#I think for me it's a tie between Acid Man and Impact Man

[gallickingun]

moving target

Summary: Bakugou Katsuki’s reputation needs a little work. His manager suggests he take a job as a personal bodyguard to one of the donor’s daughter to try and increase his social standing. Bakugou agrees, reminding himself that whoever he’s babysitting is nothing more than a glorified paycheck, a stepping ladder to get closer to surpassing even All Might in hero status. But, when you���re kidnapped, he has to face the truth that you might mean more to him than he planned.

Rating: T for Teen Warnings: language, a little graphic violence, a creepy scene there for a second, a semi-spicy scene, etc.

Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

Word Count: 12,310 (because i have NO CHILL!)

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“Absolutely not,” Bakugo huffs, kicking his boots up on the glass table in front of him, “I will not be some brat’s babysitter.”

His manager huffs, stepping forward, “Listen, your PR ratings are low. Helping out a big donor, being in the public eye actually helping will boost your ratings. Higher ratings mean more screen time which means more money, and eventually, a better gig.”

“...fine.”

As much as he hated to admit it, he was slipping through the ranks. Bakugo found it easy to rescue people, to punch out bad guys, but the press bit was where he severely lacked any and all prowess. 

It only took one wrong encounter with a news reporter for Bakugo’s ratings to tank, which meant he was getting fewer sponsorship agreements and even less screen time on the nightly news. He needed this. 

He hated this.

The way the suit clung to his shoulders reminded him of Ochako’s original hero costume from high school. All he had to do was send in his measurements, and the agency had five freshly pressed, perfectly tailored suits delivered to his apartment by the next morning. Still, he wished he was wearing his gauntlets and face mask instead of this silken suit.

His eyes wandered over the mansion he was currently standing in front of, the multiple stories forcing him to crane his neck to take it all in. Bakugo snorts, rolling his eyes as he steps out of the dark SUV, stepping up the flight of stairs to the large, intricate front door. He barely has time to knock before an older gentleman is opening the door, greeting him with a shrill accent.

“You must be here for the lady,” he makes way for Bakugo to walk in the door. The other two security guards are stalking around the homestead, securing the borders, so he walks in alone.

He can make out your figure sitting at the kitchen table, back to the foyer where he’s making his entrance. He read your file, studied your photos. You’re every bit as bratty as he assumed you would be when he was first offered the position. Your father was such a high contributor to the agency, and yet all of those dollars spent meant nothing. You were some version of a hedge fund baby - you went off to school with not a care in the world, money no object as you blitzed through life. 

Bakugo despises everything that you and your family stand for. He came from nothing, built himself from the dirt up. Once he got his quirk, he swore he would never let anyone look down on him again, especially not those who were born endowed.

The older man calls your name and your head bobs at the sound before you turn in your chair, “Oh, is the next one here already, Miles?”

Next one? Bakugo thinks to himself. He didn’t hear about anyone before him. There were other bodyguards?

Miles, the butler-esque man standing in between you and Bakugo, chuckles, turning his head to slyly gaze at the young man in the foyer, “Ah, yes. The next one is here, ma’am.”

You laugh and slowly make your way across the room to inspect your newest victim. He’s wearing a dark suit, in contrast to his pale hair and light eyes. You tug at his tie and he snatches you by the wrists, “It’s expensive. Don’t touch.”

Raising a brow, you circle around him, “My daddy could buy you, hero, so don’t get your panties in a twist.”

Bakugo decides he doesn’t like the way the word ‘hero’ comes out of your mouth; like acid dripping from your tongue. He feels sweat begin to gather in his palms and he has to wring his hands out so a fireworks show doesn’t start on day one. God, he’s never wanted to wear his flashy costume so much in his life. Anything to get your eyes off of him.

“More of a briefs guy myself,” he offers after a beat, looking at you over his shoulder.

You’re smirking, the start of a giggle on your lips, “Oh, I’m gonna like you.”

Something other than nitroglycerin bubbles in his belly, and Bakugo isn’t quite sure how to feel about it.

-

It didn’t take long for him to realize that you were a handful and a half. 

You never tell him where you’re going, you refuse to keep your phone on anything but silent, and he swears that you’re trying to evade him everywhere you go.

“Dammit,” he grumbles, rolling his eyes as you slip away from him in a crowd.

Bakugo flanks off to the side, barely able to make out the top of your head as you push your way through the marketplace. He memorized your outfit - a pretty sundress and a pair of sandals, purse slung over your shoulder - so he should be able to spot you amidst the others. 

He finally makes out your profile, but you’ve changed. There’s now a jacket covering your shoulders, a sun hat on your head. Bakugo narrows his eyes, but despite his rage at losing you, a small smirk works its way on his lips at the fire you have within yourself to try and escape him despite the circumstance.

You’re turning down a side street when you feel your body pressed against the brick wall. A gasp barely leaves your mouth before you lean back and jut your elbow into his solar plexus, stepping on the inside of his foot. A grunt leaves his mouth and you swivel to knee him in the groin, but your knee is caught between a pair of strong hands just as your knee cap brushes the fabric of his suit pants.

“Very funny,” he mutters, hooking his palm around your thigh to ensure you won’t wriggle free.

You push at his shoulders and he’s surprised at the fiery expression on your face, your nose scrunched and brows furrowed, “Get off me!”

Bakugo releases your knee and your foot stomps on his toe again, a bruise already forming. His nostrils flare as he glares down at you. You’re quick to straighten your spine, matching his stare with one of your own.

“So that’s how it’s gonna be, huh?” Bakugo uses his thumb and index finger to tilt your chin upward, “Gonna try to play me like a little shit?”

You’re slapping him before he can process it, “I don’t need your protection. I’m fine on my own.”

Your answer surprises him, but the action of being slapped pisses him off. He growls down at you, “You ungrateful little…”

“Go ahead,” you shrug, pushing your way out of his hold, “leave, just like all the others.”

Bakugo follows behind you, muttering something into his earpiece that you can’t hear. Frustrated tears cloud the edges of your vision, but the sunshine clears your mind as you step back onto the street. 

“You forget,” he sidles up next to you, “it’s my job to keep you safe. You run off, I don’t get a paycheck.”

The laugh that parts your lips makes him look down at you, the hat hiding part of your face so he can’t quite make out exactly what you’re feeling. He's never been a bodyguard before, but something tells him that this is going to turn out much different than he expected. 

"Good to know as long as my daddy is feeding you money, you'll stalk me like an animal." You sigh, crossing your arms over your body as you walk toward the bridge overlooking the city. "You're lucky, then, all my father knows how to do is shovel money at people."

Something twinges within Bakugo's chest, like an organ begging to pop within his body. He watches as you lean forward against the bridge, your hands wafting in the wind as you wave them around.

If he had to say it, Bakugo would agree that you were pretty. Your frame was perfect, the profile of your face made for a beautiful shadow. Your eyes lit up even underneath the shade of the brim of your hat, and he wants to smack himself for noticing.

"Sorry," you break him out of his trance, "I don't mean to bore you, I know you're not here for my life story. Paycheck only."

There's a hint of hurt in your voice and he becomes curious - is this your normal? Are the only people in your life those who wish to drain your family bank account dry? He certainly can't relate; his family was never wealthy and even now, starting his pro hero journey is far from glamorous. The only reason he has a rooftop apartment is because the agency sponsored it, and Kirishima shares it with him. 

Bakugo leans against the bridge, back to the water so he can watch for any threats behind you, "I'm your new best friend, sweetheart. Your daddy pays me to be all up in your business."

You reach out to smack his arm, but this one has much less force than the prior one you landed to his face. He winces dramatically, scrunching his side as if absorbing the impact. You can't help but snicker, tucking your nose against your shoulder.

Bakugo basks in the warmth of the afternoon sun, taking in the golden hour. There are times he wishes he could be fully decked out in his explosive gear, and then there are other times, when his restless heart finds tranquility in the quiet of the mundane. 

People pass, wind blows, and yet his body remains at peace.

-

You’re drunk. 

Bakugo hates when you’re drunk.

You’re sloppy and messy and handsy, oh god are you handsy. He’s watching from the bar, paying attention as you slur your words to the bartender and giggle with your best friend beside you. Every instinct in him tells his body to drag your ass back home, but he knows you’d put him through the ringer for it. Plus, that’s not his job anyway. His job is only to keep you safe.

So, as long as you don’t kill yourself stumbling out of the club, he’ll still get paid.

You’re touching his waistline as you pass him, laughing up at him with those bright, glassy eyes you always get after vodka hits your veins. You curl your fingers into his waistband and he has to push every instinct of his deep down so he doesn’t flip you over the bar.

“‘Suki?” you drawl, leaning your body into him so the person behind you can pass.

He tilts his head, acknowledging you in silence. You tug on his belt loops, “Gonna go to the bathr’m, okay?” 

You know this means he has to follow you - he has to follow you everywhere. 

You slip your hand into his, a habit you’ve picked up when you’re on the other side of sober, and squeeze his palm before tugging him towards the bathroom. You release him before you slip in the door, allowing him to stand guard like a good dog does.

Bakugo counts the seconds in his mind, coming up on six minutes makes his heartbeat a little faster. Once he’s gotten to nine, his palms are sweating. Small fireworks echo on his fingertips, the air scenting of ash as he starts to become worried.

He calls your name, knocking on the door three times consecutively. There’s no response from the other side, save a muffled sound that doesn’t resemble your tone. He crosses his arms over his chest and stamps his foot into the ground, his palms itching to slip into his gauntlets; he’d make much better use of the nitroglycerin collecting on his skin then.

After eleven minutes and thirty-seven seconds, Bakugo pushes the door in.

There’s no sounds of wretching or of peeing, so he’s at a loss. All of the stall doors are open, and your body is nowhere to be found. Bakugo presses his thumb against the small transmitter in his ear, asking the others if they saw you leaving the building.

As he turns, he notices an employee-only door. His feet are carrying him before his mind can catch up, muttering something into the communications unit before curling his palms to fists. He kicks the door in and just barely catches the sight of your body being dragged out the other side, eyes wide as you reach for him.

Bakugo is propelling himself forward with his blasts immediately, a shockwave rippling through the small employee room, but he doesn’t care. Somehow he manages to compose himself long enough to alert the rest of the team.

All he can see is red as he busts down the door. You’re his mission, the one thing that he needed to protect, and his whole being quivers at the idea that he’s failed.

Your voice is muffled but he can still hear you as they drag you down the alleyway. He’s got to make a precise blast so he doesn’t burn you, but still manages to knock the bad guys off their feet.

“Fuckin’ suit,” he mutters, praying to whoever is listening that he’ll be able to wear his suit, or at least some version of it, when he’s on guard duty going forward. Bakugo burns through the sleeves, the cloth turning to ash as he ignites his power.

He smirks, “Hey, dipshits!”

The two holding you turn at the sound of his voice, their faces covered by masks. Bakugo continues to push forward, bright flashes of orange and yellow lighting the alley behind him. He’s laughing maniacally now, because this is what he came for. He came for the bloodlust, he came for the mission. He came for the villains.

“Got ya,” Bakugo mutters before turning his palm to face the guy on your right who's much taller. The explosion knocks all three of you backward, incapacitating the one he targeted. The other scrambles to his feet, yanking on your body to try and drag you toward a black SUV parked on the side of the road not too far away.

You’re fighting back, Bakugo notices. You’re thrashing and screaming, trying to kick him in the shins from your position on the ground. Your whole body is like one big firecracker, arms and legs wailing at the guy. The hero can’t help but feel a swell of pride.

He propels himself forward, flipping in the air to stand tall on the opposite side of the perpetrator, hand held directly in the guy’s face - a threat, not a warning.

Bakugou chuckles, “Where you goin’, shithead?”

There’s a loud crunch of his bones when Bakugo lands a perfect strike between his eyes. He shakes his fists, thinking to himself that he should probably pick boxing back up, and turns to look at you.

The sight of your face smeared with tears, body shaking as you try not to cry. Your chest heaves with emotion as you try to sit up in the alleyway, your body a mess of limbs.

“Hey,” he’s surprisingly gentle as he squats in front of you. “Let me get that thing off you.”

He’s talking about the tape on your mouth. You stop squirming for a moment and he peels the sticky substance away from your mouth. You wince as he yanks it from your hands and feet, throat tight while you wait. 

Secure the payload, Bakugo thinks, remembering All Might’s lessons from back at U.A. He let Deku get the better of him back then, but now he’s much more focused and precise. There is less collateral this time.

Bakugo helps you to your feet, holding your hands as you clamber to stand upright. Your spine straightens and he didn’t realize you’d lost your shoes sometime in the struggle, bringing your height below his.

There is a tiny thing within him that twinges at the sight of you, all in disarray.

He goes to ask you how you’re feeling, how you’re holding up, but something in him catches the words like a fish hook in his throat. It reels his concern back in, pulling it to the acid of his belly so it can die there.

Secure the payload. 

That’s all you are to him - a paycheck, a payload, a mission.

“Just get me the hell home,” you manage, shoving yourself past him. “I’m sick of this place.”

-

“The hell?!” Bakugo is shouting now, hands booming at his sides, “You didn’t think that was something you should’ve told me before we started this job?!”

His agent sighs from the other end of the receiver, “Our officers are on a tight leash, they can’t give us any information that might leak.”

“You think I'm a rat!?” Bakugo snaps, his spine erect as he wishes his quirk were warping so he could whoop someone’s ass for keeping this from him. 

“No, but if you were tortured, it was possible. These are big syndicates after their family, specifically targeting the daughter.” She takes a pause, waiting to see if the hero might retort. When he doesn’t, she breathes in audibly and continues, “Those were low level thugs at the club a couple of weeks ago. They have no connections, and they weren’t high enough on the food chain to have any information they could give us. Everything was nameless and faceless.”

“I swear to god,” Bakugo paces, ripping his hands through his hair, “I still can’t believe you didn’t think this was something you should’ve fucking told me! I thought I was just looking after some spoiled brat, and now you’re telling me this?!”

He hears his given name called out from your bedroom a few halls over and his attention spikes. The feel of sweat on his skin leads to the expelling of crackling explosions as he turns to walk towards your room.

“You better give me everything,” he seethes before hanging up.

There’s a sarcastic remark sitting on the tip of his tongue as he enters your room, but he’s shocked to find you still asleep. Bakugo steps closer, just to be sure, and something tightens in his chest at the sight of you curled in on yourself, brow tightly knit as you whimper under your breath.

Bakugo turns against any and every instinct in his body as he crouches next to your bed, his palm brushing gently over your back. He can hear Kirishima in his head, mocking him for being soft.

“The great Bakugo Katsuki, brought to his knees by a mere mortal!” Kirishima laughs, throwing his head back. He removes his face guard and boots at the table, his hands on his hips as he stares across the space at Bakugo, “You’ve changed since you started this job, man. I gotta say, I think you caring about others is really great. You’re manning up, dude!”

Bakugo accepts the high five from his friend, but not without a few miniature explosions popping off between their hands as he does so.

Kirishima is stuck clutching his palm to his chest as Bakugo swaggers away, a smirk on his face. 

“Maybe I was wrong,” Kirishima sighs, “Maybe you haven’t changed a bit.”

Your bleary eyes bring him back to reality, your hand reaching out to touch his face. You blink slowly, a sleepy grin on your face.

“‘Suki,” you mumble, your cheek pressed into the pillow.

If you were awake, he wouldn’t let you touch him like this. He would keep you at an arm’s length, crimson irises focused on your every move. However, you won’t remember this in the morning, and maybe that’s the only reason that he’s actually leaning into your palm. 

“Nightmares again?” he asks.

The phone call from earlier still rings in his head, his agent’s voice reverberating around. He looks at you a little differently now, he thinks, although he’d never admit it aloud.

You’re pouting, your hand falling from his face to tuck back under your chin. You nod and mumble something under your breath that he can’t quite make out, so he shifts closer. Bakugo sighs, “I’m here, all right? No need to have nightmares.”

You nod and pull the covers back to your chin and close your eyes, “Alright, ‘Suki.”

He stays squatted next to you until you’re snoring again, chest rising and falling consistently. He’s not sure why his body does what it does, but he reaches out and smoothes his thumb over the creases in your forehead until your face relaxes in your slumber.

“Fuckin’ dumbass,” he mutters with a grin, pushing your hair away from his face.

As he stands to his feet, he catches the sight of his dumbstruck face in your mirror, and he’s appalled. He’s not scowling, but instead there is the trace of a smile on his lips. Bakugo isn’t sure of the last time he genuinely smiled at something other than the breaking of bones.

Heat gathers in his hands and he has to force himself from blasting the mirror to shards, “Fuckin’ dumbass.”

-

“Can you find her?”

“No, have you seen her?”

“Last time I saw her, she was headed to the library.”

“And you didn’t think to.. Follow her?” 

“Well-”

“Shut up, dumbass,” Bakugo pushes past one of the other bodyguards, shoving towards the direction of the library.

He’s slipping through the doorway to check around the bookshelves for your body. He’s getting ready to call for you when he hears your voice. 

“If you wanted to get me alone, all you had to do was ask.”

“Tch,” Bakugo narrows his eyes, looking up.

You’re curled up in the loft, your body wrapped in a blanket with a book in your lap. There’s a small breakfast nook-like area looking out onto the lake in the center of the back lawn, moonlight filtering in through the etched glass.

You tuck your feet underneath yourself and pat the open space next to you, gesturing for him to take a seat. He mutters something into his ear piece before climbing the ladder to join you in the loft. He’s sitting opposite of you, his arms crossed as he looks down at the ground below.

“This whole escaping thing is getting on my damn nerves,” Bakugo snaps at you, nudging your thigh with his boot. “Would it kill you to stay in one place for more than a few seconds?”

Shrugging, you rest your arm on his leg, palm cupping his calf, “But then where would the fun be?”

“I’d love to not have to chase you around for one damn day in my life.” Bakugo licks his lips and rests his head back against the wall, eyes tracking over every square inch of the backyard as he looks out the window. His palms crackle in his lap, itching to be let loose on the world.

“Why did you take this job?”

The question comes out of nowhere, something he wasn’t prepared to have to think about. Bakugo’s voice is gruff when he speaks his answer, “My agent told me my reputation needed some work. Apparently I’m not a fuckin’ icon, or whatever.”

Your laughter doesn’t piss him off as much as it used to. You squeeze his calf and tilt your head back so you’re leaning on the wall, “Oh, you having a little image problem, Sparky?”

Bakugo narrows his eyes at you, but there’s no intent behind it. He sighs, “Your dad donates a lot to our agency. My manager told me to take it. Nothing else to it.”

“You miss the fight, though, don’t you?” Your eyes are swirling with some mixture of curiosity and something else he can’t quite make out. You curl your free hand into a fist in your lap, “I’ll bet beating guys heads in is the best feeling, isn’t it?”

If he wasn’t expecting your initial question, he really isn’t expecting those words when they tumble out of your lips. And he really wasn’t anticipating the utter excitement in your tone, either. A pristine girl like you, fantasizing about bashing villains? 

Either you were faking it, or you’re too good to be true.

You chuckle, “I’ve always loved your fighting style, at least what I could see of it. Your quirk is so cool, so useful.”

Your voice is almost wistful now, the edges of your lips upturned in a grin. You’re biting your lip in consideration and his leg feels cold when you remove your palm from it, wringing your hands together in your lap.

The hysteria on the cusp of your voice reminds him of his own mania in battle - the way he bares his teeth when he lets his gauntlets loose; the way his palms crackle as he approaches another guy from behind; the anticipation settled in his chest every time they suit up. 

Bakugo tilts his head, “What’s your quirk?”

“I-I don’t have-” 

Your voice is too nervous, too high-pitched. He wants to laugh at your obvious lie, but instead he holds up his palm and lets loose a few explosions, sparking the air between the two of you with orange and ash.

The lingering scent in the air reminds you of marshmallows over a campfire, and you realize it’s what you’ve been smelling on him for months. You never paid much attention to how his quirk works, all you’ve ever known is that he has an explosive ability that matches his hot-headed personality.

“My sweat contains nitroglycerin,” Bakugo explains when he notices your look of bewilderment. He finds his face smoothing into a smile as you reach out and grasp him by the wrist. “It’s explosive, obviously. I use my gauntlets in my hero suit to store it so I can use larger impacts to take down buildings or bad guys, or both.”

You brush your thumb over the bumps of his palm, up over his fingers. Quirks have always fascinated you, mostly because your father indulges in every aspect of them save for having one.

“Wow,” you say finally, voice faraway.

He swears your eyes are glittering with the way the moonlight refracts off of the glass of the window. His chest heaves as you push your way closer to grab his other hand out of his lap. The way you trace over the lines in his palms as if they have all the answers makes his shoulders perk with pride.

“When did you get your quirk?” you ask.

“I think I was like, five, or some shit, I don’t remember.” Bakugo can feel himself retreating, his walls shrinking in fear as you get too close. Your body heat mixes with his own and his eyes almost cross at the dizzying feeling of your proximity.

You are chewing on your lower lip and his mind slips in the fog to wonder what it might feel like if you tugged on his mouth like that.

He’s about to stand up and walk away because he can’t- no, he won’t- feel these things for you. You’re a paycheck, an objective, nothing more. Just like the weapon from his U.A. classes - all he has to do is protect you, and his ratings will rise and he’ll be able to fall back into the higher ranks of heroes. And then he’ll be able to leave.

“My parents don’t have quirks,” your laugh is dry, much unlike your giggles from earlier. You are smiling but it’s not making your eyes wrinkle at the edges like usual, “I think that’s why my dad invests so much money into them; maybe he’s projecting. Or maybe he’s living vicariously through his investments, I’m not sure.”

Bakugo hears you suck in a breath and there’s a pain in his chest at the sound, “When I got my quirk, my dad was so scared of me. As soon as it started showing, he built me my own wing in the house and brought Miles in to take care of me.”

Your hands fall away from his, tucked into your midsection so you can worry over your shirt as you speak. “I don’t think I’ve had a real conversation with my dad since I was little, not anything that mattered, anyway. When he shipped me off to college, he would call every now and then, but all we talked about were the heroes he was betting on.”

You lick your lips and laugh again, this one turning dark. Your chest is caving in as all of the memories of your father’s distance play on loop, threatening to pull you under again.

“No one knows I have a quirk,” you admit breathlessly, finally looking him in the eyes. “I think it’s his twisted way of keeping me, and everyone else, safe.”

Bakugo wants to hold you, any part of you, but there is a pin still in his body’s grenade, keeping him from you. He swallows the growing lump in his throat and tries his hardest to control the sweat in his palms at your story. He’s never heard your voice this chilling before; normally you are a sunbeam incarnate, walking around brightening everything you touch, even if you’re a bit mischievous sometimes. 

“I can manipulate organic matter,” you say. “Anything living.”

The reality of what all facets of that statement can mean makes Bakugo’s muscles ache.

You’re chuckling at the expression on his face, “Yeah, exactly. Of course you’d want to keep me hidden away.”

“No,” he shakes his head.

As if to prove to him that you’re nothing more than a liability, you raise your palm in the air and summon the flowers sitting in the vase just a few feet away from you forward. The budding floral prongs are twirling in tandem with the motions of your fingers. In a display of your power, you make the flowers walk as if their stems were legs, up Bakugo’s thigh and over his knee, all the way down to the toe of his boot.

Once they’re close enough to you, you levitate them in the air again, the pink and yellow petals beautiful even in the shadows of the night.

Bakugo’s eyes go wide as the flowers begin to lose their color, the shades of spring colors beginning to desaturate until they’re nothing but brown, wilted buds. You curl your hand into a fist and the flowers ball up accordingly, mushing together until they are no longer recognizable.

“Holy shit,” Bakugo’s eyes track the object as you release your control over it and the squashed flowers drop with a thud into your palm.

You’re waiting for him to become frightened of you, to look at you with wide eyes as he fears for his own life. That’s what your father did when you showed the beginning signs of your quirk. He shoved you in a box, frightened you’d turn out something fierce, something evil.

“Do it again.”

Your voice catches in your throat, a short gasp parting your lips, “Wh-Wha-”

“You’re a fucking badass,” Bakugo shifts closer to you, the personal space he usually keeps between the two of you forgotten. “Can you do it again? With something else?”

“Y-You want me…” Your eyes are wide, pupils dilating as you gaze up at him. He’s smiling like a madman but it makes your heart light on fire, “Sure.”

You spend the next hour or so grabbing different living things from around the room, twisting them and manipulating them. Bakugo’s eyes follow your every movement, every motion. His jaw hangs slightly open as he watches on in fascination, your quirk a new experience for him.

You turn to look over the balcony, wondering if there might be anything you can grab from down there, when you feel his chest press against your back. He’s just leaning up to scout the area, but his chin might as well rest on your shoulder with his closeness. You pinpoint a basket of fruit at the bottom of the stairs near the entryway and you concentrate to see what types of fruit there are.

“Apple or pear?” you ask, turning just enough to look him in the eyes beside you.

He tilts his head, “Pear, why the hell not?”

You tug two pears up over the railing, dropping one of them into his hand, the other in your lap. There’s a crunching sound as he digs his teeth into the fruit, some of the juice landing on your shoulder. It tickles, and you go to wipe it off, but Bakugo beats you to it, brushing his thumb over the exposed skin.

The realization that you’re practically in his lap makes your chest constrict. You swallow and reach down to pluck the pear from your lap, turning the fruit over in your hands as a distraction.

“So, your dad was scared of you?” he asks, resting his chin on his palm so he can get a better look at you.

You take a chance and lean yourself back into him, his shoulders thudding against the wall at the impact. Your head tilts upward so you can look at the ceiling, the feel of his collarbone behind the crown of your head somehow comforting.

“He thought I would go on a killing spree or something,” you shrug, your thumbs busy with the pear in your hands. The memories you have of your father are not pleasant, what little you have. 

Bakugo hikes his leg up so you can get more comfortable, giving you more space between his thighs. He tells himself that this is just part of the mission - he needs to get to know you so you’ll trust him, so you’ll stop running away. It'll make his job easier. That’s all this is.

You turn the fruit over, inspecting every speckle, “Just like with the flower, I can manipulate the life force inside of a person. I could kill them, if I were strong enough."

"Strong enough?" he echoes through his chewing. "What the hell does that mean?"

You laugh, cradling the pear in your palm like a child, "I was never trained on how to use my quirk. My father was so afraid of me that he forbade me to use it in front of others. I cared enough about him to respect his wishes; I wouldn't have forgiven myself if he lost business over my weird quirk."

"Your quirk isn't weird, dumbass," Bakugo's hand smooths down your hair from the back.

You laugh and look up at him, turning your body to lean against his thigh, "Thought I was a badass?"

He rolls his eyes, "You can be both."

You're tugging on his hands again, circling your fingers delicately around his wrists before yanking them forward. A strangled sound comes from the back of his throat at the sudden contact but you don't seem to notice.

Holding his palms outward, you rest your hands so the backs of yours are pressed to the insides of his hands, his much larger anatomy dwarfing your own. You're smiling but he's not sure why.

"I've wondered what it's like to be you," your voice is quiet now, the wonder giving way to sleep. "It must be amazing."

So Bakugo details all the stories he can remember. Eventually, after a few lines recounting the battles he's been in, your hands drift down from hovering in midair and he finds himself following suit. Your fingers are cold and for a moment he wonders if it's a side effect of your quirk.

He curls his fingers around yours when he isn't using his hands to tell you about a mission, the warmth from his palms leeching onto your own hands to keep you from freezing over. 

It isn't too long before he hears the change in your breathing; it's slower, heavier now. Your body is more slumped against him that it was before and he knows that you've fallen asleep.

"Quirk must take it outta ya, huh?" Bakugo brushes his thumb down the length of your forearm. He sighs and looks down at how your body just so perfectly lines up with his, "Fuckin' hell...what're you doing, man?"

The last bit of his resolve crumbles when a small sigh parts your mouth and you turn so your cheek is pressed into his pectoral, one hand coming to curl around the fabric of his shirt and the other keeping his palm captive in your tiny grasp.

Bakugo can tell how much smaller than him you are; he could easily overpower you to get out of this situation, he knows he could. But for some reason, he doesn't want to. 

For once in his life he really feels like he's doing something good, something wholesome. His body enraptures you like a cage and he keeps his eyes on the back yard, ready to act if there are any intruders. A fierce feeling prickles at the skin on the back of his neck and he wants to bare his teeth for some reason, but he tames the feral instinct before he can dig his hands into you to make sure you're safe.

Bakugo, for the first time since he met you, starts to wonder if maybe this could be more than just a mission. 

-

You’re sure you’re not supposed to overhear his conversation, but he told you to stay close. So, really, you’re just doing as you’re told. Which is a pretty big achievement for you.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding, right?” Bakugo is laughing sadistically into the phone receiver, tossing his head back. You’re sure his laughter is to combat the growl that’s sitting in his chest. He’s hushed as he speaks, “You can’t pull me from this assignment now. There’s two international events in the next month and she’s got public outings. You won’t be able to train anyone new-no, I said no. You can’t-listen...I swear to god…”

The slamming of his phone shut startles you, but you’re able to cover your mouth with your hand before your squeak tumbles out. You press your back into the wall so he can’t discover your sneaking. When his loud footsteps come closer, you try to shrink down the hall, pretending like you’d just started to wander this way.

Bakugo steps out of the room and really, did anyone ever consider just how attractive he was before they assigned him to your team? 

He’s tall, much taller than you, and built with dense muscle and thick sinew. His shoulders trim down to slimmer hips, but that is only misleading as his pelvis gives way to full thighs and rounded calves. You’re thankful they allowed him to stop wearing suits after his first couple of weeks - now he’s in a more relaxed outfit - black long sleeve t-shirt with a pair of jeans that lead into his signature black combat boots.

“Katsuki!” you call, stepping forward.

After that night, falling asleep against him in the loft, things have shifted. You’ve noticed that he’s more physical with you - whether it be with closeness, or with touch. He’s not afraid to brush up against you, and he doesn’t recoil when your body comes into contact with his own. Instead, it’s almost as if he’s welcoming it. 

It’s a gentle hand guiding you towards an exit, or his palm squeezed in yours when you’re on the wrong side of sober and trying to get out of a bar. In the car, on the way home, he doesn’t mind if you fall asleep against his shoulder. 

His brows perk when he hears your voice, crystalline eyes snapping up from his phone to make contact with your gaze. You swear the beginning of a smile touches the corners of his lips.

“Do you think we can go to the market before we get ready to go out of town?” you ask, pouting just enough to make him consider.

Bakugo puffs a breath out of his mouth, his jaw hanging open slightly. You reach forward and wrap your arms around his back, running your hands up his shoulders with a bright grin on your face, “C’mon! Live a little.”

He’s rolling his eyes but walking forward with his arm slung around your shoulder, “Whatever. Better buy me somethin’ real nice.”

“Of course!” You bob up on your toes to kiss his cheek, “Anything you like.”

His face is bright red, but you’re too busy thinking about the market to notice. As soon as you walk into the common area, his arm retreats from your form and his spine goes rigid. You know that things have to be more strict in front of your father’s staff and his coworkers. They have a short conversation before the others are grabbing their weapons and communications units, stepping out the front door to load up the SUVs. 

It’s not long before you’re walking the cobblestone paths of the market, very reminiscent of your first escape attempt. The breeze is blowing, clouds offering some shade but not much. You’re in another one of your brightly colored sundresses, hair flowing freely in the wind. You twirl in front of him, “Hey, ‘Suki, do you think you’d ever do this full time?”

He tilts his head in silent questioning, and you elaborate, “I-I mean, if my daddy could pay you enough, do you think you could be my bodyguard for a long time?”

The color in his face drains just enough for you to know that what you heard on the phone earlier was true - he’s leaving you.

“Listen,” his voice is gruff, “I’m working to be a pro-hero, alright? I don’t have time to fuckin’ babysit for the rest of my life.”

Your heart twists in your chest but you force a smile anyway, “Yeah, that’s what I figured. I know I can be a handful, and not nearly as much fun as blasting villains.”

The slight downturn in your tone makes his chest feel hollow. Bakugo knows that he shouldn’t phrase things the way he does, but he’s on communication devices with the others and he can’t have them knowing that he’s fallen complete hook, line, and sinker for you.

You’re walking down the side of the road when an idea comes to you - you know just what to do to cheer him up, for old time’s sake. It’s been a while since you’ve tried to evade him for real.

Throwing a teasing glance over your shoulder, you wink at him before slipping away from him, blending in with the others around you. You manage to grab a ball cap off of a vendor table, leaving them a large bill to take care of the cost. A quick stop at a food vendor leaves you in the wind as Bakugo walks past your body, eyes high as he steps through the crowds to try and find you.

Katsuki is frantic - it feels like someone has just pumped ice water into his veins. His feet can’t carry him fast enough. If it weren’t for the phone call earlier, he might not have allowed fear to clutch at him like a vice, but the words of the officer on the other line ring loudly in his head. 

“There have been talks in the underground of a possible kidnapping attempt. Soon.”

His saliva collects like a ball of tape in his throat and he can’t swallow it down. He speaks into his comms but he’s not sure he’s talking in full sentences or syllables. His body carries him down every alleyway, every side street, until he catches a glimpse of the tail of your dress curving down a street across the market.

Relief floods his body and Bakugo jogs to the dead end road, a sarcastic retort on his lips about how you almost got a rise out of him when his eyes catch onto something at the end of the alleyway.

There, pinned to the wall by a nail, is a swatch of your dress, covered in blood with the words don’t come looking written in crimson liquid.

Acid churns in his stomach. Heat settles behind his eyes. Explosions echo off of his hands.

“Wrong fuckin’ move,” he grits his teeth, narrowing his eyes as he snatches the cloth in his hands. He looks up to the roof where he’s sure some villain with a quirk has escaped with you, “Holy shit, wrong move.”

-

The past few hours have been nothing but a painful blur for you. There’s crusted blood on your head from where someone has slammed a blunt object to knock you out. Your wrists and ankles are burning from the cuffs wrapped around them, the chains echoing in the warehouse-like space. Your throat is parched from trying to scream through the gag in your mouth and the sobs that rack your body.

It was just supposed to be a game, something to cheer up his spirits, your running off. You never intended for it to turn into something that’s probably spiking his blood pressure and getting his ear chewed off. Another bout of tears sweeps through your lids when you realize that Katsuki is going to get in trouble due to your immaturity.

Someone has brought you a pale of water, but it’s so demeaning that all you can do is kick it across the warehouse. You’re surprised they’re allowing you to have your vision, given that they’ve taken everything else from you. 

“We’ll get a hefty ransom for her,” a thug off in the corner mutters to his counterpart. They stare over at you and you feel violated just by their gaze. You curl yourself inward, trying to hide as much of your body as possible.

The taller of the two slaps the original speaker on the back of the head, “You touch her, you’re dead. You heard what the boss said. No nasty shit.”

Your jaw quivers as you think of what they could do to you, all tied up like this. You’re helpless. The realization multiplies the well of tears settled in the brim of your eyelids. They laugh at your tears and you want to kick each of them between the legs until they beg for mercy at your hands. 

If Bakugo were here, he’d have already freed himself. He would have never gotten captured in the first place. Now you want to kick yourself. How could you be so careless? You were too wrapped up in your childish, foolish game to realize you were being tailed. Katsuki would be disappointed in you.

“The fuck you cryin’ about?” the taller thug asks. He cracks his knuckles before stepping to you, squatting down. He tucks his hand roughly under your chin to pull your attention up so you’re looking him in the eye. He smirks, “Gonna give you somethin’ to cry about, bitch.”

A set of slaps resounds in the empty room, both of your cheeks stinging at his harsh motion.

Your immediate reaction is to whimper, but you stamp it down in favor of being seen as strong. You grit your teeth together and snarl up at him, eyes hard as you glare. He chuckles, gripping you by the throat until your eyes bug out of your head, “Oh, you stupid bitch. Quit your whinin’.”

He slings you to the floor and your wound pounds in pain, reopening and leaving a gateway for a fresh stream of blood to trickle down your neck. You want to cradle the spot, do anything to try and dilute or soothe the pain, but your hands are stuck behind your back. 

The two thugs are arguing about something, but the last thing you see is the two of them looking down at you as your vision fades to black.

-

The next time you wake, your body is in a chair, apparatus attached to every part of your body. Your mind is foggy and you hear someone calling Katsuki’s name so you start to search for him. Tears leak from the corners of your eyes when you realize that it’s your voice. 

“Shut up or I’ll gag you again,” a brute voice hovers over your shoulder.

There are still black spots covering most of your vision, so you can’t see who's speaking to you. Your nose itches and you try to move your shoulder only to find your neck is locked into a metal casing. You swallow, your throat bobbing against the cold metal.

A man in all black, face hidden behind an intricate, colorful mask, stands in front of you. His demeanor is nothing if not calm and collected, a gun attached to his hip although you suspect he has some sort of quirk as well. He crosses his arms over his chest as he looks you over, as if he were sizing you up even though you’ve not managed to put up any sort of a fight this entire time.

“How much do you think your daddy will pay to have you safe?” he drawls, squatting down so you can look down at him.

He swivels a knife out of his pocket, turning the blade over before pressing it to his tongue, “I’m thinking a fat stack of paper will keep you alive. Don’t you agree?”

“Go to he-ah!” You’re stopped as the tip of the knife presses to the inner part of your thigh. Your nostrils flare and you glare down at him, shifting in your seat to futilely pull away from his weapon.

“I heard your bodyguard is kind of sweet on you,” he smirks, twirling the blade so the point stays connected to your skin, “and I’m sure he wants to see you safe.”

Your teeth chatter but you bare your canines anyway, “You’re going to wish you’d never been born when Katsuki gets ahold of-”

“Katsuki, huh? You’re on given names now?” The man stands to his feet, slinging the blade around before tucking it back into his belt. He chuckles, “You pregnant with his kid, too?”

You spit on him as he bends over in front of you, face mere inches from your own. It pisses him off to the point where he snatches you by the hair, pulling you forward so your esophagus is crushed by the metal chain around your throat. You can’t breathe, choking at the sudden impact. You see stars and you can’t do anything but thrash in the chair, arms and legs bruising on contact of the latches keeping your body as still as possible.

The one thing that you can make out above everything else is the coolness of metal pressed to your temple. It is not sharp, so you have to assume that there’s a gun to your temple. His voice is in your ear, low and slithering, “I’ve already taken photos of your living body, so I don’t need proof of life anymore. I’m being a gentleman by keeping you alive, you see? So don’t piss me off.”

“That’s not bein’ a fuckin’ gentleman.”

A gasp parts your lips and the thug turns to see Bakugo Katsuki standing in the doorway, a littering of unconscious bodies in his wake.

He glares with his ruby red eyes, tilting his head in a way that almost feels patronizing. You want to claw at the hand around your throat but your wrists are still tied down. Your face is damp with a mixture of tears and sweat, your voice trying to project despite the pain of your esophagus.

“S’okay,” Katsuki looks you in the eyes and you believe him.

“You take another step closer and I swear I will blow her brains all over the side of this place,” the man seethes from behind you. As the gun digs deeper into your temple, you whimper, a sob shaking your shoulders.

Bakugo lurches forward at the sound, hand outstretched, “You fucker! Let her the fuck go before I kill you right here!”

The villain smirks, “I thought you were Ground Zero, a pro hero?! You’d dare to taint your pristine record with little ole me? Wow, I’m flattered.”

You shake your head just enough to tell him to back away, and he does so by putting both of his feet on the ground, hands in the air. He’s making eye contact with you again, irises desperate, “You remember that night in the library?”

You blink a few times, taking in what he’s said. What was so significant about that night?

“Remember what you told me?” he leads you, his jaw quivering under the stress of his teeth. “About what your father was afraid of?”

“Oh please!” The man laughs maniacally but you’re not focused on him anymore. Your brain is trying to work, albeit a bit slow, to recall the words you spoke that night. Your eyes track over his face but his mouth is set into a hard line, “The flowers, baby, remember the flowers?”

The villain is mocking Bakugo again, but his voice cuts off in his throat when he feels the tips of his extremities begin to go numb.

Your lower lip is quivering, blood seeping out of your nose at the strain. Tears sit still in your eyes as you manipulate your fingers to try to find the source of the organic material you want to manipulate. You take a gasping breath, eyes straining in your sockets as you pull pressure closer towards you.

“What the-”

Your other hand twists and you hear the crushing sound of his esophagus as you manipulate the blood pumping through his veins. Your body is so unused to the stress of using your quirk that it makes your mouth hang open in hopes of getting enough oxygen to your brain, your bones grating against one another. 

In trying to turn his hand holding the gun away from you, you have to dig deep, imagining the cells in his body so you can manipulate them. The chipping of his bones resonates in your ear, but the pressure of the gun is released from your temple. In turn, you feel a new bout of blood leak from every orifice of your face - eyes, mouth, nose.

Your vision goes black and your ears ring with the sound of an explosion. There are screams in the back of the room, but a quick thud tells you that someone has been rendered helpless.

“Hey,” the voice is calm in front of you, but you can’t turn it off. Your body craves the manipulation of something else, your quirk swirling around you like a dark shadow, begging you to hurt somebody else.

A pair of hands presses to your cheeks and your jaw drops at the contact. You turn your hands and you feel a new patch of skin ghosting under your fingers. The blood pumping through this one is hotter, faster. Your jaw strains as you grind your teeth together in concentration.

You hear Bakugo cough and your vision clears enough to realize that it’s him you have in your quirk’s grasp. Your hands fall to your lap as you relent, a cough parting his mouth as he lurches forward.

Katsuki uses his fingers to wipe the blood off of your face, “Holy hell. You really are a badass.”

You barely have time to register the words before your body passes out from exhaustion.

-

This time, when you roll your head, you’re still held in someone’s arms. You lean your head back and blink blearily, “K-Ka-Suki?”

You hear his voice, but he’s not talking to you. He’s angrily whisper-shouting at someone else you can’t see. You try to raise your arm to touch his face, slap him, whatever it takes to get his attention. Your whole body aches and you just want to go back to sleep.

“I don’t care what you have to move, just fuckin’ move it!” is the last thing that you hear before the silence returns.

You try to call to him again and this time you’re able to make out his eyes as he looks down at you. He’s carrying you somewhere, that much you know, but you’re not quite sure where you’re going. The relief that floods his irises, lightening them, makes your heart flip in your chest.

“Where’re we?” you ask in a slur.

Bakugo chuckles and you hear a door shut, “We’re back home.”

“Home,” you murmur, your head lolling into his chest. What does home mean to you now? Surely it doesn’t mean that big mansion that you’ve been a prisoner in most of your adult life.

You force your hand to inch upward from your lap to his chest, your palm seeking the heat of his body. Sniffling, you breathe in the scent of a fireside and you desperately want to be on a beach, in a hammock, as he holds you tight. Your fist curls around his shirt and he looks down at you again, taking in the pallor of your skin and the way your breath comes in short bursts.

Your body shifts in his arms and you whimper at the loss of contact as he displaces you onto a bed. Your head hits a pillow but you’re trying to sit up right after, grasping in thin air for something of his that you can hold onto.

“Lay down, idiot,” Bakugo grunts in annoyance, pushing you down by the shoulders. “You’re fuckin’ spent. You need to chill.”

Your eyes finally open as you feel your shoes removed from your feet. The way your ankles try to swivel sparks pain behind your eyelids, the raw splotches of skin from struggling against the cuffs more prevalent now than before.

“I told you to fucking chill.”

You do as he says then, your body unable to fight back any longer. You are more focused on trying to keep yourself from becoming a blubbering mess in front of him. Using your quirk took a lot of strength and focus, but now all you want to do is curl into a ball and cry yourself to sleep.

Bakugo’s palm is against your cheek, “I think you need a bath.”

“Mhm,” you can feel the crusted blood on your face and neck, sweat mixed in so your dress sticks to every part of your body it touches.

He chuckles, “I’ll go get Miles.”

“No,” you snatch him by the sleeve, “p-please, don’t go.”

You wince at the exertion of your muscles but the pleading look in your eyes must do it for him because he buckles, “I’ll go run the water.”

It’s another few minutes before he emerges from the bathroom suite to help you to your feet. You sway a little as the warmth from the steam in the room hits you directly in the face. Your eyes cross and he has to steady you with his palms on your waist.

You go to step into the tub still fully clothed when he stops you, “Uh, don’t you think-”

Your eyes can’t focus on anything, so Katsuki presses his palms to both of your cheeks and forces your eyesight to zero in on him. He says something and you reach out to grip his shirt in your hands, fisting the fabric as tight as you can manage in this state.

“D-Do you want my help?” he asks, cheeks burning. You nod, turning so the ties of your dress are where he can reach. You don’t think anything of it as his fingertips hesitate at your back, his palms threatening to burst with nitroglycerin.

Eventually, your dress falls away and you’re left bare in front of him. He takes you by the hand to guide you to the huge tub in the center of the room, full to the brim with warm water and bubbles. You wince as you step into the water, the heat from the bath making your open wounds twinge with pain. Swallowing, you submerge yourself entirely, only your nose to the top of your head remaining visible.

“Shit,” Bakugo swears as the water immediately tinges red with the blood that coated your body. He picks up a rag and gently swipes over your skin.

Bakugo has never considered himself soft. He is not gentle, he is not kind. However, all of his inhibitions about himself completely fly out the window when you’re involved. He’s sure he’s never been this caring with his own body. He winces when he has to scrub particularly hard at certain spots, the mix of blood and sweat cementing patches of red to your skin.

After he’s done with your body, he starts to work on your face. He has to use a new rag, one unsaturated with grime. His fingers are timid as he brushes under your eyes and around your nose and mouth. The pad of his thumb ghosts over your lower lip, his palm flat against your neck. 

Your eyes are wide, pupils blown as you glance up at him. He shakes his head, “I can’t believe you.”

Bakugo has to grab the shower head to work on your hair. You feel his fingers nudging through your tresses for a while before the water turns off and he unplugs the tub. The water retreats from the bath and your shoulders go cold.

“C’mon,” he murmurs, eyes on your face as he helps you stand.

He pats you dry and you fumble around your room for a new set of clothes. As he pulls the shirt over your head, his palms brush your arms and you find yourself wanting to melt into him. You have to fight the trembling of your lower lip when he takes a step back from your; your body is empty at the loss of his touch.

Katsuki grunts, shaking his head, “I-I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you’re able to manage words, your voice hoarse from disuse and exhaustion. You swallow and reach out to him, but he backs away from you.

“I had one job, one thing to do, and I fucked it up. I failed at keeping you safe.” His fists curl up tight in front of him, but you still see the explosions muffled in his grip. He turns his head, “I’m leaving tonight.”

A single tear slips down your cheek and you cradle your arms to your chest, the bright red rings of raw skin easy to see in stark contrast to your dark sleep clothes. Bakugo gets just enough of a glimpse of them and knows that he can’t be here any longer, he can’t watch his failures play on a loop in front of him in the form of you.

“I ran away,” you whisper, looking down at your hands. “I-I did this.”

You allow a sob to break the seam of your lips, your body shuddering so hard that you fall to your knees. You cover your face with your hands, “I’m so sorry, Katsuki. I-I’m so stupid. You’re right, I’m nothing but a dumbass.”

“Hey,” he cradles you at the elbows, “no, don’t do that shit.”

“It’s the truth, and you know it!” You shove at his shoulders meagerly, falling back from the force of your own push. “I should have never run away. I should have listened.”

Katsuki tugs your head forward, cradling your body against his own, “Damn right you should’ve listened to me.”

“I’m sorry, ‘Suki,” you murmur into the skin of his neck.

He tilts your head upward with the gentle tug of your chin between his thumb and forefinger. Bakugo’s mouth is pressed into a fine line as he takes a short breath, “Me too. I shouldn’t have let you get out of my sight.”

A silent pause stretches between the two of you as you look into one another’s eyes, short breath passing through your lips. Katsuki’s hand threads into your hair and his eyes travel to each feature of your face as if he were memorizing it. You turn your face to flatten your mouth against his wrist, his pulse thudding solidly under your lips. The warm aroma that results from his quirk makes you dizzy in the best way; you could get drunk off of the sweet, fiery scent if you let yourself stay this close for too long.

Your eyelashes flutter when he slides you with a hand on your hip so you’re completely in his lap, your knees on either side of his body. He is warm and it is welcoming, your still damp hair sending chills down your spine as the cool breeze of the night sweeps in through the barely open window. 

Finally, his voice breaks, “I-I thought I lost you.”

“Katsu’...” you shake your head and tears well up in your eyes. 

You can’t take it anymore. You tilt your head further upward and press your lips to his. As soon as you arch into him, Katsuki is wrapping his arms around your body, bruising your mouth with the intensity of his kiss. His palms hold you steady - one on the back of your head and the other splayed out across the center of your back.

It is painstakingly quiet, the only sounds echoing off of your walls are the gentle smacking noises your mouths make as you part only to come back together. Your hands can’t get enough of him, searching the planes of his shoulders for somewhere to dig your fingernails into. You gasp as his tongue presses to the seam of your lips, leaving you wide open for him to invade your space.

His whole body is hot, steaming, as he palms at you to keep you close. Your cheeks heat, bright red at the proximity of him. Bakugo angles your head so he can thoroughly map out your mouth with his tongue and teeth.

You pull away just enough to breathe, “I never doubted you, not for a minute.”

Katuki’s eyes are wide, irises blown to hell when he hears those words fall from your lips. His chest constricts and the threat of an explosion curls in the palms of his hands. He has to stamp it down, because he doesn’t want to hurt you, but you do feel the increasing heat on your back.

“I knew you’d find me,” you brush a hand over his cheek, pushing his hair away from his face. You have tears streaming down your face, but he’s sure you’ve never been more beautiful to him than you are now, in this very vulnerable moment.

You chuckle, “You’re my hero.”

A growl opens his lips and you barely get a moment to suck in a breath before he’s devouring you again.

He’s been labeled a hero by his school, by the media, by a costume designer. He has an agent and a PR team and a set of sidekicks he’s training. He’s getting money, fame, and yet - in this moment, you uttering those words, releases something primal in him. The need to protect you washes over him like a wave - how did he think he could ever trust anyone else with your care? Would any of them try to keep you safe as ferociously as he would? 

“I’m not leavin’ your fuckin’ side,” he mumbles as his mouth trails over your jaw, fingers tugging on your hair gently to get you to bare your throat to him. His tongue swipes over your jugular and your eyes screw shut, “No one’s taking you from me ever again.”

Your mouth hangs open, pants of needy air puffing out of your lips. You hold him by the back of his head, fingers wound in his hair, egging him on. You whimper when he bites the curve of your shoulder, but the way your hips roll forward affirms him that he’s doing something right.

“Fuck,” Bakugo mutters, picking you up with his arms around your waist, “fuckin’ hell.”

Your eyes are trained on him as he walks you to the bed. You watch his eyes dart over the space behind you so he can be sure he’s not bumping you into anything, keeping you safe even now, even as he wants to raw up your little body with his own set of bruises. Your legs stay latched around his waist, tugging him closer to you when it feels like he may pull away. 

Kastuki shakes his head, “I’m right here.”

Tears well up in the corner of your eyes from the softness of his voice alone; you don’t know what you would have done if he hadn’t been the one to find you. Your hands palm at his face, thumbing over his cheekbones to try and memorize the layout of his face like a blueprint.

“Shh,” he hushes you, leaning down to kiss either of your eyelids, “stop cryin’, dummy.”

“You were right,” you shake your head as the realization dawns over you. “You can’t stay. You have other, better things to do. Your job isn’t to babysit me, Katsuki. You need to be a hero. You ne-”

Another kiss cuts your rambling short, his mouth harsh when he tugs on your lips. His teeth nip at your lower lip, “Don’t tell me what to do.”

Both of his palms slide under your shoulders, pushing you with the heels of his hands so your chest is pressed completely to him, his body aching to feel your own. He kisses you until your mouth is aching, your chest begging for breath. Your wrists and ankles start to burn, the reminder of your eventful night biting at your skin like an animal.

You wince and Bakugo pulls away, searching your face for the reason of your sudden movement.

“Oh shit,” he lowers you back to the mattress, tugging on your arms so he can unwrap your bandages to inspect your wounds.

Once he sees the injuries, his body begs to light on fire again, his rage bubbling like acid in his stomach. His lip curls into a snarl and he squeezes his eyes shut, your bloody body projected onto the backs of his eyelids.

“Will you stay with me?”

Your request interrupts his self-deprecating thoughts. He can see the glistening of tears on your face, feel the quivering of your body as your nerves get the better of you. Bakugo wants to protest, he wants to tell you that he needs to blow off some steam, but with the gentle pout and quiver of your lip, he’s completely forgotten his desire to blow a hole in every bad guy he can find tonight.

Katsuki wraps your wrists back in the bandages, taping them securely before leaning back, glancing over you as if it were the last time he would ever see you.

Before you can protest or start rambling again, he lowers himself down to curl around your body, holding your head to his chest. You cradle your arms between the two of you, looking down at your fingers.

“My father was right,” you swallow, curling your hands to fists. “I-I wanted to kill that guy. I...I almost hurt you.”

Bakugo nudges his knee against your thigh, “As if, I just didn’t want to blast your head off.”

You want to laugh, but the sound is stuck in your throat. He senses your hesitation and tilts your head back with his thumb under the sensitive patch of skin just beneath your chin, “Hey. You did what you had to do. Power is hard to control sometimes.”

He kisses your forehead, your skin smoothing under his warm mouth. You attempt to keep your lips from quivering with the threat of tears, “My quirk is scary, Katsuki.”

“Everything is scary if you let it scare you,” he mumbles, nudging his nose over your own. Your eyes flutter shut and you turn so you can kiss him again. He chuckles against your lips, “You scare me, sometimes. Or rather, the idea of you.”

You know that he’s just affirming what you’ve said - of course you’re scary. You have a quirk that allows you to manipulate a person’s body. You can snap someone’s neck with a simple twist of your wrist.

“Not like that, stupid,” Bakugo nips your jaw to keep you out of your own head. He takes a deep breath and slips his palm between yours, curling his fingers against your knuckles. “I mean, you hold me so high, when you look at me, I get scared. I can’t live up to this idea of what you think I can do. I’m not this perfect hero, I’m not this great guy.”

He licks his lips, “I want to burn everyone I’m with so they’ll stay away, but you’re different. And that scares the shit out of me.”

Your mouth parts at his declaration, words hanging on your tongue. You’re not sure how to respond. Bakugo loved seeing your quirk when it was being used on flowers and fruit, but now that it was used on a person - how did that not frighten him? How was it the way you looked at him that shook him to his core, and not the reality that you could snatch his blood vessels from his body, that you can control his muscles that sit under his skin?

“I told you, baby, you’re a badass. Okay? How could I ever get scared of someone who pushes me to be better?” Bakugo is smiling now, genuinely grinning, and that takes all of your nerves and pushes them away. You mimic his expression, squeezing his palm with gentle pressure so as to not aggravate your wounds. 

“Now, c’mon, you little shit, close your eyes and get some sleep.” Bakugo tucks your head under his chin as he toes off his boots, kicking them off the bed. His mouth is in your hair, muffled as he speaks, “Or else I’ll knock you out myself, got it?”

“Sir yes sir,” you say through a yawn.

His body tenses under your words and he seethes, “Careful with that.”

You smirk, nipping your teeth against the thin skin of his neck just over his jugular, “Yes sir.”

“Ah, fuckin’ hell.”

-

a/n: lol i am so mean i’m sorry! also.. if you would like a part two, lemme know and i’ll consider it :-) 

tag list (message me to be removed!): @kamehamethot @lady-bakuhoe @queensynderella @todorki-shoto @kacchanswaifu @redhawtriot @burnedbyshoto @cookies-n-chaos @katsukisprincess @rat-suki @cutesuki--bakugou @k-atsukidayo @bnhatrashh @succulent-momma @voiceofreader @multifandom-fanfic @that-one-enthusiast @bitchtrynafck @cutest-celestial-princess @blue-peach14 @pastel-prynce​ @bokunokangae​ @shoutodoki​ 

[grimmywrites]

So, about Infinite Darkness...

I’m gonna try to be as succinct as I can (I failed) about all the problems I had with it, but my list is pretty long... Yes, this has spoilers. Let me state upfront: if you’re not a hardcore RE fan, you can skip the show. Below I’ll tell you why.

Story: What a mess. Honestly, they turned me off right at the beginning with all the military stuff. It’s the same reason people didn’t like Chris’ campaign in 6; didn’t they learn anything from that? So, the story wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever seen. Honestly, it had more plot holes than anything and so many points where I went: “I don’t care about this.” Again, it was a jumbled mess. Capcom, hire me and I’ll do better, I swear. Let’s just sum it up by saying it’s a rehash of things we’ve seen SEVERAL times in the series before. If you’re gonna do it AGAIN let’s make the story unique and interesting. Oh, there are shady people in the military that want to use bioweapons in war? Okay, we’ve known that since the first game. We’ve seen it time and time again. Look to re8′s ending for example: the BSAA are now starting to use engineered soldiers - THAT was a reveal that was far more interesting. The way it was addressed and overcome in this show was just... so lackluster. Ultimately, it just felt like this entire thing didn’t need to happen. It changed nothing, it impacted nothing, and I’m aware that it really couldn’t since it was after re4 and before re5. There was just no lasting point and all the ‘themes’ (if you can call them that) made absolutely no sense, but I guess I’ll get into that with the characters? Pacing: Absolutely god awful. One minute we’re in the White House fighting zombies then I blink and it’s over and I’m like: Oh, we’re done? Another we’re in a sub and then I blink. Oh, that’s over, too. Also, the creators must’ve taken a page from the last couple of seasons of Game of Thrones (which is an abysmal idea, don’t fucking do that) because with a few cuts here and there we went from Guam to China back to DC. Guess everybody learned how to teleport so they got exactly where we needed them to for the “climax”. Let’s talk about that climax: There was none. Let’s look at Degeneration and Damnation (no I won’t talk about Vendetta). Both had their weaknesses but Leon and the climaxes were BADASS. Leon doing parkour in Degeneration? Leon going against Lickers and the huge Tyrants in Damnation? Those were amazing scenes. He did a few cool things here and there but nothing that got more of a laugh out of me. My man is coming off re4 where he rampaged through a village, a castle, and an island of mutated creatures to save one girl. C’mon now. Characters: By now (if anybody is even reading this rant), you’ve noticed that I’ve talked a lot about Leon. But what about Claire? Yeah, they lied to us about them working together. She got sidelined again. A lot of people are upset about this -- and yeah, it sucks because I do love Claire. Leon has just happened to be my favorite since 1998 so I wasn’t as heartbroken. That doesn’t mean I’m not disappointed, I’m just not very surprised. Leon - My main problem with Leon is Nick, his voice actor. I’m so sorry for all those who like him, but he just isn’t good enough for me. Paul Mercier (re4, Degeneration, Darkside Chronicles) and Matt Mercer (Damnation, Re6, Vendetta) would have been more appropriate. Nick tries his best, but he’s just too soft sounding to be post-re4 Leon. This is a man who is quipping one-liners left and right a couple of years ago. Now he’s barely smiling and doesn’t feel confident at all, and I think a lot of that is because of his portrayal. There are times where the lines hit, but more often than not they fall flat. I never felt that way with Paul who is my favorite Leon or Matt who gave emotional performances every time. Also, his decision at the end? I can understand it, but explain to Claire! Claire - I like Stephanie as Claire, I have no problems with her. She makes her sound tough and ready to do what she thinks is right. Unfortunately, the story completely sidelines her and makes her role obsolete. Everything she uncovers (because that’s her role apparently, just there to Nancy Drew) is already told to us through flashbacks and other characters. Why even have her? Was it just to show us WHY her and Leon don’t talk often? A waste. Shen Mei - I don’t care. I felt nothing for her. They tried really hard, but they just failed to flesh these new characters out and when her time was up I once again went: Oh? That’s it, then. ‘Kay. I think I laughed a bit, sorry girl. Her whole plotline was to get that chip in Leon’s hand, nothing more. Jason -  I don’t care. A character I thought I felt sorry for with his ptsd but nope. Once his story unfolded - messily, I might add (I hate the REPEATED flashback shit. Tell me once and stop teasing me.) I just went... okay, what the hell is your plan? To spread fear? ‘Kay. It was dumb and made no sense. What, he wants everyone to feel terror so they know? It needed to be clarified. It’s like they couldn’t figure out more synonyms for fear and terror. So, what? It helps keep Leon from going public with the chip and that information? Because he knows it’ll just cause mass hysteria? And then you’ve got Claire’s side - she’s not an agent and she believes the people have a right to know. They’re both right, but there’s no goddamn communication between ANYONE in this show. I just felt exhausted by it, nothing else. Not to mention it’s useless angst because of the plot of Degeneration. Wilson - Our bad guy. Let’s just sum up really quickly in case people were confused by the plot: He was putting infected soldiers into war zones so that even after they died they’d kill anybody involved, then he’d bomb the area and clean up the evidence. These soldiers didn’t show any symptoms because they had inhibitors that kept the virus at bay until they died, so they had to take regular shots to stay human. He’s the one who gets the zombies into the white house so that he could blame it on China and get the US into a war with them. That way he could send in his soldiers and infect the populace. From there, he’s the only one with the cure so he could rake in LOTS of money selling it to the world. AKA: he wants to use the US military to infect everyone so he can make a profit. He gets infected by Jason and gets away... then meets up with someone who gives him an inhibitor. This someone is working for Tricell, the big bads of re5 who work under Wesker. So it leads right into the fifth game. That’s all he is, a tie in and yet another example of someone in power trying to profit off the viruses of the RE world. Honestly, nobody else is worth mentioning. Animation: They’re getting better at it. Leon and Claire looked especially pretty, but there’s still a stiffness here and an issue with everyone’s mouths while they talk. I want to praise how different SOME of the characters look - the president and his aides all look appropriately aged and grizzled and distinct. Same with Jason. Other characters (side characters mainly) kinda look generic. Shen Mei for example isn’t very distinct. I mean, her grandpa and brother (both one scene wonders) were more realistic looking than she was. Even Claire - they gave her a bigger nose and made her look more in line with her Revelations 2 model (thank god I love that model). Movement was pretty fluid, I wish we’d seen more fighting and cool action -- though not to the extent of Vendetta. Maybe that’s what they were trying to avoid, but it didn’t make it any fun to watch. Enemies: This is the last thing I’ll comment on. The zombies were fine - they always are. I heard a ton of reused sounds from remake2, as well, but I thought of it as an Easter Egg more than anything. They looked good, their gore was good, all set there. Problem was, they were basically the only bad guys. That’s a huge fucking disappointment. I know people recognize this series as ‘the one with the zombies’ but that’s not true. Every game (save 7) had MULTIPLE enemy types all created through bio engineering. In this show we see three types. THREE. Zombies. Zombie rats - a one-scene wonder that Leon dispatches fast and easy. I’ll admit, they looked cool but there was nothing else to them. “They’re a bioweapon” and then Leon fries them all with some electricity and we’re done. Jason’s mutated form. Okay, I have to admit, I really loved his design. He was cool, I liked that he could talk and emote. But, other than that? He didn’t DO anything cool. He mutated once and hopped around a lot. That’s it. I mean, a bioweapon that keeps his mental capacities? C’MON! We could’ve done so much more with him. Again, this goes back to why the climax was so bad -- he and Leon didn’t fight. One jumped, the other ran around to catch up and fired a few bullets and a rocket at him. Then he used an acid bath to finish the job. (Also, explain to me WHY he mutated into a tyrant-like creature while everyone else with that specific virus was another form of zombie? We see Jun (Shen’s brother) mutating almost crystal-like at one point but... what? You leave them off for a while and they turn into crystal zombies? Make it make sense.) I’m sure there’s more to say, but honestly, unless you’re a hardcore RE fan like me, I’d say you can skip it. It wasn’t a fun ride, there weren’t any stakes, it wasn’t emotional... it just... was. I will end on one good note that made me smile, though: I loved seeing the Ashley Easter Egg.

[whump-town]

Not Your Fault

Warning for mentioning Carl Buford (but not what he did), nightmares, stabbing, fighting, guns, language, and lots and lots of angst, drugged, Mr. Scratch

Wheezing, eyes half-lidded Hotch weakly tries to push him away. Feeling Morgan’s body move overtop his own. His nose breaks with a snap. The pain doesn’t register at first. Seconds, one-- two-- three throbs of his aching chest, pass before he feels it. The pain that eats his entire face whole. “Mor--Morgan!” he whimpers, feeling rather than seeing his palm push at Morgan’s arms.

Honestly, I don’t even know if I like this fic but I wrote it and as long as someone likes it that certainly something so--- also not a whole lot to do with Scratch but i just have no excuse I just didn’t want to think about that man• I also didn't proofread this so that might turn out to be an embarrassing mistake

The dark halls of the building are causing his heart to beat erratically. Aaron Hotchner kicked his fear of the dark at four years old but that doesn’t stop the apprehension weighing his ease down. Peter Lewis has taken his mind, his peace. George Foyet, with everything that he had taken from Hotch, hadn’t taken his sanity. Hadn’t replaced his capabilities with insecurities. Peter Lewis has taken from Aaron Hotchner his ability to believe himself sane. And, twenty-nine hours ago, he took Derek Morgan. And now Aaron Hotchner isn’t sure about anything.

“Reid,” he pinches the radio on the cuff of his sleeve. Eyes scanning the clearing in front of him for movement. If anything can go wrong, if anything rushes him, he’s likely to not even see it coming. Which plays far too well into Lewis’ favor. “Reid, I’m coming down the east wing hall. Headed your way.” The last thing he needs is to freak the kid out by coming around the side too fast. An advanced IQ doesn’t eliminate his fear of the dark and that’s what Hotch is afraid of setting off.

Something hits his thigh, the breezing, rasping sound of fabrics running alongside one another as whoever it was taking off in the other direction. Heavy thudding boots on the ground. Hotch opens his mouth, certain it can only be Mr. Scratch, but his vision blues. His mouth waters so thickly he feels no control over his tongue. Tilting dangerously to the left, Hotch leans into the wall. Arms thrown out to collect his fall but his elbows smack the cement and he grunts with the sharp pain.

A hypodermic needle peaks at him. Buried in his upper thigh, the plunger dispensed. He’s got no idea what was in it but whatever it is it’s in him now and he knows one thing for certain: he’s fucked.

As much as his stomach protests, he pushes himself back up to his feet. “I--,” he clears his throat, gagging weakly and watching his spit slide thickly off his lips. “Reid?” he calls, his voice bouncing down the walls. “Prentiss!” His shout scratches against the back of his throat and he falls boneless to his knees. He vomits. Acidic and cramped. When he pitches with gags, he nearly falls into the mess.

“Hotch!” Prentiss calls over the radio. The static consumes his every thought but he can’t reach his cuff. Can’t force his fingers around it. “I’ve cleared the third hall.” She mistakes his silence for understanding. “I’m in the main hall headed your way.”

The plunger. He looks down and his fingers are have curled around it. He can’t remember pulling it out. Looking up, he realizes someone is running down the hall at him. He can hear the feet rapidly hitting the ground as they approach. His head becomes an unbearable weight. The grunt he emits sounding as if it comes from someone else entirely. “No,” he rasps, his hard beating hard but slow. He can feel each pulse. He tries to turn but falls heavily onto his shoulder.

A hand grabs his shirt, pulling with surprising strength, and Hotch finds himself on his back. Facing his offender.

Gun drawn, sweating, and breathing heavily Derek keeps his aim steadily pointed down at his superior. “Put-Put your hands up!”

Blinking heavily, drugs slowing his breathing and his poor heart trying to keep going, Hotch looks up at his friends. Dizzily, he tries to sit up but grows sick and falls back. “Morgan?” he grunts. He hopes that the weak shake in his voice is enough. That his pleading, pained gaze in his eyes conveys it. He’s not a threat. Everything’s okay.

He remembers how Morgan had been when Mr. Scratch took him. Very cautious, as if approaching a rabid or frightened animal. He’s ashamed, pained by the fact that he can’t share that sentiment. That comfort.

“I said--” the gun makes a distinct clicking sound. Loaded. “Put your hands up!”

Hotch lets out a pained whimper, losing parts of himself as his vision creeps into black. His head hits the cement hard, he can feel the jarring impact in his teeth. With a grunt, he attempts to pick himself up if to just look at Morgan but as he fails to get his chest up using his arms Morgan kicks out at his chest. Knocking what little breath Hotch has away. His head cracks back down. Biting back down a cry, he curls his knees up. Protecting himself reflexively. His throat feels like straw. “Der--” he weakly pulls at his own neck. Fingers pushing down between his tie and collar. Panicking at how tight his throat feels.

The quick, fear provoked movements put Morgan on edge. The drugs in his own system are forcing his adrenaline to do crazy things and his awareness is gone. He’s unable to distinguish safety from danger. He doesn’t understand Hotch’s movements or his soft pleas. He just knows his childlike fear and those quick jerky movements. “Stop moving!” Even if the order comes out shaky, he means it. Tentatively, when Hotch keeps writhing making choked little sounds, Morgan hits him. The solidity, the pain of the motion blossoming across his knuckles is soothing.

It’s understandable.

Hotch stops moving, stunned. Morgan feels good. Safe. So he hits Hotch again.

Wheezing, eyes half-lidded Hotch weakly tries to push him away. Feeling Morgan’s body move overtop his own. His nose breaks with a snap. The pain doesn’t register at first. Seconds, one-- two-- three throbs of his aching chest, pass before he feels it. The pain that eats his entire face whole. “Mor--Morgan!” he whimpers, feeling rather than seeing his palm push at Morgan’s arms.

He can’t fight back. Can’t twist away. It’s too hard to breathe. He’s slipping. Blood hazes his vision, it lies thickly on his tongue. “Okay,” he cries. “Please,” his hand finds Morgan’s chest. The soft material of his stained cotton shirt. He pushes weakly, trying to get him off. “Morg-- ‘s okay. ‘S okay. Stop. Please. Please, stop.”

Heart pounding in her chest, Emily Prentiss had once wondered what the worst sound she could hear come over these radios. At the top is children. Even the ones that they can save, to hear their pained cries or the soft way their voices are muffled by her friend’s shoulders is heartbreaking. Gunshots, the ones that don’t come from friendly fire, are right up there too. Every once in a while, she considers if she’ll ever have to listen to one of her friends die. The radio’s static breaks through to the slowing of ragged, wet breaths until nothing.

Would there even be noise at all? A head shot. Dead before they even hit the ground. Silence.

“It’s okay--”

Emily’s feet hit the ground. Sounding out her rapid approach.

“Derek--”

She stops, body pitching forward as her brain struggles to place what that sound was.

A choked, wet sound breaks through the radio. More bone across flesh, relentless. “Derek, please!” The calm has faded. The struggle has died down. “Please, please it’s me. It’s me--” static. Hotch’s line turns to nothing. To the silence of a broken line.

Emily finds them just as Derek finds the courage to get his gun. It trembles in his hand, his fingers struggle to find his grip around the handle. Hotch is on the floor. His legs spread open and limp, arms splayed by his side, and head turned away from her. If his chest rises, she can not see it. “No!”

Derek flinches, turning his gun from Hotch’s unmoving body to Emily. There are tears streaming down his face, blood all over his hands. He sniffles when he sees her, “Emily?” He looks over at Hotch and then back to her, his gun wavering in his grip. “I don’t--” a soft sob breaks from his mouth. His face slick with sweat. “I don’t know what happened,” he whispers. Weakly, his right-hand drops from his gun, letting it dip in his grip as he wraps a hand around his stomach. He gags, gun dropping as his hands come over his mouth. Turning his back to her, and curling into the wall he pukes weakly.

“What did you do, Derek?” Emily has to keep pointing her gun at him, afraid. She wraps her hand around the gun Morgan’s dropped to the floor. Both his arm wrapped around his stomach as he sobs, spitting the remaining puke from his mouth. His bloodshot eyes look over at her, complete misery and confusion in them. “I’m sorry,” he says, leaning back and sliding down the wall.

She crouches beside Hotch, clenching her teeth at the red marks across Hotch’s neck. Derek’s hands left in deep red bruising all the way around the soft, pale skin of Hotch’s neck. Hand trembling, she presses two fingers under his chin. Her own heart pounding, she waits to feel Hotch’s. Waiting, not even aware that she’s holding her breath. “He’s alive,” she whispers, relieved. Her relief is mutual, Morgan lets out a soft noise. She suspects it to be a soft cry.

Keeping her eyes on Morgan, she places her own gun in its holster and the other on the ground on the opposite side of Morgan. With one hand she cups Hotch’s cheek, tilting his head back while the other uses her own radio. “Dave, I need medics. As many as you can find. It’s bad.” There’s a distinct lack of hot breath against the inside of her wrist. Holding her own breath, she waits for Hotch to do something. Twitch, moan or just exhale. Nothing.

Panic swelling, she pulls herself up. She pats at Hotch’s face, startled by how limply he goes with the movement. “No, no, no,” she starts pulling at his vest. Agitation burning quickly as she struggles with all the damn velcro. Pushing her hand underneath the chest plate, she curls her hand into a fist. Hard, enough to hurt, she pushes into his sternum. “Hotch?” She rubs her knuckles into the buttons on his dress shirt. It hurts her hand, it should hurt him. “Hotch, please!”

Nothing.

“Is…” Morgan has curled his knees under his chest. Watching her. “Did I--” his voice breaks.

Her rubbing produces one, singular grunt. Pained and guttural.

“Hotch?”

His face pinches, eyes darting under his eyelids. For a moment, she thinks he’s back. He’s not aware. The whites of his eyes barred his left-hand moves blindly up as if to his mouth. Weakly, he chokes and Emily makes a startled sound pulling him up by the straps of his vest so he can rest on his side. She expects vomit. He seizes. Muscles impossible tight but his body jerking as if his bones have turned to string. Her brain takes a moment too long to realize what’s happening.

Morgan moves out of muscle memory. Everything about his body craving the ability to help, to do something. He inches closer just a flinch of movement, and Emily throws herself over Hotch. Her body over his and throws an arm out. “No,” she says firmly. “Stay there.” She doesn’t move, the two of them frozen in their equal fear, as the hall lights up with noise. Flashlights hitting the walls.

“Down here!” someone shouts.

Morgan pushes himself to the wall, hands folded into themselves pulled to his chest. Oh god, he rocks himself. Head bowing to rest against his knees. What did he do?

“How long has he been like this?”

Lights that seem to come from nowhere are fastened and held overhead. Emily stays right by Hotch’s side, moving to cushion his head so he doesn’t bash it against the ground. They throw so many questions at her but she doesn’t know. “A--A minute,” she decides. “He’s been seizing for about a minute.” She knows how important it is to time seizures but there was so much going on.

“Are you sure?” they ask.

She shakes her head. “I was-- I was distracted!” she admits. “A minute,” she repeats. “A minute or two it’s not that big of a difference!”

Morgan watches them closely, pliant to the examiners giving him the once over. He startles when Reid comes to his side. His hair is plastered to his forehead but doesn’t touch him. Just stands there, answering the examiner’s questions when Morgan remains silent. He doesn’t even hear them.

“No,” Reid grabs at Morgan, forcing him back to the ground.

Hotch is lifted, calm now, and still. Too still. JJ walks at his side. Emily is trapped against Dave as she hoarsely tries to argue her way into going with them. They put him on the stretcher, securing his hips down, and all while keeping pace with the bag. Tube down his throat, it breathes for him.

Emily cries softly, angry now at them and at herself for losing her cool.

JJ glances back once and steadies herself, taking Hotch’s hand and squeezing it as she jogs alongside them.

Morgan realizes his own vision is darkening. Something heavy creeping into his chest. He fights weakly against it, whimpering out Reid’s name. Squatting down, Reid takes his hand, smiling. “You’re okay,” Reid assures him. “It’s okay, Morgan.” His eyes dart between Reid’s terrified but he can trust Reid. To their own accord, his eyes slide shut. “It’s okay.”

That’s what Hotch said.

It doesn’t bring any solace.

He wakes up alone. Through everything, he can ever remember. From tearing his ACL in college, breaking his arm in middle school, fracturing his clavicle in high school-- he never woke up alone. His mother had been there for those grade-school bumps. He would wake up and find her flipping through a magazine. Her eyes had dried of her tears some time ago and determined to look unbothered by seeing her lively son so still on one one of these stiff cots.

Now, not even his mother is around.

The room is silent. Digging his fingernails into his palm, he turns his head up. Forcing himself not to cry as he convinces himself he deserves this. It was only a matter of time.

Forgiving Reid for his missteps, being there for him is second-hand, the sort of thing that never gets a second thought. They’d been there, all of them, easing him through detox. Cleaning vomit, covering his small shivering body with piles and piles of blankets and restraining his arms when he woke up swinging. Never flinching when he threw insults at them. Blaming Hotch for not understanding sooner. Pushing JJ’s comforting attempts away. Ignoring Garcia.

In that same regard, no one blinked at Hotch through the divorce or when he nearly went off the deep end post-Foyet. If he wanted to be an ass, they gave him space. Taking turns being the one to take the blows when he needed to be reminded to eat or drink water. When he needed more, someone to collect him from a bar, pour him into bed, or just sit silently by his side that was perfectly okay too.

But he’s done something inexcusable.

Through all of that, they’ve hurt each other. Reid said some cruel things. Hotch could be mean. Emily distant, cold. Dave is so complex and aggravating. But never had any of them put a hand on one another. Hurt each other.

“Mmm.”

Derek jumps, hissing when he finds a wound he hadn’t even known existed. He looks down, scowling at his gown covered bruised ribs.

“I was wondering when you were finally going to grace us with your presence.” Dave steps into the room, coffee in hand, and puzzle folded over in the other. He’s got a red pen in the hand with his coffee, its ink smeared on the bottom of his hand. “You’ve been out for--” he turns his wrist, juggling his coffee as he moves to see it’s facing. He whistles when he sees the time. “Two and a half days.” He resumes his gate. “Which, you know, isn’t too bad but, come on, even Aaron’s up.”

Derek, who had allowed his head to fall and had until that very moment been avoiding Dave’s gaze, looked up. Which had been Dave’s plan all along. “How is he?” His voice is raspy. Weaker than he’d anticipated.

Dave hums, “who? Aaron?” He sits down in the chair beside the bed, sighing. “Already being a pain in my ass,” Dave answers, flipping his book out and settling down. Even taking a little sip of his coffee. His eyes are already scanning his puzzle. A word search, Derek knows. Dave’s a sucker for them.

“He’s okay?” Derek asks hesitantly.

Dave shrugs, slowing circling his word.

Great, Derek thinks, he’s baiting me. And it’s Dave so he’s got something up his sleeve. “Come on, man,” Derek mumbles. He closes his eyes as his head throbs unsympathetically. Faintly, he hears Dave’s phone ding in his pocket but he’s forcing his head back into the pillows behind him. Trying not to worm around too much as his side acts up. The muscles tensing up and causing far more pain than they’re worth.

Dave pats at the bed and Derek turns his head, squinting his eyes to avoid the unnecessary strain of the lights all around him. “Read this,” Dave hands him his phone. “I don’t have my glasses.” He tosses the phone at the bed, ignoring it further to sit back in his chair with his puzzle. Attention already there.

Derek sighs, taking the phone. “It’s from JJ.” Dave’s phone doesn’t have a lock so he just opens it. “She says… Hotch is getting agitated and she’s leaving him with Emily and taking Reid to get a milkshake. She’s bringing something back for Hotch and if you and I want something we should ask now or starve.”

Dave hums, shaking his head, “poor Emily.”

Derek just looks at him. His head throbs again and he’s angry. He’s confused and angry and none of this makes sense. “Dave,” he grumbles. “What the hell is going on?”

Dave looks up, sensing Derek’s mood shift. He lifts an eyebrow and nods to the phone still in Derek’s hand. “You just read what’s happening,” Dave reminds him. “If you want something go right ahead but I took the kid and Garcia out for lunch. You know they get antsy when things go wrong.”

Things go wrong. Morgan beating Hotch in an empty hallway isn’t things and it can’t be so simply tied up by covering it with a bow and labeling it as just a thing gone wrong. “Things,” Derek hisses. “Things? Dave, I could have killed him. I would have--” that realization hits him like a train. He drops the phone and grabs at his head. His skull splitting in half. “I would have killed him!” And probably Emily too. She was standing right there. She had frozen. Confused, afraid. He was going to kill Hotch and then Emily. His friends.

Dave sits up, putting his puzzle down. “You didn’t,” Dave states simply. “When Emily found you, you were afraid. You were drugged, Derek. It wasn’t your fault.”

Fuck. He’s all this before. Buford and his mother. Except back then it the bitter staining of wine on the back of his teeth and an ache. So much trouble and he couldn’t see himself coming out the other side. Living. His mother had held him, reassuring him over and over that what Buford did wasn’t his fault.

That didn’t change the way it felt.

That something should have snapped within him, right? Something should have made him realize. If he were smarter, he would have known. If he weren’t so fucked up--

“Alright, alright--” Dave’s up, pulling his arms from his head. He’s hyperventilating. Hotch. On that floor. Raspily pleading for him to stop. “Just breathe with me, Derek. You’re alright. You’re alright.” And slowly, piecing together the difference between past and present Derek realizes that this sinking hollow feeling in his chest isn’t going to kill him. He might wish it to-- wouldn’t that be easier than ever having to face Hotch again? Or Emily? Or Reid? Or Garcia.

Garica.

“If you’re feeling up to it,” Dave starts softly. “Aaron does want to see you. Rather badly, in fact.”

Derek Morgan isn’t a coward, alright? He just needs a bit of time.

“When you’re ready,” Dave adds. “No pressure.”

He finds the courage later. Not because he has it but he knows how to force it. Mostly because he naps. Later, after Dave has left. When his room has settled into darkness and he can’t keep his eyes open any longer. He sees Hotch. On his back and there’s a knife in his hands. He can feel every stab that he inflicts and no matter how many times he comes down he can hear Hotch’s voice. Can still feel his hands twisting in his shirt. Begging. Pleading.

And then nothing.

The silence had been the worst part and he knows he’s killed Hotch. They hate him. Reid screams at him, hits him as he cries. Garcia won’t even look at him. Emily’s words return to him in this state.

What did you do, Derek?

And he has to find out. He has to know. What did he do?

The room number is easy to obtain. The nurses have a note for him from Dave, it’s just the room number but he clutches that ripped piece of paper in his hand. Physical comfort. His feet carry him on, his throat tight as he goes. When he finds the door, he just stands there. Watching for the longest time.

He can’t really see Hotch from here. His head is turned into the pillow under his head. Covering his face so Morgan can’t see the bruising or the blood. Anything else is covered by the shirt he’s wearing and the blanket just under his arms.

Emily is sitting beside him, occupied.

He clears his throat, stepping in. “Ho--How is he?” Derek asks softly, eyes never leaving Hotch.

Emily looks up from her book and then looks over at Hotch. Her feet are kicked up on the edge of his bed, she’s comfortably stretched out. “Pretending not to be sleeping,” she answers.

As if on cue, Hotch jumps a little. It takes him a moment but his eyes land on them. His reading glasses are crooked, carefully balanced on his nose. His broken, bandaged nose. The book on his lap falls shut and he looks down, a little dazed, before turning back to them. He stretches himself carefully, speaking in a voice that is distinctly that yawned out, half-awake one people get after napping. “I wasn’t sleeping,” he yawns, shooting a glare at Emily.

She rolls her eyes and turns back to her book. “We both saw you sleeping,” she mumbles.

That’s what Derek secretly loves about them. Reid is a giver. His love is in every little thing that he does so mindlessly for others. Grabbing a cup of coffee for Morgan alongside the one that he takes for himself. Snapping his snacks in half to offer them to whoever is sitting beside him. His love is easy because Reid is.

Hotch and Emily have what only they can. This bitter love-- and he can just imagine the way they’d roll their eyes or scowl at his use of the big L word-- nearly spousal but not really sibling-like. It’s that love that scares him a little. Even if Hotch forgives him (he shouldn’t, he won’t), Emily never will (she shouldn’t, she won’t). Emily will side Hotch. It’s reflexive, the same way if the roles were reversed Garcia wouldn’t forgive Hotch. Not because somehow love devvies up unequal, it's just that you learn that some people you aren’t willing to live without.

Can he live without Emily? Without Hotch? Dave will side with Hotch as well.

And with a dazed blink, he realizes he’s standing here feeling sorry for himself. Knocking his friends over like dominos to see which ones he’ll be left with when the dust clears. He looks down at the floor he realizes not many. If Emily goes, JJ goes. Asking Garcia around is cruel but she will. Her pity might be worse than losing her.

Alone. He’s going to end up alone.

The thin, sheet-like blankets across Hotch’s legs are thrown aside. “I’m going for a walk.” His statement holds more conviction than his actions but that’s okay. Grabbing at his left side, Hotch eases himself up. Paling and losing his breath to pained little puffs of air, Hotch manages to sit up. Which he ends up needing Emily’s help for there in the end, not that he asks.

“You’re going to rip a stitch,” Emily chides, wordlessly fixing where his flannel has fallen off his shoulders. She glances over her shoulder, knowing that if she’s seen everything then Morgan has too. Her fingers work quickly, not really thinking as she buttons his shirt a little more. They’d had to leave it open for the nurses to have access to his bruised sides. Which hadn’t been a problem when he was laying back.

Morgan just lowers his gaze. Knowing that the sight of Hotch’s heavily bruised, scared chest is going to be haunting his dreams. A reminder of what he did.

“No,” Emily says firmly when he puts his feet on the ground. He’s wearing those really nice hospital socks and Morgan can now see that he’s tastefully paired some dark green plaid pajama bottoms with his flannel. He looks silly. The complete opposite version of his normal self but he knows that’s not why Emily has the nerve to tell him what to do. “You’re not walking around.”

Hotch squints his eyes but then sighs. “Fine,” he caves and that takes Morgan by a little surprise. “Derek and I will take the wheelchair.” He cocks his head, a full-on challenge. Morgan can only imagine the look Emily is throwing back at Hotch. He can only see Hotch’s gradually changing features. “Right?”

Suddenly, Derek finds himself at the wrong end of this conversation. Emily turns to face him and Morgan realizes he has to answer. “Oh,” he stumbles. “That’ll work,” he supplies weakly.

So Emily sighs, shaking her head, and gets the wheelchair pulled up the adjacent wall.

“She won’t let me go anywhere,” Hotch informs him. His movements are stiff, Morgan watches each bend and twist. “We’re not bringing her anything back from the vending machines.”

Emily takes her seat, “don’t bring him back, Derek.”

Hotch humphs and as Morgan mechanically comes to stand behind the chair. He’s not sure what to expect but this feels too easy. The wheelchair isn’t even that hard to push. It’s a little weird just staring at the back of Hotch’s head as he walks. Ignoring the ache in his sprained wrist as he does so but it’s better than yesterday.

“Here’s fine.”

Morgan jumps a little, surprised. He’s not even sure how far they’ve gone. Just moving. Trying to do anything but think. To the left is a waiting room, chairs lining the space, and a vending machine. He pushes Hotch to the end of one of the rows and takes the one beside him. “If you’re mad--”

Hotch laughs. He just chuckles but it’s Hotch so it’s such a big deal that it might as well be a laugh. “I’m not mad,” he clarifies and turns to Morgan.

That doesn’t make any sense. His eyes are bloody. Morgan can see the blood vessels and the moons of bruising he put there. His neck hasn’t even healed. Morgan’s hands are still wrapped around his throat. Purple and green. Nasty bruises. Morgan’s surprised he didn’t break his windpipe.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Hotch says as if that’s clear as day. “Scratch he--”

Morgan is suddenly reminded that he isn’t the only one that he has been under Scratch’s hold.

“He showed me my worst fear,” Hotch says after a long pause. “I watched, I thought… Derek, I watched each of you die. I heard JJ’s screams. You were--” his voice thickens with emotion. Hotch clears his throat, wincing a little when it grates his throat. He glances at Morgan and when he’s certain he can say it without crying he admits: “You were right in front of me, Derek, when he shot you. You were looking right at me. And I watched as you died. Helpless.”

Morgan forces his eyes to the floor. He hadn’t seen anything. Well… he can’t really remember but he does remember snippets.

Buford. He’d seen Buford. He’s sure of it. Buford running down the hall, the same hall as Morgan, and then Morgan remembers the throbbing pain of his hand. Standing over Hotch and shaking with fear. His vision fading in and out. Buford turning into Hotch. Hotch into Buford.

“So, no I’m not mad,” Hotch says, his voice distinctly raspy. Forced. “Nothing that happened was your fault and I already know what it’s like to lose you. So this--” he says this so casually. But Derek had seen what he did. He heard it in Emily’s voice and in the way JJ held onto Hotch’s limp hand so fearfully. “This is nothing, Derek.”

Morgan shakes his head. “I could have killed you.”

“But you didn’t.”

Morgan hates him for being like this. Who laid the wiring down in this man’s brain? Why are the wires crisscrossed? So quick to forgive them. Him. He doesn’t deserve this. He needs a lecture. A threat. Something. Fear! For Hotch to yell and scream and upturn chairs with a single swipe of one of his arms. To pull his shirt open and force Morgan to look at what he did. But he doesn’t. No. Hotch has been reading a fucking book and bickering with Emily. As if this is just some run of the mill thing. As simple as some random Unsub doing it.

“I’m not mad at you,” Hotch repeats. “Nothing you can say is going to change that.” Hotch shifts a little, clearly uncomfortable. The chair is pushing his ribs and it's painful. It’s getting to the point where he’s having difficulty hiding it. “Well, I might be mad if you don’t push me over here--” Hotch motions to the vending machine beside them. “I’ll get you a jello cup,” Hotch barters.

Morgan shakes his head. He’s not going to forgive himself but it's a relief to know Hotch isn’t mad. That he’s gotten over all this so easily. He stands, pushing himself up on his knees. “Alright,” he caves.

“How’s your wrist?” Hotch asks, seeing for the first time the bandage wrapped around it. Supporting it.

“Sprained,” he answers simply, pushing Hotch to the machine. “Can you tell if that red jello is cherry or strawberry?”

Hotch leans forward, hand bracing his side. “Cherry,” he says, already punching in its code. He knows Morgan doesn’t like the strawberry. “Does Emily like the Snickers bars or the Milkways?”

Morgan shrugs, “I don’t know… Snickers?”

Hotch nods, “yeah that’s what I was thinking.”

As Morgan pushes him back down the hall, taking directions easily when he falters, he thinks about the simplicity of the Snickers bar in Hotch’s lap. Hotch’s words, clear in his head from before. We’re not bringing her anything back from the vending machines. He’d been playful, teasing Emily but Hotch, by nature, isn’t cruel He’s a great man. Kind and thoughtful. His memory is fantastic, though he might forget a few of the simpler things like a favorite candy bar. But Morgan knows Hotch has more important knowledge stored away.

He knows all of their orders for anything from McDonald’s to complex Chinese takeout. Knows what gas station snacks they like and which teas they drink.

So, Hotch, in the kindness he kept bundled up under those sharp suits, wouldn’t lie to him. It would be cruel which is a distinctly unHotch thing to be. So... He’d meant it.

“You’d better throw that jello cup trash out in the hall,” Emily says when they come back in. “Reid will be jealous if he thinks you got one.” She’s stretched out on the bed since they were gone. Like a cat bathing in the sun. She’s casually reading the book she’d been working on when they left. She doesn't move.

Hotch hands her the Snickers and she smiles, knocking him softly on the side of the head. Which makes Morgan flinch a little but it’s soft and it makes Hotch smile so he turns his face so they don’t see it.

“When are they coming back?” Hotch asks, peeling open his M&Ms. He pours a few into his hands and, as he always does, sorts his little handful into colors and then sections them so there are two of each color paired.

Emily sits up, putting her book down. “They caught him,” she says.

Morgan just stares at the floor.

“The four of them?” Hotch asks without missing a bit.

Morgan can feel Emily’s eyes on him.

“Yep.”

Hotch chuckles, “Garcia and Reid make a better team on their own than all of us combined.”

Emily laughs too but then she thinks about it. “They need us,” she concludes. “Who else would they show up without us? Plus, just from what I heard on the phone with JJ, Reid’s already whining about having to do his own arresting. Says he misses Morgan.” She shrugs, “plus they’d have the whole burning on fire without you around to stop them from putting marshmallows in the microwave or starve to death without Morgan to bring them snacks.”

Hotch agrees to that.

Morgan just stands there. He realizes that this is Emily also taking the steps to make sure he understands they’re okay too. And he’s shocked. This should have been harder, right? He should have lost something. Been punished but he looks up at the two people who he’s expecting something from. Anger. Disappointment. Resentment.

And instead, he watches Hotch pop two orange M&Ms in his mouth. Emily leans back on the bed with her book, one leg popped up on the mattress.

He blinks away the tears swelling.

Oh, he realizes. This is forgiveness. Love.

Their silent “I Love Yous” in the only way they know how. Dave’s had come when he had woken up. Reid and Garcia in the space they gave him. JJ is worrying if he is hungry. And Hotch and Emily are just being themselves. He swallows thickly around the realization.

He loves them too.

[dhaaruni]

Book meme - 1, 5, 14, 18, 69, 94, 121.

Already did 1!

5. something in fiction that reads like poetry

This excerpt by Philip Pullman, it made me cry so much when I first read it, back when I was too young to understand what love was, but old enough to understand how physically and emotionally painful it would be for me.

“I will love you forever; whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again… I’ll be looking for you, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you… We’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams… And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we’ll be joined so tight…”

14. a book that made you trip on literary acid

Sarah Manguso's 300 Arguments like I recently reread it after reading it in 2017 and man, that book was extremely formative to me, without my even realizing it. I internalized so much of what Manguso said, and her work really impacted my writing as well.

18. your least favorite book ever

Lol it's a tie between The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, which I just couldn't get through more than a page of, and any of those "average boring girl meets hot fascinating troubled girl and hot fascinating troubled girl dies a gruesome death and average boring girl tells the story" books like I'm but hot and fascinating AND the narrator of my own story!! The two are not mutually exclusive!! I'm sorry that these authors never got over not being desirable as teenagers but that doesn't mean that girls who are desirable deserve to suffer and die like it reeks of bitterness.

69. your favourite mythological retelling

Does Anne Carson's translation of the Oresteia count? I honestly can't stand most mythological retellings like please keep Madeline Miller's Circe far away from me lol.

94. a book about grieving

Joan Didion's A Year of Magical Thinking. Sometimes I think about how we go on after people leave us, and I just get overwhelmed by it all.

121. a book that makes you nostalgic

Hmmm, probably Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine like I'm a big fairy tale girl and I love both the book and the Anne Hathaway movie albeit in different ways.

[kyberphilosopher]

Chapter Four

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.☆.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

 Death doesn’t come. I have no idea why not, because between that pilot and myself, he was the one that deserved to live. I swear, if someone wants to use the whole ‘Oh, the Force works in mysterious ways!’ comment, I’m snapping and murdering a bunch of younglings.

 Kidding! (Mostly.)  

 A moment or two later, the metal pod we stay in crashes so hard I let out a squeak and am forced to jump up. With a few more twists and turns and bumps, the fighter is finally still. My right ear is ringing, the ship is on its side and I dare not move from my position- but we’re still.

 I try to still my breathing and the beating of my heart, but it’s to no avail. All I can do is blink a few times and attempt to gather my breath.

 “Garreth?” I whisper out, not sure if I really said anything over the ringing of my ear. No response. “Garreth!” I hiss, slightly louder. No response again.

 Time for a plan. Step One: Get Garreth out of his seat and out of the ship.

 Step Two: Search our surroundings and attempt to locate medical supplies.

 Step Three: Vomit, or maybe make that step one.

 Uncurling myself, I crawl over to the escape hatch that should be above me but is instead at my right side. I press a hand against it, squinting my eyes to see outside, but I’m met with nothing but a window covered with dust and the vague outline of possible mountains. I sit back on my hands and bend my knee, then extend it. It cracks the glass slightly. I kick again and again, slightly harder each time until the whole exit just falls off as a whole.

 Cheap Imperial space crap.

 I’m initially blinded by the light and the sun, and I would lift my arm to shield my eyes, but I’m too distracted with the thought of fresh air to care about that. I frantically squirm out of the fighter and onto my hands and knees. The ground beneath me is grassy and wet and laced with mud, reminding me of Takodana and rain. A shame I’m about to ruin it.

 The vomit barrels from my stomach and throat and onto the ground all at once, not wasting any time. When I think it’s down, it pulls me back and forces me to give another lurch of my body. The acid makes my throat burn and sizzle, but it only lasts about a minute before I feel normal enough to attempt to stand.

 Now, I cover my eyes from the light. I can make out mountains in the distance and a cloudy gray sky with sun still peeking through. I can see the start of mechanical structures being made in the distance, waterfalls, giant statues and mountains. I’ve seen this view before. Zeffo.

 A sigh escapes my chest- a sigh of defeat. It seems like I’m just back where I’ve started. I might as well of never left Jakku. Like a continuous circle of nothing mattering and restraint. Have you ever felt that?

 I turn back to the fighter and climb back into the broken ship. I stand slowly, slightly weirded out by the view of the whole tie-fighter being on its side. I stagger, my weight making the thing lurch to the left until it is back in the upright position. Then, the only movements are my boots against broken glass and metal.

 “Garreth!” I whisper shout again. He still does not respond. I can see the back of him slumped over the side of the chair, still secured tightly with two seatbelts making an X across his chest. I unclick them from behind him and he moves slightly, but limply. Pressing my hand to his forehead and pulling it back a little, finding it sticky with both sweat and blood.

 He’s too heavy for me to carry on my shoulder or both hands, so I’m going to have to resort to the next best thing at the expense of grace and comfort for him.

 I grab his wrist and pull him from the chair, where he falls to the floor with a heavy thud, I drag him out of the fighter and to the ground. He is forced to go through the pile of my vomit a little, but I’m sure he won’t mind.

 Observing the man’s face, my eyebrows crease together. His blond hair is stuck to his forehead, mixing with the humid perspiration. Eyes closed, with dried blood smeared across his head, his chapped lips are paling.

 I try snapping in front of his face first. I get no response. Then I blow on his eyes. They flutter, the long, dark eyelashes twitching. Finally, I pull my left hand back. It comes down against his cheek, hard. There is no response.

 Garreth was dead.

 Well shit. No pilot, no ship, no medical supplies, Empire abound. I need to get out of sight as soon as I can. If I’m where I think I am, the village I used to stay at should be somewhere nearby, just to the South.

 I shove my hands in Garreth’s pockets, which is rather disrespectful if you think about it. But at the time, I didn’t care much at all. I knew I had to utilize everything I could possible utilize. I find nothing in the first pocket I search, but a little notebook in the second that I decide to be useful. If he kept dates or important notes related to the Empire in this thing, I could use it to my advantage.

 (That book would end up both ruining, and saving my life. Just, by the way.)

 But for the moment,  if there’s nothing of interest inside the book, I could always sell it for a good amount of money. I find nothing but lint in the other pockets. Instead, I settle to take his Imperial jacket and stuff my arms inside it, ripping the Empire Armband off the shoulder. I through the armband on the rocky ground, and shove the little black book in the pocket. Then I’m left to wonder what to do with his body.

 It seems wrong to just leave him here, even if we’d only known each other for a few hours tops. Besides, if I leave him here and the Empire is still active on this planet, they will surely find him and the wreckage and be forced to investigate. I can’t burn him- that would attract more attention and I don’t have the materials to start a fire. I could push him over the side of a cliff, but that still feels wrong. No way can I take him with me.

 Should I… eat him?

 Instead, I drag him back inside the cockpit and into the seat he previously sat in. I fasten both his seatbelts, and put his hands on the sticks as if he were steering. From there, I dab my fingers in the blood-filled wound on his forehead and drag them across his closed eyes. Every pilot needs their goggles, right?

 (I fucking hate myself.)

 I can only hope he enjoyed being a pilot and his corpse is comfortable. I leave the ship and use the force to send it off and over the edge of Zeffo.

 It skids along the mud, skimming my puke just a little. Pieces of the sides fall of with the movement and the whole thing makes a long, terrible noise of contempt and resistance. Still, whether it wants to or not, the Tie-Fighter slips over the edge of the mountain. A few moments later, I hear a crash that comes when metal combusts on impact. The Empire won’t find anything now.

 I start my hike to the South to find the little village I resided in when I was here last. There are no signs of other humanoid life so far, only aggressive creatures with horns on their heads that ignore me after I use to the force to push them away. The wind would be welcome if it didn’t prick at the corners of my eyes and make them burn with dryness and tears simultaneously. Over time, I feel my pack become heavier and heavier on my back, so I hold it by the straps in my left hand. Unfortunately, the path to the village is mostly hiking and climbing until I see the view I’m looking for.

 While I climb, my gloves slipped from the rocks easier than they latched, so I ended up tearing off the cloth that partially covered my fingers. Streaks of mud decorate my dark outfit and tunic, and pieces of my braid have fallen loose. It reminds me of Ilum and Bracca, but not at all enjoyable or relaxing.

 I need to get medical supplies fast, because the Empire isn’t my biggest problem anymore. Instead, I’m convinced the most pressing concern is the injuries to my stomach. There’s a large bruise spreading from the top of my left hip to over my ribs from when I was thrown to the ground on Jakku. It feels sore and tearing, almost like there’s a giant rip in the skin underneath that’s alarmingly pooling out blood.

 I reach another cliff to climb up, and put my hands on my hips to examine it. It’s not the tallest one I’ve come across today, which is a good thing. I think I’m getting close, at least.

 The sky has become even more gray and cloudy, and a single, fresh drop of water falls in the center of my forehead. Squinting slightly, I take a single finger and wipe the drop off. I don’t think it’s close to nightfall yet, but a rainstorm is not exactly a sign to stay outside. I should find shelter in a cave for the night- I know of a few. Either that, or continue on in the rain.

 I step forward to the cliff and position my right foot on a rock not too far from the ground, my left hand following suit. My other limbs follow, and I begin to climb. I make 3 movements towards the top when I scratch my right knee on a jutted rock.

 It tears through both the fabric of my trousers, and my skin, which immediately begins to sting. I hiss out a curse and glance down at it through the rain. I can see just enough to notice the bright red gash that falls in streaks down my leg with the rain.

 Why me? Why has this been the worst twenty-four hours of my life? I don’t recall doing anything to upset the Force- although perhaps that’s where I’ve gone wrong.

 I push myself back to the ground, luckily not being too far from it. The rain is pouring down harder now, and my knee is burning. Shelter it is.

 I look around the cliff, trying to remember if I saw any caves or alcoves from the route I came from. Nothing comes to mind, but further down the way and to the left of the cliff looks like a rocky tunnel. I decide to take my chances there.

 My left leg moves alright, but stretching my right gives off too much pain. I have to bend it slightly- limp all the way over to the tunnel, which makes me feel somewhat pathetic, no matter how much it’s needed for my health. Inside, it smells like rainwater and a little bit of oil, but it becomes too dark to see anything. I opt to grab the lightsaber, flip the switch and watch the green beam extend in front of me. It gives off enough light for me to navigate a few feet ahead if I squint.

 The ground is flat for a while, but after a while I can feel it begin to slope downward. This could mean many things.

 One: I am walking into the lair of a monster that will eat me. Two: Someone at some point dug this cave and it’s taking me someplace underground. Or three: I am perhaps losing my mind over lack of sleep, dehydration and hunger, lack of medical supplies, and blood loss. This is the most realistic option.

 I can still hear the rainstorm from behind me, at the front of the cave, meaning it’s not too late for me to turn around and rest for a bit until the storm clears near the entrance. However, following the path through the cave and the underground will no doubt take me some place interesting and possibly more secure than the entrance. Maybe it could even be a short cut. I’ve never been one to shy away from a risk. Especially when it could mean life or death.

 I like taking chances that I might lose. Love it, in fact. Jumping from cliffs, not thinking before cutting a wire… I like being so close to death. I think that maybe I really want to die, even when I’m running from it. Either way you interpret what I just said, I still come off as a selfish person. I won’t deny that, anymore.

 The rocks and dirt under my boots crackle under my limp. As I continue my descent into the unknown with only the green lightsaber to guide me, I can’t help but notice how the smell of oil is only becoming more and more potent.

 My brows knittogether in confusion for a moment, as I try my best to think of reasons why there would be oil underground. I’m starting to really suspect that my second guess for what this is cave was used for was correct, and that someone did dig this place out. If this is the case, it could very well mean the Empire. If it’s the Empire, I could very well mean I’m completely screwed. And I’m not exactly combat ready now. If it is the Empire and I can’t sneak around them, my only other option is relying on the force and careful blocks from the  saber.

The crackling noise under my boots shifts to a clang, clang, clang, like metal. Now, I’m not so much as heading down a slope as walking down some metal stairs. Maybe I should’ve turned around when I had the chance. I try to quiet the echoing noises as I go, but it’s not so easy with a limp that forces me to do a bit of a jump.

 Something in my stomach stirs- and no, it’s not my blood. Eyes narrowed in suspicion, I keep my left foot from hitting the next step. Someone is down here.

 The questions that matter here include: Is this person friend or foe, and does it matter? Can they sense me too? And most importantly: Do they have medical supplies?

 I lean forward a bit, stretching my right arm out with the lightsaber to see ahead a little farther. I press my left hand against the wall for balance and try to act like the action didn’t just make me a little woozy. With the light emitting from the sword I can see a little box connected to some wires heading up the rock walls. My right-hand leans forward to feel it for a small button, which I quickly find.

 The space ahead of me lights up, one section at a time. It lights up so brightly, I have to shut my eyes tight to slow the dull pain that comes from being in the dark for so long.  When I peel them open, I can see that yes, the Empire has been here.

 The floor below is made entirely of metal, and to the right side of the room is several tall metal shelves reaching the cave ceiling. To the left is an empty hole that leads nowhere but certain death. The Empire certainly does know how to pick the most… optimal locations, I suppose. Straight ahead of me is a door branding the Empirical Symbol that leads to another section- probably the one where I sensed life.

 I decide the best thing to do is be as quiet as possible to not alert them of my presence while I search the shelves to the right. I shut my lightsaber off, silently willing the door doesn’t open and catch me red handed as I quickly limp over to the shelves.

 A few sections are what I recognize to be storage for virtual secrets. I decide I’ll circle back around to them if I have time. Farther along the way are some neatly kept binders I know better than to even dare touching- I decide to put them off for a while too. Beside those are a few boxes on the top shelves, a rack of rifles on the middle shelves, and SCORE! Multiple boxes labeled MEDICAL SUPPLIES near the bottom.

 Despite how unlucky my day is, this sure is my lucky day. I crouch down, sling my backpack over my shoulder and open it.

 Luckily, I realize Garreth’s Imperial jacket could buy me some time. I’ll just say I’m a new initiate who got lost. I undo the latches on the first batch of supplies and find exactly what I was looking for! Glowing green cannisters called Healing Stims, gauze, a few ointments I’ve never heard of, cleaning cloths, and what I think is disinfectant.

 First thing I do is grab a healing stim, blink a few times to make sure that it’s really what I’m seeing and not a trick of my own mind, and hold it to my abdomen. Then I press down on the top like a syringe.

 It feels like pressure from any shot, but I can feel my body relaxing as the bruising pain in the area seems to evaporate with the pressure. Pulling my vest and undershirt up, I can see that the giant bruise from my hip to my ribs is fading already. I wonder what to do with the empty stim, and decide to simply throw it back in their box, just so they know someone has been through here and openly disrespecting them. I take out another stim and push it just above the cut on my left knee and ignore the stinging. I put the empty stim back in the box again, and trade it for a cleaning cloth, which I use to take away some of both the dried and fresh blood.

 In a matter of seconds, the large open wound fades to a large, white scar on my knee. It becomes nothing more than some injury I sustained as a child. I let my face relax a little at the small victory. Then I grab some of the gauze and wrap it around the knee, just in case I need some help after limping around for so long, and put the rest of the supplies in my bag. It’s all so small, it barely takes up any space inside.

 I doubt they keep food on these shelves, but maybe there’s some water cannisters. Worth a look right? I stand up, ever so happy I don’t feel the need to limp anymore and my stomach doesn’t howl in pain, and turn to the next shelf. Unfortunately, it’s more or less the same thing, but I take more medical supplies anyway.

 “I don’t see why we need to have this conversation again.”

 Uh-Oh.

 The voice comes from behind the door, but still fairly close. They’ll open it in a few seconds, and I’ll have little to no cover behind shelves that you can see through. I can hear their footsteps come closer and I start to think of some way to get out of this.          

 “You failed me apprentice.”

 “Master, I… the Jedi was too quick. I underestimated him.”

 Kriff.

 “Yes, you did,” the first voice seethes. It’s a man’s voice I think. It sounds raspy and gravelly like it comes from the back of his throat, but still a little young.

 From behind the door, I hear the familiar buzz of a lightsaber turning on, a quick sob and a louder buzz to indicate movement on the weapons part. A few seconds go by- I’m holding my breath. Then, the voice croaks, “Dispose of the body.”

 The door opens and my stomach panics, forcing me to quickly run and duck behind the last set of shelves. Shit, shit, shit- I’m so fucking screwed now.

 Still holding my breath and ignoring my hammering heart, I decide to get a look of who I need to get past this time. I peak my head over the shelf and the first thing I notice is the long, blood red lightsaber held in the man’s hand.

 The man holding the red lightsaber has a lanky, thin build- clad in dark armor with the emblem of the Empire stamped onto his shoulder gear. He dawns a helmet that reminds me a little of a shape of a leaf, and split into multiple layers for him to see out of. With his lack of gloves, I notice his skin is a blue-grey hue. His whole look is made to strike fear into his enemies and subordinates.

 Before he gets a chance to look my way, I turn back around and try to formulate a plan. I really don’t want to fight this guy, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to just sneak out of here without a fight. He looks powerful, and maybe a Sith.

 “Yes, Eighth Brother,” a clone- Stormtrooper- says behind him. He and the Stormtrooper next to him give a silent nod and begin picking up the limp body of some kind of apprentice.

 Do the Sith really kill their own? I suppose that makes another difference between them and the Jedi. The Jedi are more united and tranquil with each other, while Sith make work together but merely tolerate. If given the opportunity to kill for their benefit, they would. I’m not sure I blame them. It’s not like the Jedi would never do such a thing.

 In dire circumstances, anybody, no matter how good, can resort to ‘terrible’ things. I wonder if this Eighth Brother was once a ‘good’ person… I bet he was.

 If I’m lucky, he’s just passing through and he’ll be gone momentarily. Maker, how foolish of me to have thought that I could escape this without such a problem. It’s my own damned fault.

 The, the air around me feels suddenly very still and stale and cold, like someone has frozen time and focused on me. He’s looking over here. He knows I’m here.

 My breath hitches in my throat, and my mouth becomes rather dry. Moving will draw more attention to me, so I can’t exactly escape now. I’m even more screwed than I was earlier, if that’s possible. Luckily, something stops my being screwed.

 It’s another presence- by the stairs I entered through. Did someone follow me? No, I would’ve known. So, who is this person, then?

 I hear the buzz of a lightsaber springing to life, and now I have to get a look at this stranger. It seems the Eighth Brother is distracted by this person too, because the air around me becomes less tense and more breathable. While his attention is turned, I do the same. Scooting to the other end of the shelf, I peek my head around the corner once more to observe this person.

 The intruder is another man with a stockier build than the Brother, and long, sandy-brownish-reddish hair tucked back in a series of buns going down the back of his head. His jaw is a bit unshaven and rugged, with tattoos in elegant black lines crawling up his neck and peaking over his light-colored robes. In his outstretched hand, the lightsaber is clunky and entirely made of rusty metal. The weapon itself is a deep shade of blue, contrasting the red weapon held across the room from him. His eyes are laced with determination and preparedness for a fight, his rather bushy eyebrows knitted together.

 It seems this Jedi hasn’t sensed my presence at all. In my head, on a not so serious note, I can’t help but think about how relieved I am to have a Jedi Council moral freak not know of my existence.

 “It’s over,” the Jedi says in a gruff voice. “Stop this immediately.”

 “Stop this… immediately?” The darkly dressed man cockily repeats with a little scoff. “Stop what?”

 “This oppressive Empire has gone on long enough. Your excavation efforts on this planet will come to a stop, your crimes against the Jedi will come to a stop-” the Jedi raises his lightsaber to be level with his eyes, which narrow in aggression, “-you will be stopped, by any means necessary.”

 Is this Jedi threatening death? How very… Jedi of him. It takes nearly all of my power not to reveal myself from hiding and very sarcastically yell that out. It also takes nearly all my power to keep myself from laughing in this very serious moment.

 I might be really losing it, if I ever actually had it.

 “Is that a threat, Jedi?” The Sith seethed, last word dripping with poison.

 “The only threat here is you, Inquisitor.” The Jedi takes a fighting stance I recognize but cannot name, and the ‘Inquisitor’ bends his back leg and raises his saber slightly in response. If I were him, I would smirk behind that uniquely shape mask- something tells me he is.

 “If you want to stop me, come and try,” he counters. And then I decide that I like the Eighth Brother way more than this rogue Jedi.

 The auburn haired man lets loose a battle cry, and then the next second is filled only with the sounds of feet hitting the metal paneling of the floor, the buzzes of lightsabers, and the stressful wait that comes from it. Then the two lightsabers clash together, and I am both blinded and deafened.

 Peaking my head around the corner again, I can see the Inquisitor takes defense while the Jedi goes on the offensive, the spot where their swords meet nothing but a shining dot of white. Blue and red, light and dark, Jedi and Sith. What are the chances of me kriffing sneaking out of here now?

 I whip my head back around, trying to formulate a plan while they hash it out. Perhaps I could bring down a rock from the ceiling and crush them both? No, then the whole cave would come down around me and I’m not so certain I have the Force capability to hold all that off. Throwing heavy things at them would work, if it didn’t pose the risk of one of them catching it and being made hyper aware of my presence.

 Then I wonder if I made myself fully known to them if they would stop fighting and temporarily ally to beat their common enemy. I have no allegiance to either the Jedi, the Republic, the Council, the Sith, the Empire, or the Dark Side. Would it truly take a threat to both of them to stop their fighting? Maker, the both of them are so ridiculous.

 The repeated sparks from sabers meeting aggressively stop. “You are a foolish Jedi- I have enjoyed hunting you down.”

 Yep. The Jedi is foolish.

 “Did your apprentice?” The Jedi quips. “Did you kill her?”

 “She was waste. Not as promising as others present.”

 Don’t you fucking dare be talking about me Inquisitor. I will lose my god damn mind- for real this time- if I have to go through one more ridiculous trial today. That’s a promise. I swear on the Force and whatever gods exist in every system.

 “I suppose I should be flattered?”

 “On the contrary,” the Inquisitor drawls. “It wasn’t for you, Jedi. Your devotion to the Light side has made you blind to the state of things.”

 “And I suppose the Dark side is different?” I can hear the Inquisitor sigh through his mask. I would sigh myself if I were out of the way of danger.

 There is power in the Dark side. I truly believe any force user is capable of harnessing that power without succumbing to it. Even if they did ‘succumb’ to it, would that truly be so terrible? I know about the draw backs, of course I do. But it is tempting every force user, day in and day out. The powers it wields are far stronger than any monk like faith the Light side promises.

 “You have been blinded to the world- to the people who care about you!”

 That’s probably why he turned to the Dark side to begin with: nobody cared enough to watch and catch his descent before it spiraled out of control.

 “I will not allow you or the Empire to cause suffering anymore.” I can see the Jedi raise his left hand upwards, his gaze shifting to the cave ceiling above. “I will free you.”

 He intends to bring the whole thing down! No! The Inquisitor looks upward as well, and I can feel the disturbance bubbling inside him as too. The Jedi brings his hand down, and the whole cave shakes.

 Without thinking, abandoning almost every value I have, I jump out from my hiding and sprint near the Inquisitor, throwing my hands in the air and feeling the weight of the cave. I half expect everything to fall upon me anyway, but it doesn’t. Instead, it’s just heavy and silent.

 The rocks would’ve fallen and crushed all of us. Don’t get it wrong by the way- I’m not doing this to save them. There’s just no kriffing way I’m going to die curled up in some ball because an idiot Jedi went to extreme means to conquer some random guy. While it is probably the only time I’ve kind of liked a Jedi, I like my own life even more. I’m just looking out for number one.

 When I open my eyes, the Jedi is staring at me, eyes wide and baffled. Above me, light from the sun peaks through the new hole, along with drizzles from the rain which apparently hasn’t stopped. The biggest rocks spins slightly, and when I lose just the tiniest bit of concentration, it sputters a little in the air as a warning. The rest of them just hang in the air one by one.

 “I told you so,” the Inquisitor seethes. I hear his lightsaber become sheathed within itself and some footsteps. “A visitor.”

 “Are you a Jedi?” The man in front of me calls out, his blue lightsaber still out and alive. I don’t answer him, just meet his eyes and try not to buckle under the weight of the force above me. “A padawan?”

 Gods, if all Jedi are like this I’d rather just become a Sith now. Stop asking me questions when I’m trying to work. That’s all I ask.

[hollywwav]

Climbing the Corporate Ladder (DiaDop fanfic)  Chapter 2

READ ON AO3

Summary: The new president and his young assitant come to change things for good on Passione Inc., a company dedicated to make up and female beauty.

The young boy is secretely in love with his boss, but thanks to an embarassing accident he will have the chance to get more closer to him! Or not…?

An AU where Doppio, the Bucci gang and other characters work for Diavolo, with the special participation of La Squadra!

Warnings: none.

Chapter 2:  [ＴＯＵＣＨ ＭＥ] //ΛLLNITELONG//     

So Diavolo got closer again to kiss him passionately, with much more strenght that before. Doppio just closed his eyes and got carried away with the pleasure his boss was giving, but it scalated quickly for him when Diavolo rubbed his leg between his crotch and ripped off his white shirt, making some buttons pop out and revealing the young boy’s pale chest. The boss was hungry for Doppio’s body and started to kiss and suck on his delicate skin. Doppio was so impacted by Diavolo’s actions, the only thing he could think in that moment was that everything wasn’t happening and it was a wonderful dream, that it couldn’t be possible... then he looked at the office’s door, glanced at the tiny picture frame of Trish above the desk and realized the gravity of the situation, pushing the boss away quickly, trying to escape from what he thought was a fantasy ...

“N-No!! Ahh... we can’t!!”

“Uhh?!! What?” said his boss, concerned about the boy’s reaction.

 “Oh... was I too rough for him, right?”

“We can’t... do this!... anyone could enter... to the office...”

“I can’t do this!... you’re married!... and your daughter...” said the boy trying to catch his breath, with little drops of pleasure tears running down his cheeks.

Diavolo stood there with a blank face for a moment and then started laughing for Doppio’s surprise.

“Oh, my Doppio... hahaha... you get worried for such silly things!... hahahaha...!!”

“Eh?...”

Diavolo touched the boy’s face softly and looked at him with a tender smile.

“I’m happily divorced since a couple of years ago, Doppio. And well, about Trish... she still visits me from time to time. I live alone in this moment.”

“...oh...” said Doppio, feeling dumb about the whole situation, and a bit relieved at the same time.

“And you... are single too?”

“Y-yes”

“So... there’s nothing wrong about what we are doing...would you like me to continue?”

“Well, actually...” the boy looked aside shyly and thought about the correct words to say.

“I don’t know... I really liked it, boss... but I think there is something wrong. We shouldn’t do these kind of things here... and also... I’m a bit surprised, I thought you would get mad. I really didn’t expect you to like me... at all”

“...”

“I understand. And yes, you’re right... we can’t do this here...” Diavolo crossed his arms and looked down, thoughtful.

“...So... what now...?” said the young boy, afraid about the destiny of all this issue.

“Let me propose you something, my Doppio. If you’re still interested in this... would you like me to take you to my favorite hotel after work? I promise nobody will know about this, if you’re worried about it...”

“Oh...” Doppio just stood there with a astonished face.

“I will give you some time to think about it. If you accept, please let me know before 7:30pm. If you’re still unsure and need more time, you can also tell me.”

“O-ok, boss... thank you”

“Now please go and wash your face. We have so much to do in so little time...”

“Understood. I will go and-” the boy stopped on his tracks and came back to Diavolo.

“What’s wrong?”

“I-I’m sorry, but you teared down my shirt. Now I will have to use the vest and fix my tie so no one notices it...”

•❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅••❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅••❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅•✦❅✧──────❅•

Doppio washed his face and slapped his right cheek in an intent to check if he was still in the real world. Then looked at himself in the mirror, trying to process all that happened.

 “The boss... he kissed me... he touched me... he... he was going to rip all my clothes off...!!”

   “What should I do now? My dream came true and I don’t feel prepared for it... this sounds like a joke!!”

   “N-no, no, no... Calm down, Doppio. Now you will focus on the work, we don’t want to get hard again in front of other people!”

  “Yes, you will go and take care of the job... and just after that, you will say your boss you accept his invitation. Nothing can go wrong, the guy is divorced and lives alone. You can fill the emptiness of his heart easily... you will drive him crazy with your cuteness”  The boy felt a sudden sense of self-confidence, and he was going to take advantage of it. Yes, he felt capable of doing anything right now. Nothing was impossible.

Narancia, the assistant from the accounting department, entered the bathroom when Doppio was drying his hands.

“Hey Doppio, how you doing- Woah! You look feverous today! You got the flu, too?”

“Uhh... yeah... I think I’m getting sick too... I’d have to take care about myself but, well...”

The hours passed in a blink, literally, and the long-awaited hour was approaching. Doppio finished managing the last calls and checked the clock. 7:00 PM. He was nervous, but decided to go to the boss’ office anyways. He was more excited than anything. The young assistant knocked on Diavolo’s office, and quietly entered when he received the permission to do so.

“Umm... boss... can we talk about the proposition you made to me this morning?”

Diavolo stopped typing on his laptop, smirked, and crossed his legs.

“Of course, my Doppio. Have you decided yet?”

“Y-yes... I... I accept...” said shyly, looking down and scratching his neck a bit.

“Perfect. Let me arrange these things so we can leave in a few minutes. Do you still have to finish anything yet?”

“No, my work is done. But if you need anything else, I can take care of it right now”

Diavolo packed all his things in the briefcase and Doppio did the same with his belongings, then put on their coats and scarfs to cope with the cold temperature. The boss guided him outside to his black car, glued to the phone and talking to god knows who in another languaje the young assistant didn’t understand.

“It must be italian... I can’t really understand anything but... ahh... it sounds so romantic”

Doppio sat down in the soft car seat and Diavolo drove directly to the hotel, one of the highest and fanciest buildings in the city. The young boy was so excited to be in the same car with his boss, and glanced at him every second, admiring his facial features and long hair. Now the boy realized that Diavolo’s hair had a really nice scent, like strawberries. Doppio thought about asking him what shampoo did he use, because he never saw a product with that kind of fragance. Oh, he was so nervous. They didn’t say a word in the entire ride, so Doppio started laughing a bit, because of the nervousness and expectations.

Before entering the hotel room, Diavolo broke the silence.

“Oh, do you want anything to eat before this? Are you hungry?”

“N-Not really. Giorno brought sandwiches this afternoon from that artisan bakery he loves, and I think I had too much... ugh, I got full by eating so fast...”

“Oh... haha”

They both entered and placed their heavy coats on an armchair. Doppio glanced at the interior of the room and was amazed by such luxury. It looked like those photos from an 80’s department and home decor magazine. Ceramic floor with a dark crimson color, a large sofa ubicated around a small glass table, a couple of more black armchairs, geometric dim lights, silky curtains matching the crimson scheme and several palm pots distributed throughout the place. The curtain was half opened and Doppio could observe a bit of the dreamy vision of the night and luminous city.

“Woah... this place is amazing, boss!”

“I know, right?. That’s why it’s my favorite hotel. Do you want to drink something?”

“M-maybe a glass of water?” Doppio’s throat was really dry.

Diavolo walked to the bedroom and stopped when he realized the boy was distracted with the external view, not following him.

“Doppio... you can come in already...”

“Oh- Ok!”

The boy entered and sat on the king size bed, and started bouncing his leg, looking aside. His nervousness did not dissapear. Oh no. He was starting to feel unsure about what he was going to do. He felt like he couldn’t get on the mood again like he did in the morning. He was thinking about dropping out of this.

“Should I tell him I don’t want to do this anymore? He will get mad!! Could I please him exactly like he is expecting to? Am I worthy?? Am I capable???... oh no, I think I’m going to cry again...”  

“My Doppio... you don’t have to be nervous right now. Everything is gonna be ok” said his boss caressing his cheek.

“Uh-huh...”

“Come here” Diavolo wrapped his arms around the boy’s waist and helped to sit on his lap.

“W-what are we going to do, exactly?” the boss chuckled a bit.

“My sweet Doppio... you’re so innocent... I love that...”

Diavolo kissed him directly, a hot and juicy kiss that made the young boy melt. Then started to push his tounge inside, making the boy taste him completely. It’s was his first time french-kissing. For some reason Doppio thought about an acid candy. Strange. After some seconds they broke the kiss to catch the breath, and then Diavolo started to unbutton the boy’s vest and undo his red tie.

“I’m really sorry for tearing down your clothes...”

“Well... I... I actually liked it... I think that was kinda hot...”

“Really? Then... can I rip it completely? I will buy you a new one”

“Yes, please!” said the boy eagerly, with a full flushed face and dilated eyes.

The older man smirked completely satisfied with the boy's attitude and ripped off slowly his shirt with a loud groan. Doppio felt like he was going to be eaten by an enormous fantasy creature, like a werewolf or something like that. He looked so vulnerable in comparison. Diavolo finished tearing the fabric and enjoyed how the buttons popped out everywhere, and now he was facing at the assistant’s bare chest, inhaling and exhaling agitated by the growing arousal. Doppio’s heart was beating like crazy.

“Mmm...ohhhh.. boss...!!”

“Oh... Doppio... what cute nipples you have...”

The boy was pinned down to the bed and Diavolo started rubbing his nipples gently, as well the rest of his abdomen. It was like he wanted to touch and memorize every aspect of his employee’s body. Doppio closed his eyes and remembered the daydream from that morning. He started to drool a bit.

“Ohh... boss... you’re... you’re so nice with me...!”

Diavolo didn’t reply, instead wrapped his mouth around one of the rosy nipples and sucked and licked it slowly, making the boy’s dick twitch in his pants. Doppio felt like he was going to explode.

“Ohhh... ahhh...!!!”

The boss kissed him everywhere, focusing on his neck, and then unbuttoned his pants and slipped them off, revealing his purple boxers. Doppio thought he was going to take it off in that exact moment,but his boss just got closer to his member and gave a little kiss through the fabric. It made the young employee shudder and moan loudly.

“My Doppio... my sweet little Doppio... I wanted to do this since the first time I saw you...”

“W-what? R-Really, boss?...”

“Yes. I didn’t really know how to declare myself. I’m so glad you accepted to be with me tonight...”

“...H-Honestly... I still think this is a dream... everything is so perfect... you took me in your car... and then allowed me to be in your favorite hotel room... you’re touching me like no one ever did... I think I’m dead and went to my own heaven...” Diavolo stopped what he was doing and looked at the boy, perplexed. He didn’t ever heard those kind of things from anybody... not even his ex-wife.

“Woah. I’m really impressed... you’re so full of surprises, my Doppio... I think you do a job more than excellent... you deserve a special reward... you deserve to fulfill your biggest fantasies with me...” said the older man taking off slowly his shirt, teasing the boy, making him open his eyes and mouth wide.

Diavolo finished unbuttoning his clothing and slowly revealed his chest and strong arms. For the boy’s surprise, a pattern of black lines appeared and Doppio discovered his boss always had floral patterns as tattoos, but no one had seen them before.

“You say I’m full of surprises, but I could never have imagined you had tattoos!”

“What do you think? Do you like them? You can touch this all you want” said the older man caressing his chest and arms teasingly.

“Well, I never liked tatoos, it’s not really my thing... but yours are so pretty!”

“Haha... you’re saying that just to get a raise, do you?” said the boss raising an eyebrow, half joking and half saying it seriously.

“Eh? Of course not, boss! I-I’m being honest...actually...” Doppio examined his boss’ arms, touched his broad abdomen and fondled his toned chest, blushing and with half-lidded eyes. Also sighed heavily.

“I don’t want to sound cheesy... but you look like a greek sculpture to me... you’re so perfect... you’re perfect with or without clothes... I adore you, boss... I desire you...I mean it...”

Diavolo’s eyes dilated at the boy’s speech. He took off the boxers and trowed them away, huffing uncontrollably. Then opened the cap of a lube bottle. Those words stimulated his ego fairly good, and he wanted more.

“Oooh... Doppio... I’m going to fuck you so good...”

Diavolo covered his fingers with a good amount of liquid, and brought them closer to the boy’s entrance. He rubbed them in that spot for a moment before entering the first finger, making the boy yelp at the touch.

“My Doppio... is this your first time?”

“Y-yeah...” the boy was a bit ashamed, he never was intimately with anyone and didn’t have any experience at all. He felt like a loser around other men, specially his boss. Diavolo acted like a pro in everything he did.

“That’s perfectly fine, my Doppio. I’m happy to be the first person for you. I feel really lucky...”

Doppio’s heart was pounding from all that praise. He never felt so loved like in this moment.

“And so... what do you exactly like about me? I mean, do you like me just because I’m hot?”

“I-I don’t like you just beacuse of your looks, boss! I really like being with you... at least for some hours everyday. I... I love how you treat me so well... so kindly... maybe I’m dumb for liking those things but it’s the truth... and how you do all the things you do... you’re a perfect leader... you’re so confident and intelligent... I admire you...”

Diavolo moaned in response, adding more fingers and moving them in and out.

“Ohh... I see... and... is there something you like the most about me?”

“You- your hair!!” said the boy instantly without hesitation and between moans, surprising him.

“Ahh...! Y-Yours is the most beautiful hair I have ever seen... it makes you look exotic...” Diavolo huffed, taking off his pants and opening a condom he had saved in the back pocket.

“...and your lipstick... it’s the cherry on top”

“Oh... fuck... you’re so good, Doppio...”

Diavolo finished putting on the condom down his 8 inches, and Doppio glanced at the length, a bit concerned and intimidated. His dick was so tiny in comparison. In the other hand, he was flattered the older man cared about safe sex.

“Umm... boss... it is... it’s huge... it won’t fit!”

“Don’t worry, my Doppio... I promise to be gentle, and you will love it.”

“Ohh... ohhh... I think it’s... too much for me...!!” said the boy when Diavolo pushed his member slowly, making him hold onto the bed sheets, trembling because of the filling sensation.

“Ahh... you’re so tight...”

Diavolo stopped moving so the boy could feel used to the older man’s cock, and distracted him lowering himself and placing small kisses on his cheeks, nose, and eyelids.

“You’re the most lovely thing whom I had the pleasure to have sex with, mio dolce Doppio...”  

“Oh! That’s italian? P-Please, boss! Keep talking...!! I love when you speak like that!”

Diavolo did what his assistant asked, happy to discover the boy’s special kink while moving in and out, thrusting his sweet spot.

 “Doppio...ooh, Doppio... mio bello Doppio... ti  desidero  tanto...”

  “Boss...!!” the boy closed his eyes and panted uncontrollably.

   “S  ei così adorabile  ... voi fa un lavoro fantastico... s  ei perfetto per me  ...”

“Ah-! Boss! I-It hurts! You’re going too fast!”

“I’m sorry, my dear... I just can’t help it... is it better?”

Diavolo adjusted to the perfect pace for the young boy and made him cry of pleasure, embracing his boss tighly and groaning loudly.

“Ooohh... so good, boss! So gooood...!!”

“I wanted to fuck you so much... since so long... I needed to be inside you, like you don’t imagine...” said the boss huffing between words and thrusting at a quicker pace.

“B-Boss... I... I love working for you...!!”

“I would love to know... what kind of things you dreamed to do with me... did you wish to have my huge cock deep inside you?”

“Yes, boss!”

“Did you wish for me... to rip all your clothes off and eat you up?”

“Ye...yes!!”

“Did you wish to touch me... to make me whisper you romantic things... and satisfy other kinks I don’t know?”

“Yes...!! yes...!! Ah- I’m gonna...!”

“Come with me, my sweet Doppio!” groaned the older man, grabbing the boy’s member and giving it a few pumps, just enough to finally release his seed and wet their bodies. Doppio thought about yelling “I love you” but for some reason he didn’t, he couldn’t think straight.

“Booooosssss...!!!” moaned out loudly, arching his back and rolling his eyes back.

“Ahh...Doppio...!!!”

Diavolo followed, slamming his hips for a last time and coming a lot inside the condom. He stood there for a few moments trying to recover oxygen, as well his young assistant. Then pulled out and gave the boy a sweet kiss in the forehead, before falling by his side, and giving him a tender but tired look.

“Oh, Doppio. You were fantastic... did you like it? It was like you imagined?”  

“I loved it! But, no... it wasn’t like what I figured in my mind...” Diavolo opened his eyes, almost afraid at the boy’s statement.

“...It was thousands of times better, boss... you were amazing”

“Oh... haha... well... I don’t want to sound rude, but... I’m really tired from today’s work and... I really need to sleep. Is it ok?”

“Oh. Well... it’s fine. I’m tired, too”

“Thanks for understanding... have a good night, my Doppio” said the boss kissing his cheek.

“Sleep well, boss.. Oh! But- wait!”

“What?”

“I just wanted to thank you... thank you so much for letting me be with you!”

“Aw. You’re welcome, my sweet Doppio. Thank you so much for being you...”

Diavolo instantly fell asleep, it looked like he released a good amount of retained tension. Doppio had to wait like twenty minutes to finally sleep, he was overwhelmed by everything that happened that crazy day, and couldn’t know how to organize his thoughts. What was going to do from now? His boss took away his virginity, but he didn’t say he loved him... He just kept calling him “boss”...would he get to live with a busy man like him? Oh, Doppio... now you’re feeling insecure again... but the sleepiness is winning... uhhh...

The next morning, they both had a quick breakfast and the older man took him to the office in his car, passing by a Christian Dior store and buying him a new long sleeve white shirt. No one noticed the young boy entering with the company's president, everyone was involved on their business.

[deviationdivine]

My Desecrated Love (machine!Connor x Reader)

TLDR: In the heart of the battlefield you will not accept the fate of this profane love...

Word Count: 4.5K Follower!Celebration

TW: Angst (Heavy-Suicide), Android Gore, Language, Smut (Heavy), Violence 

A/N: !100 Follower Celebration!: While my poll is open I still wanted to write up something to celebrate the milestone for you guys. I’ve had an influx of more followers since I announced the celebration so I feel it’s the right time to post! This went off the rails into some serious territory so please if you are uncomfortable with any trigger listed skip over loves. I’m not big on the machine!Connor path but I’ve been sucked into my angsty headcanons for him. Thanks to you loves for following, requesting, commenting and being precious beans. 

You let me desecrate you

Ferocious. Devouring. Endless.

Machines do not die or so he told you. Does a lie reveal fallacy? Can it show truth denied so vehemently? 

He denied. Deviancy, feeling and love all parts to a whole that somehow he tears away by choice. Choice itself paints him deviant by heart but not this one. Never will this harbinger of decay spreading his plague over revolution shun mission for emotion.  Still it did not cease this communion of flesh. 

Siphoning life from your body that he takes on willing pleas cast out luscious, sinfully aware you are nothing. To him you are just a means. One that loves him all the same but he does not love. He chooses not to in order to unleash chaos. 

A man-made monster all wire and metallic. You love his unnatural existence. Unnatural as all androids deemed by their creators but Connor is beyond. He is the night shade that poisons your heart.

An all too willing bride to a heinous creation built to destroy all he touches. The moment you saw him should have been enough to know. He marked you from the start.

Never have you felt so close to heaven. In his eyes seemingly soft but all part of programming engineered by Cyberlife.

RK800 most advanced equipped with latest technologies. Programmed to be sociable, to gain camaraderie, integration in the most efficient way possible and he slithered into your soul.

RK800 is a machine not a man at all. Oh but what a man. What a glorious image of the perfect God who lays waste to sinners. He lays waste to deviants. His own kind he will do anything to destroy. 

Not once does he die. Not once does he succumb to failure. Each step casts his shadow like a reaper stretching bony fingers out for a touch of extermination.

That touch burns acidic but you love his astringency. Bitter to taste, salivating in want of his sour tongue. He is raging, dominant and yours. Foolish to think he truly is when he is Mephistopheles incarnate. Deal with the devil calls a deal to your death.

Weaponry is his scythe. Cyberlife jacket flapping in the wind is his cloak.

Can a person really love a monster? Yes.

Can a person love death itself? Yes.

Just ask Persephone.

Connor is god of the real underworld of Detroit. Filled with filthy red ice dealers, insane deviants who kill their masters; Connor is death riding on a pale horse. And you love death with all of your heart. If only he were alive. If only he became alive instead of making you suffer this love. 

Oh, how much you suffer. Oh, how gladly you do. For this cruel, violating, unholy love that should not exist but it does exist eternally.  

If he were flesh and bone his tendrils would hang listlessly, pouring scarlet into white. If he were of warm blood he would bleed a puddle of crimson horror. Throat torn apart in vocal chords, internal matter and cells that make up a human’s DNA. If he were not machine life would run cherry rich, staining frost even as it ends.

He is not human. He bleeds blue twilight as the hour itself shades in endless sky.

Bodies lay to waste. Snow flutters a chilly dust. Continuously flakes fall in a frigid blanket over an impromptu graveyard. Dead deviants strewn across field of ice left where they lost their last artificial breath. Center of it all a most sacrilegious figure. Sprawled out like a king struck down before his time, great majesty torn asunder and there he resides.

He is a statue eyes raised to night sky. Floundering amid this Detroit air crisp and still scented with gunfire this is a battlefield. It is a glorious frontier laid to waste. Wars are fought not won. They are casualty and blood. There is no victory. No one returns from the front unscathed. Not even your vicious carnage that you long to feel.

Silence permeates casting a shroud on this night of revolution. One terror is felled despite a sure fall of android revolution.

“Connor!”

Your scream penetrates stillness creating its own rage. Breaking open the sky itself unleashes hellfire on all that stands in the way of this unhealthy, terrifying love. Anguish obliterates whatever pieces are still left. Knees crash beside his body. Lying in irreverential crucifixion, arms displayed towards desecrated heavens. A beast brought down when he can never be tamed.

Crawling up his chest brings tear stains in drops. Falling in a torrent they clash with thirium staining grotesquely from his severed throat. Washing away is not enough. Internal circuitry sparks a final dying ember of red. Carnage that bled from his lips, ones that feast, connects brutally with yours. 

Instead they stain blue in splotchy abstracts highlighted against visible white plastic. Partially his skin is deactivated up to bottom lip.

Impact of the blow fiercely damaged his synthetic layer. Shutting it off where his throat was mechanically slit.

Even smearing thirium all over your hands clutching at his head, your lips still meet atop his. The first gentle kiss that ever passed between mortal and almighty. Thirium glistens on your chin after pulling away. You do not wipe it away. It is from him. You want him to remain.

Inside you he still digs deep. Nothing will destroy this. No one will take your Connor from you. No one on this god’s green earth!

Throwing your head back to unleash this devastating scream unmakes the last vestiges of life. Hollowness is core. Scream bellow the torment still no one will hear. Lost you are lost without your one desire even as he remains machine.

Through blurry vision you find his gun. Lying amid snow where he fell. So close but far from his hand.

Stretching fingers out for the weapon brings it close to cradle. Nurturing his method of execution you stroke the barrel. Checking the rounds there are two bullets. Two as there are two lovers amid warfare.

“Footprints,” a hoarse whisper grazes your throat. Raw from releasing this agony but you ignore. Staring where you picked up the gun they are clearly printed. They travel. Thirium travels along with them. Thirium not spilled from Connor.

Peering across the expanse of android death there is but one place. A Cyberlife Store…

The rest is of no use or matter. None of them matter lying here. Only he does!

Collateral damage is scenery to your reunion. Death is your honeymoon.

You stroke his hair. Loving how those soft strands always felt tangled and pulled through fingers. He may lie dead but that is fine. You will meet this death with him.

A smile graces divinely. In his presence you feel as if worshiped by a god. Oh, how close he took you. So close. The nozzle of gun shifts. Pressing lips along the barrel you can almost kiss him.

You get me closer to god

“Connor!” 

Your voice cuts the air. Musty, alive as you thrive in soft red glowing from both his temple and neon lights glazing outside hotel window. Seedy underbelly of Detroit tucked away in sleazy notes. The room itself becomes a haven of sexual energies. Both live wires in completely different ways and he flicks tongue like a forked demon.

Circling your nipple, the android shifts above, plunging into soft warmth. Your arms force down in a vice underneath his hand. Holding them above your head caging as he fucks you the way you pled with him before shedding clothes. Swiping them off your body, Connor threw you indelicately. In a heap you fell to bed and he, the primal predatory, pounced upon weak flesh.

Edging fingers between your legs until sputtering in tears he watched it with a sadistic fascination. How wanton human beings become at the anticipation of receiving a good fuck.

Your orgasm over his fingers did not satisfy. Craving him inside of you, he obliges out of a silent pleasure. One he will not readily succumb to in deviancy. Nothing yields in his programming. This is simply a means.

Cyberlife’s upgrades enable Connor to soil you for his own means. He snaps baring teeth.

“Please, please!”

Whimpering your need for him only casts you down. This is something you know will not change him. Yet you still want his fire to spread through veins. Raining down an inferno burns to ash and snuffs your existence. A pale volcanic eruption bathing lava; you incinerate.

The pain of his grip starts a tingle in your fingers. Cutting circulation he decides using bare hands instead of his tie this time. Tied up, held down and battered you do not care. As long as Connor is yours again why would you care about anything?

You huff when he releases wrists. An immediate flood of blood returns to extremities. He is not finished with you.

Pulling your body upright sinks you further onto his length. A gasp spills deliciously as you grab onto him. A work of art to cling onto, lips close to his but you do not kiss him. Last time he left several days. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. He used it against you as punishment. 

Sweetly you crave to cradle his face into hands. Instead you grip the back of his head. Tugging those beautiful coffee color strands all yours in this heady atmosphere.

Digging fingers nape of neck yanks your head down forcefully. Meeting his vile heat burning a hole center of soul. You sacrifice yours willingly. All for him, always and forever he is your terrifying prince.

“I want to fuck you like an animal,” the machine growls against your pulse.

Teeth clamp mercilessly marking flesh in a target to his dominating destruction. Pain is ceremonial to a human heart given to a mechanical devil.

Oh. Oh! “Connor, yes, please.”

A snarl rips from his muscled chest. Throwing you over, he rears your hips up.

Crying out to his vicious thrusts only gives him satisfaction. As much as he will deny this pleasure it is in his eyes. Scanning over your movements, shattering your entirety as you beg, beg, beg into wee hours. Beg for rock hard beauty between your legs. His waist pivots pale, dusted all over his trim torso in freckles. Starry imperfections littering aesthetically across smooth skin stretching over a plastic frame.

Itching to touch him, run the tip of your tongue up center of chest. Dragging down in a wet trail to the plane of his abdomen, only when you cry out in streaming tears will he allow it. Shedding respectability is a small sacrifice. There are far greater ones.

Fingers squeeze around onto your neck adding a sting to various bites, teeth marks imprinting fragility. Tender skin trembles under touch of a vile, majestic lover. He is all things sharp and jagged. A pale shark slices its fin through ocean. Your body is a sea. He is the tidal surge, devastating tsunami washing away your shores.

Rolling your head back does nothing to stop the sway. Your entire body moves under the powerful rhythm of his hips slamming against your ass. Jolting you forward, face falling into covers bunched and torn from mattress you bite down. Muffling sweet moans surrendering to this bliss twisting your insides and still he continues.

Androids do not tire. They last way longer than humans in everything. Connor proves this each time he fucks you senseless.

You arch further up for him with no shame. All you want is the sweet snap to flood.

He said he wanted to fuck you like an animal. Pushed down from all fours, rendered helpless that’s exactly how you feel. You feel like a little creature caught in a trap. It’s so good.

“Connn….” Slurring his name gets you drunk on his love.

Feeling his hand crawl up back and rest onto the crook of neck you shiver. A touch far too gentle warns you. He pulls you up from the face first push.

Your back collides with his chest as he holds you in place. Forcing your knees to edge of bed, arm tightening across your heaving chest and the android’s fingers lock onto throat. Adding a little bit of pressure makes you see stars. 

Dizzying fireworks going off in a personal sky drenched in sweat, cum and tears. Such wonderful tears shed for your android lover who is neither of love or sweetness. He is not made for love as he repeats huskily each time.

Always you find yourselves coming back to this motel. Always you find ways to ravage one another. You can only weep for his beauty, prowess. And once more he makes your dams flood.

“Connor, I want-”

“You are gravely mistaken, Pet.” Spewing his little name for you as he zips jeans leaves the android unemotional. “If you believe your wants come before my mission.”

Shaking a head is the last ounce of dignity left. Who can you fool with this thinking? Already it is gone because he obliterates everything in his path. He obliterated you. Leaving you panting, sore and damned after he fucked you so raw.

His love hurts. His love kills. This is hurt you crave. Opening worlds never once thought to exist. Violent delights are his. Accepting this is the most horrific mistake you will make in life. 

He is no mistake. He is made into this despicable world. Sometimes you wonder what could be different if he was born instead. Besides being human? No, Connor is special. None can take his place, none can ever strive to be him. This is what you love. This is most assuredly what will be your end.   

Must you die to be part of him? If yes then so be it. 

Dragging up off the bed leaves you stumbling. Legs never function properly after a nightly session with him. Each time he becomes fiercer, leaving more marks on your skin. Those are marks you plead for. 

All you need is to be defiled by him. He took away more than innocence. This devil android owns a contract on your eternal soul. If an option presented itself to release it from his cold, ruthless hands you would refuse. 

Whatever this is, whatever comes the two of you are bound. Nothing will take it back. Only he can make that choice. 

“Connor,” you whisper raspy. “I-I just want to kiss you before you go. Please.” 

The machine drags shirt over shoulders. Buttoning white fabric he stares you down.

A visible shiver ghosts skin. You know this is what he is. Luring to a secluded place to give you what you want. Sometimes he lets slip a groan louder than intended. Brief moments Connor’s eyes glaze over coating chocolate in caramel. His body shudders in luxurious connection but quickly he steels his actions.

Part of you hopes to worm your way inside circuits. You want him to say he loves you. If there is one wish in this hellish world it is to be his forever. Any which way he wants and nothing will stop you from obeying.

Biting a lip at him now reveals weakness. For him it is all you have.

His body shifts fluid and catlike, circling like fresh meat to sink claws. Gripping into the plush of your hips tugs you against his hard chest. Immediately you melt candle wax to his flame.

Ravaging your lips with teeth all bite and canines. Swollen from sucking them as you fucked, Connor groans at the swivel of your hips. 

Grinding into him sets stress levels ablaze. Warning sirens going off locked with your supple movements. They catch the machine off guard. How desperate you are to change him but for once he allows you this.

Slipping tongue lets him taste. Just as he lavished your clit he devours moist saliva mingling with artificial. The tang does not draw your equally greedy kiss away. Something snaps making him further ravenous for you this evening.

“I love you,” you whine in a muffle, his tongue still probing.

 ^Software Instability

 Connor wrenches backwards. Wide eyes swivel over you running analysis and self diagnostics on his system. Red blares indicator in a shudder much unlike throes of passion making you surrender to him. Separating in an expeditious blink, he turns away to fasten tie around collar.

“Connor?”

Never have you seen such a look on his face. It almost resembled fear. No, he’s not afraid of anything. He is a walking fear. Everyone surrounding him is dust.

He no longer looks at you. Fully returning into pristine Cyberlife issued jacket, glowing and dazzling with android printed across his broad back and it is the last stitch.

Even as he tears out of room seemingly leaving you to crumble there is no fall. Somehow you know he will always come back. Once again to claim the pathetic human who seals their self to his treacherous love. Of that you will never be ashamed.

You let me complicate you

“Please! Please don’t let him kill us!”

Heart wrenching and human they cry out. They reach for salvation assuming you will give it to them. Naively hoping you can control him. Even if you wished to there is no stopping an avenger of death.

Flinching at the sickening burst of gun exploding a painting of thirium across wall you somehow cannot tear away. Knowing he will find it weak but you surprise yourself with how easy it is to watch. 

The female deviant slumps dead to the world. Back of head blown out in wires and circuitry dangles as tendrils slithering out open cavity in escape. There is no more escape. There is only nothingness.

The android straightens shoulders back. Fixing his tie casually sends an added shiver down your spine.

He tilts his head flaring nostrils. Moving steady, bold and direct he tosses emptied handgun to floor.

“Con…”

Connor pulls you flush in a rough swoop of his arm. Plastering together chest to chest and he kisses you with blood on his face. Smearing azure onto your skin does not disengage. You return hungrily whimpering into the mouth of your master. He is not the one who obeys. He is the one who commands. 

A snap of fingers twist the thrall. Long, beautiful and pliant they slide past panties, slipping into your heat among grisly slaughter. A whine gives away how good digits feel. Cool, mechanical but so lively with synthetics operating by choice. This choice makes you crave among the dead.

He swipes fingertips in a flick dragging them up from between your legs. His eyes darken watching minute expressions as he licks. Tasting arousal, perfume sweet enough to halt his next task. Obliterating those deviants Connor decides for once to follow urges.

The android thumps you against wall. It takes all of your strength not to fall down on knees at his mercy. To unzip his jeans and take his perfection into your mouth; you shiver from cold sweeping around your lower half. 

Already pulling down bottoms, you throw arms around his tall figure to encourage these actions. Actions that make you just as vile as his cold machine heart and you allow Connor to fuck into you in presence of a made family of deviants.

All felled by the great beast. A hunter, he preys on more than defective androids. He preys on the innocence of a human mistakenly in love. No longer do you possess such virtue. The monster you love more than your own existence corrupts every last thread.

“C-Con!” Choking on your whines offers zero mercy. He shoves you hard into the surface snapping hips to bury deep until you no longer can cleanse him. Erasing him will only come with cessation of life. Feeling you from the inside so snug, warm and belonging to him. An android who claims a human and it gives the machine dominion even among his masters.

Connor’s hand snakes towards your face. Curving the length of his thumb under your chin forces your head sideways.

“Look at them, Y/N,” he hisses dangerous. “You let them die. Yet you hardly care as long as I fuck you the way you crave. Is that not correct…carrion heart?”

A morsel to feast upon dead and decaying is what you are. You trickle into his system. Attempting to spread disease but he will devour the very heart of you before you turn him!

“Y-yes! Con…! Please.”

“Louder.” The android snaps into you. “Say it louder, Y/N.”

“I-I want you to fuck me!”

“Good,” Connor praises in rarity. “Then I shall fuck you, Y/N. I shall fuck you in the sanctuary of these deviants you so love. Ones that you wish for me to join.” Harsh mockery taints his tongue before gliding up the base of your throat. “How much have I already changed you, Pet?”

Unable to answer as he ravages, your eyes glaze over, holding tightly to the threads of his jacket. His voice echoes a nightmare fuel.

How much have you changed? To simply stand idle and let him murder androids when you always thought they were alive?

My whole existence is flawed

Snow tracks into store from two pairs of feet. One from the hider and another pursuer; you breathe harsh, stilted and sluggish. Strangeness defiles what you are doing. 

How completely opposite of what you used to be. Before he came and changed everything about you. Here you stand not at all a terror. Yet the choice you will make is already set in stone.

“You killed Connor!” You sneer, trembling.

Flashing lights sparkle in shimmery cascade on your silhouette. Signs of Armageddon christen a winter’s night in Detroit. Battles spread, war torn and countless victims as you wander following a trail of footsteps. 

The weight of the RK800’s handgun is heavy. 

Oh, so heavy it tugs. An anchor that will ultimately change you forever but he already did. He already bled into you harsh and serene. A demon with angel wings; Connor is the dark underworld at your feet.

Yet you hesitate as you peer into a pair of lively eyes, one green and another blue. Eyes shining with the same life you come to expect in all androids. Even Connor when he always reminded never will he be more than a machine. He was more. He was hellfire and brimstone.

Soldiers did not find the revolution leader. He sits here alone in this destroyed Cyberlife store. He sits, waiting for shutdown but you can give him mercy.

Is it merciful to take a life? Or it simple revenge for a man, machine, that never said he loved you?

“You loved him,” Markus’ statement is clear without need of context. He reads the struggle quaking in a shattered human mind. Peering up at you where he rests slowly shutting down. “Didn’t you?”

Tears trickle a sinful answer. Is it so wrong? Knowing that you loved a monster?

 “No,” you disagree with the past tense. “I love him.”

The gun goes off snuffing out in revenge for your love. Revenge will not have carried under his black wings if you were the one to perish. Swift retribution ends the revolution leader in loss. Yet there is no pride. There is no glory.

Instead, you feel your body cave in unto itself. Sobs fill this rubble agonizing over what you have done. For Connor you will do anything. It is this moment adding murder to your once innocent life that there is nothing left. You are violated. Soul is black. Soul is his. Devil’s contract on your heart pushes you to such violence.

 The violence of our love consumes the world, My Connor.

  Our violent ends will only dissipate in the night. Here is the night and you fall down to your knees. Once again back at your felled lover’s side. Blood is literally on your hands. Not just any blood. The blood of the revolution leader is damning. A human so weak somehow is so much more but not for what military wanted.

For your handsome angel of death, he is so beautiful among the snow. How you smile now.

None can ever truly destroy a reaper. Death itself is eternal. 

Now this suffering will end. You will end this. The world is gone. He was yours. 

“Connor, I love you.” Breathing against his forehead, lips graze cold synthetic skin. “Until the end. And this my sweet prince is my life for you.”

The barrel rests against stomach. Thrumming heartbeat crashes against ribs. A sign that you should stop but you do not listen.  “Forever I will be your carrion heart.” 

Pulling the trigger jolts you violently. Immediately falling forward, agonizing in a strangle quickly dragging you down in the undertow of blackness.

Rasping as life ebbs away there is only him. His profile you languish beside. Days you dreamt of waking with him resting like this. Only the two of you together and he will wrap you up in his wings, leathery black and consuming.

  Color floods the black and white. Chirping sounds tinkle pleasant, a distant vibration opening crystalline eyes in a sunny garden.

“Hello RK900. May you speak?”

“I-” The silver eyed android hesitates. Scanning location it is not – snowy.  “Amanda.” 

“Good,” the program commends his memory. “I see the transfer was successful.”

Transfer? What sort of transfer? 

“As the RK800 was destroyed in his final mission we took some liberties.” Amanda smiles conscious of amber swirling upon indicator. She moves fluidly towards tall android. The stark white of jacket matches her outfit for this fine sunny day in the garden. 

No longer tarnished by chill of winter, snow melts to a new place connected stronger than before. 

The android snaps his head aside. Gazing intently over expanse of Zen garden where he remains in connection. No longer feeling…

“Y/N,” he murmurs to wisps of data files. 

RK900 partially possesses memories from his previous incarnate. Obsolete as he was destroyed but -

Scarlet burns the LED. Uploaded they scald wiring.

“Y/N,” RK900 repeats. “Where-?”

Amanda does not change her expression. Her smile continues to instill false security and that is exactly what is required. “There is no further use of that human. Y/N, as you say, is dead.”

Dead. No. No!

That is not possible. How he stands here with an influx of memories not of his own but belonging to him all the same. He recalls your scent. It tears apart his insides.

 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Software Instability

 “Y/N!” My carrion heart...

He sinks, sinks down still never dying but falling down in this tale...

A vicious Romeo and his corrupted Juliet...

Tag List: @elydith @your-taxidermy  @tropfenlady  @connorswink @tommy-10-k

[squadron-of-damned]

⭐ - for the fanfic ask

Yes okay, my pick. that’s the tough part. Hmm… I’d say I’d like to talk about Black Garb, but frankly, I think I have said everything I wanted to say there.

So instead let’s talk about The Long-Awaited Sequel. The name itself is supposed to be a tie-in with the previous work from the Basketville series, because that one is called The Last Chapter, so there is a book theme supposedly going on and also it focuses on the new life Downey and Vetinari have in Basketville, so it is “a brand new book” which everyone has been long waiting for.

Fun fact: Originally the “main hero” whose POV is followed was supposed to be Christian Agate, the renown paperback author who is definitely not the Discworld incarnation of Agatha Christie. While this idea got scratched, the book theme remained just as the concept of Basketville being “the countryside village to which old (male) literary heroes retire to have a cottage, bees and their best companion to whom they aren’t married (but only because it isn’t legal yet).”

Part of the fun with this bodyswap fic was that Vatinari and Downey know each other well enough to actually pull off they are the other person while nobody really knows them enough to notice if there is something wrong. That means that I as an author (and subsequently you as the reader) didn’t have to focus on the “comedy effect” of the bodyswap when they are “this close to being caught,” because let’s serve us clean wine: I don’t like this trope. No, what I wanted to explore was how the physical differences in a body affect the individual.

Let’s start with Downey. In the book Night Watch it is implied that he might have a problem reading long words (although it is possible Vetinari meant that as a very ugly joke) and over the time this implication evolved into a headcanon that he has dyslexia and possibly dysgraphia as well. (I know that they aren’t one and the same, but my two childhood friends have them both and when thinking about one I find it quite difficult not to connect it to the other.) And since you specifically Napoleon are asking this, you are the one who’s assigned that man synethesia as well. I believe that it isn’t addressed in this fic, but originally it was supposed to be and the only reason it isn’t there is because I didn’t figure out a simple way to make AO3 format work with colours.

There is the poem:

This is now all of my wit:to love loud turmoil of the fight,to penetrate girls’ dreams in night,to be in debt a little bit,to whistle as my mouth is shaped,to wash away worry with wine,to squander fast this life of mine,to gain nothing, same to forfeit.

It is my translation of František Gellner’s To je teď celá moudrost moje and in the fic it has scattered bolding and italicizing which is supposed to represent how it is seen through Downey’s eyes. Originally the whole text was heavily colourized, all the alike sounding parts done in the same or similar colours, so it looked like a very bad acid trip. (I was quite angry when the colours didn’t make it in because I spent about an hour colouring that damn thing for nothing.)

Here is the fun part: Why does Vetinari experience these conditions when he is in Downey’s body while he doesn’t get to deal with Downey’s short-fused temper? Because according to some very smart article which I have read and lost and can’t be bothered at the moment to find again, things like dyslexia or introversion tendencies are bound to brain. In fact this article which focused on the fact that people are born either more extroverted or introverted and they can’t do anything about it because it is a physical condition just like the solidness of your bones or blood type is what inspired this particular fic.

Do Vetinari, a known book worm, finds out that there are people who are literally physically incapable to enjoy a book without getting a horrible headache. He also finds out that there are people for whom being around other people is not energetically draining. I can’t remember if he has to deal with Downey’s absolute musical hearing. I think he doesn’t.

Downey on the other hand is mostly reliant on his people skill, on the fact that he is good at being around people and in the only moment that he is supposed to use it (the variation of the PTA gathering), it fails him because of Vetinari’s brain introversion. There is also a minor deal with haywire colourvision which I don’t think I’ve ever bothered to explain. That is a headcanon of mine which doesn’t affect anything and hasn’t got any real backing by the actual lore, but through Vetinari’s eyes Downey can see colours which he previously couldn’t see. The word itself doesn’t get actually used, but Vetinari has tetrachromatic vision instead of the human usual trichromatic one.* Yes, I am aware that the cone cell pigment genes are bound to the X chromosome, thus making tetrachromacy a thing found in the XX 23rd gene combination, but consider: tetrachromacy has actually been found in men, Discworld genetic is strange, magic can apply, no one is saying that Discworld human genes are like ours, no one is saying that Vetinari is cis, also I don’t care because this is a work of fiction not a research paper so if you have a problem with Vetinari having a trait predominately found in human females, it is a you-problem and you have to deal with it somehow (probably by not reading that fic for a start). He also has to deal with chronic pain in leg which I believe Vetinari is more or less used to, but Downey isn’t.

Speaking of chronic pains. Both of those guys have been through some serious shit. Both mentally and physically. In case you haven’t been here for my writing, Downey’s time in Ankh-Morpork during Snapcase’s regime was not a walk in a rosy garden. Or maybe it was a walk in a rosy garden but he was forced to take it through the thorny bushes. He was interrogated, he was tortured for information and there had been at least one attempt to execute him which is implied in the fic. Downey says that he loves Vetinari “Enough for a lack of eloquence to be considered of virtue” just the moment after some very old scars on Downey’s body are mentioned. I don’t know if this reads clearly for you, but it has always been clear to me (and that is why I cannot describe it better): “They tried to physically force me to tell them everything about you and I didn’t say a word.” Until today I am convinced that this particular line is one of the… strongest that I have ever written.

There is a very strong reference to Kafka in this work, namely the very hideous tattoo on Downey’s back which says VerboIncooperativus Testi (verbally uncooperative witness, although the translation is a shared effort of mine and Google Translator, though Discworld Latatin is a bastart language, so whatever). All I can say to that is this: In the Penal Colony.

That brings me to the side characters. Some of them have only a little impact on the story, such as Papermould. Some of them are long time dead like Offer Littlegood to whom I would like to dedicate a short work on his own because he is the Discworld’s constructor of the horrible tattoo-execution machine, which might or might not be clear from what is written about him and implied in other parts of the work. I have a lot of thoughts about Offer Littlegood. I am a loud about being from Czechia, so here is a linguistic joke for you: a rather archaic/fairy-tale sounding euphemism for an executioner (and torturer, stories like to pile these two jobs into one) in Czech is “mistr málodobrý” which translates to English as “mister (or master) littlegood.” That is where Littlegood’s name comes from, to me he is an executioner and torturer by name.

Then there is July Mendahorse. For a starter: I love July Mendahorse. She isn’t pretty and she is the perfect noir femme fatale and she is an important character in The Graveyard Shift. In this story there are featured three people who look a lot like Vetinari: Vetinari himself, Constantin Meserole who is his cousin and a mirror thirty years to the past (he is far mor like Vetinari in his mind than he realizes and he would hate himself a lot if he had ever learned that), and then July Mendahorse (who is actually also a lot like Vetinari, but she lacks the upbringing and education). The opening line about her section is a lowkey reference to the song The House of the Rising Sun (this gets more played on in The Graveyard Shift). When Downey and Vetinari are talking about their exes, Downey recalls briefly dating July (without naming her) who happened to look a lot like Vetinari and speak with his accent. I am not sure if I want to work with it in The Graveyard Shift or give Downey/July their own fic in the original timeline but I want to clear up one thing for you here: Downey actively conditioned July to erase a whole a lot of differences between her and Vetinari. Some of that were good things, like giving her education or taking her to see culture, some of that were… less nice. Not exactly abusive, but… Look, folks, don’t try to forge a girl you’ve found on the street into your unreachable partner of your dreams, alright?

Since we have Vetinari-alike people here, let’s give a paragraph to Constantin Meserole, shall we? If Constanting had a dollar for every time someone called him Havelock, he’d be a very rich man. He looks like Vetinari at that age. He is very actively trying to difference himself from his cousin, but he fails to realize he is doing it in the most Vetinari-like (or Constantin-like) way possible. He is more psychology oriented than Vetinari, but he is also more fed up with his situation. Vetinari’s (and Downey, Sybil and Vimes’s) generation could be compared to those people who were children and teens during the 70′s and 80′s (speaking from a country which used to be a part of the communist block at that time: fucking bloody normalization, so with the Wint/Snapcase’s regime it is twice as accurate), while Constantin (and Lus Twinkle and all their classmates) are those who are growing up right now. They don’t remember that era but they grew up with people telling stories what it was like and they see people actively trying to make history repeat itself and they are feeling like AAARGH! Oh, and Constantin and Twinkle’s relationship is a mirror to Downey and Vetinari’s relationship in the sense “Okay, whit if they weren’t absolute idiots, but only a little bit idiots?”

There are retired fictional characters: Blatantly obvious Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson except they are dwarves now (and are actually both girls), Captain Tramain who is from Wizardry 8 and I’ve always had a soft spot for him. There is aforementioned and not entirely fictional Christian Agate.

There is Helen Foxglove. I have a friend who has just writhed herself out of an abusive marriage. This fic was written before she actually made it and at the time I felt that the most I could do for her aside from coming over every here and then and helping her out was to give her a fictional happy ending. This is that happy ending where she got out with her children and her dogs, and her piece of a shit husband got a dagger through his skull. Maybe some time in the future Helen Foxglove will get together with a witch who might and might not be a version of my mum. Look, I’ve always thought that those two should get together ever since I was, like, four and knew what ‘get together’ was. I’ve always saw her son as a brother, so you know.

I like writing about Basketville but I also find it terribly difficult. Terry Pratchett said that Ankh-Morpork is a fantasy city which still functions after the story ends. In the same way, Basketville is the happy ending retirement countryside village which still functions after the story ends. Everything that happens in Basketville is an epilogue to some story, but it is important to realize that there are people whose whole lives were other people’s epilogues. That is both difficult and amazing to write.

[kinetic-elaboration]

July 20: Thoughts on The 100 2x04, Many Happy Returns

It’s literally been five months since I did one of these…

The wasteland was a pretty cool concept and I’m sad that they kinda pulled back on it later. Like, when characters can get from point A below the wasteland to point B above it without apparently passing through it at all, it makes it seem like the area is actually not that big after all. Is it, like, just NYC? And maybe the metro area? Also, again, as usual, floored by the costuming on this show. Amazing.

So Zoran is the first human Jaha meets on Earth. A kid and a mutated human.

Clarke is so intensely pragmatic. She legit doesn’t care if people once tried to kill her, as long as they aren’t trying to kill her now. I don’t really see this as forgiveness, but rather an ability to forget the past that isn’t useful to her. Also lol @Anya for saying Clarke is weak, like who broke who out of the Mountain hmmm?

“Everything is Grounder territory.” Murphy telling the truth. And even if some parts of the world aren’t Grounder territory, how the hell would Bellamy know?

Murphy, canonically a terrible runner. Rewatching these early eps just reinforces his glow up since then. (Not in terms of running, but in terms of, like, haircut.)

The wreckage of the Factory crash is so devastating, following the trail of bodies to the crash site. I still wish we’d found out what happened to everyone else. I guess we’re supposed to assume the rest of the stations exploded before impact? But still. I feel some bitterness.

This saving Mel story is entirely, 100% about keeping Bellamy, Finn, and Murphy stuck for most of an episode, allowing Octavia to find them, and then forcing Bellamy to come back to Camp Jaha rather than continue searching for Clarke—so he can, you know, run into Clarke. It’s pure filler. And imo not even very interesting filler since I’m not really like a rescue/adventure story person. I can’t even figure out how Mel ended up stranded along the side of the cliff. Was she climbing up and then got tired? Also, on a related note, at what point do they, Bellamy in particular, realize which station this is? Is it immediately obvious from the wreckage, or only from the identity of the survivor? Because this is Bellamy’s home.

All that time they were talking, Sterling was there in the background, doing whatever. Honestly though shame on Bellamy a little for letting Finn convince him not to save Mel.

Totally forgot they built an electric fence at Camp Jaha. Then, began work on a radio beacon.

I can’t even pay attention to the Clarke and Anya scenes because I’m too attracted to both of them. Less so in the mud. Which is 100% gratuitous given that uh, I don’t think the Mountain Men who almost never go outdoors and are currently wearing big ass gas masks on their faces can smell shit.

Bellamy and his adventure squad are such dumbasses. Huh, let’s tie this thin rope with a single knot around a stump and then just watch our friend use it to scale the side of a mountain. Nothing can go wrong there. I mean there are fucking four of them just standing around watching when they could be, uh, securing the rope? Anyway RIP Sterling, cause of death: idiocy. (Slash the narrative’s need to put Bellamy in the hero role at this point, and to up the ante on his heroism, and to waste some time.)

To be more fair, I think this is semi-important for Bellamy’s characterization, an early version of ‘save who we can save today.’ He’s at a sort of crossroads at this point, not really a leader anymore like in S1, but sort of a leader, and he needs to figure out what sort of leader he’ll be.

Monroe’s “Sterling was one of us” warms my heart because it speaks to my “the 100 were a distinct social group” theory, which I wish (again lol) had been more important to the show and for longer.

Murphy does fall in, though, pretty fast. After Monroe says the ‘one of us’ thing. Which is actually pretty impressive given that a few days ago he was blasting a hole in the dropship and running away with all their ammunition.

This must be such a trip for Jaha, like, he is aware that forest exists still, because of transmissions from the 100, but he’s in the middle of the fucking desert, and this is all he knows of Earth, whatsoever. Also, again, these sets are perfect, I love them so much.

How did the City of Light become a legend among the Grounders? It’s made from the Alie 1 chips…. Didn’t Becca, like, not like those? I’m assuming of course that literally any of this was ever thought out or ever made sense.

“I have no room for hate.” You know what I’m just gonna say it: I think this is true. This is really how Jaha lives the rest of his life. I think people forget since he wasn’t really himself for most of S3, and even in S2 his mission to the City of Light seemed kind of nutty (and boring). But “I have no room for hate” both describes him pretty well, and is rather a lovely thing about him. If only he hadn’t been so obsessed with the COL, tbh. Searching for it was a bad idea from the very beginning and it was also, I think, a rather cowardly idea.

I forgot that this was where the concept of radiation disfigurement came in and was explained. Is that really how it works? Like random mutations, even generations after the event, from non-mutated parents? Lol I have no idea. That said, Sienna kind of looks like she has some scarring on her face, too.

Here is Jaha finding someone who left her people for her son, whereas he sacrificed his son for his people. Does this also change his mind on things going forward? Connect to his insistence on the COL, at the expense of a chunk of his people?

I miss this thing where characters knew other characters even though we’d never seen them interact before, because, like, a history exists and then the show acknowledges it. That was fun.

I shipped Raven/Wick and I don’t regret it, even though fandom’s toxicity basically killed it for me in a lot of ways. They had a good rapport. More importantly, he might literally be the only man to not take shit from Raven and to actually be brave enough to challenge her.

 Engineering is such a damn good set.

This is a weird episode because our two mains have pretty much the least important, or at least least-interesting, story lines. They’re basically just being moved into position to reunite at the end of the ep, and that’s it.

Clarke: “I just need something sharp and sterile [to remove the tracker from your arm].” Anya: bites it out with her teeth.

Why do they bother putting trackers on the Grounders? Do they escape often?

Murphy’s not only helping with the rescue mission, he’s at the head of the line.

Bellamy’s legs appreciation.

Murphy: “Don’t you worry, Bellamy, I won’t drop you.” I mean…you did once try to hang him. But by-gones I guess. I do believe at heart Murphy just wants to be part of the crew.

I think the Raven and Wick scenes are my favorites of this episode. I have two uninjured legs and I wouldn’t climb that thing; Raven is a brave bitch. And when she has to give up and come down, probably the saddest moment of the ep, along with finding Factory station. Some of this is relevant to my big bang.

 After literally all this, Finn’s still like ‘Bellamy, just drop that rando’ lol. No, bitch, don’t do this half-assed. Stop being a wimp and pull them both up.

Before it’s revealed that the horn is Octavia, this really does look like Bellamy and the No Good Very Bad Day lol: first Factory is found destroyed, then Sterling dies, then you almost die when your fake rope breaks, then someone starts shooting arrows at you, then acid fog rolls in, like, what now universe??

I guess another purpose of this story line, being fair again, is that Murphy and Bellamy are now officially friends again. Like Murphy has proven himself completely trustworthy as of that little nod between them.

“She blew the horn” is s obviously ADR to explain what exactly is happening here. Which is helpful, even though she’s clearly carrying the horn.

Blake sibling reunion!

“Three mechanics made it to the ground.” I mean… you’d think it would be more than that… what with the entirety of Mecha making it. Or was that station mostly casualties? I don’t know, this still doesn’t make sense to me, how they split up people between stations. Season 2 implied it was random, Season 3 implied it was by home station.

“Your leg’s messed up and that blows. Figure out a way to work around it.” Legit question: is there anyone else who would have said that to her?

I really, truly miss Wick tbh. One of the few characters with a sense of humor. (And yet again: he was good for Raven.)

They’re really playing fast and loose with the rules about language in this verse huh? Warriors speak English, no everyone speaks English, no English is for friends only I guess?

Jaha just wants to be a dad. Like, do I think he was a good parent… I dunno. Is he a better parent than anyone else on this show? At this point I would have to say yes. (No, Clarke does not count as a “parent” jfc.)

Ruthless Clarke ftw.

Jaha making a chess board just breaks my heart. Just let him be a dad!!

It’s been such a freaking long time since I watched this, I can’t remember if Octavia had braids in the last ep or not, like how long she’s had them. And it’s really bugging me, because someone else must have put them in, and I’m trying to figure out who that might be.

Also, where did she get the horn? I guess the implication is it was Lincoln’s… I can’t really remember. Wouldn’t it still have been on his person when he was captured?

Octavia went off the rails but at this point I’m still very fond of her.

The map Finn gives Bellamy lists ‘statue’ (Lincoln Memorial?), ‘twin trees’ (???), ‘Ark’ (Alpha Station??), and ‘amusement park’ AND amusement park is very close to Ark so my question is why didn’t they use that amusement park for something interesting??

Bellamy knows he shouldn’t let Finn go off alone but then, what can he do? Finn never really adhered to his authority. And I don’t think he feels like he can flex that right now, like it’s sufficiently established in this new order.

But he does arm Murphy. Which says a lot about how much he has decided to trust him, but also how little he trusts Finn. I forgot about this split in the character groups, though I should have remembered it, since of course this leads directly to the massacre.

“Parting, such sweet sorrow, right?” is an interesting quote from a kid who can’t spell ‘die.’

Aw, Clarke goes back to the dropship. I forgot about that. But then of course she doesn’t realize… anything. She doesn’t know the Ark is down, she doesn’t know what happened to the few of her friends who were on the outside. And her face when she sees the message to her, and only her name is still visible…

Blah blah blah fight sequence.

Creepy skeleton parts on the ground.

 I think this could have been the start of an Anya/Clarke friendship of some sort: Clarke earns her respect by fighting well, Clarke’s people protect Anya, the alliance forms… too bad they had to kill her.

And Clarke figures out where Alpha is based on Raven and Wick’s balloon.

“We fell from Earth in a football stadium. I think they already know we’re here.”

BUT the balloon is also what sets off Byrne, and gets her so worried about Grounders she authorizes the ‘shoot on sight’ command that kills Anya and almost Clarke. On the one hand, this is a nicely wrought story line. On the other hand, they shouldn’t have killed Anya, so. A wash.

Was Byrne’s worry about the balloon warranted though? I can’t decide.

Zoran, such a kind soul.

How can there possibly be a bounty on Sky People (side note: Jaha’s reaction to that name like ‘huh well I guess that is what we are’) that people all the way out in the dead zone would know about? Like… they’ve been on Earth for like a month. And the war has only been going on for part of that time, arguably. If it even is a war.

Trent Lane voice: Betrayal, yeah, stab in the back, betrayal…

Too bad “To survive, we do what we must” didn’t end up in like the fandom lexicon. It’s a pretty good variant on the theme. Plus Jaha’s just so… like he’s been fucked over but he can’t even be mad, because he gets that she’s doing it for her son and he wishes he had that chance. Watching his scenes again, I really feel like he was underrated and I miss him a lot.

I wonder what happened to Zoran and family. Were they absorbed into the hive? More generally, what happened to people seeking the CoL before ALIE could get it properly running with Jaha’s help? Did they all just… die in the desert?

Alpha Station at night is so beautiful.

And Clarke is so happy.

And this is SUCH A SETUP FOR CLARKE AND ANYA TO BE FRIENDS OMG, Anya should have brokered peace with Lexa, there was such an obvious role for her… Her death was 100% random attempt at shock, this show’s #1 worst quality, which is saying a lot.

I mean shot in the back while she’s walking away these Sky Guards are incompetent.

RIP Anya.

I really thought the Bellarke reunion was in this ep for some reason. But then I also knew Anya died right at the end—for more Shock Value ofc—so I don’t even know. I remember the scenes but nothing of their order I guess.

[myfriendpokey]

GARBAGE DAY!

a bunch of scrappy shorter pieces to clean out my drafts folder for the new year!

***

A videogame will tend towards exhausting every possible variation of a design space whether anyone wants it to or not.

Videogames and duration - if something is good it should continue being good however long you extend it. You don't really encounter the idea that something can be good for a little while and then be evil.

***

Works of art are "in conversation" with their audience, with materials, with history, with each other. The aim of an artwork is to start, or add to, "the conversation". "Conversation" sort of edges out the older tic whereby art "examines" or "explores" something, which always made me think of a big magnifying glass being propped up for the benefit of some eerily calm 1950s scientist. But now that sounds too chilly, and perhaps sort of sketchy in the power dynamics it implies. "Conversation" is much warmer, informal and more fluid - "conversation" is the assurance that any given power dynamic can be dissolved away in the warm glow of basic, mutual humanity. Let's talk it through! My door is always open! Whenever there's a complaint over labour conditions or harassment it's nearly de rigueur to also quote the wounded-sounding HR lackey, upset that people didn't talk to them about it before going public. Why would anybody deny the friendly, outstretched hand of the respected opponent and their entirely in-good-faith quibbling about word meanings, personality and tone? Why don't we have an honest conversation about the "honest conversation", that numbing discourse cloud sprayed out like formic acid to neutralize a threat, to melt any unsettling edges or contraries back into the familiar gloop of the private and the personal.

***

One of the pleasures of videogames is that of an infinitely repeatable, always identical procedure. Pressing the button makes something happen, and by pressing it again it will happen again in the same way. So there's a kind of abundance or excess built into the system - like partaking of a fruit which will never be depleted, and in the process taking on in your own actions something of that same infinity. You can temporarily identify with the self-identical, eternally reproducing action that you are performing. I think one of the difficulties of videogames is that as you get (slightly!) older, that immortal quality becomes more visibly alien, harder to align to your sense of self. That these mechanics act like black holes, able to absorb any amount of your life without ever being satiated, becomes a terrible curse rather than an unexpected gift. That endlessness now seems eerie and artificial, a horrible parody of life rather than the highest version of it. 

The dadification of vgames has gone much remarked. But as well as a demographic shift I think this reflects a certain anxiety about the centrality of these immortal entities, these endless loops, within the culture. As reward for your fealty to the Mario brand you get even more Mario games, which by now you may not have time or energy to actually play. The VG dad (or even the buff, single pseudo-dads of the superhero movies) is eternally exhausted with the genre that he’s trapped in. We hear him groan and complain as he painfully slogs through the motions. The gratuitous loop is redeemed by the finite human suffering of the dad, as he manfully does what it takes to keep these things going forwards to the next generation, so that the next set of children may be able to actually take pleasure in them again. But the attempt to symbolically re-integrate these things into human life by casting them as a family drama never quite works: their ultimate indifference to that life shines through. A blind, eerie deathlessness is both their charm and their authority.

***

That saying that when all you have is a hammer everything else looks like a nail - similarly, when all you have is willpower, everything looks like an obstacle to be pounded into submission by that same willpower. 

Laziness is a good thing in that it means stepping back from this idiot insatiability of the will. If you're lazy you have to pay more attention, because you're more aware of both your own limits and the limits of your material. 

I think there can be value in suspending a formal problem rather than building an exhaustive system to solve it forever. That way it's still something you have to think about, something that still throws off and reroutes the normal workings of your awful private fantasy machine. Dropping text strings into the game as elements to spatially encounter is not ideal technically but does force you to be more responsive and exploratory with how you use that text. Robust systems can be cool, but can also really homogenize everything - now "text" is just the miscellaneous stuff within the all-purpose "textbox" at the bottom of the screen, cementing its role as filler content.

The funny thing about really systemic, open-world type games is that their very robustness tends to suffocate exprience before it happens. We know nothing will happen which will significantly impact this camera POV, this dialogue system.. anything can happen except for anything which would require a fundamental change to the underlying inventory system. But maybe the whole pleasure of the open world game is just being able to hold those experiences in suspense.

***

Mostly the characters voicing my own opinions in my videogames are explicitly malign and sinister - which is a corny device for me to vent without worrying as much about browbeating people with my opinions. But it's also a way of having those opinions without allowing them to overdetermine the rest of the game, or be fully in control over the more ambivalent and drifting work of "putting together different pieces on a screen to make interesting spaces". So in that sense my own ideas really are the enemies, and any plot role they serve in the game is a dramatisation of the effort to create a space where they lack controlling power.

***

RPG Maker is a collage machine, you get a set of pictures and start placing them around until they start to form some kind of charged and interesting space.

I think the collage aspect is a lot of what I enjoy about making these things, which is why games with more polished or consistent art styles frequently leave me cold. For me the greater the discrepancy between different objects on screen means a greater effect when they're combined. 

How does gameplay etc tie in? For me gameplay can divert the interest but never truly capture it. For decades games have had the problem of effectively being able to train you to do something, but having no idea what that thing should be or why it would matter. They effectively move your attention around without being able to settle it because their inner logic is basically always the same ahistorical, mechanistic void. But this can be a good thing - the permanently restless and unsettled nature of videogame attention can't illuminate itself, but can do so to other things in passing. 

Distraction becomes a way to examine surfaces, rather than being sucked into depths or settled to one fixed meaning. And the drift of unsettled consciousness is ultimately what animates game collages, the spaces that shift and react as attention plays across them, revealing or withholding. And so from this perspective, the answer to why I make videogames is: because I don't trust myself to look after an aquarium.

***

Design is managerial aesthetics - a mode of expertise framed as meta-expertise specifically because it scales up so well to systems of mass organisation and production. It's a universal discipline insofar as the task of removing any obstacles to the frictionless flow of attention and of capital is now also a universal chore. In this context a designer is like the MBA who can be dropped into any business to improve it, without ever having to know just what product they make – because the ultimate goal is always the same, the same tools can always be used. 

The cutesy books about the design of everyday life and so forth exist in the same vein as the ones that tell us there's nothing wrong with marketing because ultimately isn't all human discourse and activity some form of marketing? Isn't everything "design"? The strange top-heaviness with which these things outgrow their host categories parallels the unstoppable expansion of executive salaries within the businesses themselves. The task of managing other people's labour becomes ever more grandoise, ineffable, cosmic and well-paid as that labour in turn is framed as a kind of undifferentiated slop which exists for the sake of being shaped by creatives.

***

tragedy / comedy:

Generalizing hugely I feel like tragedy is about an event or experience so powerful it changes everything - for the characters involved, for the people in that world, for the audience watching - while conversely comedy is the idea that no event or experience can change anything. Oedipus dies and there's a big announcement and everyone has to sit through the awkward two-minute silence before getting back to work, while trying not to fart or itch too noticeably, and the next day somebody's selling Oedipus commemorative pens which run out of ink five minutes after opening, and the pen cap gets lost and the cat starts playing with it. 

In comedy the tragic can still happen, it’s just never strong enough to escape the constraints of the inert material universe which we find ourselves in – all that which remains so stubbornly intractable towards the higher instincts. I can talk about the dignity of man but there's still a risk that my pants will fall down or that someone will hit me with a ladder, causing my head to get stuck inside a bucket of paint, etc. Or my voice might be ridiculous or I might have a stutter (old comedy standbys!), or someone might hear part of my words out of context and assign them a different and unintended meaning. Comedy is consciousness imprisoned within a cumbersome matter which it can't completely do anything with, but also can't exist without. 

Taken as a worldview, this sort of risks congealing into the kneejerk reactionary things-can-never-change, whatever-moment-of-human-history-i-was-reared-in-is-eternal-and-inviolate radio DJ / South Park mindset. And of course somebody's view of what constitutes a tragic, life-changing event depends greatly on whether it's happening to them or someone else. But as exaggeration, in its neurotic overemphasis of the inescapable material, i think this approach still has interest and use. Many of my favourite writers have a kind of comic understanding of consciousness: consciousness becomes a churning material process with its own independent momentum which has to be examined and accounted for as part of any real reckoning with the world. In this light comedy becomes a way to think about opacity and limitation, both in physical matter and in our own selves.

I think many people have made the point that vgames are generally comic, intentionally or unintentionally. The rhetoric around them still tends towards the tragic: make the choice which changes everything! Deal with the consequences, accept your fate! But in practice those moments feel less visible than the clumsy material layer of GUIs, inputs, mechanics and representations that contain and constrain them. The opacity of the black box is one inhibition: was that meant to happen? Was it scripted or a glitch? Maybe I should reload my save and try again. Another is the inertia of the various game systems and loops themselves - [x] character may have died but you still need to collect those chocobo racing feathers if you want the Gold Sword. The numbers in a videogame "want" to keep going up, whatever happens: there's an affordance there which exists independently to any merely human wants and needs, and so tends to act as a gravity well for distracted consciousness as it wanders around. When people talk about tragedy in videogames it's usually with the implicit rider that it's within a game, or set of game conventions, which have become naturalised enough to become invisible. Which also tends to mean the naturalisation of a form, of inputs, of technology, of distribution mechanisms and assumptions, which however arty we can get are still inherently tied to the tech industry. Every art game is to some extent an invitation to spend more time internalising the vocab of your windows computer.

I've mentioned that the materialism of comedy can tend towards unthinking reaction. But the insistence on certain limits inherent to the human body – requirements like clean water and clean air, food and shelter, actual bathroom breaks and not piss jugs and also not having to live six feet beneath a rising sea level - can be helpful at a point when all these things are regarded as negotiable impediments to the pursuit of future profit. Maybe it’s a good thing that some materials can still be so insistent about refusing to be absorbed into the will.

***

I think what I most enjoy about art is the sense of a game with moveable stakes: where you never quite know the value of what you're playing for, which now appears absolutely trivial, and now appears to stand in judgement of the whole world, etc. I think this is also the Adorno idea of the aesthetic as really the extra-aesthetic, that which can step outside or threaten to step outside the limits of the merely aesthetic. It's why "just make a good game / pop song / comic / etc" never quite works, in rhetoric or in practice: the really good pop song is never that which just gives the enjoyable three minutes of listening we might consciously assign to be its remit, it's what overflows or undercuts that category, that which however briefly seems at risk of stepping outside it and into the realm of everyday life.

I grew up on pop culture so I don't have to feel positively towards it. Who am I meant to be defending it from? The handful of surviving WASPs reared on Brahms who get the ostentatiously-fussy-culture-review posts at print newspapers looking to pick up a slightly higher quality of margarine advertisement? The best thing pop culture ever gave me was its own critique: that of containing artists and moments which couldn't be squared with what the rest of it was saying, which seemed  to call the whole enterprise into question and in doing so broadened the sense of what was possible. Pop culture was never quite identified with itself, the value it has is in containing elements which make that self-identification impossible. So it always throws me off to see people celebrating "pop culture", like it's a self-produced totality, when that totality was only ever good for kicking.

Pop culture survives through a negativity it can never properly acknowledge.

[images: Tower of Druaga, Detana!! TwinBee, True Golf Classics: Wicked 18, Microsurgeon, Dark Edge]

[agwitow]

You should check out christinewrites

I want to spread a little bit of love to other writeblrs, and though I don’t have a huge follower count, I hope some of you lovelies check them out and give them some love

@christinewrites​ is an amazing author. I had the opportunity to do a bit of beta reading for her (that I was unfortunately unable to finish), and I’ve got to say I really loved her style!

So you were getting beta readers a couple months back. How was that process been going for you? 

The beta process has been really exciting, actually! It never ceases to surprise me how many people actually volunteer to be betas, so I got quite a few. Of course some fell off, but that's only to be expected; People have their own lives to live, after all. It was also fascinating to see how differently everyone provides feedback: some prefer to do it within the document itself, some gave me pages with notes after they were done, and some just said "I liked it". I'd say my beta process went far smoother than expected, and it's very nice to know that we can rely on the writing community here on tumblr to help us get more beta readers :)

I'm so glad to hear that :) What are your long-term writing goals

My ultimate long-term goal is definitely to be a full-time author! Being able to live off of writing books only is the dream. But I've split that huge goal into smaller goals, so the goal I'm focusing on right now is getting an agent. After that, I'll focus on working with my agent and to my best to sell my first book, and then eventually I'll make it to my ultimate goal!

Always good to know the steps between you and your ultimate goal! What do you find to be the hardest part of writing? What's your favourite?

Yeah, it usually helps to turn big goals into smaller and more manageable goals :) Hmm... The hardest part for me is definitely the editing phase. I just find it way more appealing to write, not fix what I've already written. I also struggle with setting and describing the setting properly, it's just something I've never paid much attention to whether I read or write. Luckily I have more favorite parts than difficult parts! I love doing research (I can spend aaages just researching), I love creating characters, but I think my favorite part is when I've been struggling with a plot hole and then BAM I figure out a solution! That's the best feeling.

Oh, me too :) I love researching and have to be careful I don't end up lost in it. Do you have an excerpt of anything you'd like to share?

Yeah, that's exactly how I am too, haha! I love it though, even if it takes me way longer than necessary. Also, I tend to learn a lot of random stuff from it, so that's fun too :D And sure, I have a short story at 1500k. It's about exorcism and demons, so... I feel like I have to give that warning, haha

(short story under the cut)

Fall to rise

No matter where I hid, she found me.

“Sophia!”

Mother’s face appeared in front of mine, her forehead wrinkled in rage. I groaned when she clasped her hands around my sore wrists and yanked me out from underneath my bed.

“Mom,” I whispered through my heaving chest. “Mommy, don’t…”

Her fingers sank into my hair, tugging me to my feet in one forceful pull. I pressed my lips together to keep from screaming. She hated when I screamed.  

“Look at me,” she said and I did. Her face reddened as she lashed a hand across my cheek, sending me stumbling sideways.

“Plea-” I began, but her sharp shush stopped me. I drilled my gaze into the floor as she came closer, tensing my body for the next impact.

“Father Matthews is on his way. We will remove the demon from you, once and for all,” she said, as if I was the one acting demonic. “You will be purified and God will love you again. Go get ready.”

My knees almost caved in at the thought. Would they tie me to the bed again? The last time they tied me up, Mother didn’t let me out for two weeks, claiming it was a punishment for giggling during my auntie’s funeral. I never did, but Mother refused to believe me.

“I said get ready!” She grabbed me by the arm, jerking me out of my thoughts and onto the bed. “Mom, please,” I said. She tightened the rope around my right wrist until I cried. “Be quiet, child.” When she was done, she tucked my hair behind my ear and tears welled in her eyes. “Let Him shine the way, Sophia. God will save you.” 

***

Mother went downstairs to wait for Father Matthews, but I wasn’t alone.

The man in the walls had begun murmuring.

He told me to be strong. To think of the joy he could give me if I let him in. I knew he had to be a sign of my mind turning crazy, and I tried to shut him out, I really did, but the things he said made me feel hopeful. This was my hell and he would release me, he said. He’d been living in my bedroom walls for a month now and he was the only company I had. My only friend.  It was when Mother first had heard me talk to him she started to blame everything on the Devil instead of herself.

When Father Matthews entered the room, the man went silent.

“How are we today, precious?” the priest asked, clutching a bible to his chest. My breath turned to tiny, quick puffs as he raked his gaze over my body. Then he opened his bible with a nod and raised his voice with strange verses.

I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking from the words. They itched my skin, biting and crawling like centipedes, oozing into my pores like acid. I screamed for him to stop, but he continued bellowing. “Father, please!” I tugged at the ropes, tugged so hard the coarse surface dug into my flesh. I licked salt from my chapped lips. “I have been a good girl, I promise.”

This stopped him for a second, his stare fixed on the wall behind me, his voice hitching like someone had hit him in the larynx. Just when I thought he would untie me, he turned on his heel and slammed the door shut.

***

Look at me. Lookatmelookatmelookatme.

I cocked my head from side to side trying to silence the rasping voice, but it had already pulled me out of sleep. Then I felt something stroke my legs underneath the duvet and jolted upright.

Look at me!

The duvet was ripped away just as I slammed my eyes open. I held my breath and scanned the dark room, but saw nothing. Heard nothing but my own heart racing. Yet I felt someone breathing on my skin, a hot panting travelling down my neck, over my chest, down to my stomach, somehow moving inside my nightgown. I wriggled away before it went down farther, almost hitting myself in the process. With a gasp I realized that someone had untied me. Had Mother decided the punishment was over?

No, darling. It was I.

The low murmur began in my head and slithered down the length of my spine. I tried to yell, but stiff and cold fingers curled around my throat, squeezing. With wide-opened eyes I hunted for their owner, but the room was still empty.  

“Hel-” I managed to croak, but stopped when something dark moved in the corner of my eye.

I told you to look at me.

I moved my head, even if every nerve screamed for me to run. I recognized the voice now and didn’t know whether to be afraid or relieved. Was he here to help?

A shadow seemed to be dripping from the roof, expanding on the wall like a black hole. My damp hands clutched the mattress as a figure rose unevenly from the shadow, standing slowly as if someone was tearing one and one of his long limbs open, folding him out like a crumpled piece of paper.

Then the shadow stepped out into the room and set its beady eyes on me.  His face slit into two as he revealed a row of sharp teeth.

Hello, darling.

***

They found the girl a week later.

Mother had brought Father Matthews and his colleagues with her. After days of searching, they found Sophia. The girl now turned to them with a smile too wide for her tiny features, her teeth pink from the blood dripping from her mouth.

“Mom?” the girl cried, but her voice sounded muffled. “Help me!”  

“She sounds normal,” her mother said to Father Matthews, but it rang more like a question than a statement.

Tears ran in clear stripes down Sophia’s grimy face as she took a step closer. She opened her mouth again, but instead of speaking, she spat out a slimy ball of feathers, flesh, and bones at her mother’s feet.

Mother gasped and Sophia tilted her head as if surprised. “Here, I made you a bracelet,” she continued in the most angelic voice. Her mother screamed when she saw the gift. It was a bracelet made of freshly peeled bones, with remains of skin and feathers still hanging onto them.

Sophia’s eyebrows knitted together. “Shh, mom. No screaming, remember?”

“God be with us,” Father said and smacked the bracelet out of Sophia’s hand. She snarled at him, but when she saw his frightened expression, she broke out into a laughter so guttural and rumbling it could never have belonged to that little girl. Despite their fear, Father Matthews and the priests attempted to carry the girl home.

It took two broken noses and a bit-off finger to get her home, and Sophia was yet again chained to the bed.

The priests came into the room with their golden crosses and white collars, thinking the girl was someone they could save. But I would not surrender. My icy hands were already reaching into the girl’s brain, my presence was pouring in like cement. The words from the priests’ mouths pinched the girl’s body, and the drops of Holy Water formed angry blisters on her skin.

“…Omnis fallaciae, libera nos, dominates. Exorcizamus you omnis immundus spiritus,” the priests yelled in unison, and the girl squirmed in the bed, her bones cracking in impossible angles. “Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio…”

With a growl, Sophia’s body levitated off the bed, the rope around her joints the only thing keeping her in place. Words from long dead languages poured over her lips as her eyes rolled back into her skull. Her voice became darker and darker until my voice took over. The priests glanced at each other, their pathetic faces warped in fear.  

I granted an extra ounce of strength to the girl’s body and she ripped herself away from her chains.

Father Matthews was trembling, but still he dared to demand: “What is your name, demon?”

I chuckled and the girl trembled from the volume so unnatural to her tiny body. With a jerk of her head, I sent Father Matthew flying into the wall. The priests stared as he folded over, blood gushing from his head. The girl’s mother came running into the room and went paler than the dead when she saw her daughter. 

“In God’s name I comm-” a priest started, but a bestial rumble whipped through the room, splitting the roof open to a pitch-black sky.

“I’m afraid this is the last stop for you,” I hissed and sent the girl leaping across the room. She stopped in front of her mother with a grin creeping up on her face. For the last words her mother would ever hear, I allowed the girl to pronounce them in her own voice: “God can’t save you now.”

[inappropriatefangirlneeds]

Gotham s3ep14 „The Gentle Art of Making Enemies“ Personal Review

“Face it, kid, Gotham has no heroes.” Warning spoilers below

“Jerome is everywhere” The city is a mess, the GCPD is filled with cultists and Jim orders most forces to what was it west coast and uptown. They briefly address that this sudden Jerome chaos conveniently falls together with the mayor being absent „Although that might actually be good news“ HARVEY BULLOCK says. I´m a bit .. a lot  annoyed that they never show any impact of those kinds of stuff. I get that they need time to focus on their characters. But 1. A (mob) war is coming  2. Terrible Mutants terrorize the city and 3. Jerome starts The Purge always is announced in a way that builds up a lot of expectations with me but since I never really get to see any impact on the city the people living there I´m caring less and less. Like that second small mob war threat recently, been there done that who cares.. anyone?   They need to find JEROME VALESKA Jim remembers LESLIE THOMPKINS talked to him and goes to her. She´s saying Jim could bond with Jerome over the hilarity of her husband dying and I´m thinking god blergh .. but her husband got killed least what she should be allowed to do is that also she´s on the we got bigger issues track soon and remembers how Jerome Valeska said the last thing he remembers is trying to kill Bruce. Meanwhile ALFRED PENNYWORTH notices something is off in Wayne Manor and gets hit a second after. It´s Jerome and a few others destroying rich people stuff. Okay I gotta admit this looks fun .. but only until Jerome starts toying with the Owl. BRUCE WAYNE and Alfred make up some nostalgic value story but Jerome drops the thing and it survives .. phew but then drops it again and it shatter. This is stressing me out so much. Like I have this deep rooted disdain for those kind of things happen but .. we got bigger issues. Jerome wants to kill Bruce but Bruce says Bitch I´m important this better be something and besides he is disappointed wasn´t he all about show and audience and stuff. “I´m Bruce Wayne” False flattery and conceit, Bruce is good. Still Jerome says he knows he just wants to buy time but he got a point about the showman stuff.  The butler on the other hand is not important he can be killed right there.  Would not Jerome find it hilarious watching Bruce having to see Alfred´s death? Fells like something he´d like to do but they leave. “You carry on, son. You carry on ..” my wayward son .. wait wrong fandom  Anyway Alfred is proud and wants Bruce to keep some hope

“These people don't want a plan They want an excuse.” I was a bit baffled that JEROME VALESKA would proceed to carry out one of THEO GALAVAN´s orders. Killing Bruce was Galavan´s plan I would have suspected that Jerome would rather not follow this through but hey maybe it felt like unfinished business. Jerome takes BRUCE WAYNE to a circus where cultists terrorize and kill people, fun in other words. Bruce gets a fancy make up, Jerome stabs some random guy to get just the right shade of red. Jerome gives some answers to the “why” of the mess going on. He gives people an excuse to do all the horrible they ever wanted to. Well some get that others get their head smashed in. Theres even winners and losers in becoming a new person over night.   Jerome aims to put some guy into a cozy piranha bath. Jerome goes on about how people serving coffee, washing cars and taking out the trash just wait for a moment they could see his blue blood flow. So this is a class riot?! Jerome getting political?  Bruce says there are good people but Jerome claims „Gotham has no heroes.“  [Is this classic or predictable:] Upon hearing this Bruce shoves him. Nevertheless Jerome pushes the piranha bath button and the guy dies. [First lesson of you can be hero all you want and try but still not win?]   Jerome has to staple his face back on, god his expressions doing this are golden. Bruce asks if it hurt and Jerome puts a staple in his arm. Bruce wills his face to remain calm. Another one. And another one and then that´s enough. I so want to say something about that staple game but I can´t point my finger on it.

Anyway Jerome gathers the audience and presents them a handcuffed Bruce. There won´t be a bang but a boom. A canon gets loaded with all kinds of sharp stuff.   ALFRED, JIM and HARVEY enter the show, the backup arrives a bit later. They go in gun blasting but give Bruce enough time to safe himself. [[ This reminds me of when Bruce was strapped to a pole last time with Galavan and he claimed he had a plan after getting rescued. ]] Anyway this time Bruce fishes the staples out of his arm to unlock the handcuffs, just in in time and after dropping one of them, oh the suspense. [This stresses me more than it should because I only know the kind of staples which bend inwards as well] Everything is chaos, Bruce is spotted running into a mirror cabinet. Did he not notice Jim firing the gun, would it not be wiser to join forces? Anyway Jerome follows him. I´m not here to hide Bruce says. “You're going to pay for what you've done.” Despite being armed with a gun and knife Jerome ends up on the floor getting a serious beating. [Is this classic or predictable:] Bruce sees himself in the mirror and stops. He meets with the soon to be obsolete Bruce protection squad. Jerome follows and Jim at least gets to save the day a little by spotting him and punching his face off.  

 „Let´s get to work“ ALFRED wraps up BRUCE´s arm and they recapitulate. Bruce is glad that he did not kill Jerome, he did not cross the line. He noticed that it wasn´t only the anger but that it felt right, it felt like “justice.” “There is a fine line between justice and vengeance” But there is one, Bruce knows. Maybe he should have a little chat with Jim? Alfred noticed as well that Bruce´s training is now sufficient for self defense and that everything more needs rules. The first one being. “I will not kill.” Alfred makes Bruce repeat it. Let´s go to work he says, feels a bit like when we were left with Bruce announcing to investigate after the Indian Hill fiasco.

„I don´t understand. What´s happening?“ Says OSWALD COBBLEPOT when EDWARD NYGMA kills the two men who were meant to help free him from his kidnappers. Would two really have been enough? Anyway Oswald first suspects everything from Edward escaped to aliens abducted the kidnappers just not anything near the truth. It´s frustrating. Edward explains. He killed IsabellA that´s why he took everything from him and is going to take his life. Oswald claims he did it because Edward would have killed her and then would have hated himself. Edward laments that they will never know and that they could have been happy, he could have had a life with the woman he loved. This reminds me of LEE and MARIO FALCONE. Is this meant to remind me of her lamenting a possible life with a cured Mario? Is this meant to be a parallel and a clue that there is more to Isabella than we got to know so far? Will we get to know more about her that would make it sure there would have been no life for Ed and her? After this episode I doubt it .. but let me dream.

 “Love is about sacrifice. It's about putting someone else's needs and happiness before your own. (..) the truth is, Oswald, you would sacrifice anyone to save your own neck. Even me.”  Edward says.  Oswald claims otherwise but Edward remarks that a man facing death would say anything and that Oswald would not change because he cannot change. I miss the times where Oswald talked himself out of these kind of messes.

Oswald is tied to Isabella´s car and if the flame melts the ice he will be killed by acid. [And I can´t unsee the fact that icelocks apparently are a self bondage thing .. Ed .. got a few other hobbies than sewing and pineapples] Edward leaves him like that. He indeed leaves the scene. Highly suspicious. Suddenly a guy enters and is like whoa there, hey you´re the mayor, what did you do while Oswald tries to get him to god damn it just fucking finally cut the rope. He does. I wonder if he ever got that handsome reward?   This whole thing is fishy. Ed would not leave, he would watch his great construction do it´s job wouldn’t he? „We have to find Ed Nygma and kill him“ Oswald says back at his home. Yes great do that! Where is Gabe, the phone is here but Gabe is not. Instead it´s BUTCH GILZEAN and TABITHA GALAVAN. After Edward tightened Oswald´s tie his throat suffers some more through Tabitha´s whip. Oswald asks what they are doing in his house “Whatever we want” Tabitha says and picks up the Jerome motive. They want to know where Ed is to kill him. Oswald insults Butch for not being more than muscle (“Think” “Oh, I heard you. I'm just surprised you knew the word.”) and Tabitha is so cruel to remind Oswald of another of their encounters. Hate fills the room one thing leads to another and Butch knocks Edward out, Idiot now you got to carry him Tabs comments. They drag him to the Sirens and BARBARA KEAN proceeds to talk to Oswald. He needs to phone Ed so they can find him, they can´t call because he is not stupid. Butch claims he could make him talk in five minutes, Tabitha says she could in three, why you gotta be like that babe Butch asks. Barbara is annoyed with them. [ See this can never work. I´m still salty about this triangle still being a thing I know I´m repeating myself but Butch Tabs just doesn´t make any sense, and damn it why can´t we just have supportive Tabsn´Babs?] “Give up Nygma, save your own ass. Live to love another day.” Barbara says and is mirroring Edward´s words almost perfectly. This is fishy. [Pun unintended, but srsly where is she] Oswald has an epiphany.  He does not want Edward to die although he should. That he did not love him properly at first but thought he did because Edward saw him like he was and was kind.  Oswald sees his selfishness with killing Isabella but says now, now he is ready. He could not sacrifice his happiness for Ed´s but now he is ready to. He won´t phone Ed! “I won't let you hurt him!” “So you'd rather die than give up the man who tried to kill you?” “I would! Isn't that crazy?” Ed shows up. He has that irritated look he gets when he wasn´t right. He wanted Oswald to die with knowing he was not capable of loving another person. But I can Oswald says having some hope .. poor bird. Edward says he does not know what this means.  

 „I don´t know what it means“ EDWARD NYGMA and OSWALD COBBLEPOT are in the docks. Oswald tells him that this murder will change him. It´s different than the others: no crime of passion or self defense but cold blooded murder. I guess Leonard counts as passion because he was meant to find him a guide in his new murderous hobby he´s found passion for? Okay but .. hasn´t it been exactly this element of passion that has frightened and haunted Edward, this part that he could not quite control. Cold blooded means it is a decision he can make, this indeed could change him but to a person with more confidence and feeling of control so something he would benefit from (if you see being criminal as benefit) so Oswald´s words are rather encouraging aren´t they? “This will be the cold-blooded murder of someone you love.” “I don't love you.”  “You need me, Edward Nygma. Just as I need you.” “You killed Isabella” That´s the point and the thing Oswald can´t talk himself out of [I´d like to see S1 Oswald try to do it] Oswald says Ed was a “nervous, jittery loser.”, “nothing” That he created him, that only he sees him as he is and what he can become [Hello Hanniwald!].  In other words he gives Ed his version of the talk Fish Mooney gave him. Still Edward loved Isabella and he shots Oswald. He does not look to happy when the Penguin sinks into the depts.

So Tabitha and Butch (maybe Barbara) still want Edward dead.. where are they? 

* So I have some major issues with that message. “Love is about sacrifice. It's about putting someone else's needs and happiness before your own.”  Like how about it´s about compromises and finding a way to make each other happy.  Of course it certainly is not killing loved ones for your own benefits either but I just don´t like the notion that you have to sacrifice yourself figuratively or literally for a loved one. Oswald choosing to do so because he regrets, wants to make things right yeah okay.. I mean he killed someone it´s not like he would not deserve it but this idea of he loves Edward and this means he has to forget about all the suffering he made him go through and sacrifice himself just does not sit right with me. Like the I´m gonna kill Ed impulse in some way feels “healthier”? [Of course the guilt on Oswald´s side issue here makes it kind of a different case but]

 * Remembering Edward´s line about love being a weakness this certainly applies here for Oswald! Does it apply for Edward?

* Sighs Oswald, Oswald, Oswald.  I said I can see how someone showing affection for him after all the time believing no one could like him (okay I´m gonna keep this short this time) would mess with him and make him stupid, and how him having reached his goals and being King of Gotham and Mayor would  make him less cautious. [Like he feels like beating the end boss in a computer game thinking he reached the goal but does not notice that he has become the end boss for the next players to come] but I am not happy with the idea that he would let go this level of betrayal. I would accept it if Edward forced him to see the pain he caused and that it would lead to remorse, that I could see  but forgiving Edward messing with his family, his whole goals, everything?! Part of Oswald´s appeal was that he was so uncompromising demanding, that here might be character development but I don´t like it. The Oswald that certainly loved and admired Fish Mooney in some way but pushed her of a building killing her that was an interesting character. His self preservation was so compelling and I don´t like that such an integral part of his character was silenced this week.

* On the other hand “Love is about sacrifice” hasn´t been Oswald selfless. Wasn´t there plenty of fantastic meta on Oswald acting selfless in regards of Jim Gordon, or that time when he let Fish Mooney go and even spared Hugo Strange´s life. Or Tabithas, just because of Butch whom he should actually not like either.

„Give the GCPD a chance“   Says a guy with ring to owl lady KATHRYN. (And let´s be honest he is probably the only living soul in Gotham who has faith in their police) „Your faith in him is touching and possibly dangerous“ Are they talking about Jim? Am I forgetting someone or something, they are talking about Jim aren´t they? Owl people are seen later again discussing having almost lost the city over a cup of tea. Lost what for? A little chaos disturbing their business? What business? Tell me? Do they want to safe Gotham for the sake of the city or their interests, I bet the later .. but damn it tell me what are those? Clone Bruce appears, he is ready, the scars have been removed. Ring guy leaves to get someone on boat claiming that no one refuses the court.   JIM GORDON sits in his flat pouring him some whiskey and not closing the bottle afterwards indicating that more booze will follow but first there is a knock on the door. It´s „Uncle Frank“. For a moment I was worried it would be Lee, phew, but although this could give us some Jim background I don´t think I´m to keen to see that clone court and family mess. Will Jim join them because they claim to do good? How will he get to know that they are Bruce´s enemies? Are they going to win him with fake Bruce speaking for them? Will Jim become real Bruce´s spy? 

To kill or not to kill Both Edward and Bruce are faced with the decision to kill or not to kill someone who has hurt a loved one. Would have Bruce made the same decision if he had seen Alfred getting murdered? Yes he would have, do not kill no matter what. That´s what distinguishes heroes from villains, at least so we are told. On the other hand I´m reluctant to draw the parallel because someone of the organization level of Edward would have shot someone dead dead as in right into the head. Oswald has been shot he has survived Edward knows that even with the added water there still is the possibility of survival that would even drive me mad if I would want someone dead it must give Edward a psychosomatic rash, I mean after bone shattering no body no crime rigour that´s just sloppy.

 Personal Highlight: Edward screaming at people „Ghosts aren´t real“  Did that have a little undertone of a hurt scientific mind being like I can´t believe you have forced me to work with that superstitious bogus, like ghosts how can you even. Meanwhile Oswald: What do you mean I saw it, and besides there´s dead people coming back to life literally and you draw the line at ghosts? * Why was Jerome picking on Bruce and Alfred´s relationship? After Alfred tells Bruce to carry on he comments with “strangely intimate” and then another remark on those two “Are all rich kids this close with their butlers?”

* What am I missing about the title? Has anyone a new enemy? Like they all kinda were before that´s what got them into this whole mess.

* I hope Oswald´s second Hello I´m not dead moment will be glorious

[directorscutandsomeotherstuff]

A Prologue

(And welcome to Director’s Cut, the show where we find old, terrible fanfiction and try to make it better by making fun of it, and today, we’re apparently going back to the beginning. Naming these posts after the titles of the fics in question has given me some choice ones, so far. Anyway, it’s One Piece time.)

(One Piece is an anime about pirates. It’s also a show in which kick-happy chefs face off against cross dressing ballerina men and in which the greatest marksman of all time carries around a slingshot. The protagonist, a Mr. Monkey D. Luffy, (referred to in this fic as “Ruffy” because of shitty localization) ate a cursed fruit that gave his body the properties of rubber, at the cost of completely losing his ability to swim. Being a sensible and level headed sort, he immediately pulled up tent stakes and made the harrowing journey from his island home to the mainland, where his eccentric powers made him a valued and much beloved member of his community. Actually, no. He became a pirate. On the ocean. Setting out for adventure on a rowboat. You’d think I’d be mad, but honestly, the show ran with that level of insane stupidity all throughout, giving it a charming level of absurdity that I can’t help but smile at.)

(Which brings us neatly to our author for today, Shaoli. Shaoli has decided to grace us with a fanfiction appropriately titled “A Prologue.” According to the description, there was never any real intention of making anything beyond it. I guess they just wanted practice? Who knows? Let’s get down to business.)

"My hat!!!" It was a cry the crew of the Goin' Merry heard several times a day. A tattered straw sun-hat bounced like a ball of tumbleweed across the swaying deck, driven swiftly by a lively breeze. (Why its owner didn’t think to use string or otherwise fasten it on board a ship powered by the wind was anyone’s guess.) Bouncing along right behind and grappling for both hat and foothold was the ship's captain, a most unlikely figure, a spindly youth with wild hair and wilder eyes. (The return of young Willem DaFoe. He sure was popular among early 00′s fanfic writers, eh?) "Ruffy!!!" That was also a cry heard several times a day, aimed this time at the scrambling, screaming persuer of the straw hat. (As opposed to all the other times, when it was leveled at the other people named Ruffy.) Ruffy had just barrelled past the Merry's most unusual feature, Nami's tangerine garden. Nami herself had been kneeling in the soft soil, pruning the lower branches of the largest bush. Leaping up and reaching with an arm that seemed, just for the slightest moment, too long for his smallish frame, the captain had nicked a bright orange fruit from that bush, sending leaves, branches and several ripe tangerines flying in the backlash from his wild grab, some battering an enraged Nami, others falling toward a figure reclined on the deck below (who was resting, with the air normally reserved for decadent aristocrats, like a boss, and this is not an attempt, on my part, to double down on the longest sentence in history, which is this sentence, that you’re reading, at this very moment). Zoro had long learned to sleep through all the ship's common commotions, but a spattering of ripe fruit in the face was quite another matter. The crew's only swordsman winced as the mildly acid juice trickled off his stiff green hair and stung his eyes. Grumbling a vague curse, (”Ah... some kind of shit from, like, an animal or what the fuck ever. I don’t care.”) Zoro scrubbed the offending liquid from his face and watched with a resigned air as Ruffy continued his hat chase. Breath coming hard through his nose (ah... um, no. Sorry. Now is definitely not the time to do my usual “twist somebody’s awkward phrasing into something funny” shtick. That’d just be nasty.) and a large tangerine crammed into his mouth, Ruffy's fingers closed around the rim of his hat just as it went over the rail at starboard quarter, the momentum slamming him into the rail itself. The youth's jaws clamped shut at the impact, and he was left with a mouthful of bitter, fragrant rind as the rest of the tangerine plummeted into the churning sea. "Aargh! No!" It was no idle protest the boy made, (after all, scurvy was an omnipresent problem aboard pirate ships, and the loss of any citrus flesh was a tragedy.) as this time his right arm did stretch many times its normal length, like so much chewed bubblegum, plunging into the water in pursuit of the fruit. The arm came up two seconds later with a vicious fanged fish gnawing at the end of it, and its owner in another screaming fit. (”Dammit!” screamed the owner of the vicious fanged fish. “You leave Chumblebutts alone, you hooligan! Can’t you see he needs that tangerine more than you do?”) Nami continued to prune, and Zoro curled up where he was, fighting a vague and creeping sense of despair which disappeared with his fist snore. The door to the ship's cabin swung open, and an irate voice carrying a vaguely french accent drifted out. "What in heck is going on out there?"  The voice's only reply was a howl as the captain sped past the garden again, hat restored on his head and a fish with needle spines and bulging eyes and huge teeth at the end of one arm. (”Ruffy!” the owner of the fish continued, “Just hold still! All you’re doing is freaking Chumblebutts out even more!) As Ruffy wrestled with the rabid fish on the deck, a trail of smoke wafted its way out of the cabin door, followed by the ship's cook, a blond-haired young fellow with a cigarette clamped between his teeth, who took a moment to adjust his tie and to smile adoringly at Nami, (which he did literally every time he ever saw Nami ever, at least according to fanfic writers.) who ignored him, before turning to frown at his captain's undignified thrashing. With a sigh, he began to make his way over the rail, when a skinny figure elbowed past him, clambering onto the wooden beam. "I'll save you, Captain!" It was Ussop, youngest of the crew next to Ruffy, and the ship's best gunman and carpenter (in that he was the only one who did those things on the crew of about five or six. It wasn’t exactly stiff competition.). Standing astride the beam, he snapped his prized goggles into place, and, taking aim with his slingshot, released his homemade bullet with an unneccessary flourish. (”Rubber Band of Doom!” he cried, smirking as the rubber band bounced harmlessly off the fish. He then fired something actually useful.) Ruffy, who had been thumping his stubborn little attacker repeatedly on the floor, looked up just as the shot connected with the source of his--present--distress, and engulfed the fish, as well as Ruffy's arm, in a ball of yellow flame.

(And then the Going Merry went entirely up in flames. The tangerine bushes, especially. The crew all drowned. The End.) The fire lasted merely seconds, and Ruffy emerged only slightly singed. (Seriously? All these attempts at slapstick, and a fishy fireball just gets “Oh, and Ruffy gets first degree burns, whatever?” It’s a fishy fireball, man! Embrace it!)  Now he sat calmly munching on his former assailiant, which had been fried to a crisp, as the rest of the crew (save the still-snoozing Zoro) milled about the ship, making adjustments to the sail, the wind having picked up again after a brief lull. "I don't like the look of this weather," called Nami to no one in particular, basket of gardening tools in one hand as she scanned the sky. "We'll see a storm within the hour." No one questioned this suggestion, clear as the sky seemed. Nami was never wrong.  "Sanji, get the tarp for my garden, will you? The rest of you keep the sails up for now, we need to make as much headway as possible before the storm hits." "Yes, my love!" was the cook's giddy reply as he descended obediently into the hatch to get the plastic covering Nami requested. Ruffy tossed the remains of the unforunate sea creature, mere bone picked completely clean, overboard, and wondered about dinner as he went to help Ussop with the rigging. The rising wind was whipping the skinny sharpshooter around the pole as he tussled with the ropes, doing a maypole dance with the mast without ever touching the ground. Zoro snored.

(The owner of the vicious fanged fish gathered up the bones of his precious baby. Beaten, burned, and thrown to the sharks. And for what? Citrus? Truly, a pirate’s greed knew no bounds. He sank beneath the waves, muttering dark promises of revenge for his beloved Chumblebutts.) ******************************************* The green-haired swordsman awoke with a sneeze. Rain fell like a translucent curtain from the black sky, sloshing about the deck and drenching him in salty cold. He sighed. There had to be some sort of cure for this ridiculous habit of his. He'd sleep through anything if he felt no threat in his immediate surroundings. (This made Zoro notoriously vulnerable to ninjas, diseases, and farts of the silent, but decidedly deadly variety.) Usually it was on board the Merry. The only other time in his life he'd had such unguarded comfort was back at the dojo; back home. Zoro had to smile as he picked himself off the deck and squelched towards the cabin. Home was here now! He grinned wider at the thought. He liked life simple, and thus he strove to keep it so. Running into Ruffy had been an accident. Life had never beem more exciting, (Special attack! Life Excitement Beem! PREEEOW!) and at the same time, so wonderfully uncomplicated.  One never could depend on circumstance for simplicity, not with a name known across the two seas; not with a price big enough to purchase a small village on your head. (Being wanted by the government was the best way of keeping life simple.) It was Ruffy's path through these strange situations that never wavered from its certain course: beat up the bad guy, and aid the helpless. His sharp hearing picked up the sound of a voice over the hammering rain, and Zoro cast a glance toward the ship's bow. Outlined against the storm- darkened sky was (the owner of the vicious fanged fish, sword drawn and murder in his eyes. Zoro sprung into action, a sword in each hand and a third clenched between his teeth, and began a fight that would surely make for much more interesting reading. However, we choose instead to focus on) the captain and his straw hat, sitting on the ram figurehead at the ship's bow. Behind the figure to the right stood Nami in her yellow raincoat, shaking a finger at Ruffy whilst her other hand struggled to keep a water-proof map open and a compass upright at the same time. For no reason he could put into words, Zoro began to hum a tune he had heard in his childhood as he turned once more toward the dry comfort of the cabin (where he would clean the blood off of his blades and wonder what on earth could bring a man to such depths of hatred as he saw) . He could not quite remember the lyics, someone had wrote about his childhood hero, the kind who always beat the bad guy and got the girl, (not that Zoro would ever admit to being a Dante fanboy. The world at large did not look kindly to grown men who still played Devil May Cry.) but to him they went something like this: "And the reason that she loved him, was the reason I loved him, too. 'Coz he never wondered what was right or wrong, He just knew. He just knew..." ******************************************** "Did the devil fruit make you immune to disease, too? You'll catch a cold out here!" Nami shouted over the storm. (”Oh, and also, if you fall into the water, you’re literally dead. It’s hard enough saving a man overboard in a storm, when they don’t sink like a stone because of devil fruit powers.”) "I like sitting here!" was Ruffy's stubborn answer. The youth clung like a possum to the smiling figurehead, glaring at Nami as if he expected her to challenge him for the spot. Nami sighed, and went back to reading her map. A most curious expression flitted across Ruffy's normally wide-eyed countenance. (5/10. Could have used more ponderous ten-dollar words.) He shuffled from his precariously dangling position on the ram head, sliding down the length of the neck so that he was only about two feet away from Nami. His voice carried that innocent tone only he was capable of. "Nami, are you happy?" Nami looked up and sneezed, a corner of the map whipping her in the face and her feet and hair soaking wet despite the raincoat. (What? The map whipped her in the face, the feet, and the hair, despite her raincoat? Fucking hell, that map must be a whiz at Tekken.) "What??" was her incredulous answer. "Um..."Ruffy searched for words. For a while he didn't find any. Nami was suddenly nervous. The youth seemed a little distant for a moment, and for good measure his bright, black eyes had settled upon her face as he searched his seldom-used and not-too-extensive vocabulary. (Unlike me, the author, who bases their entire identity on the extensiveness of their vocabulary. Why, I’m indubitably loquacious, you inadequately educated varlets.) "Don't you ever leave, ok?" he chirped, leaping over her head and onto the swaying deck. "I promise never to make you cry." And he went below deck, stretching and yawning. Nami stared after her captain, and smiled. (And that was the last thing she did before the owner of the vicious fanged fish clambered over the gunwale one last time from behind her, delirious from blood-loss and seeing only one last gasp opportunity to avenge his beloved Chumblebutts.)