his mouth full. Spencer really wanted to get this right- it was admirable. But there came that uneasy feeling again. It was more like an ache this time. Perhaps it was the awkward hours of sleep throwing you off?

You sucked it up, shoved the feeling down. "Really, Spence, it depends on the woman. Do I know her? Maybe I can help- that is unless you want to profile her to get her interests? I can help with that too-"

"No, I-I don't want to profile her, I want to stay away from that, we do that on a near-daily basis."

"We?" You questioned. Reid froze, but kept walking, looking a little petrified. He put more frozen yogurt in his mouth, maybe to shut himself up. You grinned, "We as in you and her are both profilers or we as in you and I profile others together, so you don't want to profile her with me?"

"I don't want us... to profile her," he cleared his throat. "Yeah..."

You sighed with a breathy laugh, "Good, because I was starting to think you were after Emily."

He chuckled, "Oh, no, not Emily. She's too scary for me anyway. Uh..." He swallowed hard, the way he always did was he was anxious or nervous. I saw in his face he'd come to some sort of conclusion. "Don't... don't yell at me for this, alright?"

"Yell at you? Spence, I wouldn't..." You were confused. He set his frozen yogurt down on the bench he had stopped in front of and stood back in front of you, pushing his hair behind his ears. He looked at you with his doe eyes and the wind blew his curls back in front of his face, he looked to the ground. His forehead still creased between his brows, but his eyes were soft and sweet, his nose was slightly scrunched and his mouth was twisted to the side as if he was once again mentally calculating something. You granted him back the silence from earlier, wondering what was going on in that mind of his. That was... until his eyes met yours and he looked so desperately lost and longing and like he ached inside... and you no longer wondered.

You let out another long sigh. She was you.

This girl that he was trying to understand how to win over, she was you. He asked you because he needed to know what you wanted. He was nervous because he was practically confessing to you and you, a profiler, were too blind to see that.

He watched your face for your reaction, waiting for something good, but you were too shocked to react right. He unfroze, hands flying to the roots of his hair and he spun away from you. He started rambling, obviously thinking everything had gone wrong. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, (Y/N). That- that wasn't how I had things planned and I was so certain that maybe you-hm- liked me too."

His words made it true. This was, in fact, happening at 12:56am in the middle of a foreign city. Your words spilled out, stern, focused, serious. "Kiss me then."

He spun around again, "What?"

"Confess, then kiss, remember?" You recounted carefully, looking directly at him, stepping closer.

"But I didn't get to do my whole monologue thing-" He was grinning pretty hard now, all signs of stress removed from his face. He looked brighter than the neon froyo sign, in happiness and disbelief right down at you. You were pretty sure you looked similar as all the pieces fell in place in your mind. It all fit.

"I don't care." You beamed back. "Do it after."

So without wasting another second, he grabbed your face and kissed you. He kissed you with a year and four months' worth of frustration, lust, confusion and past jealousies. His hands holding your jaw, his fingertips in your hair and your hands on his chest, holding fast to jacket. The kiss was a little messy the first two seconds, but every second after it was enjoyable and sweet and oddly powerful. He also tasted rich, like chocolate mocha, but you knew where that came from.

He pulled away first, which surprised you, but he didn't move very far, in fact, he mumbled against your lips as he tucked your hair out of your face. "I think I've liked you since you and I first met. You didn't hate my science jokes and instead of being annoyed with my informational rants, you listened to me. I wasn't expecting you to be so involved with me since you're, well... you're you and you're loud and fun and sweet and beautiful, but we worked so well together how could I ignore what I felt?"

His hand was a little shaky still, but his fingertips on your cheek were gentle. He continued to quietly ramble, "I decided maybe I'd do something with myself that wasn't devoted to the BAU so I thought maybe I'd- I'd tell you this. That I think you're beautiful and smart and talented and maybe you'd understand and feel the same way and now that I know maybe you do, I feel oddly put back to how I'm supposed to be. And... I think I'm supposed to be with you. If this is too soon or... ruins our friendship, I'm sorry and I'll slow it down, but I won't stop liking you."

You couldn't believe that in a three-minute span you had gone from painfully oblivious to so extremely wide awake. But it was in the best way possible after a year and four months of you also being painfully crushed by your secret feelings for Dr.Reid.

"It's fine, Spence," you said quietly, smiling at him with the most happiness you had found in months. "More than fine, I can't believe this is real."

He tucked the other side of your hair behind your ear, "You might have DRC, then. It stands for dream-reality confusion and is a difficulty or inability to determine whether an event or experience occurred during the waking state or whether it was part of a dream. I can assure you that you aren't dreami-"

You reached up and pulled him onto your lips by the back of the neck, smiling into it. This would be the first time you've ever shut him up. He welcomed it by kissing you back again, softer this time. Now that he was sure you wouldn't hate him for it, it felt a lot more natural, a lot more at ease. His passion was still there, as was yours, but this was how things were supposed to be. There was no longer a rush.

The two of you started laughing after it all. Both of you laughed at how painfully oblivious you both were and he went on a small explanation as to why we don't see our own tells and how feelings of romantic relation cloud the judgement. You went over every time the rest of the team had made a comment you both secretly loved or some you dismissed because it was an ache to hear.

Spencer opened up about his fear of rejection and you did the same and that too resulted in more laughing because here you were, so afraid, but you had both been in it for so long. You deserved to have each other after all this time not only because you fit, but because everyone saw it too, far before either of you did.

An innocent, fun, midnight escapade to cheer Spencer up turned into him finding a truly happy state of mind. You took that as a win and success as you tossed frozen yogurt containers in the garbage and found your way back to your room where you told Spencer it was okay to sleep in the bed as long as he was nice.

So he let you turn out the lights and lay next to him, your head on his chest in the way you had done before when it was only an achingly platonic move. He played with your hair, stared at the green walls, ranted about the history of the colour green and soon after, the both of you went right back to sleep, entirely happy.

Tagged: @ellyhotchner @softhairedhotch

#spencer reid #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #criminalminds #emily prentiss #dr spencer reid #criminal minds fandom #spencer x y/n #cm #aaron hotchner #mutual pining #romance #spencer reid fandom

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fae-morrigan · 4 months ago

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Hey! This post sucks ass. It ignores the reality of racism and homophobia impacting character reception in this fandom, as well as a toxic refusal to accept ships outside of people's fanon OTPs, which are pretty clearly the main reasons people don't like them if you have eyes that work and can read.

Anyways, because it sucks ass, it is now MY post. Welcome to my post everybody!

Today we're going to be talking about character design, and why I think Jay's character design is really good.

(I won't be covering Bernard... uh... down, sure thats his name, here because I am not really one of his stans, but if any of my bernie mutuals wanna hop on and take a crack at breaking down his character design too, feel free to!)

Let's take a look!

First of all, it is important to establish something. Contrary to what fandom will tell you, 'good character design' isn't really about making a character the audience wants to fuck. Its about making a design that conveys character, both subtle and unsubtle. Character designs, especially in a visual medium like comics, are part of storytelling.

So what does Jay's design tell you about him?

He's in bright, clashing colors. Orange, green, pink, the only neutrals spotted here. This conveys a certain confidence in himself- It takes guts to wear an outfit that gaudy. This is someone who knows who he is, and doesn't feel the need to advertise himself differently. From his very first meeting, it becomes apparent he does not care much about what other people think of him (with the exception of Jon... but we'll get there.)

Yet, look at the actual clothing: He wears a mask. More than that, when he first appears to us, he's got his hoodie hood up, something that is often used in character designs to convey being closed off. Despite his openness with the world about who he is, there's something he's still hiding from. He's not a complete open book, even if he is honest.

Now, let's have a chat about the hair.

Ahhh. Jay's hair. The endless subject of ire, for reasons that completely escape me. I've seen people call it a 'stereotype', which, gay people dyeing their hair PINK? HUGE if true! C'mon, guys. Let's be so real with ourselves: Basically every gay person I know including myself has gone pink at least once. If its a stereotype, its an accurate one!

And yeah, Jay's hair being such a vibrant pink definitely is there to make him intentionally and visibly queer. Something that contrasts him from Jon, who is more muted, and far less confident in his sexuality being known by others.

Buuuuut that's actually not the part of Jay's hair I wanted to discuss. Let's talk about the actual style, yeah?

Look at this shit. This is... dawg, who is your barber?

And part of me really wants to chock it up to the fact that Timms really does just not know how to draw straight hair at all. Look, he even fucks Galaxy's shit up:

GIRL.

Except.... Look at it. Look at Jay's hair. Doesn't it kind of look like he cut it himself? Like, just kind of went at it with scissors? It's messy, and none of it is neat, compared to Jon who has a nice undercut going on a lot of the time or Clark's perfectly combed and gelled curls. Even compared to later Jay drawings where his hair has grown out and is much more curated and fluffy and healthy.

Pair that with the fact he picked his couch up off the street...

Here's the unspoken thing Jay's initial design communicates: He's poor. At the very least, he's frugal. This man is making due with what he has.

Everything about Jay's design is there to remind you that this is a man who does not have the privilege Jon has as a white middle class American. He is the oppressed that Jon is championing in this book.

(This all also later puts him in contrast with Nia, who way later in the story actively uses her privilege against him.)

All of this is conveyed wordlessly. And I haven't even gotten to his suit.

White and teal, making him look almost like a ghost. The hood remains, with the same meaning as before. Overall, the design is sleep and reminiscent of streetwear, something Jay wears earlier in the series when sneaking in to STAR labs. His pants, baggy and not-form fitting, are traditional in a lot of asian cultures (generally, they are called harem pants in the fashion world): These specifically seem to be based off Japanese shichibu or tobi pants, baggy and loose and used specifically in manual labor like construction. He's got these tassles that trail behind him, drawing attention to and highlighting the movements of his body: Necessary considering Jay's main skill outside of reporting is parkour! He's also got a matching belt to Jon's, but his is offset from the center, the jewel instead being on the side of his waist rather than centered.

(Sidenote: Cian Tormey once promised me he'd post the concept art for this costume and then he FORGOT. Guess I need to ask again, lmfao)

A good character design shouldn't just tell you about the character, but also, characters around them, too! It is characterizing that Jon took one look at this Bird of Paradise and was like, "oh, yeah, i wanna make out with THIS guy". That tells you something about him and what he values in people (namely, that aforementioned confidence in himself, something Jon lacks during most of Son of Kal El.)

But also, let's take this sneak peak preview of Super Son real quick:

Despite both of them being in bright, highly visible colors, Jon LITERALLY being in primary colors, Jay somehow makes Jon look almost dark by comparison. Jon's ordinarily eye-catching colors look muted next to his boyfriend. Their hair is opposite tones as well, Jon having black hair and Jay having light hair, and of course Jay is visibly more tan (making Jon look pale as a ghost).

No matter how visible he is as Superman, he will never be as visible as well... The Truth. There is visual deference here, as well as contrast. Opposites, despite their color schemes not actually being direct opposites.

All of this is conveyed through just looking at Jay's design. It tells you a lot about his character without saying anything, AND it's unique: I've not seen many characters who look like Jay, especially not in western comics. It enriches the text, and in my professional opinion, is way better than if Jay was just a generic black haired blue eyed boy like so many people seem to want.

I think that one reason why Bernard Down and Jay Nakamura are not as appealing as a partners for Tim and Jon, aside from their personalities or lack thereof, is because of their character design.

There is something about it, especially their hair style, that makes them immediately unlikable. Maybe with another hairstyle and outfits people would be more accepting of both of them

#don't put hate in character tags and I wont feel the need to take your post from your little baby hands lol #op has their hp house in their bio so im not too surprised #jay nakamura #dc #dc meta

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squishmallow36 · 3 years ago

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Keeper of the Lost Prepositions - Forty

Word count: 2.5k

Tw: I'm going to warn for internalized homophobia but it's not the worst I've done

Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @stellar-lune @gaslight-gaetkeep-gayboss @kamikothe1and0lny @nyxpixels @florida-fruity-frog @poppinspop @crystallinewalker @uni-seahorse-572 @solreefs @books-over-boys @rusted-phone-calls @when-wax-wings-melt @cotyledon-tomentosa @good-old-fashioned-lover-boy7 @dexter-dizzknees @abubble125

On Ao3 or below the cut!

Fitz PoV

With Keefe safely in the closet, I almost let myself exhale.

And then I see the damage he did to my room in his short time out here.

Even after I’ve fixed the dresser he managed to completely empty.

Well, everything’s a wrinkled mess, but at least it’s in there.

Someone knocks at my door, and my blood runs cold. “Hey, Fitz.”

I curse under my breath, and open the door, knowing she’s going to know everything in a matter of seconds.

“How are you doing?” Biana asks, leaning against the door frame.

I refuse to give her an answer. Why can’t people let me relax for half a second?

“Someone’s grumpy today. Got it. I’ll leave you alone.”

She actually leaves me alone, closing the door behind her and everything. For the first time ever.

I flop backward in my bed, staring at the glowing stars on my ceiling that were put up there when I was six and have yet to come down.

I sigh.

“You know, this is the exact reason I don’t let you out. Because now I have to worry about cleaning up my room because someone decided to be a five-year-old gremlin because he needs more notebooks to draw in the dark when he has a perfectly capable Imparter.”

Keefe bumps the door with his knee. At least that’s what I’m hoping it is. It’s a new sound, so I haven’t quite figured out what it means yet.

“Need I remind you that this was your idea?” Most of the time, that’s what he wants, so it’s not a bad guess.

He bumps the door again with his knee, lower to the ground this time though.

Apparently I’m still missing his message, because crinkles some paper, and I notice he slipped a note under the door.

What can’t be expressed by beating the crap out of my poor closet door?

It says, You forgot to make sure Biana left.

“What are you talking about? Well, I guess writing would be more accurate. But either way, I literally saw her leave.”

Preposition, the tiny, annoying part of my brain reminds me.

Keefe slips another note, this one crammed in a corner, so it takes a second to decode.

Trust the Empath.

“Biana, are you in here? Or is Keefe just messing with me? And if you’re just going to stay invisible to spite me, I will remind you that I have glitter and that won’t vanish immediately. I remember that game of Base Quest where we found that out.”

Biana weighs her options and blinks into sight, sitting on one of my dressers in the darkest corner of my room, ankles crossed like she’s trying to appear more innocent than she is.

I curse.

“I was suspicious, okay? You don’t spend this much time in your room. Well, ever since you stopped staring at your ceiling because of Sophie, at least,” Biana explains.

I know Keefe’s going to annoy me until I release him from his closet, so I dismantle my barricade again and open up the door.

Crawling out like he hasn’t seen the sun in days, even though he was just in my room, Keefe waves at Biana, smiling like an idiot.

“I thought you’d been kidnapped.”

He’s totally like, “I’m locked in a literal closet. Was I not kidnapped?”

I know this without even looking at him.

“That was the idea.”

Biana curses. “That changes things.”

I clarify, “That was his idea.”

Keefe’s pouting behind me. I don’t even need to confirm this with evidence.

Yeah, I’m going to throw you under the bus. It’s been a long six days, mate.

“Why...why didn’t you at least tell me?” Biana asks, her focus on Keefe, hands on her hips.

“From a statistical standpoint, the fewer people that are involved, the safer the secret is. The only reason he involved me is because he needed a closet. And before you start asking why he isn’t living in your closet instead, he spent a summer in my closet in Level Three, so we’ve dealt with this before. Although he was less annoying and several inches shorter back then.”

“I hate to burst your bubble, but--who am I kidding? I love bursting your bubble. I found out about that the first weekend after midterms. I told Mum and Dad, and they agreed they wanted to give him a nice summer.

I make a displeased noise, or I imagine I do.

“Let me help,” Biana pleads. “I can sneak him food easier than you can.”

On the one hand, I can’t wait to get rid of him. On the other hand, I’m really worried this is going to set off a chain of dominoes ending in the Neverseen knowing where he is.

“Just don’t tell anyone. Don’t. Tell. Anyone. Do you understand me? Don’t trust anyone.”

“Stars, you sound like Dex.”

Keefe might be trying to warn her about how we don’t talk about Dex here. I can sense there’s a disturbance behind me. But for all I know, he’s tearing up my room again.

Biana doesn’t care, instead asking Keefe, “How’ve you been, Lord Hunkyhair?”

I glance at him, and watch him gesture at the closet and then his hair.”

“I know, right? Living both literally and metaphorically in a closet. That takes skills. I can fix that hair for you. It won’t end up pink, I promise.”

He holds up an entire rainbow of notebooks.

“Fine. I won’t dye your hair. It’s only temporary, you know.”

I can feel him staring daggers without even looking.

Biana leads him out of my room and into her bathroom for a makeover, leaving me to my own thoughts.

My thoughts are not a place I want to be right now.

I’m tempted to just distract myself with something, but I know this might be the only free time I get for a while, so I should at least do something productive that I’d be afraid to do if Keefe were in here.

I rub my temples, feeling a headache coming on.

Prepos--nope!

I can’t keep all of these thoughts and feelings stuck in my head, otherwise Keefe’s going to keep getting blasted with wave after wave of them.

I shuffle around, looking through the notebooks I donated to Keefe, trying to find a blank page. Of course, there isn’t one.

Imparter it is, I guess. Dex’d figure out how to write stuff down on his. It can’t be that hard.

On the bright side, I can break an Imparter so much faster than I can get rid of paper.

I manage to not break everything and open up Google Docs.

Staring down that stark, blank white piece of paper makes me want to close it and do something else.

My intros for school are always weak, but I’ve almost gotten it down to a science.

Hook, book, bridge, thesis.

How hard can that be when you don’t have a book?

Answer: very. Go write a book and use that as your book. It’s faster.

Another thing. Formal voice isn’t going to be a thing here. It’s going to be a rant, which is not typically considered formal writing.

Who cares? It won’t be graded. Just write.

Emotions can be challenging to navigate, especially when you’re a teenager that’s part of a rebel organization dealing with another rebel organization run by your best friend’s mom that also includes your older brother that you wish you could forget about all the while not being able to unhear prepositions because of a certain redheaded Disney nerd. But, hey, what do I know? In the story, “Sorry, this is the only way I know how to do intros,” by Whoknows Whotheauthoris, somewhere my brain got a little messed up. I believe that writing all of this down will help me make sense of it all, because I don’t have enough space in my head for all of this at once.

First, the anger. I always start with anger. The reason why is a question for another time. I’m mostly angry with Keefe right now, but that’s just because he’s what we call a wanker and knows exactly how to push my buttons. I am also angry with Biana because she can find out anything about anyone and sometimes I just want a little privacy, okay? Then I’m a little angry with Dex because of reasons which I choose not to write down. Additionally, I’m just perpetually angry at Alvar because he’s one bloody traitor if there ever was one. Finally, I’m also kind of angry with myself for reasons I don’t want to admit.

I stop for a second, considering.

You know what? If my soul is going to be poured out onto paper, or whatever this would be called, I might as well say. I really want to go and beg Dex to listen to me and explain how I made a giant mistake, but I’m sure he hates me now, and there’s nothing I can do to fix it this time. I had my chance. Besides, there are so many other things I have to worry about, it’s not a viable option for me.

I see the preposition, but decide to leave it. Dex is the only one that truly cares, and I’ll be Exiled before I let him, or anyone else, but him in particular, read this.

Next, we might as well cover exactly why it isn’t a viable option for me. It boils down to this: I’m a Vacker. And there’s nothing I can do to change that. We don’t have Bad Matches. Yet there’s still a tiny voice in the back of my mind trying to persuade me to tell society to go--.

Yeah, if this is discovered, that’s not exactly the best sentence I could include.

While I’m trying to think of how to rephrase, Biana decides it’s the perfect time to start blasting some music. I almost immediately recognize it as part of Dex’s favourite playlist. I had it stuck in my head for a few days. I don’t really know if it’s his favourite anymore, but it was a couple weeks ago.

Probably because it was the only human music he really knew because it was Sophie’s originally and he copied it down.

If I traded it all, if I gave it all away for one thing, just for one thing? If I sorted it out, if I knew all about this one thing, wouldn’t that be something?

Yeah, Biana, you can stop sending those subliminal messages.

It’s not very subliminal, if you ask me. Her persuasive message seems pretty clear.

Oh. Stars. Did Keefe tell her? I want to think that he hasn’t but, I also have very few reasons to trust him at the moment.

By the end of the song, I’m left wondering, what if I told society to go--?

The logical voice in my head cuts it off before I get a chance to fully form the thought. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t linger.

So I keep on writing.

If a Vacker were to be a part of a Bad Match, they’d likely be disowned. It hasn’t happened before, to my knowledge, but maybe someone was intentionally forgotten. Even if their parents support their decision, then someone in the family tree would obviously distance themselves from me. I mean, the hypothetical Bad Match. I’d rather not do that, but Keefe just essentially got disowned, and it didn’t exactly change much. But I’m a Vacker. The stares and whispers? I get nervous thinking about it. It might be a little bit too much for me to handle. It was more than enough when everyone was focused on Alvar. This could be less than a scandal, because treason kind of outweighs most other things, but it wouldn’t be ‘ew, there’s the traitor’s brother.’ It would be ‘ew, there’s the golden son that was given everything and still chose to be a Bad Match, and he must’ve known that going in because there’s no way two guys could be on each others’ Match Lists, so they didn’t form a connection that pushed them to stick with whatever life throws at them before they knew’.”

Now that I see it...it’s a tad specific. But it’s not wrong!

Third, this will almost undoubtedly make my cognatedom collapse if it hasn’t already. I can’t tell Sophie any of this! Especially after how I treated her when we were dating! I’m now aware I was very much a tosser. There are some things she’ll never get to know.

I hate writing conclusions almost as much as I hate introductions, but they are much less down to a science because I’ve spent all of my mental energy working on the actual content, which I believe is much more important.

Also I don’t know how to navigate this technology thing well enough to go back and edit without the backspace and having to completely delete the later text. There might be more paragraphs in the near future as I need to let out some more emotions, but I’ve had enough for today.

I just want to zone out and sleep until all of my problems figure out how to solve themselves.

But waiting for my problems to solve themselves exceeds my patience levels. Keefe’s taken all of them plus two.

Speaking of Keefe, he and Biana are still blasting music, so I struggle to figure out how to send Sophie a message through my Imparter like Dex does. Hailing would be pointless. She wouldn’t be able to hear anything.

I know we haven’t been on the best of terms lately, and I know it’s entirely my fault, but I was wondering if we could do a couple of cognate exercises. Maybe? See if your mind will still let me in? Catch up on what’s happened since the last time we talked?

It goes through a few rounds of editing, I’m fully aware of the preposition, and I have to try several times to spell ‘exercises’ correctly, but I gather my courage and hit send.

It’s a few songs later when I get a response.

Yeah, sure. Sandor isn’t letting me leave the house, so feel free to pop over here whenever you’re free.

I read the message at least three times in an attempt to gauge the amount of passive aggression hiding in there. I find it to be zero, which is unexpected.

I know my eardrums aren’t going to appreciate this, but I walk over to Biana’s door and knock.

She opens the door a crack and a wave of sound hits me.

“What?” she asks over the music. “Is the music too loud for your precious ears?”

“No, well, yes, but no. I wanted to let you know that I’m heading over to Havenfield. I haven’t run away.”

“That makes it sound like you’re running away.”

“Believe whatever the Exile you want. I’ll see you later.”

#kotlc #detz #dex dizznee #fitz vacker #kotlc fanfic #oh fitz #not me misspelling forty because english is three languages in a trenchcoat

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narastories · 2 years ago

Note

Ship Bingo:

John/Tom

Jamie/Claire

Jamie/John

Harry/Nic (just in case no one else mentioned them 😘)

Oh, these are juicy, thank you!

John/Tom aka my absolute favorite darlings:

OTP. You’ll take this ship out of my cold dead hands. Make me so unwell I broke in the ship tag and wrote 20 fics. I practically wrote a novel with them. I could put them in any scenario of any universe and it would be great.

The only reason I don’t mark relationship goals because there’s a bit of a power imbalance, but with them even that works out so well.

Aesthetically great because Tom Byrd makes sure of it. John would be a pathetic mess without him.

Whatever that screaming girl is in the middle.

I would and do read every fic about them.

I really need this to be canon (I’m joking, I don’t care about canon, but they are on that level that I just have to mark this too.)

Also love them platonically btw, I didn’t mark that bc I don’t only like them platonically if that makes sense.

I love them if you couldn’t already tell.

Jamie/Claire:

...

I already knew when I reblogged this that I wouldn’t use the more strongly worded negative ones. Luckily.

Not my thing. Wrote them in OT3 with John before, and that’s probably the only scenario where I would still might read them. But nope. It’s just... a nope from me.

The impact/their story is more interesting than the ship itself: obviously because OL is their story, and the minor characters/side stories/LJG books are a lot more interesting to me.

Jamie/John:

Ouch. That hurt.

I really need this to be canon: by that I mean it is canon, but I want to read more about all their perfectly canon kisses in the books please. And since John also married Claire you might as well make it a canon OT3. (But we all know DG wouldn’t do that).

I’m conflicted about them + fandom kind of ruined them for me: Actually, it’s more accurate to say that this ship has run its course for me and sailed away. Granted, the fandom drama didn’t help, but the effect on me was more that I started kind of hating Jamie? At least I’m always reminded of his worst traits now and feel like John deserves better. You know I’ve written quite a few stories with them in the past and read a lot more. But now I’m just unable to go back to my happy-shippy feelings about them. :(

I contemplated marking would read fic, because I’m still reading a few special fics here and there, but I also don’t seek it out anymore. It helps if it’s an AU or crossover so I can disregard canon more easily lol

Harry/Nic:

omg I appreciate that you sent me that even though you are not in the DF fandom. It’s amazing enabling right there, friend <3

They make me unwell, I’m so gone for them. Completely lost my mind over them. Can’t stop writing shit.

This is a real ship? Get well soon: that is me at myself a few months ago. Spoiler alert: she did not get well soon.

aesthetically it’s GREAT: I mean they are such a vibe. Harry is right between tall-dark-handsome and XXL twink. His dress-code is city cowboy meets Wicca-chic, plus a bit of nerd vibes plus whatever is not torn or bloody atm. Nicodemus is just absolute evil daddy. Canonically called handsome, nice voice, nice laugh, well-dressed goth basically. *chef’s kiss*

*slaps roof*: this is the ship where I can project all my obscure occult-leaning interests. Any weird trivia or nebulous concept suits this ship so well, whether it’s touched upon in canon or not. Angels, demons, saints, you name it, we can have a discussion about the meaning of life and grey morality between two make-out sessions and it doesn’t look out of place at all. I’m living for this.

I would and do read fic with them

Again, whatever that screaming girl in the middle is

I love them. And you all know that because I won’t shut up about it. Once again, you can take this ship out of my cold dead hands

Thank you so much for sending these @geekinthefuschiahair!! This was fun rambling about them <3

#tumblr game #ship bingo

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marvel-and-mischief · 4 years ago

Text

His Saving Grace Part V

Title: His Saving Grace - Maxwell Lord x F!Reader Words: 4400 Warnings: verbal abuse, alcohol, drunken behaviour, angst, swearing Synopsis: Maxwell takes you to a business gala, explains what happened on that unusual day, and meets a familiar face. But not everything goes according to plan.

Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV

A month passes in a flurry of meetings and spontaneous lunches with Maxwell, and being the odd one out whilst he spent his half a day a week with Alistair (Mrs Lord had decided that she trusted you enough to leave her son under your care). Though, by the third week Alistair had began to warm up to you, asking you questions and thrusting toys into your arms, urging you to join in the fun on the living room floor with him and his father.

Most of Maxwell’s conversations with you were about Alistair, or how well his new investments were doing. You didn’t elect to bring up what had happened in the restaurant a month ago, where he had you blabbering like an idiot with a silly schoolgirl crush, and he didn’t bring it up. You thought he might’ve, that it was maybe an indication that something was brewing between the two of you, but perhaps you were mistaken.

Though you noticed his hand would linger on the small of your back long after he had ushered you through a door, and he’d taken to kissing you on the cheek, a whispered ‘thank you’ on a Saturday afternoon when Mrs Lord had picked up Alistair and your work there was done.

But it was always respectful, professional.

One Monday you arrived at Maxwell’s apartment for lunch. Though you didn’t meet everyday, Maxwell was sure to telephone you most days and the night before he had been eager to have lunch with you to discuss something important. You begged him to tell you over the phone but he insisted he wanted to tell you in person. The excitement in his voice had you grinning and accepting his invitation easily.

He pulled you over to the island in the middle of the kitchen when you arrived and you saw it was lined with buttered toast and various jams, a cafetière filled with fresh coffee, plain croissants and a bowl of fruit.

“What are you up to?” You asked, teasing him and roaming you eyes over the delicious food as you took a seat.

“Must I be up to something to treat my favourite lawyer?” Maxwell looked genuinely affronted at your accusations before the mask slipped and a cheeky smile appeared on his lips. He fetched a bottle of milk from the fridge and a small saucer with sugar cubes on and placed them down next to your mug before taking his seat opposite you.

“Either that or you’re about to fire me,” you winked as you took a bite of your toast.

“Absolutely not! It would be like shooting myself in the foot.”

It wasn’t the most obvious of compliments but it still had you finding your slice of toast much more interesting than it was, unable to meet Maxwell’s eyes.

“I’ve been feeling very positive lately. With seeing Alistair every week and my investments working out. I think we should do something.”

“To celebrate?” You asked inquisitively, ignoring the part where he said ‘we’.

“Sort of,” Maxwell left his place at the island and picked up a pamphlet off a side table in the living room, “I saw this when I was out getting groceries. I would like to take you.”

Maxwell handed you the pamphlet. You curiously scanned the fancy writing, the black and gold color scheme, the illustration of a woman in a beautiful gown. It was a gathering of local business owners raising money for charity, or more accurately an excuse to dress up and have a party.

“There will be opportunities to schmooze and swap business cards but most importantly there will be dancing and copious amounts of champagne,” Maxwell seemed delighted at the idea, a hopeful look in his eyes as he watched for your reaction.

You licked the crumbs off your finger and thumb and started to nod.

“It’ll be fun,” you wanted to match Maxwell’s excitement but you had never been to anything like this, it was a whole other world to the one you were used to. But to Maxwell, this was a taste of his old life again, the glitz and the glamor of throwing money around until it sticks.

“It will be fun. You get to dress up and show everybody in the business world that you are the one to go to if they need help.”

You couldn’t help smiling bashfully. And yeah, maybe it would be nice to relax for once, let your hair down for a night, even show off a little. You were good at your job and everyone should know it.

But there was one thing nagging in the back of your mind. Maxwell had said he didn’t want this lifestyle anymore, was he really ready to go back into the limelight?

“Maxwell,” you put down the pamphlet in favor of reaching across the island and holding his hand, “are you ready for this?”

His smile dropped a fraction, a wistful look crossing his features as he gave your hand a squeeze. After a moment’s pause he spoke seriously.

“I cannot hide for the rest of my life. I must face the music one day, and what better way to do that than with a celebration?”

“But a gala for businessmen and women? You’re sure to bump into somebody you knew.”

“Perhaps. But these people won’t want to make a fuss. They’re all about appearances.”

“You’re sure?”

Maxwell chuckled, dismissing your apprehension.

“Everything will be fine.”

You hoped he was right.

Four days later you were sat in the back of a car Maxwell had hired for the two of you, bouncing your leg with nerves and staring up at Maxwell’s living room window as you awaited your date for the night to leave his apartment and join you.

You had brought your dress second hand, not sure if it was appropriate for the event or even if it was meant to match Maxwell’s outfit. You had no idea what was ‘etiquette’ at these galas, having never been to one.

You’d found a long dark green dress with thin straps over the shoulder and gold embroidered wildflowers in random patterns all over. You’d also come across an old black clutch at the back of your wardrobe from your clubbing days to go with it. You felt beautiful getting dressed up for the first time in years, even better that it was with Maxwell.

Speaking of which, when he came through the doors of the building you audibly gasped at how handsome he looked. His sleek, black three piece suit fit perfectly to his shape, whereas his everyday suits often looked boxy this one didn’t have the over the top shoulder pads and he looked better for it, more approachable in appearance. His shirt was white and had a crimped style and instead of a normal tie he wore a mint green bowtie, a fun addition that put a smile on your face.

Maxwell slipped into the car next to you, taking you in with a slow sweep of your outfit and an audible release of breath that had you second guessing your choices.

“You’re a sight to behold,” Maxwell admired you one last time before pointing to his bowtie and your dress, “and we almost match.”

You laughed, nerves dissipating as you allowed Maxwell’s compliment to seep in. Maxwell told the driver to drive on, unbuttoned his jacket and relaxed into his seat. He didn’t seem anxious to be going to a gala full of people. You were a little uneasy at the prospect of meeting people he might know, you had no idea how they would react to seeing him again but you were determined to have Maxwell’s back at every corner if you were met with conflict.

When you rolled up outside the museum you had to wait for arrivals in the car in front of your own to exit before you could. You watched as the flashing lights of the photographers were blinding the people walking passed them, and it took you back to when those cameras were shoved in your face during the worst time of your life. Would these photos be publicised? What would people think about you turning up to a charity event with a disgraced ex-oil tycoon?

Maxwell shuffled to the middle seat to grasp your hand in his, calling your name to take your attention away from what was happening outside.

“Are you alright?” The concern in his voice was genuine and the hand holding yours brought you out of your spiralling thoughts.

“I’ll be better once we’re passed them,” you pointed to the photographers but kept your eyes on Maxwell. He hummed and leaned over the front seat to whisper in the driver’s ear. Before you could question him, the car was driving away.

“Where are we going?” You asked in confusion.

“We’re going to enter round the back instead. I have some ties to this place so it should be fine,” Maxwell gave you a reassuring smile that had you instinctively leaning against his shoulder. It was comforting having Maxwell so close, you could smell his expensive cologne that reminded you of old books in a library and a little bit woodsy. Oh what you would give to be in his presence all the time.

The Smithsonian was a thing of wonder, even entering through a discreet back door away from the sparkle of the main event. After charming a security guard he seemed to know, Maxwell guided you with a hand in yours through narrow nineteenth century corridors, moving closer to the loud music at the front of the building. You passed dark locked offices and hurried through rooms with posters of animals and glass cabinets filled with artefacts far beyond your understanding.

“How do you know your way around here?” You asked as you took in your surroundings.

“I’ve been here before,” Maxwell’s reply was short, bordering on stern as he dragged you through the maze of corridors.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-“

“No no,” Maxwell slowed down enough to bring you in step beside him, deliberately loosening his grip on your hand as he realised he had been clinging harshly and pulling you around the museum behind him. It wasn’t until you reached the gems and minerals department that you felt Maxwell stiffen up beside you.

“This is where it all began,” he confessed, pointing around the room in a generalised manner. You understood what he meant, but not knowing exactly what had gone down that day, you were confused as to how it linked in with a natural history museum.

“What happened?” You ventured, hesitant to push too hard on the subject.

“There was a stone I’d been researching for months and I traced it back to here,” Maxwell glanced over his shoulder to a door that led into an office.

“What sort of stone?”

“A Dreamstone,” Maxwell breathed, his fingers flexing around yours, “it granted wishes,” at your sceptical look he huffed out a laugh, “I know, it’s madness but I swear it’s true.”

He wasn’t playing a practical joke on you, that much you could tell, but how could a stone make your wishes come true? You decided for the most part Maxwell was sound of mind so it must be true, somehow.

“So, you took it? And made a wish?”

“I did. I wished to become the stone, that way I could grant people’s wishes and take a wish in return. I had limitless wishes, and I used every single one of them for my own benefit, to get more rich, more powerful, more evil,” Maxwell whispered the last word as he began to walk away from the department towards another corridor.

“You were already one of the most famous men in America, why did you need more?”

Maxwell let out a sarcastic laugh that made you jump. Thinking he’d scared you Maxwell tried to pull his hand from yours but you held tight, preventing him from doing so.

“I told myself it was for Alistair, to give him the world if he asked for it. I’m sure you and all your goodness would say I was misguided but the truth is, I wanted it. I said to myself, why shouldn’t I have everything I’ve ever wanted? Damn the consequences.”

You shook your head, disagreeing with the harshness in Maxwell’s voice and words. He wasn’t a bad man, you knew Maxwell was good at heart. The man he was describing wasn’t the man in front of you today. The man who had you entering the back of a gala because he saw how uncomfortable you were with the cameras at the front.

“I don’t believe you,” you stated adamantly.

“No, it is all true,” Maxwell argued but you shushed him as the music and the chatter of guests was getting louder. You came to an oak door and you knew the gala was on the other side. Before you opened it you paused and turned to face Maxwell.

“I believe your story but I don’t believe for a second that you wanted to be some king of the world. Otherwise why did you stop before you went too far?”

Maxwell opened his mouth to retort but closed it again, looking like a gaping fish out of water. He couldn’t come up with an answer that suited his self-deprecating view of himself. He saw Alistair in his mind’s eye, the answer to your question, but it would only further prove your point.

“We should go out there and enjoy ourselves, what do you think?” You asked, reaching forward to straighten up Maxwell’s bowtie. When you finished, you saw Maxwell looking at you with a sappy smile and a look you couldn’t put your finger on. Before you could ask, he offered you his arm and you took it, pushing open the oak door together.

You squinted into the dim, atmospheric lighting of the large room and paused for a moment to get acquainted to the loud music from the speakers on either side of you. The space was massive and could easily accommodate a couple of hundred people. There were cabinets of artefacts along the perimeter, skeletal displays hanging down from the roof, waiters walking around with trays of champagne. It was a world far from your own but you didn’t feel uncomfortable with Maxwell by your side.

You turned to Maxwell who nodded in the direction of the bar off to the side and up some steps. You let him guide you as you surveyed the dance floor, noting the guests were in deep conversations instead of dancing. You realised that this was the time to be talking to other business owners and swapping cards.

You opened your clutch and picked out the dozen or so business cards you’d had made and showed them to Maxwell as soon as you reached the bar.

“Ah, you listened to me!” Maxwell exclaimed with a delighted grin, waving down a bartender, “what do you want?”

“A cocktail?” You weren’t sure what you could order in a museum but Maxwell understood and ordered you something you’d never heard of before.

“You’ll like it, it’s sweet,” he assured you and took one of your business cards to look over.

“Is it okay?” You asked, a tightness in your chest as you awaited his opinion. You didn’t want to look stupid in the face of the rich and powerful.

“It’s nice, sophisticated and sleek, is that what you’re going for?”

You watched his finger trace the curvy triangle running from the top left corner of the card to the bottom right, a shiny pink against the matte black background. You nodded, certain it was exactly what you were going for. You had been a smart, capable and hard working lawyer and you wanted to bring that to your new role as a Career and Business Adviser.

“I want to be taken seriously,” you took back the card and shuffled them into a neat pile on the bar top just as your drink was placed in front of you.

“And you will be, you can do this,” Maxwell winked and it sent a warmth throughout your body.

When you were finished with your drink Maxwell directed you away from the bar and into the crowd. The nerves in every part of your body were on fire as you spoke to your first stranger, an older woman who owned a store in the middle of D.C. She spoke of the rising costs of renting her store and the trouble she was having attracting new customers.

You gave her advice that had her asking for your business card before you could even offer her one.

Maxwell’s hand was a comforting presence on your back as he urged you towards different people he thought would be potential clients. Some people recognised him with a look of shock, some gave him a wide berth but most people nodded politely or didn’t give him the time of day. You were too busy concentrating on your job for the night to notice, but Maxwell was grateful that everything seemed to going smoothly for you.

You were about to ask Maxwell if he wanted another drink when you spotted a tall, slender woman with long, wavy brunette hair on a mission to push through the crowd and reach Maxwell by any means necessary. You caught his eye, raising a questioning eyebrow but all he did was let out a long breath and face the woman who had a look of curiosity on her face. Her striking features, sharp jawline and pursed lips, set you on edge. You didn’t know whether she was going to slap Maxwell or have a very strongly worded conversation with him.

“Maxwell Lord,” she said, surprise in her tone and an accent you couldn’t place, but up close you thought she was the most beautiful woman you had ever seen. When she finally took notice of you she flashed you a friendly smile that made you weak at the knees. Who was this woman?

“Diana,” Maxwell greeted her nervously, urging you to his side and speaking your name to Diana who welcomed you with a genuine smile.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“I could ask you the same. I thought you never attended these events.” So Maxwell was hoping to avoid this Diana, you realised. There was a tension between them that you couldn’t figure out. Were they lovers once? Enemies? It was a weird atmosphere that left you confused and feeling like a third wheel.

“I’ve been pushing myself out of my comfort zone recently,” Diana said with an air of mystery. You looked between the two of them, a frown etched onto your face.

Maxwell glanced at you and realised how this must seem and quickly went about to explain the situation.

“Diana helped me to see the error of my ways,” Maxwell spoke slowly, hoping to give you the hint of what he was referring to. You realised he was talking about the day he made his wishes, and this woman was the one who helped prevent him from falling deeper into the dark.

“Oh,” you gasped, nodding in understanding as Diana smiled shyly at the two of you.

“I simply reminded him of his humanity,” Diana seemed to relax once she caught onto the fact you knew exactly what they were talking about. She eyed you with interest, no doubt wondering how you and Maxwell came to be friends in the couple of months since the incident. You didn’t feel threatened under her gaze, instead it made you stand a little taller. You were proud at how far Maxwell had come since that day, he was almost unrecognisable from the mad oil tycoon everyone saw on their televisions and you hoped Diana could see that.

You didn’t notice how Maxwell was staring at you, a warmth settling on his chest as he admired your bravery. You could have shied away from this event, refused to attend with him and he wouldn’t have blamed you in the slightest. You were strong in the way Maxwell would never be. You didn’t need help to stand back up on your feet after everything you’ve been through, you were unafraid to walk the world with a target on your back from being seen with him. He thinks you would still stand proud, head held high even if you knew Diana’s true character.

Diana saw the look Maxwell was giving you and took it as her cue to leave. She didn’t need to keep an eye on this Maxwell Lord, not when you were there to keep him on the straight and narrow path of goodness and truth. Five minutes was all it took for Diana of Themyscira to see you were his saving grace.

“I will leave you both to it,” Diana nodded to Maxwell and turned to leave but came to a stop just as quickly. You looked to see what she was doing and saw her wide eyes turn on Maxwell.

You weren’t sure what was going on but you knew it wasn’t good when Maxwell grabbed your hand and pulled you into his side roughly. You would have grumbled your objection but you saw the fear on his face as he frantically looked around the room.

“What is it? What’s wrong Maxwell?” You urged him to answer you, but he didn’t need to because out of the corner of your eye you saw a man tripping towards you from the bar, clothes askew and holding an empty glass.

“You should be behind bars!” He pointed rudely at Maxwell who silently guided you to be completely shielded behind him.

“Sir, I think you’ve had a few too many-“

“You ruined my life!” The man exclaimed. He was close enough that he would have shoved his meaty finger into Maxwell’s chest but quick as lightning Diana forced her body between the two men and had the stranger’s finger held tight in her fist.

“You don't want to do that,” Diana spoke quietly, but there was a threatening undertone to her words that shocked you. You moved to lean into Maxwell’s ear whilst Diana tried to talk the man down.

“Let’s leave,” you said softly, seeing the sadness in Maxwell’s eyes now you were closer to him. You attempted to smile, to let him know without words that you weren’t disappointed with how the night had gone. You probably would have left soon anyway, the rude man just accelerated things.

Maxwell held your hand once again, it was becoming an ordinary occurrence between you two, and started to guide you through the crowd.

“Oi!” You heard the drunk man shout behind you but you hoped Maxwell would ignore him. “Your wishes destroyed my life, you bastard!”

Maxwell kept walking and you kept following. The crowds parted for the two of you but they only offered you pitying looks. It made your blood boil. They saw what had happened and instead of being angry at the drunk idiot causing a scene they were sad that you were caught up in it. Caught up with Maxwell.

You didn’t want pity and you certainly didn’t want their judgements. You would be glad to never see any of them again.

When Maxwell pulled you outside it was dark, stars twinkling in the sky, the air cool and refreshing on your burning skin. Maxwell let go of you and strode over to the car he had rented for the night, knocking on the drivers side window to wake up the driver who startled awake.

You slowly walked over, observing as Maxwell raked a hand through his hair and refused to look at you until you were standing in front of him.

“I can’t…You need to…” Maxwell sighed heavily and frustratingly kicked a pebble into the middle of the car park.

“I need to what?”

“You need to go. Far away from me, because people like him will always be around the corner.”

“You could say that about me.”

“Yes, but it didn’t happen to you tonight, it happened to me,” Maxwell jabbed his finger into his own chest as he frantically shucked off his jacket and loosened his bowtie until both pieces of fabric were hanging down the front of his shirt.

You remained calm, understanding Maxwell’s words stemmed from his embarrassment at the situation and not because he actually wanted you to leave.

“You want me to leave?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Your only friend?”

“I have no friends.”

“You do, you have me.”

Maxwell paused to take in your calm features, reminding himself of what he saw earlier tonight. Your strength, your inability to back down when the going gets tough. He couldn’t push you away if he really tried, he didn’t want to, and you knew that.

He walked around to the back door of the car and opened it.

“Get in before you catch a cold,” Maxwell ordered half-heartedly and was relieved when you complied, scooting over the seats to leave space for him to join you.

When the driver began to drive away you shuffled into the middle seat and laid your head on Maxwell’s shoulder, relaxing once he rested his head atop yours.

Moments later you heard Maxwell sniffle and you carefully looked up to see tears filling his eyes and threatening to spill.

“Oh Maxwell,” you whispered, sitting up to wrap your arms around his shoulders, bringing his head into the crook of your neck.

“I have ruined everything.”

“No, you’re wrong. It will get better,” you ran a hand slowly through Maxwell’s hair as you reassured him, “you were very brave tonight, to go to a gala full of people who knew who you were.”

Maxwell hugged you around the waist, holding you tightly against him, the rise and fall of your chest against his, your fingers on his scalp and the smooth motion of the travelling car calming him down.

“I’m scared for Alistair,” Maxwell croaked out against your neck.

“What do you mean?”

“My disgrace will follow him around. He’ll always be the son of Maxwell Lord.”

Your heart broke for your friend, but what could you say? You couldn’t predict the future, you just had to stick around to show him he was wrong.

Permanent tag list: @autumnleaves1991-blog @kaelyn-lobrutto24 @galactic-rhi @phoenixhalliwell @thewayofthemandalorian @computeringturtle @shikin83 @lesbianlena

#His Saving Grace #Maxwell Lord #Maxwell Lord x Reader #WW1984 #Wonder Woman 1984 #Pedro Pascal #Maxwell Lord fic

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adamwatchesmovies · 3 years ago

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The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996)

All filmmakers can rest assured that no matter how bad their adaptation of Pinocchio may be, they will never top the overwhelmingly misguided and unintentionally creepy 2002 Roberto Benigni version. Don't think that gives you an automatic pass. 1996's live-action The Adventures of Pinocchio isn't good either.

Years ago, romantic Geppetto (Martin Landau) carved a message of love into a tree. In doing so, he imbued it with magic. When he happens upon the same tree years later and carves a puppet from, it "Pinocchio" (voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas) comes to life. The wooden son gets into all sorts of mischief as he tries to understand the world around him and ultimately seeks to become a real boy.

I was going to start by telling you what this film does well. I’m drawing a blank. Are the performances good? I guess they’re ok, but nothing worth noting. What about the story? Here again, it’s fine for the most part, but significant changes to the story make the whole thing confused. If you're familiar with the fairytale, you probably remember the story’s multiple villains. There's the Cat and Fox who con Pinocchio out of his money… who in this film are just humans, with the Cat (Bebe Newirth) being the intelligent one and the Fox (Rob Schneider) the dimwit. An unnecessary change, but why not mix things up a bit, right? Then you look at the character of Lorenzini (Udo Kier) who is a combination of the Coachman, the Terrible Dogfish/whale, and the puppet master you definitely remember from the 1940 Disney film. This change just doesn't make sense. Why is the man bothering with puppet shows when he can make millions with his Island of Toys (you might know it as Pleasure Island)? For Pinocchio to have a "proper" family, Geppetto and his brother’s wife, (I’m not sure if she’s widowed or not) Leona (played by Geneviève Bujold) are given a romantic sub-plot. What does that add to the overall package? Couldn't tell you. These complaints may sound like nitpicking but they add up. This story just doesn't feel right.

What I’m trying to convey is that initially, The Adventures of Pinocchio doesn’t seem all that bad. It’s not a chore to watch or anything, but the magic is missing. If you let go of any affection you have for the story, the film falls to the ground like a puppet whose strings have been cut. I don’t want to compare this film to the Disney version from 1940. One is animated, the other isn't. Neither is a perfectly accurate translation of the book by Carlo Collodi. Could I ever picture myself recommend this one over the other? No, which makes this one's existence hard to justify.

I’d say the special effects are worth paying attention to, but that’s only true half of the time. In close-ups, our hero looks great. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop proves itself once more. In long shots, the illusion is broken. Other special effects, like Pinocchio’s talking cricket friend Pepe (voiced by David Doyle) looks so bad you think you’re looking at a Playstation 2-era video game. Worse, he's annoying, loathsome, and never, EVER funny. His presence alone makes this film fireplace-worthy.

The Adventures of Pinocchio feels watered down. There’s nothing to make it stand out and the ending is particularly weak. It's the kind of movie you remember liking but when revisited reminds you of how bad your taste in media used to be. (On VHS, March 10, 2016)

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cdyssey · 4 years ago

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Headaches

Summary: Four weeks in London later, both Lyra and Mrs. Coulter have full heads.

AO3 Link

—

One quiet night, four weeks in London later, Lyra sits on the couch, pretending to read some history book that Mrs. Coulter insisted upon, while Mrs. Coulter herself is curled up in the chair opposite, scrawling notes in the margins of a thick book. Her loopy handwriting is pretty and small and illegible to Lyra, who never learned how to do cursive. (She ducked out of those particular lessons by feigning chicken pox; Roger obligingly dotted her with berry juice, snickering a little as he poked her right between the eyes.)

Mrs. Coulter always looks pretty, but Lyra reckons she’s the prettiest when she’s got her hair all down, and she’s not dressed to kill a man. Like tonight, for instance, she’s got on a silky robe, lavender and luxurious, its hem pooling like liquid on the floor. She seems ethereal, like a fairy almost, fragile and elegant and light, and it’s with a fond smile that Lyra remembers the conversation that they had at the beginning of all this, when they established what it means that she’s comfortable enough to wear pajamas around Lyra...

Pantalaimon, in his favorite ermine form, urgently nudges her hand, calling her back to her senses.

But think about it—that was weeks ago, Lyra, he whispers into her mind. Shouldn’t we be focusing on Roger? Shouldn’t she...? She promised...

She said to trust her, Pan... maybe she’s working on it right now, readin’ that big, fancy book of hers…?

I highly doubt Roger’s going to be found in a book, he returns crossly, turning into a wasp hovering next to her face. The buzzing of his wings catches the golden monkey’s attention; he’d been heretofore slinking up and down the stretch of floor next to Mrs. Coulter’s chair, looking strangely restless.

Surprised, Pan promptly pops back into his ermine skin again, landing on top of her chest with a neat thud.

Real smooth, she snaps, glaring at him over the top of her book.

I can’t help it!

“Lyra, dear?” Both Lyra and Pan look up to see that Mrs. Coulter’s attention has also been snagged from across the room. Indeed, she and the monkey both have directed their undivided attention towards them now, and their dual intensity is enough to force Pan to turn into a kitten, pressing his gray paws clumsily against the fabric of her shirt. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Lyra mumbles immediately, her cheeks feeling hot, “just thinking about a lotta stuff, you know?”

“The kind of stuff that makes your head feel full, huh?” Mrs. Coulter’s brow bends sympathetically as the monkey resumes his methodical pacing, back and forth and back again, his tiny hands clicking against the sleek wood. Pan watches him, a little discomfited, a little mesmerized, wondering why he’s so cagey tonight.

“Exactly!” Lyra exclaims. “That’s it. My head’s just a lil full.”

“Ah,” Mrs. Coulter sighs, the gesture less sound than susurrus, “I know the feeling.”

And she raises the thick book she’s reading, allowing Lyra to get a good glimpse at the text for the first time. To her surprise, her guardian’s elegant handwriting isn’t the only part of it that’s entirely incomprehensible to her. Indeed, the tome seems to be written in an entirely different language.

Or, more accurately still, it looks like English would if someone completely didn’t know English and was just making excellent educated guesses.

“Latin,” Mrs. Coulter supplies, correctly interpreting the confusion in Lyra’s face. “The liturgical language. I began to learn it when I was around your age.”

It’s an impressive statement, communicative of just how intelligent Mrs. Coulter is, but frankly, Lyra isn’t all too surprised anymore.

This lady seems to know everything, answering every question that the twelve-year old has with patience, kindness, and poise.

Even the little things.

The stupid ones.

Like how anbaric lights work.

Or why the sky is blue.

She won’t give you a straight answer about Roger, though, Pan reminds her stubbornly, kneading her pajama shirt with his claws.

Lyra works hard to ignore him.

“Looks fancy,” she replies, “and hard.”

“It’s most certainly both,” Mrs. Coulter shakes her head, replacing the book on her lap. “I used to be able to read it so fluently when I was in college, declining nouns like a Roman conqueror... but now, out of practice, out of touch...”

“—your head feels all full,” Lyra finishes, tilting her head sympathetically.

“Precisely, darling.”

And for the first time in a long time—perhaps since the very first week of their acquaintance—she studies her guardian's face, deconstructing it like one of the math problems the Librarian used to keep setting in front of her. And her findings prove thus, the variables all clear—beneath the mask of her gentle smile, there’s an exhaustion about Mrs. Coulter.

Slight.

Subtle.

Tinged with the indefinable manic energy of someone who works and works and works.

Staring at the faint lines beneath her arctic blue eyes, Lyra suddenly thinks of Lord Asriel for some reason. As driven as he is, as cold and as fierce and as clever, sometimes, on his rare visits to Jordan College, she’s noticed that he looks a little exhausted, too.

“If your head feels all full,” Lyra asks, “why don’t you stop for awhile? Try again in the morning?”

The monkey briefly pauses in his tracks, staring at Lyra with open curiosity—tender, probing, mild—before continuing onwards, a dutiful soldier committed to his guard.

“Believe me,” Mrs. Coulter sighs, “I’ve asked myself the same question, but my employers... they’re always expecting me to produce innovative material, even when my project is more ambitious than their wildest dreams.”

Her voices raises a little at the end, and the golden monkey, his face turned away, growls lightly, his beautiful tail stiffly coiled.

Pan transforms into a monkey, too, empathetically trying the emotion on for himself—the pent-up frustration of never feeling like he can do enough.

The form’s a little strange, but it kinda fits, too.

Because Lyra thinks about Roger again.

About how there’s so much more she can be doing to help him.

“Stick it to ‘em, Mrs. Coulter,” she says, sudden fierceness in her voice, flooding passion. Pan is a wildcat on her lap, black hackles raised. “Seriously. If you know you’re better, forget all the toerags that don’t get it.”

Mrs. Coulter’s eyes widen in quiet surprise, mouth slightly parted, before she suddenly breaks out into a laugh—sudden, sincere, and musical—the faint lines in her face creasing pleasantly. Even though he continues to pace, the monkey’s expression softens incrementally when he comes back around.

“My, my,” she chuckles, “what coarse language... but thank you, Lyra. I appreciate it. Sincerely.”

And she gives Lyra another one of those radiant smiles again, the one that she loves so much, that makes the girl feel like she’s maybe, very possibly loved.

And Pan, feral though he appears, brushes against her cheek, purring.

“But, since we’re trading secrets now,” Mrs. Coulter continues, her brow furrowing above her eyes, “why is your own head full, dear? Feeling tired? Is it bedtime for you?”

Lyra’s nose automatically wrinkles in disdain. In London, she’s had a strict bedtime every night, which is a far cry from how her caretakers at Jordan College handled her nightly routine.

(Which is to say that at Jordan College, she didn’t really have a nightly routine. Someone would just yell at her to go to bed, and then she’d maybe do it or maybe not depending on her mood.)

“No,” she shakes her head defiantly, but then, a little more gently, a little more politely, “no... I’m just... I’m thinkin’ about Roger again, Mrs. Coulter. He’s gotta be so scared and lonely and confused…”

Pantalaimon, now an ermine again, watches the golden monkey, far bigger than him and far more graceful and far better at keeping a neutral face.

But as soon as Lyra mentions Roger, the golden monkey’s nose twists unpleasantly, as though he’s smelling something awful, and Pan lurches, instinctively recognizing the emotion for what it is.

Disgust.

Mrs. Coulter smiles sadly, her slender face perfectly free of her dæmon, and the monkey turns away again.

“I imagine so,” she murmurs, “but all my best people are doing their best to look for him, Lyra. Haven’t I told you this before?”

And even Lyra can hear the warning note in her voice this time, the implicit insistence that she shouldn’t push.

Push anyway, Pan encourages, pressing his black nose gently against her neck. For Roger, Lyra. He needs you.

“I... I know,” Lyra mumbles, “but I just thought we could help look for him, too, you know? All hands on deck.”

The monkey makes some sort of impatient sound that registers as such in the empty air, but still, Mrs. Coulter’s expression remains perfectly pleasant.

Soft.

Compassionate even.

Lyra’s heart thuds with its own confusion.

“If all else fails,” Mrs. Coulter promises, straightening her silk-enclosed shoulders, “we will, sweet girl. I wouldn’t lie to you—ever.”

Pantalaimon isn’t so sure about that, but Lyra half-heartedly brushes him off again.

Because she likes Mrs. Coulter.

She really does.

We can like someone and not believe them, Lyra, he reminds her gently.

That’s scary to think about, Pan.

I know.

Mrs. Coulter’s smile is so kind… so warm… so inviting…

Someone can like us and still not tell us the truth, Pan warns, watching the monkey’s vaguely cross expression.

That’s even scarier somehow.

I know.

#marisa coulter #lyra silvertongue #his dark materials #f: his dark materials #reginianwrites #last one for this weekend i swear lmao

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thenightling · 4 years ago

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What might have Been (Sandman fan fiction)

What might have Been...

Someone out there really does not want me to write Sandman fan fiction so naturally I must write more.

This story was inspired by the fact that over on his Tumblr Neil Gaiman was asked on at least two occasions that if Alexander Burgess had freed Morpheus, would he still have been condemned to eternal waking or if he would have shown mercy? Both times Neil Gaiman answered that Morpheus would have shown mercy. And yes, Neil Gaiman has a Tumblr. So this is a story of what may have happened of Alexander Burgess had freed Morpheus back when he probably should have.

Note: This story does contain a depiction of early twentieth century homophobia and some period accurate slurs. Based on my own personal experiences as a non-straight person I understand if the scene might make some readers uncomfortable. However you might find the end result of what happens to the abuser somewhat cathartic.

What might have Been…

The boy stared intently at the glass cage in front of him. It was domed and rather egg-like in shape and tall enough to hold a man or something very man-like. The leadened quartz-crystal was as clear as any well-made window. Alexander Burgess watched the creature with the fascination of a child watching a pet lizard in a terrarium.

The naked being in the cage stared back at him with cold intensity and a proud contempt as well. The creature was pale as chalk, and his eyes were like back pools of water with twin stars serving as pupils floating in the darkness. Later Alex would be able to compare this vision to the claimed “Grey” alien encounters he would read about in grocery store tabloid magazines. One stark difference from those creatures though was that this creature had a shock of wild, black, hair that reminded Alex of a disorderly pile of raven feathers, thick and heavy hair that framed the pale face staring out at him from behind the glass. The creature was improbably thin. It was clearly intelligent and generally humanoid. If Alex hadn’t seen the summoning for himself, if he had not detached himself so thoroughly from the alienness of this entity, he might have even found him beautiful or attractive. But all potential for that had been lost to fear and the unavoidable and frightening knowledge that this was not a human being.

Alex did not know why he found The Creature so fascinating. He had discovered who and what the creature was in the Paginarum Fulvarum. The King of Dreams. That revelation had somehow not resolved his sense of curiosity. This was the being accountable for everyone’s dreams, all of humanity’s secret fantasies and all those shameful imaginings that come late at night when people are at their most vulnerable. For Alex there was a secret shame in his own dreams…

“I hate you.” Alex whispered. It was a childish proclamation but there was some hidden pain there. The bony, wraith-like, creature moved his head slightly, acknowledging Alex’s words without responding verbally. He never spoke to them.

Alex wasn’t even twenty-years-old yet but he knew he was not like other men. He was not “manly” by the usual definition of the term. And he believed that if his father knew about his secret yearnings, his Desires… He would be disowned…

It was this thing’s fault, wasn’t it? The cruel bastard there in the box. He was the one who gave him those dreams. The dreams that Alex dared not describe to anyone. Dreams of other young men. The feel of their lips against his face. The tingle through his scalp as the lips vibrate against his earlobe as something gentle and inviting was whispered into his ear. Their affection, their touch, their love… How Alex dreamt of that love, that sweet, terrible, sinful love. And why? Why was this such a taboo? His father had used magick for so many cruelties. He had even killed with it. So why were his desires, ones that could never hurt anyone, considered to be so much worse? …And who decided that a form of love could be deemed evil anyway? Wasn’t love supposed to be ultimate redeemer? The ultimate absolution? As far as young Alex was concerned humans and the powerful beings that governed the universe- they were all hypocrites. All of them! Hypocrites who took pleasure in the befuddlement of others by tempting them with …with deviant dreams…

Alex had enough of staring at the alien-like boogeyman there in the cellar. He got up off the cold, damp, floor where he had been seated, eye level with the crouching, naked thing. Almost staring each other down, as if in a contest of wills neither was entirely sure about. Alex stood up. Unlike the pale creature imprisoned there, Alex could leave. He could leave at any time. …Then why did he feel just as trapped as if he was the one in the glass bubble?

The months passed and not much had changed. Alex had grown a bit, but that was normal. He had read somewhere that some men grow until they’re twenty-five. He was taller, leaner. He discovered he needed spectacles, which wasn’t too surprising. He had squinted often when reading father’s dusty old books.

One thing was different though. Father had hired a new gardener. A pretty, red-haired boy, barely Alex’s own age. And Alex had the distinct feeling that perhaps this young man was also… different. Different in his capacity to feel for men what most men usually only feel for women (or so Alex believed).

It was a warm summer afternoon when Father finally took notice of Alex and the peculiar way he watched the gardener. Alex, whom he often ignored. Roderick Burgess found it distasteful and rather Crowley-esque that his own son should look at another man in that way. He watched as Alex observed the gardener. Roderick hoped what he was seeing here wasn’t what it appeared. But it seemed so. Alex was as infatuated with the near androgynous gardener boy in a way that he should only feel toward women. Well, something must be done about that!

“Father, please!” Alex tried to shield himself with his arm as his father’s heavy, old, walking stick came crashing down on him again. “You are an EMBARRASSMENT! The heir to the Order of Ancient Mysteries, my ONLY son… a worthless, useless… Mary!” There was another crack from the gentleman’s cane being used in a very ungentlemanly fashion. “No, Father, I… Magus. Magus, Please, I-“ “It’s that boy, isn’t it? That Elliot? Well, he doesn’t work here anymore! I sent him away. You’re lucky I don’t just stop his heart to rid myself of this shame!” He was one to talk of Shame. His father, the infamous occultist, rival to Aleister Crowley, head of The Order of Ancient Mysteries, and source of scandal after scandal. The papers always had something to say about Father. They never spoke about Alex. Alex knew how to keep a low profile, to keep to himself, to go virtually unnoticed in his father’s shadow. The threat to stop Elliot’s heart was very real. Alex knew his father had enough magick to do such a thing to someone without the occult means to defend himself. “No! He’s innocent!” “Innocent?!” What did that matter to someone like Roderick? Alex had always been too damn soft and now he had gone over to fairyland as far as Roderick was concerned. Well, at least he knew his son hadn’t soiled his bed with his deviance yet- he had not acted out his profanity in the house, at least there was that. “Look at you! You’re a disgrace!” Alex was cowering and crouched in the corner of his room, which was in disarray from his father’s attack. He knew he couldn’t hide what he was from him. His father was just too powerful…

It also didn’t help that Alex had kept those old novels under his bed. The picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, a few selected Greek myths carefully bookmarked in a thick, leather-bound, volume, and the closet drama Goethe’s Faust parts 1 and 2 translated perfectly from German into English. Anyone with the ability to read between the lines, as they say, could tell what Mephisto’s relationship with Faust was really all about… Alex couldn’t tell what was worse, the words his father said or the cane coming down again and again. He was too afraid to fight back. There was no telling what his father or his father’s minion might do if he tried. Sometimes he had nightmares of his father’s darker wrath, much more extreme than this. “You dress like a fairy! Look at you! Growing your hair out like a girl, walking around in long velvet jackets like they’re frocks! You think you look like Henry Irving or something? No, you look like a little girl! No woman will ever find you attractive. I should have realized, the way you bury yourself in those books, like a little wanna-be priest.” Alex saw nothing wrong with dandy fashion and as for his hair, plenty of respectable men had hair longer than his. His hair wasn’t even really shaggy. Oscar Wilde’s hair had been longer than this at the time of his death. Though he knew that was, as far as his father was concerned, an awful example. He whimpered and tried to wait out the pain and dared not argue the accusations. “They stare at you, you know.” Roderick continued in his tirade to shame him. Alex knew the only person who actually scrutinized what he wore was his own father. He kept to himself too much to be the focus of anyone else’s attention. “You think I don’t see it? How they turn and look at you and whisper on the street what a pansy you are. Maybe if you dressed normal you wouldn’t forget you’re supposed to be a man!” No one was actually saying he was a pansy. That was clearly Father’s own insecurity about his masculinity talking.

“Clean yourself up.” Roderick said, finally too exhausted to beat him anymore. And in an after-thought “If anyone asks, you fell off a horse like the clumsy idiot you are.”

Roderick walked from the room, gentleman’s cane (if you could call it that) still clutched in his hand.

Alex slowly pulled himself to his feet. He was trembling yet, and sniffling, trying to choke back the threatening sobs. Alex had long ago abandoned the childish (as he saw it) hope that a parent’s love was truly unconditional. The child in him still insisted it was supposed to be unconditional, that parents are supposed to love you and accept no matter what, and Alex still craved his father’s approval and acceptance. It had been some naïve governess from Alex’s childhood who had taught him that foolish notion he could not shake, that a parent should love you without condition. And he never could quite let go of that belief even if all of his life experiences insisted that no parent (at least his parent) could not love in that way… Could Roderick Burgess love at all?

Alex finally left his badly disheveled room once he was certain his father was no longer nearby. There were papers and books scattered, along with a knocked over chair and some random knickknacks. Some ceramic and glass items were broken, fragments of childhood playthings lay on the carpet. Something had broken tonight and it was not merely some old toys… Alex walked …or more precisely he stumbled, down the hall. Alex’s back ached where he had gotten the brunt of the caning. He knew the marks were going to scar. Everything ached. His shoulders, his legs, especially his back. One eye was blackened and his cheeks were red from the heat of crying. He wiped furiously at his own tears. It was foolish to cry. And it was dangerous to dream…

He would never really be free. He was as much his father’s prisoner as the creature down in the cellar… If he tried to run away he knew his father and his magick would find him. And… he had nowhere to go anyway… Even if his situation was “Normal” and there was no fear of magical ramifications for his defiance, to whom could he turn? Where could he run? There was no sanctuary for someone like him…

Alex made his way to the secret passage, to the stone staircase that spiraled its way down to the windowless chamber. He knocked on the heavy wooden door and announced himself for the two guards his father had watching the prisoner. One of the guards opened the door for him. They knew better than to question the boy’s condition but there was a slight trace of pity in at least one of them, a softening to the man’s usually unreadable expression. Alex managed to steadily walk to the glass cage, hiding that he was in pain. He slowly laid his hand against the cool glass. “Please leave us.” “But the Magus says-“ One of the men started to protest. “My... Father,” Alex practically spat the word, “is the one who pays you. And I speak on his behalf. Now go!” The men exchanged looks and then shrugged, deciding not to argue with the young man. They both were eager to have a tea and coffee break anyway. Alex lowered his hand and stood outside the cage. He looked at the pale, emaciated figure behind the glass. He had never changed. Not since the day they had captured him. He had not aged, nor had he grown a beard. And yet Alex felt as if he, himself, had changed so very much in that time. Changed in such a way that he saw now that he was in no better of a situation than this creature here. Trapped in darkness, trapped behind the glass, unable to touch or be touched. Alone… Naked, exposed. Everyone could see everything about him. And yet he- The King of Dreams- was unashamed. Proud. Not trembling or cowering from a brute of a father. Alex’s contempt for the creature mingled with long, distant fear, was now being replaced by a different emotion. Something not unlike empathy and maybe even envy. Envy at the defiance of will, envy at the hidden power that such a fragile, delicate looking thing could have… Almost beautiful. The King of Dreams was almost beautiful…

Alexander Burgess saw this weakened, helpless wretch, and he saw himself. A prisoner locked away from light. A prisoner stripped of dignity. Utterly at his father’s mercy until he said or did what his father wanted… Would this proud creature eventually cower and break as Alex felt like he had broken. Alex bit his lip. If he freed this creature it… he might kill him… or worse… But maybe… Whatever his fate might be, it was better than this. Right now, as it stood, they were both prisoners. But if he freed him, this so-called King of Dreams… At least one of them would be free. And Alex would have some small revenge on his father, the Magus of The Order of Ancient Mysteries… Maybe it was some half-hearted attempt at self-destruction, a suicide without noose or razor- that Alex felt he would either die by this creature’s hand or by his father’s but he wanted this thing to end and let it end tonight. This felt like the only true way to end it. Alex had gotten a hold of the heavy brass key and placed it into the lock at the base of the crystalline cage. He was really doing it. The key fit easily into the hole of the metal base just within the binding circle’s confines. Alex dragged his foot over the old, chalk, binding circle, deliberately breaching it, as he turned the key. The crystalline cage opened at a discrete seam. The pale figure stood up slowly, cautiously, moving like an uncertain animal. He blinked those wide, black eyes, like doe reacting to being offered food by a human.

The King of Dreams stepped out of the cage and toward Alex. He tentatively moved beyond the binding circle as if worried that Alex might change his mind and try to stop him, or perhaps that someone else might. Alex stepped back but only slightly. Alex waited for whatever was to come next. The pale figure moved to him, the glassy black eyes stared at him, stared deep into his own and for a brief moment Alex felt… understood... maybe even accepted. And most importantly he felt… forgiven. Not for the sin of what he was- this creature saw that as no crime, but for how he had treated him. For taking part in the summoning spell, for being complacent in his father’s abuses and humiliation of this proud entity. “I’m sorry…” Alexander said, swallowing back fresh tears. “I’m sorry… It was my father, he…” The pale figure put a finger to his own lips.* “Shhh.” Alex was trembling, afraid of what he might do next. And for a second, there was such a softness to the usually cold creature and a slender hand touched Alex’s cheek but only for a brief moment. Alex had never heard him speak and he was startled by the soft sound of an audible voice coming from him. He didn’t say anything really other than the “Shhh.” Alex blinked several times. The King of Dreams moved past Alex, toward the stairs. Alex went to bed shortly after that as if nothing had happened. He had just felt so very tired. He tried to behave as if he had not just released his father’s prisoner. The next morning though things were different. Alex had slept peacefully and felt quite well rested. Even his black eye had seemed to have mostly healed and his back didn’t hurt anymore. There would be no scars after all. But something was wrong in the house of Fawny Rig. The servants were in a tither. Roderick Burgess would not wake form his sleep. He was alive. And he seemed to be dreaming. He would moan and mutter, and occasionally whimper or beg for it to stop, crying out in his sleep, but he would not waken. Alex stood to the side of the bed. “Father! Father, please! It’s me, Alex! Please wake up! …Please.” But the situation was hopeless.

And despite everything he had suffered at his father’s hands Alex still grieved. He wept as if his father was dead and he knew his father’s fate was worse than death. Alex still mourned. Alex still pined for what might have been, still longed for a father that would love him unconditionally and accept him for who and what he was without question. If the world’s most infamous sorcerer couldn’t even do that… who could? Who could… love him?

Alex was scared. He had been in his father’s shadow so long he did not know how to function without him and he had been so isolated, he had so few friends. All he could do was rely on the servants, the lawyers, and his father’s money to support himself. His father was moved to the hospital and eventually diagnosed with some sort of Encephalitis Lethargica. A sort of brain swelling related sleeping sickness but Alexander Burgess knew better… Somehow he knew…

His father would never wake up… The years passed and everything that was Roderick’s passed into Alex’s hands. His father died years later in that hospital bed but Alex was not sure of his father’s nightmares were truly over. He imagined his father’s soul was still trapped somewhere, still suffering an endless nightmare leading into another nightmare, and each time he thought he was waking he would just find himself in yet another new nightmare. Somehow Alex knew this. Where his father was now condemned to eternal waking did he know his body had died or did he have a futile hope that he would one day wake up?

The estate, Roderick’s fortune, everything was now Alex’s. No one was there to be critical or to tell Alex what to wear, how to speak, or… who he could love. And Alex eventually met a beautiful young man named Paul. Oh, how he loved Paul. They would travel to such places together. London, France, Berlin… They traveled together on a private yacht and drank Champaign on the deck as they watched the sunset over the Mediterranean Sea. There was no secret prisoner to worry about, nothing to shackle them to Fawny Rig like Dorian Gray shackled to his painting. They could go anywhere. They could do anything. They were free. And Alexander Burgess lived Happily Ever After… It was a pleasant dream. Too pleasant…

Elderly Alexander Burgess woke in a cold sweat. There were fresh tears in his eyes. He sat up in bed and Paul was there beside him. At least there was that… At least Paul was there. Paul was real.

But that’s not how the story played out, not really. Alex had never been brave enough to defy his father. He had not slipped down to the cellar the night that he should have. He had never freed the prisoner. Even when his father had died he had never freed the prisoner that he both resented and related to. And he had been the one punished with six years locked in a nightmare that would seem to end only to reveal a new nightmare was starting, and on and on it had gone. He had woken from that “eternal” curse to his beloved Paul waiting for him. He had been forgiven. He was relieved that Paul was here. Paul looked at him now. “What is it, love? Did you have a bad dream?” Alex nodded. “I don’t know what’s worse… that nightmare that I was trapped in or…” He bit his lip before choosing the words. “…knowing I could have saved us all… saved myself…if I had just done the right thing at the right time…”

“Hush now, darling. You’re still half-asleep. I’ll get you some tea.” Alex was soothed and sighed. There was no use dwelling on what might have been. But sometimes those dreams of what he could have done- what he should have done, if he had just been brave enough… Sometimes that felt so much worse than the actual punishment the Lord of Dreams had subjected him to before finally forgiving him…

But at least he was safe now. At least he had Paul. And at least he had been forgiven. And he was loved and accepted for who and what he truly was. And his cruel, old father, was very much dead. A loveless old man was gone. But Alex was alive. Paul was alive. And they were in love. And no one could take that away from them. And Alex and The King of Dreams were both free from the shadow of Roderick Burgess forever.

There was no point on dwelling on what might have been. That did not matter now. What mattered was the love that Alex had finally found and the freedom that he and The King of Dreams both had gained.

The End

#The Sandman #Sandman #The Sandman Fan fiction #What Might have been...

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