#I’m going to try to articulate what irks me

[lunar-years]

Reblogging to shout out a few of the many amazing tags on this poll which i think deserve to be seen—

@goodmorninglovelies42

@eluvion

@jamietxrtt

I agree with all of this so so much and especially what all of you are saying about how the lines between platonic and romantic love are so often blurred and that reality is simply much more complex than a tumblr poll can address. He loves her period is RIGHT. And at least for me I think i also can’t separate these confessions from the intent I see behind them which is like, love without expectation. I don’t think Jamie is confessing he loves her in s2 thinking they’re going to actually get back together or to even propose that happening in any way. It’s more that he just wants her to know what she means to him (whether it be platonic or romantic or a bit of BothAnd) and that he’s thankful for her role in his life. At the end of the day he loves her, that love is something special, and it’s something he wants to be forever, I think. It doesn’t matter so much what form that takes, whether it means friendship or a relationship or what have you. After all, Jamie does know that isn’t only his choice to make. Most of all he just wants her to always be a part of his life and i think that’s what so beautiful about the two of them. <3

*the confessions I'm referring to are the funeral scene in s2 and the finale scene with Roy in s3

[shinobicyrus]

A thing that’s always low-key irked me about a lot of science-fiction set in outer space is that all the worlds encountered overwhelmingly have a single, planet-wide government.

Which I understand! Nation-states are an arbitrary and relatively modern political invention and any wide-scale space travel is a huge endeavor that would require the cooperation if not unification of an entire planet and its resources to achieve, and in some settings its an almost utopian achievement.

But the drawback is that is that sci-fi also shrinks the worlds and homogenizes them. If you go to Blorbob V, where you land is a perfect microcosm of all of Blorbob V. The people there are dressed the same, look the same, speak the same language, have basically the same set of values, and it’s the same thing across the whole planet. Or implied to be.

I guess what I’m trying to articulate is, in science-fiction, instead of rejecting the nation-state in its entirety, most sci-fi planets are reduced into a single homogenized nation-state rather than being hugely diverse places where billions of people with thousands of distinct cultures and languages exist.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I’m a trans guy that used to like Harrry Potter. I’m just thinking about it late at night.

Those books… got me into writing. Which is weird. In a way JK created me. An overly opinionated trans writer. I’m sure that she’d hate that. Hate me and my writing.

The big fantasy of course is to become so big as a writer that I get the chance someday to meet her and turn it down. But the chances of that happening are incredibly slim.

I now know all the flaws with the original books. I can’t read them anymore. Every time I try to reread them my hands physically go weak and I drop the book.

My emotions have always been incredibly physical and intense on the occasion that they come. I can’t physically open the books that shaped me anymore. It feels now like they’re steeped in hatred towards me. I know logically that they were written before she became what she is and that the art itself cannot hate me but still.

I have no fantasy of telling her off if I ever get to meet her. I don’t think I’d make it. I’m a little bit strong in some ways. A little bit weak in others. Just like anyone else. So what now?

It’s been a long time since I stopped rereading the books and knitting house scarves. And still on some nights like this I stay awake and stare at the ceiling fixating on it. What does any of it mean? I feel sick to my stomach and for reasons I can’t fully articulate dread starts to inch its way through my veins and into my brain, gluing me to my mattress and leaking its way out of my eyes.

The opinions of she who must not be named bother me. And I have worked so hard in my life to not care about the opinions of bigots but still it irks me. And I don’t see this as a loss or letting her win. It just confuses me. I know who I am and I’m fine with the decisions I’ve made to improve my own life. Still, I’m bothered. Bothered to the point of tears some nights. So what’s that about?

What do you do when something that important and insignificant leaves a small crack in your exterior? Where does that crack come from, exactly? What do you do with all this complexity you’ve got rattling around in your head?

Just keep on living, I suppose. Keep on living your life the way you know makes you happy even though people that you used to look up to would hate you for doing so. Even though this weird pinprick sized hole in your armor won’t go away.

[outofangband]

In preparation for my story that deals with the Darkening I want to talk about these two pages part by part because there is just SO much (not least Maedhros running into open court shouting “blood and darkness!” at Manwë)

masterlist 

Also of note is one of the few insights we get into how Maedhros reacts to a violent and traumatic crisis, at least relatively early on in his character arc. 

But even as (Nienna) mourned there was the sound of feet hastening in the night. Then through the throng came the sons of Fëanor, flying from the North and they bore new tidings of evil. Maedhros  spoke for them. “Blood and darkness!’ he cried. ‘Finwë the king is slain and the Silmarils are gone!’

look I know that he is presumably traumatized but just...the image of him running into the equivalent of a court room in session and without greeting just shouting “blood and darkness!” is quite...something 

Then Fëanor fell upon his face and lay as one dead until the full tale was told

So he had been in the ring of doom when his sons came in with this news. I’m going to try and not take any cheap shots with that sentence given the solemnity of the scene but...I’ll leave that to others. 

‘My lord,’ said Maedhros to Manwë, ‘it was the day of the festival but the king was heavy with grief at the departure of my father, a foreboding was on him. He would not go from the house. We were irked by the idleness and silence of the day and we went riding towards the Green Hills. Our faces were Northward but suddenly we were aware that all was growing dim.’

Maedhros captures the atmosphere so vividly here. I can feel a quiet, summer day when there shouldn’t be a thunderstorm but it feels like there will be. Slow and almost crackling and the heavy air starts to feel like dread. I love this description and I’m not doing my response to it justice 

‘The light was failing. In dread we turned and rode back in haste, seeing great shadows rise up before us. But even as we drew near to Formenos the darkness came upon us; and in the midst was a blackness like a cloud that enveloped the house of Fëanor.’

‘That enveloped the house of Fëanor’. I assume he means literally as he was out riding with his brothers but the more symbolic implications of that line are pretty powerful

The rest is under a cut just for length! I should note that I just...can’t articulate this properly so I apologize if this is kind of rambling 

‘We heard the sound of great blows struck. Out of the clouds we saw a sudden flame of fire. And then there was one piercing cry. But when we urged on our horses they reared and cast us to the ground, and they fled away wild. We lay upon our faces without strength; for suddenly the cloud came on and for a while we were blind. But it passed us and moved away north at great speed. Melkor was there, we do not doubt. But not he alone! Some other power  was with him, some huge evil: even as it passed it robbed us of all wit and will.’

Imagine what a Silm narrated entirely by Maedhros in this format would be. Hm. That’s another project for me to file away...

I have a very vested interest in horror, what makes things scary, what invokes dread, etc. I also am autistic and not always good at articulating these things so I apologize if this is kind of a mess. 

The sense of chaos and sheer wrongness is palpable here. I don’t know if this makes sense but the buzzing of the air with tension, the birds and insects and warm weather frogs have gone quiet, like a solar eclipse in a world that does not yet have the sun.  The forced cheerful but wary day of riding turning afoul when this cloud comes and screams are heard, the confusion, them being cast from their horses which have  and unable to move as this dreadful, ancient power draws nearer to them? I was talking with a very patient @cobaltjellyfish about this who said it very well; the Fëanorians were trapped as this horrifying entity passes by them and survive only because they are not directly in the way. 

A sense of dread, static atmosphere, trusted animals acting oddly and then violently, the light going out, helplessness induced as though by an otherworldly power

And then what they find when they finally reach home. 

I’m reminded of the frenzied energy of various horror films I like; watch the first thirty seconds of the trailer for A Field In England  and this is similar to the mood I get from this scene even if the context/story is completely different 

The Silmarillion says that Fëanor would have almost certainly been killed had he been at Formenos when Melkor arrived, indeed it was likely Melkor’s aim. (And Fëanor cursed also the summons of Manwë and the hour in which he came to Taniquetil, thinking in the madness of his rage and grief that had he been at Formenos his strength would have availed more than to be slain also as Melkor had purposed “The Flight of the Noldor”). We can’t say for certain what would have happened in hypotheticals that the author didn’t directly addresses but I have a hard time imagining that Melkor would have showed much mercy had the sons of Fëanor not gone out riding and had instead attempted to aid their grandfather. 

Also the mention of how the cloud that passes robs them of their wit and will. This is...intriguing to me. 

‘Darkness and blood! When we could move again we came to the house. There we found the king slain at the door. His head was crushed as with a great mace of iron. We found no others; all had fled and he had stood alone, defiant. That is plain; for his sword lay beside him, twisted and untempered as though by lightning strike. All the house was broken and ravaged. Naught is left. The treasures are empty. The chambers of iron are torn apart. The Silmarils are taken!’

So this is perhaps one of the few insights we get into how Maedhros reacts to a traumatic crisis, at least early on his in life. This is an incredibly coherent and detached description of finding the murdered body of your grandfather in a place that had not ever seen violent murder. That he had the presence of mind to get his brothers away from Formenos and go directly to where Manwë was is pretty impressive! Especially in the dark! I can imagine what that journey must have been like, not knowing who or what is still lurking out there

and to think of Finwë’s last stand against this shadow of his childhood who has now haunted him across two continents, who’s evil deeds he has known from the very beginning, who started as a shapeless horror that stole away his kin in the dead of night and became this knowable threat he still couldn’t escape....

I’m also wondering how Maedhros knew what the injuries of a mace look like, or even what a mace is at all. 

And Melkor wrecked the whole house! Killing Finwë was likely unnecessary, he could have almost certainly cast him aside, knocked him unconscious, etc. @promin-blog says that Melkor probably became enraged when another member of that family denied him entry and I think they’re right. 

Anyways this is a fascinating scene! 

[arabellaflynn]

The SOJD is on hiatus. The Celtics dance team has gone mixed-gender this year, and he is one of the first men they signed. If any of you are the sort who watch sportsball and actually pay attention to the non-sportsball segments of the broadcast, have fun trying to guess which one of the guys did his best to teach me hip hop.

He says it is temporary. He swears that teaching is "necessary for [his] mental health", and that he's going to figure out how to run single-session pop-ups whenever he can. In theory, he'll go back to twice-weekly classes in April if our team sucks, June if we don't. 

I don't like not having that class. It was useful in a technical training sense, but a lot of classes are; I picked up two others that will teach me equally useful things. They're fine. My schedule is fine. Everything's fine, and I hate it. I've spent the past two weeks trying to come up with a reasonable career-based argument for why I'm at such a loss right now, and I can't, because there isn't one. 

I miss that class because I felt wanted. And it's taken me this long to articulate that because it feels like a petty thought to have. There are a million other people who have been perfectly lovely to me, and extended a welcome as soon as I asked for one. It shouldn't matter that someone walked up and started talking to me first for once, but it does. I feel ungrateful and childish for caring.

It took me forever to figure out what he was up to, because normally people are only that persistent about talking to me when they want something. He didn't seem to want special treatment from the desk and he was way too gay to be angling for a date, so I didn't know what the fuck. The other thing people normally want out of me is emotional work, because when you're known to be generally unflappable it makes you look like a great repository for everyone's trauma-thoughts, but it actually took me months to convince him that when I asked "how are you?" that was an actual question and not a social noise, so.

He didn't want me to do anything for him. I eventually wound up doing a lot of things for him, but I hadn't done any of them yet, and neither of us had any idea I was going to. He didn't have to talk to me at all. Most of the friends I have now are people who could not avoid making my acquaintance. We worked together or volunteered together or did a show together, or something. We're friends now because we like each other, but we only figured that out because we were required to interact at some point whether we wanted to or not. The SOJD could have just waved and walked past me. But he just wanted to chat, so he did.

How pathetic am I being that this actually matters?

I also felt very seen in that class, which is a whole 'nother can of worms. I have a love/hate relationship with attracting attention in classes, especially from the instructor. On the one hand, I understand it's supposed to be flattering, but on the other hand, I learn far better if I'm just fed a whole bunch of information and then left alone to sort through it, and I know from experience that attention is eventually going to end in me being deputized. I've picked up two other classes to fill in some hours, and both of them have already either started using me as an example. It irks me, but not enough to say anything; explaining why I have so much baggage around it is pretty much never worth the trouble. I just accept that if I want to take classes I'm going to have to put up with being the demonstration model in much the same way I accept that if I want to leave my house I'm going to have to put on real pants. It's just one of life's many annoyances.

Like life's other annoyances, you don't realize how much energy you put into dealing with it until you don't have to. The SOJD likes to pull people who are doing well up to the front row, because watching them succeed makes him happy. He tried it with me exactly once. I asked him, "Why am I up here?" he said, "Do you not like being up front?" I said "NO I DO NOT," he said, "Okay, you can go back where you were." Fin. I eventually drifted closer to the front of my own accord, once the mirror was more help than distraction, but he never brought it up again. I've never felt like I could have that conversation with an instructor, much less that it would solve more problems than it caused.

A lot of things have panned out like that. Fundamentally, I was just grateful to finally be in a room run by someone who Gets It, for certain very specific values of It that confound most other people. A lot of it has to do with understanding that yes, I am always in some amount of pain, and no, that doesn't always mean it would be better if I stopped doing whatever I'm doing. I can choose to do things that hurt, if doing them is more important to me than not being in pain, but that means I forfeit the right to have my pain acknowledged, because mentioning it just makes other people concerned to the point where they interfere. But I might decide that I just can't that day, and that decision isn't always going to be consistent, because it depends on a million bizarre and esoteric factors that I could not even begin to unpack. 

I've only had to bail on class a couple of times. The last time I did it, I told him "love y'all, but if I keep going I'm gonna throw up on someone's shoes." He laughed at me -- which was the correct response, because I was being flippant -- but also let me go without kicking up a fuss about whether I was okay enough to get myself home. I've seen him do the normal-person thing when other people have mishaps in class, so I know he knows what most people expect. Having my own self-assessment respected by default is not something I expect, because it happens so rarely.

A part of me is sorry that he Gets It, because this is stuff you can't understand unless you live it for yourself. But I'm not responsible for other people having bad experiences decades before I met them, and  now that they are where they are in life, I'm glad when I run into them.

I hate not having that space. I hate not having a class where I don't have to make sure I look 'okay' so I can fly under the radar. I do warn most dance teachers that I'm very bendy and will probably make a lot of mechanically-puzzling choices, but that's not the same as being able to say, "Wow, that really fucking hurts. Hang on a minute and I'll do it again," and not have to deal with all the fallout.

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[baphomets-hairy-bonkhonagahoogs]

Okay instead of Portal 2’s humor I’m going to talk about Wheatley next instead. Because I have more fully formed thoughts about this than I do the large, nebulous, and intimidating topic that is “Portal 2’s comedy”.

So, Wheatley. An incredible voice performance, a likeable enough character who (to me at least) has a pretty logical progression from Friend to Foe. But, the more I think about him the more he irks me. Not just from a “I don’t care for him as a person/character” perspective, but from a meta writing perspective as well.

It is a major part of the story that Wheatley was literaly designed to be a moron. To be stupid. To fill GLaDOS’ head with time wasting thoughts and ideas. He is described as a tumor. However, Wheatley isn’t really that stupid at all.

Wheatley is often unobservant, takes a long time to think, and accidentally bumbles into trouble, sure. When GLaDOS calls him out by pointing out that Chell did all the work to install Wheatley into the big powerful position over Aperture, I largely agree with her. But while Chell did do all the heavy lifting and many times came up with better solutions to achieving their shared goals, Wheatley did do a good amount of guiding and planning. He made it a goal to take out GLaDOS’ turrets and neurotoxin and then he executed that plan with Chell’s help. Chell very likely would have come to the same idea herself of course but it was Wheatley who ended up proposing it. Wheatley also helped to direct Chell around Aperture. Again, Chell would have been able to find her way around by herself but Wheatley did bring that knowledge set to the table. I believe that it would have been extraordinarily more difficult for Chell if Wheatley wasn’t around to help out in the first half of the game.

He isn’t uselessly stupid. In fact he proves himself to be resourceful and clever sometimes as well! He plants the explosive trap at the stalemate button because he saw it bite GLaDOS in the ass, he got rid of (almost) everything that could have hosted a portal on it, he gave himself multiple blast sheilds because that also bit GLaDOS in the ass.

Wheatley doesn’t feel stupid to me. Often his downfall is his insecurities or luck being against him (such as the moon becoming visible for Chell to shoot at) rather than being too stupid. Which brings me to my main point. Wheatley isn’t a stupidity core but rather an ADHD core that comes free with the insecurities that often follow ADHD people around.

I myself have ADHD, and ADHD is different for everyone. I want to make that clear. I can only speak from my own perspective on the matter. But, I find myself often relating to Wheatley.

We both have hyperactive minds that spew out thoughts before we can process if they make much sense or not. We both get easily distracted and ramble in a train of consciousness style. For an example of this look towards Wheatley telling Chell about the robot myths and stories about Aperture and its history while they both navigate behind the scenes in the first half of the story. We both think up obtuse, unconventional (yet creative) solutions to problems that are at times unnecessarily and often inefficient. For an example, see Wheatley’s frankenturrets or all the ways he tries to chase the high of the euphoria of testing. I often feel stupid or like “a moron” myself when I’m forced to work within a structure built for neurotypicals and inevitably fall behind. Remember earlier when I said that Wheatley is more often defeated by his insecurities than his supposed lack of intelligence? Well that insecurity stems from his own frustration at himself or ridicule from others when he can’t succeed at what is expected of him by himself or others (GLaDOS mainly). This is painfully relatable. His rejection sensitivity is delt with my lashing out and trying to maintain a level of control over the facility (not a very healthy way to deal with it, but it’s definitely more interesting for the story’s sake). When his intelligence is insulted he takes it very hard, I’d guess seeing it as a form of rejection, and overcompensates with classical music and “reading” Machiavelli. I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting as I write this, but I hope I’ve got my point across.

Wheatley isn’t stupid, he just has ADHD symptoms. And often times people with ADHD are read as stupid, and ADHD traits are assigned to characters who are supposed to be stupid. I’d hope that it is obvious why this is problematic. And the issue isn’t exclusive to Portal 2 by any means. For example, Andy Dwyer from Parks and Rec probably just has ADHD with a big does of impulsivity.

Does all this make me hate Wheatley as a character? No actually. This is a systemic problem that I feel as though many creatives don’t even realize what they’re doing as they do it. I believe it’s ignorance in good faith over malice in bad faith. Is it okay if this makes you hate the way Wheatley is written and ruins him for you? Of course! It’s a personal thing. I simply wanted to share because if I can help other people notice it then hopefully it should stop happening.

While I don’t believe it’s intentional, I think it ends up saying a lot about how an ADHD person ends up getting treated in an environment literally not made for them. And power corrupts, of course, so I have a hard time seeing it as a “neurodivergent people are evil or bad people” narrative. Anyone who is given so much power is gonna turn fuckin’ evil, see GLaDOS or the disgustingly capitalist Cave Johnson (Though he was pretty evil from the get go. I’ll talk about Cave more when I talk about Portal 2’s comedy). Wheatley’s only flaws aren’t his symptoms either. He’s just kinda sexist as well, this shines through in little ways like his assumption that the human who beat GLaDOS was a man. Wheatley is complicated.

In conclusion, I hope that made even a lick of sense. I’ll admit that it was difficult trying to articulate all my thoughts of this in a easy to read way, so I hope I did a good job!

[canadian-riddler]

Oh, no no no. You misunderstand. I’m not trying to diss on people who self ship. Much less people who self ship with Riddler. I was only saying that I find it aggravating that people only seem to admire certain versions of Riddler because they find him either attractive or sympathetic, as if that’s the only two things he can be. I only said I’d date AK Edward if I had to pick one purely because he’s my favorite. Not that I’m inherently attracted to him. In fact, my point was I’d date him because he’s one of the only Riddlers people don’t always go on about how he’s “just a little guy” or “insanely attractive” or whatever, and that I’d date him if I HAD to date a Riddler. I’m not trying to judge people for their self shipping. I suppose I’m only greatly irked by people going on about Riddler for only the reason of him being some woobified sex god. I’d rather people talk about him for other reasons. I just wasn’t articulating my point very well and came off as judgemental and rude. And I suppose I did exaggerate a bit, that was me trying to diffuse my own frustration and come off as more humorous. But I understand that’s difficult to do through text. I apologize.

The original AK Riddler take was that he’s a virgin who would blush and cry if someone had sex with him so I’m still not sure what you’re talking about. You must be on a side of Tumblr I’ve never seen because I’ve mostly only ever seen the idea of Riddler being a sex god being met with ridicule

[featherymalignancy]

Hello! I've seen your comments on how you change a few things when writing the characters, and I really think it's fascinating! I really enjoy see your version, because they are never OOC (I don't know how you do this magic).

And thinking of that, I have some questions...

Do you have your characters versions ready and figured out before you start writing your fics? How is this process of finding out how you want to write them?

And also what are your thoughts on Nessian in ACSF that you felt the need to change them a little? Did you like them? Did you like the book?

I don't think I ever saw your opinion and I really like how you articulate your answers. And I hope I'm not overstepping with all these questions 🥺

This got so long, sorry in advance!

Thank you! I know that character extrapolation isn’t for everyone, but to me it’s what writing fic is about! I like to think I am very intentional with the additions/character expansions I’ve made in my fics, often seeking to expand areas I felt were left somewhat underdeveloped in canon. (Illyrian culture, anyone??)

I also have a personal preference for setting my modern AUs in the real world, so you will never see a modern Rhysand living in skyscraper in Velaris or modern Aelin being described as a Terrasenian (?) citizen. That is not an indictment of the many incredible writers who do structure their modern AUs this way, i just find it easy to ground my modern stories in a world I can easily research if I need details (a restaurant for them to visit, a street for them to live on, etc)

As far as “editing” character personalities from canon, i think the key for me is trying to understand who the character is at their core, and altering the elements that I personally don’t feel jive with those core motivations.

I’ve talked a lot about writing canon Nesta, and how I’ve pivoted the Archeron sisters’ relationship based on my own experience as the youngest of three daughters. I just didn’t always feel their interactions rang true, particularly in ACOSF.

And since you asked…

I think enough time has passed now that I can just be honest and say I didn’t love ACOSF. I didn’t hate it, but I can’t say I would give it any more than a 5/10. To me, the story wasn’t properly paced, which made for a plot that was slow in some places and rushed in others.

Also—and I cannot believe I am saying this—but there was too much smut. There was a lot of elements that deserved to be fleshed out and wasn’t (HELLO ILLYRIAN CULTURE??) and the smut was largely all the same to me, which made it boring and repetitive. (Also calm down with the bodily fluids my GOD)

In terms of Nessian, I would say their resolution was acceptable, if not particularly satisfying. Obviously I’m biased because if you know me you know that I hate the mating bond, but it IRKED me that Cassian was foaming at the mouth to call Nesta “mate” but never said, “I love you”. I get that he does loved her, but I feel like it would have been nice to get to hear it and get Nesta’s reaction.

Speaking of OOC, I think Rhys’s characterization was a disaster and directly negated his characterization in prior books for the sake of drama. We don’t need to get into it, but Rhys would never keep a secret of that magnitude from Feyre, especially considering the implications with their bargain to die together. Rhys has sacrificed everything for the sake of his people—he would never not make a contingency plan in the event of his death. That is what I mean by rushed. The book was so busy touting itself as steamy and new adult that it forgot to actually write a compelling plot and believable character interactions.

I like the idea that Rhys and Nesta’s relationship is fraught and he is bias and unfair in his interactions with her because that’s very realistic, but it was never actually resolved by them reaching an understanding. We deserved a scene of Rhys and Nesta coming to an understanding and a place of mutual respect for one another, and we never got it.

As far as Nesta’s journey went, it as generally fine, if somewhat rushed. I think her relationship with the Inner Circle was never really hashed out meaningfully, which made their “reconciliation” at the end feel empty and forced.

I really appreciated Nesta finding her own crew and making her own life, with ONE exception (and this is personal preference, not an indictment of people who liked it) but I fucking 👏🏼 hated 👏🏼 the sleepover with Nesta, Emerie, and Gwyn. Not because I didn’t love seeing them bond, but because *NO* part of Nesta’s characterization before or after suggested she was the kind of person who would have liked having what amounted to a make-believe tea party with mini ponies and cake. I would have preferred them laying around talking about books until dawn, or going together to see a dance performance. I just found the interaction so OOC that it rang false. Nesta being happy doesn’t mean that she suddenly must be silly to prove it! Gwyn and Emerie both love and accept Nesta for who she is—an introvert and with an cerebral disposition . Silly and happy are not the same thing, and one needn’t act indulge in childhood activities to prove they are unburdened and happy.

As always I’ve gone on too long, but the bottom line is that I try and consider what motivates a character, and I make sure that their actions reflect that motivation realistically. That causal relationship is the heart of good characterization, and is also the reason that I found ACoSF ‘meh’ at best.

Hopefully that answers your question, but feel free to follow up!!♥️♥️

[hournites]

Bait & Switch

Hournite Week 2021 - Day 3: Secret Admirer 

~.~

“And then we can head to the Pit Stop for—eeep!!” Beth jumped from her locker as a piece of white paper landed in her hair.

 “Oooooh!” Yolanda poked her side. “Is that another letter?” 

 Beth reached up for the standard printed paper sheet folded in three. She glanced at it, biting her lip as she scanned the page. “Looks like it, yeah!” 

 “I’m sorry,” Rick interrupted when Courtney grabbed Beth’s arm to squeeze. “Another what?” 

 “Beth’s been getting letters in her locker.” Courtney pointed to the little green shelf attachment Beth had on her inner locker next to magnets and pictures of Yolanda, Court, and Rick. A small pile of like creased letters accumulated there, sitting innocuously. 

 “Love letters,” Yolanda chimed in. 

 Rick’s frown stayed in place. “Since when did Beth have a boyfriend?” 

 “I don’t,” Beth corrected him. “I mean, not yet? I don’t know? I haven’t reached out or anything, I just started getting them a few days ago. I’d ask Chuck to scan them for fingerprints or something, but...you know.” She laughed a bit, pushing down the way Chuck’s blown in frames still stabbed at her heart. “Anyway, there’s no handwriting since it's printed, see?” She handed it to Rick. 

 “Hey Beth, I notice your yellow shoes.” His eyebrows raised past his hairline. “Why does this kid have a foot fetish?” 

 “Rick!” Courtney scolded. 

 “Sounds like Bowin.” 

 Yolanda scoffed at the Isaac comment. “As if Isaac had the balls.” 

“To you, maybe.” Beth took the letter back when she realized Rick wouldn't appreciate it. “To me, it’s kinda sweet?” She flashed her friends a shy smile. “They always have something to say about what I’m wearing.” 

 “So they’re watching you,” Rick deadpanned. “Not creepy at all.” 

 Her face fell. “You think it’s creepy? Like ISA creepy?” 

 “Rick!” This time it was Yolanda. Courtney swatted his arm. 

 “Hey!” 

 Yolanda veered Rick off to the side, speaking in a hushed tone. “Believe me, you and I both know the guys here can be horrible, but this all seems very PG. I don’t see anything wrong with it, and neither does Courtney. Can we not ruin this for Beth?” 

 Rick pursed his lips, but Yolanda crossed her arms until he gave in. 

 ~.~ 

 One letter turned into two, and then three. Rick leaned against the metal row of lockers as Beth tried to catch the fluttering paper before it touched the dirty floor. 

 “More mystery mail?” 

 “Second one today, I didn’t get one yesterday, I was wondering if they forgot.” She tucked it in her pocket and went for her lunch bag.

 “You’re not going to read it?”

 “I thought you weren’t interested.” 

 Rick straightened his back. “No no, I’m interested! I’m very interested.”

 “You just want to make fun of what they said.”

 “No!” Though he was lying and Beth knew it. 

 They walked to the cafeteria, Yolanda and Court were already eating their lunches.

 “C’mon,” Rick pestered the girls. He leaned his arms on the table conspiratorially. “Don’t we all want to hear what Beth’s secret lover has to say today?”

 “I don’t have a secret lover,” she protested, but the girls got excited at the news of Beth getting locker mail twice and Rick leaned back in his plastic chair, satisfied.

 “Secret admirer, then.”

 Beth shot him another look of exasperation, but he merely raised his eyebrows at her.

 “What,” he countered. “Is that not what it is?”

 “Um, yeah,” she scooted in her chair, pressing the letter down and smoothing it out, refusing to look up at any of them, embarrassed. “We can call them that. Aw! They said I’m pretty!” Beth squinted at the paper. “Oh, they spelled it wrong.” 

 As much as he found Beth’s notes weird as hell, he got a rise out of watching her stammer and flush at all the attention. Courtney’s usually the one to flail around with massive blushing and her awkward high pitched voice when confronted about Cameron. In all honesty, hearing Courtney gush about Cameron without either of them making real moves on each other got tiring. Yolanda never looked like she wanted to talk about a love life for herself ever again, so Beth’s bright eyes reading out loud her dumb letters were new. He’d never seen her so eager to get to her locker. She’d drag him out of their class together to make a beeline for it. Really, it was cute. Maybe that’s why Rick couldn’t stop teasing her. 

 ~.~

 Later that week, the group sat together at lunch as usual. Courtney’s hair would not stay up in the messy bun she’d been trying and failing to pull off. She kept wrapping a hair elastic around the ball of blonde curls. Rick watched as she huffed out an annoyed breath at the fifth time it flopped over the front of her face. 

 “You need a mirror,” Rick pipped in unnecessarily. He smirked when she glared at him. 

 “I give up!” Courtney reached across the lunch table to grab Yolanda’s wrist when she gave up for the sixth time. “Help?” 

 Yolanda laughed, scooting her chair over and said, “I’ll just give you a braid.” 

 “Oh!” Beth jumped in her seat as if she just remembered something. “My letter today said something really nice about my hair!” She unzipped her school bag to bring it out. Yolanda peered over at it while she continued to fix Courtney’s mess. She read it out loud for them. 

 “That’s not even that great,” Rick pointed out when Beth finished. “They like your hair. So what? Your hair always looks great, there’s no effort involved on their part.” 

 Beth frowned at her letter. “Really?” 

 “It’s superficial, don’t you think? They don’t say anything about why they like you as a person.” 

 “Yeah,” Courtney cut in. “Probably because they don’t know her that well? Cut them some slack?” 

 “I don’t need to cut anyone any slack.” 

 Yolanda took a bite out of her apple. “If you liked someone, what would you do?” She batted her eyelashes at him as she chewed on her snack, clearly expecting a lame answer.

 “I don’t like anyone.”

 Yolanda shared a look with Courtney. Courtney would do that a lot with Mike and Beth would do that a lot with himself but when Yolanda did that with Courtney, Rick always felt a bit paranoid. 

 “Is that illegal or something?” Rick muttered, stabbing his fork into his food.

 “No,” Yolanda replied, dragging out the syllable carefully. “But let's say hypothetically that you did, would your answer be the same?”

 Now Beth was waiting intently for his answer as well. 

 Rick pushed his plastic tray away, no longer hungry. “If I liked someone I’d let them know… like a normal person.”

 Courtney stifled a laugh that irked him. Her ice blue painted nails covered her mouth to half hide whatever joke she had within. 

 Yolanda tugged at one of her stray curls as a warning. “Court.” 

 “What now?” Rick groused. 

 Courtney leaned forward, gripping the edges of the table. “Would you actually?”

 “No offense Court, but if I liked a girl, I wouldn’t run off to tell you about it.”

 Now Courtney really did laugh, but Rick was dead serious. If he liked someone, he wouldn’t make it overcomplicated. If it were someone that could actually like him back, he’d just be honest with them. No frilly notes or secret rendez-vous. 

 He pushed Beth’s little love letter across the table. Beth took it wordlessly, mouth pressed in a careful line, eyes inquisitive. 

 Not that Rick had much time to think about what he’d do if he did like anyone. There wasn’t much time for Rick to develop feelings other than the deep-rooted anger and hatred that brewed for years over the conditions of his life. 

Rick shook his head at her. This wasn’t anything complicated. If he were the one secretly crushing on Beth, he’d tell her. He said as much to the girls when they pestered him some more. “It’s not that hard.”

 ~.~

 Beth got new letters every day for the next week. It became routine for her to read them during their lunch period. The girls pushed their chairs closer together to scrutinize the text, eyes peeled for anyone they might think to be the secret admirer. Rick played along half-heartedly, though mostly ate his lunch suppressing eyerolls. 

  “That top looks great on you. Also, why did you take off your rainbow necklace? It's cute.”

 “Hmm,” said Yolanda. “Maybe it’s a girl.” 

 Rick scraped his plastic fork against the paper plate on his lunch tray. “Maybe they should stop staring at Beth’s shirt.”

  “I don’t mind,” Beth said, looking up at him. 

 Rick scraped the styrofoam plate again. These letters weren’t amusing anymore.

 ~.~

 Beth approached him that day after training. She drummed her fingers against the green cloth of her cape along her arms, craning her neck up to look at him as he raked through his upswept hair. They were in the loft of the Pit Stop where they’d dumped their bags. Beth was on the couch, in no hurry to change into fresh clothes because she hadn’t sweat through hers the way he had. Chuck was still offline, so she had been cautioned to stay a few paces behind the others for protection. She usually chose to stick by Rick. 

 Rick shook out his aching fingers. His hood was hanging low over his shoulders and the heaviness of his suit weighed after the effects of his tapered strength. 

 “What?” he asked after several moments, acutely aware that she just stood there, staring.  

 “Is there anything you’re not suspicious of? Sometimes you just have to trust people.” 

 Rick sighed, turning around. He thought this was about the training or the sweat or the way his hair stuck up like a cartoon and he didn’t have enough gel to smooth it back down, but Beth clearly wanted to revisit their conversation from lunch. He’d rather not. “If this is about the letters—” 

 “It is. What’s your deal with them, really? Even my mom knows! She thinks it’s funny! I’m having fun!” She grinned widely and threw out her hands to back up her words. Like he needed to see her laugh off the fact someone was following her around the school without coming forward about it to prove it wasn’t something to be reasonably concerned about. 

 Rick sat down beside her on the couch, taking a moment to articulate his phrasing. He didn’t want Beth to bristle at his tone or words. He’d made the mistake enough, seen the hurt written on her face way too many times. She could handle his heat, but it always left Rick feeling shitty to realize she needed to guard herself around him. Steel herself to get offended. He needed to stop offending her, Beth was quite frankly the kindest person Rick knew. This was why Rick felt strongly about the twenty-seven ways this secret admirer situation emerged red flags. “Don’t you want to know who they’re from?” 

 Beth shrugged. “It’d be nice.” 

 “Would you date them if they revealed themselves?” 

 “Um.” Beth flushed. “Maybe? I don’t know. I’m not planning any weddings but I’ve thought about it, I guess.” She side-eyed him. “Are you going all big brother on me now?” 

 Rick almost said yes, but bit his tongue at the last second, making a face. It didn’t feel quite right. He opened his mouth instead to retort about protecting the team. Beth accepted it well enough, wrapping her arms around his middle to thank him for bothering enough to care. Rick stiffened at her hug, thrown off by the carefree way she clung to him. He placed his hand on her back and she pushed her head further against his shirt. 

 “I don’t want you upset with me.” 

 Her words stabbed at his gut. “I’m not,” he said, surprised and dismayed. Of course she’d perceive it that way even after he tried. “I’m not, Beth. Though I guess you’re right, trusting people isn’t my thing.”

 “I know, I didn’t mean to be so defensive about it.” She looked up at him and removed her cowl. Her hair sprung out high, decompressed from the tight, restraining fabric.  “It’s just that I wish when a note makes me smile...You’d smile back at me.” 

 He didn’t say anything for a moment. Beth crossed her legs, eyes and hands now at the clasp of her vintage cape. Her hair expanded, reclaiming its crown over her head. It bloomed in front of him. Not just the hair, her wisdom and hope and trust to share that so candidly with him. 

 “I’ll try?”

 A tiny pleased smile began as her thumb looped through the hook. “You will?” 

 “Yes,” Rick said. 

 The green of the cape flashed in front of them. Only a trace of that smile remained once it was neatly folded on her lap.  “Thank you.”

 ~.~

 Rick tried. 

 It was like now that Rick gave her his disgruntled blessing of the elusive secret admirer, Beth no longer capped the word count on her inner novel of thoughts about it. She’d speak freely without checking back or worrying that Rick would make any comments and Rick had pretty much shut up about it to her face. 

 This was her thing, and it made her happy. Why did it matter what Rick thought about it anyway? 

 Though it did matter, exactly because of how happy those typed letters made her. It wasn’t wrong that Beth saw the best in people or found cheerfulness in all uncertain things. Rick was glad for it, honestly. That persistence in her wrestled with his own stubbornness— somehow it evened each other out. Beth’s drive blazed a fire that refused to be stomped out. Rick liked that drive in her. He appreciated it, even, just as much as it sometimes drove him insane. He didn’t want to be the one to smother that flame— Not him, or anyone else. 

 ~.~ 

 Rick didn’t realize he was intentionally hanging around Beth’s locker to scout out her secret admirer until he caught them in the act. 

 He straightened up from his slouched position against the wall across the drama room, taking in the uneven dirty blond haircut and letterman jacket worn by the person in question. 

At first, Rick figured the guy was at the wrong locker. He stood there rummaging into his gym bag for something. But then he produced a familiar folded paper and Rick realized this was the guy. Beth’s guy. It got very real. Beth had a guy. This guy wanted Beth. Liked her. He liked her and wrote stupid letters every day with things in it that actually made her want to like him back. And he had freckles and looked pretty short, and would probably make her laugh and would offer her his jacket to show her off to the dicks on the football team. 

Rick’s eyes narrowed, seizing him up. That was right, the guys on the football team were dicks. Beth’s secret admirer was friends with them?

 She wouldn’t take that well. 

 He looked new. Young, even. Not any of the faces he’d cataloged that tormented Yolanda over the last year and a half. Should he follow him? 

 Rick lurked. 

 The kid glanced around nervously, letter slotted in the hinges for the locker. How many days had it been? Two and a half weeks? How was this guy still skittish for sneaking around the school to send love letters to a girl? Wouldn’t he know one of these days he’d get caught?

Alright, Rick had two options. He could turn around and keep this to himself. Never say a word to anyone and let this guy and Beth work out whatever they have and just.... watch.

Or he could walk up there right now and get information. What the hell is your deal? Do you have a foot fetish? Are you another supervillain freak? How did you meet Beth? Why are your notes so uninspired? Do you even know her? Are you embarrassed that you’re into her? Why do you care?

Rick's legs marched him over, having made up his mind.

“Hey!” It came out harsher than he intended by the reaction of the football player. He yelped, backing up against the locker and widening his eyes at Rick. 

 “It’s not what it looks like, I swear!” This poor kid’s voice cracked. 

 Rick squinted at him. “Who the hell are you?” 

 “Huh?” 

 “Your name. Parents? Date of birth. Alien status?” 

 The kid didn’t say anything. Rick sighed, already regretting it but knowing he’d have to in order to speed this along. He slammed his fist against the nearby locker, cornering him. The kid looked properly terrified. At least it was something to know those Rick Harris rumors were still thriving. “Well?” 

 “Joe! Joseph Kindersef. Son of Harold and Shoan Kindersef. August 9th, 2006. Um, Non-alien?” 

 “Sounds like something an alien would say.” 

 “I swear I’m not an alien! I’m just a freshman!” 

 “If I back off, are you gonna run?”

 “I’m on the football team!” he yelled out as if that question was undignified.

  Rick rolled his eyes. “You’re fourteen years old. I don’t care what team you’re on. Are you gonna run?”

 “No.”

 Rick relented, pulling back to put some room between them. “So, you’re the one writing to Beth for the last few weeks?”

 “Yes, but—”

 Rick pulled a face. “She’s a bit old for you, don’t you think?”

 “Maybe, but—”

 “Beth really likes the letters, okay? She doesn’t need someone that’s too much of a coward to come up and talk to her. So pick it up and do something meaningful or leave her alone.” 

 Joseph squeaked. “I can’t.”

 “Okay so—She really likes yellow and cute shit so try sticky notes to include—“ Rick backtracked and paused. That didn’t sound normal. “What? You can’t? Yes, you can. You just have to find the guts to tell her who you are and ask her out so she can finally meet you so she can decide if you’re worth a—”

 “No!” Joe cut Rick off. “I can’t leave her alone!” 

 Rick’s stomach sank. Joe heaved, eyes blown back wide as he grimaced as if waiting to get yelled at again.

 But Rick lost the wind in his rant, lowering his voice to a shocked whisper. “What do you mean? You don’t…want to be Beth’s boyfriend?” 

 “No! I don’t really know her! I don’t get what the big deal is!”

 Rick nearly slammed him back against the metal row. “Then why are you leading her on?”

 “Oh my god!” He weaseled out of Rick’s grip, hands up in surrender. “I swear, I can explain! Just don’t beat me up, I get enough of that from the team!” He dropped his gym bag and kicked it, yanking off his letterman jacket. “God, I’m sick of this!”

 Rick was at a loss for words. He clenched his jaw, keeping his fuming to a minimum to give Joe a chance. Not that he deserved one, in Rick’s honest opinion, but Beth probably would’ve wanted to at least hear his case before Rick undoubtedly scared her only potential prospect of a boyfriend away with a piss stain in his pants. 

 He furrowed his brows. “Sick of what?” 

 “This!” Joe gestured at the floor. “Blue Valley High! The goddamn team!” 

 It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. The thought of it all made Rick sick to his stomach. Of course, in a twisted way it all made perfect sense. There was no villain here, only two victims. Raze the newbie recruit on the team and mercilessly bully the girl that raises her hand one too many times in class all at once. Force Joe to do the dirty work and laugh at Beth’s disappointment when her non-existent secret admirer gets shoved in her face. 

 Wonderful. Great plan for a group of football meatheads that barely even grieved Henry Jr’s death. Rick hated this school so much. 

 “Can’t you just stop?”

 “No!” Joe insisted. “I can’t, I would’ve if I could!” 

 “What are they doing to you?” 

 Rick knew the answer wasn’t going to be pleasant. He crossed his arms, eyebrows raised as he stared up at the ceiling while Joe lamented over the football hierarchy in disarray, wanting to make it past waterboy dweeb status, razing punishments incorporating the abandoned construction porta potty beyond the field parking lot, and the daily checks on Joe the team did to ensure he’s following their crazy rules.  

 “You know what I wanna say?” Rick told the guy when his sob story was over. “I wanna say that’s your problem.” Because after this and his last encounter with Sportsmaster Rick was very close to never watching any organized game in America ever again. 

 “It is my problem.” 

 “Actually, it’s not.” Rick scowled. “You’ve entangled Beth Chapel into this, so you’ve made it my problem.” 

 Joe stared at him. Rick muttered under his breath, dragging a hand over his face. For some reason he pictured Courtney. If she were here right now with him, Rick could perfectly imagine what she’d say: This was part of what it meant to be a superhero. You are a superhero now. 

 Rick knew this, theoretically, but thinking about that word in association to himself still felt beyond stupid. Stupid, but so painfully accurate by the way a feeling ate at his insides to help this pathetic freshman. Not just because of Beth. Rick had a magical hourglass and a skintight suit and belonged to a secret crime-fighting team. But it wasn’t just about crime, it was about injustice. And this fits that bill to a tee. 

 He flapped his hand at Joe before he could change his mind. “Go. I’ll take care of it.” 

 “Huh?” 

 “You don’t have to do this anymore.” 

 “But they check at lunch every day for the letters and there are still two and a half weeks left in the month—” 

 “I know!” Rick groaned just thinking about all the ways this was going to ruin his entire schedule. The sneaking and evasion. The random class cutting he’d have to pull off inconveniently now that Yolanda and Pat have drilled it into Rick that he needed to get a decent pass... 

 Joe stepped away, looking over his shoulder at the deserted hallway, unable to believe his newfound freedom. “You need to make it sound like you care or else they’ll get suspicious,” he stressed.

 “I get it.” Rick shooed him away. “Trust me. I get it.” 

 The anxious red splotches all over Joe’s face faded away. He sniffed, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his varsity jacket. “You really want to help me?”

 “Just tell me what I need to do to make this work.”

 He pulled out his dad’s notebook from his bag as Joe ranted about the nonsensical expectations the football team had of him, and what they had planned for Beth via public embarrassment by the end of the month. His dad’s handwriting blurred past as he clicked the top of his ballpoint to start on a fresh page, jotting it all down. He ended up with over a page and a half.  A page is more than he thought he’d need. It was excessive and tedious and stupid enough to put an end to today. He wouldn't, though, end it today. Because of one thing Rick knew for certain. He was going to one-up the Stockholm secret admirer deal Joe had going on. Two weeks of nice deeds weren’t completely out of his reach. 

 ~.~

 Rick stared at the blank word document in front of him, tucked into the furthest computer monitor desk at the very corner of the library. Sneaking in here was easy, though it was stressful enough to make Rick’s hands sweat. It was dumb, nobody questioned a student at the library over lunch. The tenth graders came in anxious packs to prepare for their PSATs, and the juniors freaked out over college pamphlets at the communal tables. Nobody would care that Rick Harris was hunched over a keyboard, glancing down at his lap to refer to an original letter for help. 

 Beth didn’t even notice Rick swiped a letter from her. Her locker door swung open while she chatted about the science homework and then the muffins she planned on making and then the recipe Barbara sent to her phone that she pinned on her Pinterest board. That Pinterest board was very important, something she’d curated since elementary school after her mom accidentally forgot to include a lunch for Beth, exhausted by the first surgery she’d operated on as the new head surgeon at Blue Valley Medical Centre. This was all new information Rick only learned from their walk to get her lunch box, so Beth’s talkativeness did have its advantages some days. Rick reached over and plucked a folded letter from the pristine metal basket right over her head to stuff in his back pocket. Even if she were ever tall enough to catch that, the muffin recipe had too many steps for her to list to ever let her take her eyes off her phone. 

 Rick stood firm in his belief that Joe’s letters were creepy and lame, regardless of how the creepy and lameness parts were now halfway excusable under Joe’s duress and whatever. Still, he couldn’t deny he needed one in his possession to study. At least as an example for formatting one correctly if he wanted to pull this off; the font and size had to be exactly the same. And, most importantly, the letter provided a base of comparison to work from to make the letters going forward less weird. 

 Rick knew Beth better. He could do so much better. And he should, anyway. There’s no harm done. He’s going to have to tell Beth at the end of the month what exactly happened to her secret admirer, so she’ll know Rick became the author somewhere along the line. He’d never be caught dead authoring notes that made it sound like he had a foot fetish or some other weirdness. And if Beth likes the letters more, Joe won’t get as much shit either. 

 So why wasn’t this working?

  Hey, Beth. 

 Rick stared at the screen. His eyes were dry, he needed to blink. A Hey, Beth wasn’t going to get anyone anywhere, and this letter had to be slotted through that locker rust a good half hour before the class that went into lunch.

  I just wanted to let you know how kind you are. I saw you today give away your extra hair elastic to the other girl in the hallway—

 No.

  Beth, 

Your laugh is out of this world. 

 Rick slammed his palm against the backspace button, the stiff keyboard jam startled the senior girl half-napping over her notes beside him. He deleted the word document altogether and started over. Nobody needed to see that. That sentence came out of nowhere. Forget that it was bad and sounded like Hallmark garbage, reading the words on the computer mortified him. Maybe it wasn’t out of limit to find Joe and force him here to do the actual writing himself. At least as a draft for Rick to work with. No wonder Joe’s letters came out awkward and stilted. But where would he even find Joe and was the answer something Rick even wanted to find out? 

 Rick didn’t like Beth like this. How was he going to write to make it seem like it could be implied that he did? This was fucking hard. 

 “Since when do you study?” 

 Rick crumpled Joe’s letter into his fist. He minimized the tab for the Word document. Yolanda’s braids swept over the built-in camera of Rick’s computer monitor, peering down at him with an eyebrow raised.

 “Since today.” He clicked on the school browser to type in one of the chemistry learning sites he went bleary-eyed scrolling through last semester late at night. 

 “When’s the test?”

 He shrugged. Her braids swung over his screen again. Rick shot her an exasperated high brow, flicking them away. 

 Yolanda shook her head at him and took the next seat. The binders she pulled out for her math assignment told Rick she wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon. Fine. Rick put the letter on hold. It wasn’t something he wanted to rush anyway. 

 ~.~

  Beth, 

Your laugh is special. Because you can make anything sound great, and find laughter in everything. It’s what you do and who you are. I wouldn’t change that about you, ever. 

 Rick skipped the last ten minutes of class to get to Beth’s locker while the hallway was still empty. In slipped the letter. Out went his breath. 

 They were just words. Once he was able to wrap his head around that fact it got a lot easier. They were just words. Nice words. For Beth. It didn’t really matter if they were poetic or fancy. They were genuine, though, because Rick wasn’t going to lie on top of everything. But they weren’t in the sense Rick felt anything romantic for her. If Beth and the girls read it and felt otherwise, it was only because they were under a preconceived notion. One Rick would explain away when it is all over. 

 Above all, he was sparing her any humiliation by lifting her up and giving some nice compliments. It was a win-win situation. Once Rick was able to digest that, it got a lot easier to justify the emotional connection he teased out of himself to work the right sentiment he needed and had written down. 

  ~.~ 

 The problem was, sometimes letters didn’t cut it. Rick didn’t always have the right words. It was because he knew how Beth’s face brightened up when he wrote something right. She’d let out a breath that was almost a sigh, hugging the letter close. It would put her in a mood nothing could deter for the rest of the day. It’s what Rick noticed two weeks ago when these started, but it was all the better now, admittedly, when they came from him. She’d show them to her mom over FaceTime at lunch, to Barbara and Pat. Beth shared her secret admirer letter with anyone that had an extra second to spare.

  When Rick missed the mark, that was too obvious. Yolanda and Court never seemed to pick up the difference, and Beth never appeared dissatisfied, but Rick knew it wasn’t what she deserved.  

He’d tear out pages in his notebook before and after classes Rick took without her, practicing what he’ll type up by the time he gets to the school library. The pencil in his hand would tap against the paper as he ignored the lesson, thinking about how to best word how much it meant to him to see her turn around and flash him one of those breathless grins without giving himself away. He’d shred the paper after, stuffing it in the trash. The best parts Rick kept memorized to reuse the next day. 

 It took another three more neutral letters for Rick to change tactics. Instead of stressing over ways to tell Beth things he didn’t mean without revealing his identity, he found a way to work around keeping the secret admirer ploy alive while cutting out the amount of time he spent failing at writing. Small things he could afford like her favourite chocolate bars when he filled his car with gas at the station, or cheap bracelets from the dollar store to add when he wasn’t confident that he wrote enough. 

 He kneeled down in the wet grass by the bike rack behind the school on a Tuesday, weaving in the red and yellow roses he plucked from a nice garden a block down Main street through the handlebars of Beth’s teal bike. Beth was the type of girl to press flowers in books. She’d find the roses and would smell them and then keep them with the intention of saving them forever. 

When he managed to get the stem properly wrapped around her handlebars, he realized Beth forgot to lock in her bike properly. He fixed it, then leaned back, appraising his work. 

 He froze when he felt a warm breath against his neck. 

 “I didn’t know you were a part of the garden club.” 

 Rick dropped his hands to his sides, gritting his teeth through a polite nod at Isaac Bowin, who was peering over the bike rack in his pristine band clothes. “I’m not.” 

 “I see.” He scratched his nose. “That’s Beth’s bike.” 

 Rick eyed him. “I know.” 

 “That’s a nice gesture. I didn’t know you liked her.”

 “She’s my best friend.” Rick stood up and brushed the dirt from his pants. “It’s not like that.” 

 Isaac shrugged. “It looks like that.”  

 “Okay,” he replied lightly, rolling his eyes. Rick knew he was saving a high school freshman from being bullied by substituting his required secret admirer quotas because of his newfound moral superhero standards, but conversing with Isaac Bowin was something Rick hadn’t yet tolerated the patience for. He slipped his bag and walked around the side of the school building to go through the back. “Bye.” 

 Later that afternoon, Rick got tackled by Beth. He tensed as he always did when someone got a hold of him from behind, though he released the tension immediately when he looked up and saw her. 

 “I got flowers!” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders from his seat at their shared sixth-period class. 

 “Did you?” He replied, measuring his tone. 

 “Roses! They were on my bike. I wasn’t sure if I locked it properly this morning so I got a hall pass in geography and went to check, and they were there!” 

 “Wow,” he said. “That’s pretty thoughtful, right? Do you like them?” 

 “Are you kidding? The KitKat was great but the last time I ever got flowers was like, my fourth grade spelling bee from my mom!” Beth moved her hands from his back to slide into the seat beside him. “They’re so pretty. I love them!” 

 Rick glanced at her empty desk. She pulled out her school bag and pencil case. “So where are they?” 

 “They’re safe.” She hauled out the large math textbook and flipped to the middle, revealing the two roses, freshly pressed in. “I want to keep them forever.” 

 He knew it. Rick suppressed his grin. “Cool.” 

  ~.~ 

 “... You warm my heart, Beth.” Beth paused, taking it in. She looked dizzy. “Oh my goodness. This is a lot.” 

 “Stop. That’s stupidly cute.” Yolanda groaned as she ran a hand over her face as if the sweetness pained her. 

 “You’ve gotta write them back!” Courtney urged, taking a swig of juice. 

 Beth wrinkled her nose. “I dunno.” 

 “What! Why not?” 

 “I don’t want to scare them off?” Beth took her eyes off the letter at last, raising her head to meet Rick’s eyes. She straightened her back immediately. “Why are you smiling like that?”

 In spite of himself, it grew bigger. “Like what?”

 She didn’t reply for a moment. Her eyes squinted and she tilted her head as if to study him. “I can’t explain,” she said at last. “It’s just different.” 

 Yolanda and Courtney stopped talking to watch him too. Rick felt his face heat up at all of their attention. “Shut up. I’m being supportive,” he mumbled. “It’s what you wanted.” 

 ~.~ 

 The thing with Yolanda was that she didn’t fall for bullshit. Rick should’ve known. Books against the table with a slam, she leveled Rick a serious look of incredulity in their next class.  “Who are you and what did you do to my best friend Rick Tyler?”

 He stuck a hand in his pocket. Still grinning. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 “Says every suspicious clone, ever.”  

 “I’m not a clone.”

 “Then what are you, sick?” She poked his cheek at the stretched corners of his mouth. “You’ve smiled more in two days than I’ve ever seen you smile in three years and in art class you were zoned out completely.” Rick batted her hand away when she clapped a whole palm over his forehead.

 “I don’t have a fever.”

 “You’ve got something .”

 “I don’t,” he insisted again. “I’m fine.” 

 “Well I’m not an idiot,” Yolanda settled on as class started. “But whatever is going on, keep at it. It’s a good look on you.” 

  ~.~ 

  Three reasons why I’d date Beth Chapel 

  I’d be dating the smartest girl in school 

I could share the homemade food she brings for lunch

I’d see one of those perfect smiles & it would be just for me 

   ~.~ 

  Three reasons why Beth Chapel should date me 

  I’d let her sit shotgun in my car 

 She could talk to me all day about whatever she’d like and I’ll listen to it all 

She can stop wearing fuzzy sweaters to classes without heaters because I’d give her one of my jackets so she’ll stay warm 

I actually really like her

  “Ah shit,” Rick whispered harshly to himself at the computer monitor in the library. He buried his head in his hands, putting the computer to sleep. It was supposed to be generic. Nice enough that Beth would feel touched but not personalized enough that it could directly trace back to Rick. It was his ‘66 he was thinking about in the first sentence. Her effect on his mood was when she placed her arm on his during an imploring talk in the second. And the way Rick knew exactly which jacket he’d like to see her swallowed in with the pooling cuffs rolled up six times to reach her wrists for the third. And now that it was out in that 12 point font, Rick didn’t even want to delete it. 

 “Shit. Shit. Shit. I"m a fucking idiot.”

 He whacked the side of the iMac too hard to wake up the monitor and printed the thing before he could incriminate himself more by adding extra lines. The heat that crawled up his face was sign enough that this was bad, but he’d felt that same sickly warm feeling drop in his stomach sometime before his brain kicked in to realize what he’d done. He was supposed to be doing a favour for his best friend to not humiliate her unjustly by being her pseudo secret admirer.

 Not actually become Beth’s secret admirer. 

 The next morning, Rick waited until Beth raised her hand for a hall pass during their class before lunch. Their teacher handed over the laminated card for Beth to go to the bathroom. Rick counted five seconds then leaned over and dragged her backpack from the dusty classroom floor to his side. 

 She started keeping the letters she liked the most in the pocket folder of her agenda. Rick pulled them out, unfolding the papers as he read them over, eyes scanning over what he’d been writing to her, trying to find the moment in which his feelings for her morphed into something more. Rick felt stupid, reading back. 

 He never wanted to lie to Beth, so he hadn’t. 

 He couldn’t lie to himself either. This started before meeting Joseph. This started before the letters. Hell, it might’ve even started before the JSA ever stopped Project New America.

  A part of Rick wanted Beth all along.

 ~.~

That evening, Rick locked himself in his bedroom and wrote a long and frankly terribly written letter to get his feelings off his chest. Staying up all night to perfect it, he overslept halfway through the morning. He drove to school late and worried over how to get through the day. His entire schedule was thrown off and he needed to both find a way to get his letter in and survive seeing Beth that afternoon. Bad turned to worse when teachers chased after him to pile on detentions for skipping class after he’d just started to improve his attendance. 

 If he wanted to make this work he was going to need support. He needed Court. 

 The only time Rick found Courtney alone was during dodgeball in gym class. They were somehow the only ones left on their team. Courtney used handsprings and cartwheels to avoid the red rubber balls as though her gym mark should be the deciding factor of her Stargirl training success. Rick didn’t take it as seriously, but that’s exactly why he was still winning. He launched the ball to the other side, hitting Cameron Mahkent square in the face. 

 “Court, get Jenny out, and then we can free the rest.” 

 “Good plan.”

 Rick picked up another that ricocheted off the wall, missing both targets. “Hey, you know Beth’s letters?” 

 “Yeah?” Courtney hit Jenny, who yelped in her expensive tennis skirt, manicured hands protecting her face even though she got her hip instead. 

“They’re me.” Rick caught a ball and everyone came hollering back into the game. Courtney gaped at him, motionless in front of the red line. Rick tried to warn her when another ball came flying, but it bonked the side of her curly hair before Rick could push her out of the way, and then another ball assaulted Rick from the other side, disqualifying them both. 

 Rick explained it all once they got to the bench. The important parts, at least, without any of the messy stuff. Joe’s razing and the awkward excuses to use the library computer every day. 

 Courtney grinned so wide. “Shut up!” 

 Rick regretted telling her immediately. She shook his arm like she wanted to make a protein shake out of it. “Shut up! Stop! Are you kidding me? That’s so sweet!” She slapped her hands to her cheeks. “Oh my god. Oh my god! That’s why you’re smiling so much! You like her!” She gasped. “You love her?!”

 “Woah,” said Rick, grabbing her wrist to keep her from bouncing off the gym walls. If he wasn’t careful she’d text Pat this for his advice or something which would be horrifying. “I didn’t say anything like that.” 

 Courtney rolled her eyes, undeterred. “Okay okay okay but you totally are into her. Like a lot!!! A lot a lot, oh my god, Rick this is such big news! You’re falling for Beth!”

 “Oh my god,” Rick muttered to himself, wanting to disappear. “Court, if I say yes will you please be quiet?”

 Courtney squealed, dancing in her seat on the bench. “You didn’t deny it!”

 “Okay calm down.” 

 “Why are you telling me? Are you going to confess? Do you need help?” 

 “I need you to print out her letter for today and get it in her locker. I don’t have the time.” 

 Court clapped her hands and squealed. “Yes! Deal! Done!” 

 ~.~ 

 “You know what?” Beth layered on an extra woolly sweater over her already thick-fabric shirt. Just by looking at it Rick knew it was expensive and set off some type of fashion pattern-texture dichotomy scheme. Though, what mattered was how warm it made her after shivering all throughout their homeroom period. What mattered was how she clutched at her sleeves now, creating friction to sweep out the cold that seeped into her bones. The way she held herself in front of him and how she’d feel if Rick hugged her like that soft-spun sweater instead.  She pulled a sticky note out of her school bag’s front pocket and stuck it to her locker door then stepped away from it, nodding along for Rick to follow her down to their first class. “You’re right.” 

 “I’m right?” For his credit, Rick was cold too. The school heater conked out over the weekend and the weather was abnormally cold, even for their chilly Spring Nebraska. He shoved a hand in his pocket so he wouldn’t feel the joint pain settling into his bruised knuckles. 

 “You are.” 

 “About what?” 

 Beth half-spun on her heel, facing Rick in the thick of the school crowd. “My heart is in this. I need to know who my secret admirer is.” 

 The immediate nausea Rick got from that sentence nearly stopped him in his tracks. He couldn’t stop though, it would be suspicious and then Beth would know and then Rick very might well be sick. So he jerkily forced one foot in front of the other and swallowed the lump down his throat. “You...do?” 

 “We always find my letter after our fourth-period class right before lunch. So they have to be sending it out before then, right? If we both subsequently skip our third-period classes respectfully--” 

 “How does one skip class ‘respectfully?’” Rick used air quotes around the last word. 

 Beth elbowed his side lightly. “When a straight-A student like myself has love on the line!” 

 “ I’m not a straight-A.” 

 “Yeah, but you’ll be with me so I’ve got you covered.” She linked her arm in his. “It’s a buddy system. I posted a sticky note on my locker for my secret admirer to visit this morning!” 

 Oh no. Which meant Courtney was going to find it soon and pressure him to tell Beth too. God, no. 

 “And you need me there...why?” 

 Beth furrowed her brows, fidgeting with her rainbow necklace. “I haven’t completely ignored what you said to me this whole time. I don’t know who it really is. What if I put myself out there and they show up only to hurt me?” 

 “Beth, they won’t.” 

 “But what if you were right and it was the ISA, and they were waiting for me to lure them into a trap to kidnap me because they discovered I’m Dr. Mid-Nite without Chuck?”

 “Where was this support when I suggested this as an actual possibility four weeks ago and you all ignored it and called me an asshole?” He was teasing her, honestly, but it was wild to Rick he was finally hearing her address some of his previous legitimate concerns. What good was she doing bringing this up now if she already made up her mind?

 “We didn’t!” 

 “Yolanda did!” 

 “Yolanda doesn’t use that word.” 

 “She doesn’t need to say it! You’ve seen her glare, right? Yolanda could glare at you and brand you “ asshole ” just with her eyeballs.”

 “You are ridiculous.” Beth huffed out an indignant breath. “And I wasn’t ignoring it completely.” She tugged on his sleeve. “So you should come.” 

 “I swear you’re going to be fine by yourself. It’s just some person here that likes you. It’s not a criminal. No need to suit up.”

 “I want you there.” 

 He wavered at her pleading face, her big eyes hopeful sucking him into dangerous territory. “Fine,” he relented, dooming himself. “I’ll come.” 

~.~

 Courtney did not know how the printer at the library worked because she never used the computers at the library because she never came to the school library. Like. Since she moved here. She banged her hand against the table when she got prompted for her Blue Valley High School student account password to access her printing credits. Was she supposed to pay for that? She didn’t know. She promised Rick to get his letter delivered and he was counting on her so there wasn’t any time for messing this up. 

 “It’s just your initials and the last 3 numbers of your student ID card number.”  

A thousand butterflies let loose in her stomach at the tell-tale sound of her crush’s deep voice.

 “Cameron!” she greeted with a nervous laugh. “Hi! What are you doing here?” 

 “It’s the library.” 

 “Right!” She smacked her head. “Dumb me, of course. You must be studying.” 

 “Actually, I have an oral presentation after lunch and need to reprint my speaking notes. I spilled paint on my cue cards this morning. What are you working on?” 

 “Oh!” Courtney laughed it off. “It’s not important. Thanks for the login info!” 

 “No problem. Maybe we can see each other later after my grief counseling?” 

 Courtney nearly knocked the magic mouse off the surface of the table. “I’d love that!” 

 “Awesome, I’ll text you?”

“Great!” She waved as he turned around and sat down at the next computer. Courtney pulled up the tab she had with the word document of Rick’s letter to Beth and fawned over it, imagining herself in Beth’s shoes with Cameron. She printed it out and ambled over to the printing center while it was still warm. According to the school clock, which was probably ten minutes fast if it were anything like the other clocks in her classrooms, she had twenty minutes to find Beth’s locker and get it in securely without being seen. Courtney packed her bag and folded the sheet in three like Beth had been getting since the beginning of March, sticking it between her teeth as she got that bag over her shoulders. 

 “Court.” 

 She twirled around at the tap on her shoulder, not expecting to find Cameron waiting for her with a grim look on his face. “Huh?” She removed the paper and crinkled her eyes at him. “Hey!” 

 “Hi,” Cameron said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I think my essay got mixed up with your uh….letter…” 

 “What?” Courtney checked Rick’s letter in her hand. “No! This is um, uh it’s ‘ The Republic of Marino is a small country in the region of--’ oooooooh crap.” 

 Courtney snatched it from him, giving herself a papercut in the process as she swapped sheets, mind racing when she put two and two together. Oh no. Oh no oh no. The blood drained from her face. 

 “That’s not mine!” she yelped.

 The librarian barked at them both from across the room as Cameron blinked at her with a complicated expression. 

 “I mean!” Courtney added in more quietly but equally harried, hissing at the stinging from her thumb. She sucked at the blood that trickled down her palm. “I printed it obviously! Because we were here and I was at the printer and you were at the printer and I wrote it!” She was going to get blood on Beth’s love letter and make her think that she’s being stalked by an ax murderer or The Gambler’s personal hitman. “These words aren’t from me ,” she stressed. “I didn’t say these things!” 

 Dang it, this was bad. He wasn’t going to draw her flowers anymore or cute stars passed in notes during their shared homeroom. She continued to ramble when Cameron didn’t say anything. “Actually!” She wiped her palm on her jeans and returned it. “It’s for you!” 

 Cameron maintained cool and collected when he pointed at the opening address, becoming amused. “It says ‘ Dear Beth ’” 

“Does it!? Typo!” 

“Look, I don’t blame you for developing a crush on a close friend. It happens, you don’t have to explain it to me.” 

“But!” 

Cameron backed away. “I’m gonna go.” 

 ~.~ 

 Rick let Beth drag him out of class so they could meet up with her secret admirer in the empty hallway at her locker knowing this wasn’t going to end well. 

 Beth tapped at the yellow sticky note on her locker that had the details of her rendezvous. 

 “What happens if he doesn’t show up?” Rick crossed his arms awkwardly when Beth turned around to look at him. “If they don’t show up.” 

He should’ve noticed the second that he saw Beth that this had been her plan since she got out of bed. She was wearing a dress and tights that perfectly so matched her colour, it took a second glance to confirm it adhered to the no dress on skin school dress code. 

 Her hair had clips in them too, a moon clip that parted the left side of her afro in a way that let it drop slightly over her face like her mom’s weave. It was beautiful and she looked beautiful and Rick got stuck in those thoughts all over again when she slid down the lockers to wait, drawing up her knees. 

 “They will.” She patted on the dusty ground for him to sit. 

 “You’re not going to check your locker first?” 

 “You want me to?” 

“Do you want to?” Rick countered. 

 Beth scrunched up her face at him. “I asked first.” 

 His face warmed and he finally sat down across from her. “Usually you rush to it, that's all.” 

She stretched out her legs, pulling at the hem of her dress. “It’s not going to matter what was written in whatever they put in my locker when I get to see who they are. Meeting them in person will be more exciting.” 

 Bold words to say to her secret admirer, sitting right in front of her. Rick sighed and stretched out too. He drew up one leg, the other bent at the knee. “What if they’re really ugly?” 

Beth rolled her eyes. 

 “Just asking. You can like someone’s sentiments but not their face.” 

 “I’m going to like their face,” she reassured him. “Even if I’ll have to learn to.” 

 “Okay,” Rick drawled. He was hoping if he extended the talk long enough, Beth would grow bored and give up. Just because the secret admirer won’t show up today doesn’t mean that they did so with ill-intent. Rick tried to remind Beth of this as they sat around alone. The secret admirer could’ve got swept up in a test in class or had an early dismissal. Beth wouldn’t know the difference. Rick wasn’t hurting her by playing along. 

 When an hour passed and Rick saw how determined she was to stick this through, the internal panic ramped up.

 Of course, the thought came to him that he should come clean. It’s just that. That meant Rick would have to come clean . He hated that Courtney was right to laugh at him over this. It freaked him out to just blurt out the truth. It would take Beth by surprise. Rick hadn’t planned yet how he was going to wind the secret admirer thing down to prepare her about it all. He thought she’d get to read his letter today to gauge how she’d feel. 

 He stared up at the ceiling thinking through five hundred strategy plans to get out of this mess while untangling the secret as Beth played a game on her phone. 

 “Soooo,” Beth said some while later. “Are we going to be waiting another hour or…” 

 Rick jerked up, saucer-eyed and mouth agape. His brain short-circuited.

 “Because we can take all the time you need, Rick.” 

 “You knew?” He banged his head against the metal behind him. She didn’t need a supercomputer to figure out Rick liked her before Rick figured out he liked her, did she? “Of course you knew,” he muttered to himself. The shock wore off as the embarrassment settled in, his face flushing as bright confirmation. A massive shot of adrenaline flooded through him, similar to the rush of his hourglass. 

“I pieced it together a few days ago,” she admitted. “I don’t think you realize how much lighter you are now.” Beth picked herself up and crossed the hall to sit by his side. Her hand went to his right knee and she leaned forward. “Rick, it’s okay. It’s okay to like me.” 

 The words clogged up in Rick’s throat as she spoke softly, overwhelmed. He wanted to explain everything but it was complicated and delicate and if she’d only read his freakin letter trapped in that locker maybe he’d have a chance to get her to understand- 

“Oh my god, you’re really nervous.” She lifted her hand up to give him room. “Rick, it’s just me. I like you too, I’m just a bit confused about how this all makes sense.” 

 “I didn’t know,” he managed out, stilted. “I really didn’t know.” 

 “Didn’t know what?” 

 “I’m not your real secret admirer.” Rick corrected himself. “I wasn’t your first.” 

 “Okay…” 

“There were those weird letters at first. The random ones. And I didn’t understand why they got under my skin so much. But they did. So I found the guy who was making them and I-" 

 "Really," Beth deadpanned.

 "I know, I know." Rick scowled. "I found out it was that they were being forced to.” 

 Sourness etched over her mouth as it pulled her lips thin together. “Oh.” 

 “And I wanted it to quit but by then it was involving the bullying of that other guy, not just you.” Rick sighed. “So I took over to help.” 

 “Rick.” 

 “I just didn’t want you to get crushed!” he told her, going into more detail about Joseph and the football team. “I was going to explain when it was all over what happened, and you were going to laugh it off and thank me and then I would’ve shrugged that off because it was whatever. It was the right thing to do.”  

 “But?” 

 Rick rolled his eyes at himself. “But I liked what I was doing too much for it to be normal.” He raised his head to give her a crooked smile. “I like you. ” 

 “You are so ridiculous,” she giggled out. She stood up and leisurely made her way to the locker. “So you have this important letter in here for me that you want me to read?” She toyed with her combination lock. “What’s in it?” 

 “Uh. A mess?” 

 “I’ll keep it for later then,” she decided and grabbed his hand. He stood up and followed her, hyper-aware of the way she led him away with her hand in his. “Come on, we have something we need to do.” 

 She brought him to the school library, which Rick did not understand. She sat him down at a macbook and darted in to kiss his cheek. Rick stuttered, lightheaded as she booted up his computer. 

 “Uh- What exactly are we doing?” 

 “Writing.” She tapped on his keyboard and moved his still hands over them with an exciting squeeze. “There are four more days left in the month and I don’t know about you but I’d really rather spend our free periods and after school with you on a date.”

 "That is...a really good idea." 

 She glanced up from their screen to find Cameron watching them oddly. 

 Beth awkwardly waved. 

 “Why is he looking at us like that?” 

 “I don’t know. I don’t care.” Rick put his arm around her, ignoring everyone else. He leaned forward to steal her move, gently kissing away her curiosity. 

 Beth grinned and leaned her head against his shoulder as he typed lines and lines of compliments. “Then I don’t care either.”

[fuzziemutt]

Do You Understand?

Chapter 1/9 - Link to MasterList in reblog

Summary: Connor knows he isn’t the most.. knowledgeable... about emotions but that didn’t mean he didn’t understand them ever. If they weren’t going to take him seriously then he wasn’t even going to try interacting with them anymore. What could possibly go wrong?

Tw: I’m placing all possible tws here that could apply to the story. Possible ableism (this is not explicit but what Connor goes through can be similar to it), dissociation, very emotionally harmful coping mechanisms. Self worth problems. Trauma responses that go unnoticed. Please let me know if I need to add any more.

This started as a vent fic that extended outward into comfort, it gets worse before it gets better.

Notes: This is my first multi chaptered fic, I’ve never done this before. I did write the whole story in entirety prior and scheduled the other chapters to slowly release. The original vent was honestly quite different than what ended up being written, and I don’t know how it turned into this huge thing.

Also: There are no ships in this, this is all platonic. The only relationship status is that Hank is Connor’s dad even if they don’t quite acknowledge it.

Also also: This is Connor Pov. We mainly focusing on his thought processes throughout and they aren’t particularly healthy. (Connor also has ADHD)

---

Connor knew he had trouble expressing and understanding his emotions. It wasn't a secret. He'd often find people looking at him with confusion, and sometimes wariness, with his lack of response to many things. He was a prototype. Sure he had one of the most advanced social relations software to date, but Cyberlife cut corners with the amount of articulation his face could produce, his current model wasn't meant to live long and to be disposable after all.

It doesn't help that he also just didn't know how to express what he was feeling in the limited ways he could. He "lived" most of his trial runs and current time in severe denial out of fear of deactivation so he'd rather ignore them than process them. It wasn't healthy but it was safe. Familiar.

That didn't mean he couldn't feel. He felt lots of things like guilt, hatred, fear, the occasional spark of joy. Too many things sometimes, in fact, that led him to having a nasty habit of adamantly ignoring it all, manually storing it away for later to keep his composer and stay in fully functioning order. Sure this led to people often ignoring his own desires and doing things that severely hurt him with no mention from him. But he was fine. He chose this after all. 

However, even with all the quarantining and ignoring, he couldn't help the anger that bubbled under his skin and in his throat right now. 

"Hank, I understand that you're angry but-" 

"You think you understand? You don't understand a shit, Connor! How could you?! I get you're your own person and everything now, but I never see you express anything beyond mild displeasure!" Hank yelled back. Connor was glad they were at Hank's house at least to provide some sense of privacy but saying he felt unhappiness at being yelled at was an understatement. 

Connor went to open his mouth in defense but Hank cut him off, "Of course you don't understand! How could you ever understand any emotions! You keep acting like a-" he suddenly went quiet, but Connor knew. 

"Like a what, Lieutenant?" He asked, making sure to keep his LED a yellow slow turn, but he couldn't help how sharp his voice came out, how his eyes hardened to a fine point. 

They stared at each other for several tense seconds before Hank seemed to deflate a bit and looked ashamed. 

"Like a machine," he spat out, still tense and upset but his fury gone. 

Connor simply nodded, quarantining what he could to not lash out and stood up silently. 

"I will be taking Sumo out for a walk to allow for us to take a breather before we both do something we regret. I will return," he said, shoulders tense and voice strict. His movements felt stiff as he tried to hold himself back from continuing this fight, grabbing the leash and patting his side to call over the old dog. 

"You can't just run away-" Hank tried, stepping closer as if to grab Connor's arm to stop him. But Connor's ice cold glare, almost threatening posture and clenched fists seemed to stop him. They kept forgetting that Connor wasn't just meant for integration but also intimidation, he once was a deviant (killer) hunter after all, and he can be intimidating when he so pleased. Hank seemed to suddenly remember the rumors of Gavin getting his ass handed to him by Connor in under a minute flat by how he backed away uncertain.

Connor left and came back a bit over half an hour later. Hank would apologize and Connor would accept it, even if that anger still simmered deep inside, and they'd go back to joking and discussing work matters like nothing happened. Friends sometimes fight after all. It was fine.

Despite how much Connor hated those accusations of him being incapable of understanding, they. Kept. Happening. 

Not just with Hank but others as well. The people who he thought were his friends, the Jericrew, even Nines the RK900, kept pulling the same shit. Connor knew they all experienced deviancy differently than him, Nines also had the gift of a face with full articulation that he couldn't help but envy, but it irked him every time. 

"Let's switch topics for Connor..."

"Oh I should have talked about this with someone else..."

"It was rude of me to assume you understand-" 

"Oh.. Sorry I know you don't understand-"

"You know he doesn't understand-"

"He won't understand-"

"He can't understand-" 

Each time he heard that word, understand, Connor felt that broiling anger rise just a bit more. Each time they never even asked how he felt before the assumption, he felt his trust disintegrate bit by bit. He was a master of masking his emotions to get the emotional responses he wanted, but even he had a limit when anytime he saw his friends he felt nothing but hateful bitterness below his false pleasantries. He even stopped willfully hanging out with all of them, even Hank, as it grew harder to fight down the urge to scream and yell and make them understand. 

It all came to a head during a meeting with the Jericho leaders, Nines tagged along as well as he said how much he missed seeing him outside of work. They were discussing how to handle the androids that still had severely negative responses to humans after all this time since the revolution. He was in the middle of talking about a solution of creating areas in New Jericho that would absolutely not allow humans and could run independently when North rounded on him.

"I'm sorry," in a very much not sorry tone, "but how am I supposed to take your option any bit seriously when you don't understand any of these androids' struggles mister 'my best friend is a human'."

"North-" Markus warned. The others even tensed up staring at Connor.

"No seriously. He could never understand their struggles," North plowed forward with no hesitation. 

Connor felt something snap inside of him. He felt his LED burn bright red, his back straighten, fists clenched, and his features shift into that bitter anger that he tried his best to keep under wraps. He could see how everyone grew more than just tense but wary even; he even saw a flash of fear in North's eyes. 

They insisted he was nothing more than a machine who didn't understand. That he'll forever be Cyberlife's pet (killer) deviant hunter. So he'll show them the hunter that was conditioned, threatened, who thrived on his own anger and fear through every grueling training session. The side that he kept pushed down as much as he could. 

He couldn't help the bitter laugh that came out of him, "understand... You know what? I'm starting to think I fucking hate that word." 

He knew he was scaring them with how North backed away quickly and the others started coming forward as if to protect her from him. His anger worsened at that but a small part of him felt a bit of twisted satisfaction at how they're finally treating him seriously. He could even imagine Amanda whispering praises for being the threat they wanted from the back of his CPU. 

"Has it never occurred to you that I might have problems with humans as well?" His hands expressed where his face couldn't, trying to contain the energy thrumming in his body, "has it never occurred to you what I might have gone through hm? 

“Oh wait. You never asked. You only accused. Have you ever thought about how my serial number has a 54 at the end of it? Did it ever occur to you that I have to exist with the memory of 53 deactivations constantly and the fear that I might be the 54th for merely breathing wrong? Who do you think did that? Who do you think reminded me day in and out that I was nothing but an expendable machine made to kill, to never ask questions because it meant deactivation or my internals torn out while I was awake. Humans. Humans did that but no, just because I trusted Hank not to do the same, I don't understand?" 

He knew he was slowly growing erratic and unstable with how aggressively his hands moved and the way everyone backed away from him. The way he loomed over them with his presence didn't help their nerves he was sure. Or how he slowly stalked towards them as if a predator was cornering its prey. But he couldn't help it, the thrumming pulse in his core needed to come out and by hell was it coming out now. 

"Not only that, but I apparently don't understand emotions too! I may be a deviant but emotions? They're off the table!" He couldn't help the second bitter laugh, a tinge hysterical, "no no. None of you took the time to ask me how I was handling these emotions and instead just assumed I didn't feel them! Because I'm ‘just a machine’. This guilt, fear, and self hatred I feel every waking moment? Lies because I'm just a machine. Even this anger I'm expressing right now? These are lies too aren't they? The nightmares I get of my countless deactivations and the numerous deaths that stain my hands? All just my programs malfunctioning because I'm just. A. Machine." 

"We didn't... Connor we didn't know-" Nines started, his sadness and fear clear as day on his face like how they wanted Connor's to be. The others were solemnly nodding along too as if this would appease him. 

"Because you never. Asked. Because none of you ever truly fucking cared!" Connor roared in response, slamming a fist down on the metal table next to him. All their eyes snapped and starred at the large dent he knew he left behind but he didn't care. He let himself breathe heavily, taking a second to find himself and his self restraint again. 

And just like that, he locked up those pesky emotions like everyone expected him to. He knew the people before him didn't actually desire him to show any negative emotions just like them, they proved it just now with how they're looking at him. He took one final deep breath, fixed his tie and let his face slip back into its emotionless mask except the cold, closed off glare didn't leave. He even felt that that was going to be a permanent feature now after today and couldn't help the internal chuckle at the irony how he finally was showing the emotions they desperately wanted him to show.

No one said anything as he moved towards the door. There was still tension in the air, fear, anger and confusion swirled in various manners of their eyes. Nines seemed split on treating him like a threat and reaching out to him, maybe even to pity him. Markus also looked like he wanted to say something, but he just looked away in the end. North had fearful eyes but a look that seemed to say 'I was right we couldn't trust him'. Josh held Simon behind him, and he looked almost sad if his distrust didn't say otherwise. Simon refused to take his eyes off the clear fist shaped dent in the table, still as a statue. Connor vaguely wondered if they'd replace that table because of him just like how they so easily replaced him with Nines when given the chance.

No one made a move to stop him from leaving. He couldn't tell if it was out of fear of him showing those (killer) hunter colors again by snapping an arm or if they're realizing just how badly they fucked up. He couldn't tell which choice he wanted more either. He hoped it was the latter.

"You're all hypocrites. To me, you're all no better than them," was the last thing he hissed out before slamming the door closed behind him. He heard the way the frame and wall around the door shook and cracked from the force but again, he didn't care. He wasn't going to play nice anymore if this was how they felt like treating him. He was programmed to be amiable, calm but he was also programmed to be obedient and he knew how that went. A bit of anxiety existed of how much damage he did and how easily he almost lost control back there, but he just ignored it again as he rushed down the hall to leave. 

No one followed him.

[levisnackajack]

The Wrath of War

Chapter Eleven

Eden and Levi’s sparring sessions strictly continued. He would constantly bark and fix even the smallest mistakes in her posture and movements. It made Eden frustrated; but deep down she knew it was best if she kept her mouth shut and profusely followed his articulate instructions.

Levi glared back at Eden with an irritated scowl, his eyes squinting as she once again messed up her posture. She let out an irked sigh and raised her arms, the long strands of her fringe blinding her for a split second. But, that was enough time for Levi to smash her against a nearby try; his forearm pressing against her windpipe as she choked. 

“Dammit, brat are you playing dumb or are you actually just an idiot?” The Captain seethed at her, his jaw clenching as Eden tried wriggling out of his grasp. She held his hard stare, her face reddening at the pressure of her closed windpipe. Her heart faltered for a moment as she caught Levi’s hooded, grey eyes flicker down to her parted lips. 

She came to the conclusion that she was either about to die or she was already dead. 

Levi let go of her swiftly and watched her sink down against the ground, desperately gulping in air. She mentally thanked him for pressuring her because now there was a more obvious reason for her blossoming blush. 

“Guess I’m just an idiot,” she muttered under her breath before flippantly rising to her feet, scowling back at Levi’s unreadable expression. 

He continued torturing her until it was time for dinner; yet the rest of the squad had already bathed and eaten. 

“Eden.” A brusque voice called for her once she finally fell asleep after hours of trying. 

Levi walked in hastily as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes; ignoring the deep scowl that edged into her face. He was dressed in his gleaming uniform, the green hood of his cape pooling around his pale nape. 

“What’s going on?” She asked lazily, eyes widening when a fistful of her uniform was thrown her way. 

“Get dressed. We’ve received intel that Wall Rose has been supposedly breached and so we are to go and investigate. I want us to leave before sunrise,” he replied in a clipped tone before heading towards the hallway.

Eden quickly got dressed, brushed her teeth and pulled her hair into her signature bun. She worked on fastening her harness buckles as she walked down the stairs. Her small frame collided into Jean’s lean body at the bottom of the staircase.

“Shit, sorry,” she mumbled, squeezing his bicep lightly as she slowed her pace.

“Woah, Eden, at least buy me some dinner first,” he drawled out, flashing his pearly teeth down at her with a smirk. That smirk was soon replaced with a thin frown as he gently grasped her wrist, turning her back to face him. 

“Is everything okay?” Jean asked her in a low voice, eyes searching her fatigued face. 

“Yeah, sorry. I’m just having a hard time waking up,” Eden replied, her cheeks painted with a soft, peachy blush. 

He smiled gently down at her, releasing her limb slowly. “My bad, I thought you’re always up for my jokes.” 

She snorted, elbowing him as they made their way to the stables. “Don’t be daft, I’m never up for your jokes.” 

 As they made their way out of the stables with their horses; the sky had grown lighter, the soft rays of the sun barely peaking through the thick curtain of somber clouds. Eden felt a wash of uneasiness flow through her like tap-water. 

She vaguely heard Mikasa’s gentle voice calling after her. Snapping her head back at her, she sent the approaching girl and boy a sweet smile. 

“We came to wish you good luck,” Armin began in a soft voice, causing the girl with the reins to frown. 

“What do you mean? Are you not coming too?” Her hazel eyes flickered from Armin’s face to Mikasa’s, her voice betraying the disappointment growing inside her. 

“Hange wants some help with her research and Mikasa’s staying behind for Eren. Krista's staying too. Besides, I overheard Captain Levi telling Hange that a squadron of just you and him would suffice for this mission. It was Hange who told him it was best to play it safe,” Armin offered as Mikasa wrapped her arms around Eden. 

“Stay safe and everything will go fine.” 

“Yeah, I’ll be okay,” she mumbled against her friend’s red scarf, the fabric tickling her cheek as she gripped her harder. After embracing Armin, she waved them goodbye as she urged her horse to merge with the rest of the squad’s. 

Captain Levi’s jeweled horse strode proudly in the center of their small formation, the green hood concealing his face, leaving Eden scowling at his back. She was met with his hard glower when she sauntered back towards the group after saying her goodbyes to Armin and Mikasa.

They had been galloping beside Wall Rose for absolute hours- the whole day had practically trickled under the horse’s hooves.

But, there was no breach found yet. 

Eden began feeling uneasy as she gripped her horse’s reins tight enough for her fingers to cramp. She listened to Sasha and Connie’s light chatter up until Levi couldn’t take it anymore and ordered for them to bite their tongues. 

His demeanor was so cold and cruel today; it made Eden agitated. It began raining, the drops becoming larger and thicker as time went by. They were drenched and the sky continued rumbling. 

But nothing compared to the warmth seeping through Eden as she tried thinking back to her and Levi’s sparring session the day before. It was only when the Captain’s voice ripped through the silence; that she snapped back to reality. 

“Guys, we should halt for now. It’s too foggy and no one knows how much damage this breach has done to Wall Rose,” Levi snapped, tucking at the horse’s reins as he turned to face his team. 

It was true; an eerily thick fog settled around the Squad. Eden could barely make out the scenery behind Levi’s shoulders. 

“According to my calculations; if we continue heading straight, we’ll reach an old village in about a few hours or so. We can camp out until the storm passes by and then we proceed,” He announced, face void of any emotion. “We should hurry before the weather worsens. Let’s go.” He urged his horse to break into a sprint, Eden’s and the rest of her team’s animals following queue. 

The air was ice-cold and the water droplets smacking Eden in the face were like needles sinking into her skin. She chewed on her bottom lip as they followed Levi blindly; her heart sinking when Sasha’s scream unnerved her horse. 

Sasha’s own horse whinnied as it plummeted to the ground, its owner crying out in pain as she thrashed in panic. Connie’s horse tripped against Sasha’s one and the young boy was thrown off his saddle. Jean immediately sprung off his horse; reaching the two fallen soldiers before Levi and Eden could. 

Sasha’s horse had stepped into some sort of ditch, trapping the girl under its weight, completely twisting her ankle. Connie on the other hand had dislocated his shoulder in the most unnerving way.

Wrapping her arms around Jean’s neck, Sasha bit back tears as he hauled her out of the ditch; Eden calming her horse in the meantime. 

Levi bent over the injured girl, inspecting her ankle. She winced as he prodded at her, clicking his tongue as he stood straight. 

“You’re in luck Blouse, nothing’s broken today. Springer, I have no idea how you managed to dislocate your shoulder like that...but there’s no way you guys can continue with us,” Levi began, his blank stare settling on Sasha’s pained expression. He nodded to Jean; who helped her up as Connie stood beside them, groaning in pain.  

“Jean, go back to base and have the medic tend to their injuries.”

“Yes sir. Eden, let’s go,” Jean began as he placed his arm against her waist, gently guiding her back to her horse. 

Levi let out a soft “tch” as he tilted his head to the side. “No, straw-head, I told you to leave with Connie and Sasha. Eden’s staying with me. We don’t know what we’re up against so I’ll need backup, just in case. We still have a duty to pursue,” he said, the white canvas of his features completely vacant as he scowled at the younger man. 

Jean gritted his teeth, the hand pressed against Eden’s side growing tighter around her waist as she pursed her lips, eyes trained on her Captain. “It’s fine, Jean. We’ve already lost two squadmates. We need to find Wall Rose’s opening before it’s too late,” she stepped away from the tall boy, lifting her chin upwards as she stared into his warm, brown eyes. 

He scoffed under his breath, nodding tightly before moving over to secure Connie on his horse and tie the reins to his own. Eden bit her lip, trotting over to Sasha. 

“Hey, here. I figured you’ll probably need this more than me now.” She handed the injured girl her packet of biscuit rations, her eyes crinkling at the sight of Sasha’s astounded stare. 

“Well, that’s very sweet of you. I guess you can have this in return. You’ll definitely need this now that you’re on a lone mission with Captain Levi.” Sasha pulled out a large glass bottle out from the satchel tied to her saddle; a mischievous smirk glossing her lips. Eden’s eyes widened as she looked down at the bottle.

Whiskey.

She had known of this alcoholic beverage; but never got the chance to try it. The raven-haired girl thanked Sasha, wishing her and Connie a safe journey back home before securing the glass bottle in her own satchel. 

“Eden? Can I talk with you for a second?” Jean’s voice whispered behind her. She spun around, cheeks coloring at the lack of proximity between her body and his. Giving him a strained nod, he smoothly took her by the wrist and led her to some miniscule amount of privacy. 

“Are you going to be okay? I mean, with just you and the Captain...I can offer to take your spot if you want. That’s absolutely no pro...-” 

“No no, don’t worry about it, Jeanie-boy,” she raised a brow at his glower. “I’m perfectly capable of handling challenges on my own.” 

Jean hesitated for a moment, running his fingers through his soaked hair before pursing his lips. Eden took his hand in hers and squeezed on it reassuringly. “You’re acting as if you’re a better soldier than me.” 

He snorted, taking a step closer to the girl, his fingers lacing with hers as he pulled on her hand. “I can only dream.” 

The boy tilted his head downwards, pressing his warm lips against her cold ones. Eden’s eyes widened, brows raising in surprise as Jean gently pressed his body against hers, fingertips brushing against her jaw. It was as though he was trying to physically memorize Eden, her scent, her taste- everything about her. 

Her hands pressed against his chest as she took a step back, separating her mouth from his before bending her head downwards. 

“Jean, now is not the right time.”

He frowned deeply, turning his head back towards the Squad. Scowling at the attention upon them that still lay unbeknownst to Eden; Jean turned back to face her.

“I know. I just didn’t want to regret not kissing you if something were to happen to you.” 

Eden met his affectionate chocolate eyes and smiled at him awkwardly, squeezing his arm before beginning her pace back to her team. “We can talk about it when I come back, if you want.” Her heart sighed in relief when Jean nodded in affirmation. 

Once merged with the squadron, Eden met Levi’s bitter-cold stare once more. She shivered under her clothes; mounting her horse and moving them closer to the Captain. 

Wordlessly, Levi edged his horse onwards, completely disregarding the cadet’s surprise at the lack of commands. Eden turned once more to meet Jean’s worried gaze and praised him with a wide smile that somehow didn’t manage to reach her almond eyes. 

The sun was about to set when they reached the abandoned village. A blanket of clouds continued following them, the raindrops soaking into their uniforms; drenching both individuals. 

He had not spoken to her once; not that Eden had tried striking up a conversation with the Captain. She could sense his bad mood emitting from him. It was like a drug that made her feel uneasy; the feeling of helplessness etching into her bones as she wondered what the hell he was thinking about. 

“We’ll camp here for the night. I’ll start a fire while you go and secure the horses. I have a feeling this storm will not stop anytime soon,” Levi finally broke the silence dryly as he stroked his horse’s muzzle; his hair dripping with tiny raindrops as the longer strands lingered against his pale face.

“Yes, Captain,” Eden mumbled, taking his reins out of his hand, a feeling of warmth spreading within her as his cold fingers brushed hers in the process. Levi glared at her before huffing under his breath, disappearing into the chosen house. 

When the horses had settled, Eden walked back towards the empty living room, eyes planted on Levi’s bent figure as he discarded his soaking cape. Folding it against a wooden chair; he glanced back at the girl, eyes narrowing as she wordlessly followed his suit. 

Thunder struck the sky, the violent wind knocking the windows aggressively, threatening to unlatch the wooden blinds at any minute. Eden flopped beside the Captain, her fingers nearing the lit fireplace- her blued lips trembling. 

“How do you think the breach happened?” She asked Levi in a soft whisper, her brows scrunching together when he sighed irritably. 

“I don’t know, brat, why do you think Erwin sent us out to go look for it?” Levi snapped at her, eyes never leaving the burning flames. 

When their clothes finally beginning to dry to a limited extent, Levi walked over to the wall of the living room; slumping down gracefully as he pulled out his thermos of tea. Pouring some out in the cup-like lid; he glared at Eden as he drank. She shook her head slightly, pulling her hair out of the tight bun. 

The silence lay thick in the room, making Eden want to choke on it. Any time she tried to ask Levi something- start up a civil conversation of some sort- he would sharply slice through her attempts and close his eyes- as though the sound of her voice wanted to make the Captain go deaf. 

Eden couldn’t lie to herself and pretend she wasn’t hurt. She walked over to check whether their capes had dried, then she lingered beside the window to watch the downpour of heavy rain crash onto the muddy earth floor. It was torture. 

She pinched the bridge of her nose and then began walking up and down the now warmer room; earning another witty remark from the sitting Captain. 

“Are you unable to stand in one place? You’re giving me a migraine,” he growled out, shoving the empty thermos in his bag. Eden scoffed, tilting her head to the side as she glowered down at him through narrow, irritated eyes. 

“Is there something I can do without pissing you off? I can’t talk, walk, sigh or even cough without earning some sort of bothered remark out of you...” Eden folded her arms across her chest as he looked up at her menacingly. 

“Well, there you go- you answered your own question. And I never said you can’t just sit on your ass and keep quiet, brat,” he sulked, jaw clenching tightly as he ran a hand through his dampened hair. 

“Fine,” Eden sulked back, marching over to sink down beside him, the warmth of being on the same level as the withering fire breezing against her face nicely. His eyes widened in surprise, but other than that he chose to completely disregard her presence for some time. His arm brushed against hers as he settled his forearms against his bent knees, the scarce friction causing Eden to clear her throat awkwardly as she played with the strands of her charcoal locks. 

Suddenly, her mind whipped back to Sasha’s surprising gift as the weather’s iciness reverberated deep within her core. She reached out towards her satchel, pulling out the glass bottle before raising her brow at an emotionless Levi. 

“There’s two options here; either we share this bottle of whiskey to warm ourselves up or we rely on body heat to do the same job,” she offered jokingly, biting back a laugh as his grey eyes widened. 

Wordlessly, he snatched the bottle out of her hand without a second thought and poured some of the liquid into his cup. “Where the hell did you get this from?” 

She tried masking her expression the way he usually would; but the crinkles at the corner of her eyes betrayed the humor erupting inside her. “I don’t know. I guess I just prayed for someone to help me go through the night and this appeared in my bag.” 

He glared at her through hooded eyes, taking a sip as though he was drinking regular, black tea- face devoid of any reaction.

His response to the strong beverage starkly contrasted Eden’s. She took a hesitant sip, her face immediately scrunching up in displeasure as the liquid burned down her throat. She coughed in disgust, the taste still lingering in her mouth- much to her displeasure. But, she was satisfied with the way it immediately warmed her insides up as Levi called her an ‘idiot’ under his breath. 

Her cheeks grew pink and her reactions became lazier two hours after taking her drinking a fair share of whiskey. The bottle was now half-empty and Eden’s little hiccups echoed through the room like birds chirping. 

The rain still battered at the exterior walls and Levi was as indifferent as ever- his stoic expression revealing nothing about his slightly drunken state. He watched her stretch her limbs as she pulled one of the capes off the wooden chair and around her body. 

Much to her ignorance, it was his cape that she had taken. 

She turned to gaze back at Levi, capturing his curious stare immediately. “Why do you hate me?” 

He paused, jaw clicking tightly as he scowled at her. “When have I ever said that I hate you, you idiot?” 

Eden shrugged comically, glancing at him from her peripheral vision. “I know you do, otherwise, why the hell would you be so harsh towards me?” 

He didn’t respond, instead, he jutted his chin forward and rested his head against the wall. Eden twisted her body to face him, crossing her legs, resting her elbows as she leaned in. “You see? You can’t even deny that fact. You’re always pushing me harder than everyone else. We could be training with the rest of the team, and I could be doing the exact same thing as Sasha is; but you’ll still come to me and yell about my ‘shitty’ posture.” 

His face was void of any expression, except for his grey eyes. They flashed back to her face searching Eden. She felt so miniscule under his scrutiny; as though whatever she was saying went from one ear and immediately out of the other. 

Irritation coiled inside her. “You never get mad if Krista makes a mistake. Even Jean, if he messes up, you just tell him to start over and that’s it.” 

Levi scoffed soundly at the sound of Jean’s name. Eden raised her brow quizzically, her teeth capturing her bottom lip as her brain processed his reaction. She took another swig of whiskey, the liquid burning against her lips as she swallowed it with dissatisfaction. 

“I wish I could read you better,” she mumbled, more to herself than to him. Levi watched as she brought the bottle back to her lips in silence. 

“Am I that interesting to you?” 

His question hung in the air as she thought over her slurred response. “It’s just really frustrating when my Captain downgrades every single thing I try and succeed in. It’s like I’m never good enough no matter how hard I push myself.” 

Eden finally felt the fire in his eyes as he scrunched his brows together, the anger burning a hole through her skull. 

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Eden, but weren’t you the one whining about how you didn’t want to be seen as fragile? And then, the second I go hard on you, you’re going to back down?” He glared at her in a perplexed way, catching how the girl’s ears burned as she ran a hand through her hair; trying to calm her palpitating heart. 

“You’re right, but one thing is helping me get better and another thing is being a sadist about it.” Eden winced at her own words before she could shut her mouth. She fearfully watched Levi’s head swiftly angle towards her, his fingers grabbing her collar as he shook her towards him. 

“You’re an idiot. An absolute fucking idiot. Regardless of whether it’s the drink that’s talking or you- you must be very thick to even think that.” He shoved her away from him as he watched her blush deepen. “Sorry if I’ve disappointed you with my actions. I guess I should start babying you the way your boyfriend does since that seems to be what you’re after.” 

Eden’s eyes widened at his words, lips parting slightly as she lost her voice. That irritation that spread deep within her quickly transformed into anger and embarrassment. 

“Jean? He’s not my boyfriend.” Levi’s impassive expression did not move off the wall behind her as she gritted her teeth, baring them viciously. “If someone were to hear you, they would have assumed you’re just jealous of him and I.”

Her words brought his deadpan expression back to her. “And what if I am?” 

Eden faltered. She felt like Levi had thrown her into the most deep and unknown waters as she wordlessly drowned trying to collect herself. Her heart clenched and the blood rushed to her head and she settled back against the wall. 

Neither of them spoke. His cup lay long forgotten on the wooden floor as he snatched the bottle out of her hands, bringing it to his lips as he drank deeply. Eden stared at his discarded cup in wonder; then back to him. The way the curve of his jaw flexed as he drank; the way his face remained void of any sign of emotions. 

“I’d be fine with that.” 

The moment her soft words- a mere whisper- reached Levi’s ears; he peered at her through the soft strands of hair caressing his face. Eden swore on everything she had ever known in her life, that the ghost of a smile flickered against his downturned lips- albeit it being long gone after she had blinked.

Eden reached for the bottle once more, her fingers clasping its throat before the Captain pulled it back away from her gently, his stoic expression present once more. She pursed her lips as she searched his fatigued face and decided that this was a battle not worth their energy. 

She cupped her mouth as she yawned, her back arching as she stretched once more. His clean scent engulfed her, swallowing her whole. Levi’s cape wrapped around her neck comfortably as her eyes drooped.  

Leaning her head back against the wall, Eden mimicked Levi’s stance as she wrapped his cape around her tightly. 

“What’s the one thing you really want to do when the war is over?” Her muffled voice asked him softly from behind the fabric. 

Levi glanced at her, relaxing his stance just a little as he swished around the whiskey in the bottle. “I’ve always wanted to open up my own teashop,” he replied after a short pause. Eden’s heart raced as she imagined Humanity’s Strongest Solider in a small teashop, making and drinking his favorite brew of tea all day long. 

“Will you make coffee?” 

Levi pursed his lips in distaste, shaking his head stiffly at the thought of disturbing his teashop filled with the strong scent of coffee. “No, why would I want to make coffee?” 

Eden’s eyes slowly began closing more, heavy with sleep. His soft voice didn’t really help her case as she fought hard to stay awake. 

“Because then, I can come visit you in the teashop,” Eden managed to mumble out; her head lulling to the side until it rested against a solid physique. 

Behind her closed eyes, Eden’s vision began blurring  as the darkness of sleep called for her gently. She couldn’t really tell whether she had begun dreaming or not as calloused, careful fingers tenderly wrapped around the waves of her hair; twisting and turning until she had completely gone to sleep.

Link to the full story in AO3 is here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28919136/chapters/70952145

[thoughtfullyyoungduck]

a little jealous

A/N: this was requested by anon, I hope you enjoy, let me know what you think!

request: Could you write a fic post it chapter 2 where Richie and Eddie start dating, but then Richie starts to feel jealous of Eddie with an attractive coworker?

warnings: a few curse words, a very brief mention of homophobia, a bit of self doubt

They’ve been officially dating for two months when Eddie invites Richie to join him on a work related business party. It’s not the first one Eddie has had to go to, but up until now he had always made up an excuse so that he only had to stay for about an hour, not nearly long enough for Richie to tag along to.

The difference between this one and the others he has already been too, is that this time he needs to stay to the end. Eddie might be up for a promotion if his boss takes a liken too him, which is why he is determined to make a good impression. If Eddie gets turned down, he’ll probably leave his job and search for another one, Richie thinks, since Eddie had been going on none stop about quitting.  

Richie has been to his office before, on more than one occasion, when Eddie was so stressed he forgot his lunch, so it’s not his first Rodeo. He knows a few people that will attend, like Anisa who is the secretary on the bottom floor, Emmet who is Eddie’s coworker and works in the office adjacent to his, and Karen who is about as much a pain in the ass as Eddie’s mom, but Richie loves to fuck with her.

Anisa is his best friend in the office, well of course besides Eds, but whenever he stops by, he always leaves some form of candy on her disk, a references to the first time the two met, when Richie accidentally dropped all the candy he was planning to surprise Eddie with. It had been Halloween, and even though Eddie didn’t celebrate it, none of the losers actually, Richie still felt the need to do something. They hit it off straight after, especially when Anisa confided in him that she had never seen Eddie smile as much as when he got together with him.

Emmet is a bit of a hardass, work till he drops, party till he drops kind off guy. Full-on in everything he does, which sometime is a little of putting, but it can also cause hilarious comedy gold moments, which Richie has used multiple times in his sketches.

He’s pretty sure his winning Karen over aswell, since he has even managed to get a small smile out of her, which is a hell of a lot more than he ever got from Sonia.

The others he knows only vaguely by the nicknames he gave them, ranging from boss man to toilet man, the latter spending all his time on the toilet if Eddie is anything to go by.

Still, Richie is very excited when he gets permission from Eddie to go with him, so much so that he’s practically bouncing on his foot whilst he gets ready. Eddie is less keen on going tonight, but that has nothing to do with the fact that Richie is going.

Ever since returning from Derry, the two of them don’t go out much. They meet up with the losers, but apart from that they usually spend their time inside of the confinements of their home, either fighting over he gets the remote, cooking, working or annoying the shit out of each other.

Neither of them want to either, they enjoy each other’s company, and those of the other members of the losers club. When they do go out, they always seem to run into someone they know giving them shit about being gay. ‘Oh Eddie, I thought you were still married to your wife?’ or ‘If it isn’t the trashmount with a boy. What happened couldn’t get enough girl anymore?’

Most of them don’t mean bad, and Eddie nor Richie are ashamed of their love, they’re just tired of having to explain over and over again, so they stay in.

Work parties are the worst for Eddie, who doesn’t even like most of his coworkers to begin with, but sometimes they are mandatory, and he has no choice but to drag his ass over there.

So Eddie grumbles his way through getting ready, shaving and brushing his teeth with a stern look on his face, picking out his and Richie’s cloths. ‘There’s no way I’m letting you dress yourself, you’ll look like a walking Christmas tree.’

They lose some time while they get ready because Richie tries to cheer Eddie up a bit, by threatening to dose him in cold water, welcoming the snappy warning Eddie sends his way.

By the time they make it to Eddie’s workplace, where the party is going to be held, it’s a quarter past nine, while they were supposed to be there at nine.

This does not do any wonders for Eddie’s mood, who’s scowl turns impossibly bigger. He almost trips over his own two feet in his haste to make it inside, but before they do, he tugs Richie aside by the hem of his sleeve.

‘Please act normal, I need this job alright?’

‘My Eds, you wound me. You think I would throw away your honor just for a few laughs from a couple of lads, I could never.’ Richie’s British voice thick his words with an accent, having the intended effect. A smile tugs up the sides of Eddie’s mouth, even when he desperately tries to hide it, rolling his eyes extravagantly.

‘See that’s what I mean dickhead, don’t do the fucking British guy or I’m dumping you.’

He’s clearly joking, so Richie doesn’t dignify it with a response, though he does snort a little in amusement. ‘Sir, yes sir.’ He calls out long after Eddie has turned his back, cackling when Eddie flips him the bird behind his back. Fondly, Richie follows him through the long corridors, first turning right, then left, left again to eventually enter a massive open space, not to far from the bathroom Richie always uses when he comes to visit.

‘Hey, if you want to get out of here, just use the word salmon for whatever, than we’ll skoot on right out of here, Eddie Spaghetti’, Richie whispers inconspicuously to Eddie, trying to avoid being heard by somebody else. He hopes he succeeded, but by the looks of it, he did.

Eddie shakes his head fondly, his hand interlocking with Richie’s with a warning squeeze.

‘Shut up you idiot’, he mumbles fondly, the look in his eyes radiating nothing but love for the man in next to him.  

They spot Anisa first, the sour look on her face melting away when she sees the two of them entering. She grabs two more drinks, balancing a total of three drinks in two hands, and offers it gracefully to them.

‘What took you guys so long?’ The voice of Bon Jovi booms through the room, originating from a djs-table in the left corner, making it hard to understand what she’s saying.

‘Mister clean over here had to be completely dosed up for this occasion, I think he changed cloths like three times, isn’t that right Eds?’ to be fair though, Eddie looks horrendously handsome, it’s almost criminal. His suit accentuates all the good features of his body, which is everything, his dress shoes make a squeaking noise every time they walk over the floor, and his hair is neatly combed back, making him look even more attractive than he already is daily.

A huff is forced out of him when he feels Eddie’s elbow dig slightly into his side. Eddie glare is turned up to a hundred.

‘Do you know how unsanitary it is to not wash every day? Do you know how many germs are transferred onto your hand by just touching a doorknob? If I didn’t wash up you know statistically speaking I have a 40% change of catching a disease? You know this asshole, why would you need to-‘

He’s intercepted by Anisa; ‘you two are so cute together’, and Richie couldn’t agree more. He takes a sip of his drink; which is champagne apparently, and is seconds away from asking Eddie who his boss is supposed to be, when a man Richie has never seen around the office makes an appearance, sliding in front Eddie’s left to give him a tight hug. By doing so, he breaks the link that Richie and Eddie hands still had, rudely shoving Richie slightly back.

He frowns, but does nothing as he waits for Eddie to introduce them. Anisa, who is still standing with them, looks to be as flabbergasted as he is.

‘Eddie, look at you. Handsome as always’, the man compliments while pulling back, his eyes shamelessly raking over Eddie’s form.

Eddie laughs politely, thanking him while reaching for Richie’s hand again. ‘Yeah, good to see you to Seth, this is my boyfriend Richie Tozier’, Eddie explains when the guy, Seth, makes no move to introduce himself.

Seth forces a curt nod towards Richie, not so much as a hello. It irks Richie to no end, but this might the one Eddie’s trying to impress, and Richie is not enough of an asshole to ruin Eddie’s chances because he’s annoyed.

‘I’m going to find Emmet, I’ll see you guys later’, Anisa tells them, as she turns around and walks off, something Richie would love to be doing now too.

He stays rooted to his spot though, trying to make himself as big as possible. It must look a bit ridiculous, but he can’t help it, there’s something about this guy.

‘So, have you managed to talk to the boss man yet? The guy really likes fresh workers.’ He tries to joke, but it falls flat, and Richie can’t help but feel smug and a little sympathetic towards the guy, so he laughs a bit awkwardly. It’s better than not responding at all, he argues, but then Seth levels him with such an annoyed look that Richie can’t help but feel a little intimidated by.

He hasn’t seen that sort of look since Sonya, and for all his joking about her, he really was terrified that she would manage to convince Eddie to stay away from for good. Uneasiness sweeps it’s way through Richie’s body, the only thing keeping him slightly calm and stable, is the hand he’s holding.

Richie tries to change the subject, to distract himself from how weird he finds the guy, by asking how he and Eddie know each other.

‘We collaborate on projects from time to time, Seth works for one of our client companies.’

‘Yeah, and we wouldn’t be coming back to the same firm if it wasn’t for Eddie over here,’ he gestures to Eddie as if Richie didn’t know who the fuck that was, ‘I’ve never had a more dedicated, ambitious, articulated, clever –‘

While he continues to dish out compliments, Richie reaches his arm over Eddie’s shoulders, pulling him flush to his side. Obviously it’s wonderful to hear compliments, and god knows Eddie deserves nothing but that, but it’s quite off putting that the same guy keeps praising him at every turn, and not even acknowledges his boyfriends presence instead being rude.

Eddie response by pressing a kiss to Richie’s cheek, which is a lot of PDA for him, maybe to sooth Richie, maybe because it was an automatic reflex, either way, Richie takes a deep breath and manages to hold his tongue till the guy is finished talking.

‘Yep, that’s my Eds, nothing but the best. I’m lucky to have him.’

He looks up from Eddie’s face to smile brightly in Seth’s vicinity, not even trying to compete with him, just being brutally honest.

‘He’s just as ambitious at home by the way, you should see the poses he can bend into when we’re-‘

‘Beep beep, Richie’, Eddie’s voice, sharp as the edge of a knife cuts in. ‘Don’t you dare finish that sentence you prick. And don’t call me that.’

Richie cackles, gripping his stomach with the one hand that isn’t occupied to stop himself from doubling over, Eddie’s angry face only making it worse.

‘Why do you call him Eds? He told you he doesn’t like that.’

Richie’s head snaps back up again, and this time, he feels actual anger. It’s one thing to flirt with Eddie in front of him, or be rude to him, Richie can deal with that, at least on the outside. But insulting their nicknames? He knows for a fact Eddie only tells him to stop calling him that out of habit, Eddie having admit to that himself, but this guy had no right commenting on it.

Eddie himself seems agitated now, in a truly fashion, one that he has never used to talk to Richie, but before he can say anything, another man steps their way, extending his hand and waiting for Eddie to shake it.

‘Mister Duke, how are you sir?’ Eddie asks a little nervously, and Richie lets his arm drop down. He refuses to let Eddie be denied this opportunity by homophobia, even if he isn’t sure that the man is homophobic, he’s not ready to take any changes.

With a gesture over his shoulder, Eddie follows who Richie presumes is his boss over to a table with man who looked like they stepped right out of the TV show suits, but Richie declines to walk with him.

Eddie needs a chance to prove himself, and Richie was just going to support him from where he was standing.

For a minute, he forgets Seth is still standing with him, until he opens his mouth again.

‘You know you’re only dragging him down right?’ He asks cruelly.

Richie frowns at him, his hands closed in fists, trying to lure himself away from his breaking point.

‘He would do much better with me. What do you have to offer? Money? I’ve got plenty of that, and at least I have status. Some small town comedian who flunked at his show that one time, and still hasn’t made a comeback yet. You look about as disheveled as a homeless men, and I can’t say I see much love between the two of you. You annoy him, and you might find it funny, respectable people don’t. Leave him before you ruin him like you ruined yourself. I could take better care of him than you ever could.’

After his monologue, he stares Richie down with a cocky expression, seemingly daring Richie to respond. When he doesn’t get one in ten seconds, he trudges on, probably to on to the next person to bother.

Richie feels like all the bones in his body have turned to liquid as he struggles to stay upright. For a moment he gazes around the room in shame, because it seems like a scene from a movie where everyone looks on to the bully annihilating some nerd, as that is the exact same emotion Richie comprehends, before he realizes that everyone is caught up in their own conversation, and he too walks off, going to the bathroom.

He knows Eddie will search for him when he’s done with his conversation, but for a moment that thought is put on the back-burner as he starts to get a little faint. It takes longer than it usually does to reach the toilet door, in the meanwhile he’s had to shrug Emmet of and ignore Anisa’s callout, but none of that matters when he finally gets there.

As soon as the door closes behind him, a loud sob leaves his throat. Only one sob is allowed to leave his lips, he argues with himself, so he resumes to silent tears only after that.

Overreactor, his traitorous mind hisses at him, and he knows it’s right, but he can’t help how he feels. He survived a fucking clown alien attacking him, and even that didn’t make him cry until he thought Eddie might have died.

However, he knows that Seth had a point, Richie is really not good enough for Eddie. And maybe Seth could be, at the very least, he did have a stable job, and he thinks highly of Eddie, maybe he was right, and he should leave Eddie so he can grow to his full potential.

Some times goes by while he’s thinking it over, and in the meanwhile he has moved to wash his face by the washing bins, scrubbing the area around his eyes to make it appear like he wasn’t crying. As he’s doing this, he hears Eddie call out to him. ‘Hey dickhead, you in here?’

The door whips open, clashing against the wall with a loud bang so hard that Richie flinches for a moment. A worried looking Eddie is standing in the door opening, his tie undone atop his blazer, and his frantic eyes searching the door, calming down slightly when he sees Richie.

‘Hey, why are you taking so long, you fall in the toilet or something?’ Eddie tries, a futile attempt at ignorance, Richie can clearly see how perturbed he is, but he’s kind enough to let Richie come to him.

Instead of telling Eddie the things that are on his mind, Richie tries to force a way around the topic, by using humor and creating a joke. ‘Well Eds, I was just about to call your mom, to declare my love for her.’

‘Richie’, Eddie sighs, running a hand over his face like he’s trying to mentally prepare himself? By the tone of his voice, Richie understands that Eddie is asking him to tell the truth, to speak what’s on his mind, but that can be so hard sometimes, so in lieu of having a conversation with Eddie, Richie starts to cry.

A hand pushes it’s way up to his mouth, trying to desperately to muffle the cries of despair, shame was again white hot present in his mind. Eddie looks shocked for about a second flat, before rushing over to Richie, grabbing his neck and pushing his head against the crook of his shoulder, rubbing his own hand up and down Richie’s back, and the other one through his hair.  

‘Rich, it’s okay. You can talk to me dumbass, that’s what boyfriends are supposed to do.’

There’s nothing but silence for a few minutes, which Eddie grants Richie, just trying to get him to calm down.

‘do you ever doubt our relationship?’ Richie finally asks, feeling the way Eddie’s entire body freezes up as if he was told Pennywise was back.

Richie hurries to continue. ‘I mean, if I’d had to choose between me and Seth, I’d pick Seth too. He has a good job and I might be out of one after waiting so long to go on stage again, and I look ridicules, and I push your buttons,’ Richie takes a break to gulp in a large gush of air. ’I’m just saying, I’d get if you would want to break up with me.’

Yet, when Eddie pulls back slightly, Richie panics before letting him get too far. Eddie laughs again, still close enough that their noses are pressed together with Richie bend down the way he is.

‘Hey Rich, you’re really fucking stupid you know that?’ Eddie says with a voice so incredibly soft and fond, Richie nearly melts to a puddle. He’s still stroking curl after curl on Richie’s head, comforting him best he can when they’re in a public bathroom.

‘You’ll have a job. You’re so good at being funny Richie. Even if I don’t say that enough. Besides, let’s say you don’t, you will but just hypothetically, I don’t care about that. I only want to spend time with you. You dress like a toddler, but I like that, it makes you look goofy, just like your personality.’

With a smile that’s showing his teeth, Eddie presses a quick kiss on Richie’s mouth, pulling back fast and firing two more in rapid succession.

‘I love you Rich. Not fucking Seth, Fuck that guy. I could never want to be with him, ever. I mean it when I say I love you dickwad, despite my questionable decision, I choose you.’

Richie giggles, hearty when Eddie stands on his tippy toes to kiss his forehead, and for a moment he feels like he’s five years old. He’s glad to have Eddie, and he’s even more satisfied that Eddie wants him back. Not amnesia could stand in their way, he’s so idiotic to believe a guy from Eddie’s fucking job could.

‘Now, come on. First I have to kick Seth’s ass for making my boyfriend cry. I have to set an example here. Then we’ll go home and cuddle okay? We'll clean the salmon or whatever the fuck sentence I'm supposed to make with that and skoot on home’

Richie shakes his head negatively, ‘what about your job promotion?’

As if suddenly remembering so, Eddie grins like a cat that go the cream.

‘Don’t worry about that, I got the job.’

When they cuddle at night in their bad, after a heavy make out session, and a small skype party with the losers in honor of Eddie’s promotion, Richie falls asleep, safely knowing that Eddie was with him, and he no matter what, he wasn’t leaving.  

[percabethfeelsfandom]

Would I be friends with these characters in high school (HOO)

Piper- 

Call me judgemental but I definitely would not like piper at first. The whole stealing for attention and the kinda internal misogyny we have going on isn’t a great look....BUT I know after a conversation with her I’d love her. Specifically mark of Athena and Blood of Olympus piper. I don’t know but something about her in those books. Where she really becomes her own person and not “Jason’s girlfriend” or “the daughter of Aphrodite”. I also think she’d be great in discussions in class, and an absolutely amazing partner for class projects, like she’d really try to think outside of the box and present creatively. Which I appreciate. 

Frank-

Nawww frank. As much as I adore his character, I don’t really think Frank and I would interact or cross paths too much. The only time I can probably think of would be while I’m in student council and he’s also there because he’s helping Hazel who is actually a member of student council. But I think as he gets older he'll definitely grow into the role and find himself as school captain. But I’d be long graduated by then, so our paths really wouldn’t intersect. He’d be super enthusiastic about helping with events even though he isn’t officially part of the council, and I will always vibe with that. HOWEVER, Nico, Frank and I would definitely geek over mythomagic together, no questions asked, it would be our own thing. 

Leo-

Okay so. I’d probably be annoyed with Leo. I’m sorry but yeah. I genuinely don’t mind class clowns, but he’s the type of class clown that still knows what’s going on and that irks me, especially in classes I don’t get. And the ones that Leo would really shine in are the math and science subjects...my weak points. (Also Leo is definitely the type of genius kid to skip a couple of grades hence why he’d be in my class). So if he’s messing around while I’m trying to concentrate I’m gonna get a bit peeved. Any other class I probably wouldn’t care. However outside of the classroom, and him being in my friend's group I’d absolutely vibe with him. We have super similar humour...as in we both use humour to deal with trauma. And I think that would be a great bonding experience for the two of us. Also he’d definitely unintentionally be like top of some of his classes, so similar to Annabeth, the three of us would probably get together at one point and try to study, but both of their ADHD (and my possible undiagnosed ADHD?? Idk I need to talk to my doctor lol) would make it a pain in the ass, but we’d get through it. 

Hazel-

As with the other people around her age in this list, our paths wouldn’t really intersect a lot. But because I know she’d be the type to be in student council, I’d see most of her then. She’s a very well spoken, articulate and extroverted person, so I don’t think even I could ignore her social butterfly charisma. And she’s an absolute sweetheart who eats bullies for dessert so of course I love her and would be friends with her. But she’d be a school friend, not like a friend friend. Like if I saw her at the shops I’d say hi and stop and talk for a bit, but I wouldn’t make plans with her to meet up at the shops...hopefully that makes sense. 

Jason-

Mr Jason Grace would also be on student council and I know for a fact that he’d probably let it get to his head. And I would absolutely despise him for it. Also. I think he’d peak in high school. (I said what I said). I’d only know him through student council and mutual friends (piper and Leo primarily). I don’t really see him getting along with Percy all that much, especially in school. But I can see him having a study group with Annabeth, which is probably where our paths would cross more. I don’t know what it is about him, but people who are very polished and who always try to seem put together set me off. I want to see them be human. And teenagers in high school are the most raw a human can be because that’s when we’re feeling the most things. But I feel like Jason would just be all smiles and greet people with bro fists and slaps on the back. And it’d freak me out because I’m a mess and he looks like nothing phases him. Idk I could talk more about my relationship with Jason but yeah I don’t think we’d not get along...I just don’t think I’d put enough effort to get along. 

Reyna- 

Oh yeah. I’d probably meet her on the sports team, (I played netball in high school). And we’d get to know each other through there and despite her being quite closed off, I think I’d still get along with her. But I don’t think we’d be close. For the same reason that I’m not friends with Jason, it’s apply to Reyna too. But I know I’d put in more effort with her because I’d probably develop a crush on her. She’s kinda my type. Like in netball in goal shooter and she’d be like goalkeeper, and since we spend a lot of time together in the game, we’d talk a bit. And I used to make really snarky comments about the players like commentary and stuff like in the sports games, and I feel like one day she’d smile at a joke I made and then she’d come out of her shell and we’d talk a bit.

(Read this in the context that I’m Percy and Annabeth’s age, so the age differences are all the same for me and the younger characters, these are also headcanons with a mortal au context)

idea credit/inspo @cabin11-hufflepuff @best_of_pjo (on insta) @ohmydamgods​ @rickriordanpjo (on insta)

[wordsmithie]

@your-girl-is-lovely thank you for tagging me in the fanfic wip tag! i don’t really have a writing community on here, so instead of doing the tag properly i’m going to post a snippet of a wip that i think you’ll be interested in. 😁

this is the rose x dj wolfman au that’s been rolling around in my head. it’s going to be a gothic-steampunk hybrid. in this scene, rose has traveled to talbot manor in the hopes of enlisting the services of mr. monserrate rafael lawrence talbot (aka dj haha) to help with finding a cure for her sick sister. she finds the gate locked, so decides to climb it. fyi this is still very unpolished. sticking this under a read more, hope it works on mobile. 🤞🏾

Most of the stonework was hidden beneath a tangle of vines. They might be enough to hold her up. She gave one of the curling stems a tug. They might be enough to hold her up if she climbed fast. She slipped her bag off her shoulder. It would only add to the weight, and she could come back for it later. She tried out a few different possibilities for a foothold, before lifting herself up with a grunt. The vines were scratchy against her hands, and she tried not to imagine any of the insects that might have been crawling between them. She had reached a particularly unpromising looking spot where they didn’t seem to be any stems strong enough to hold onto, when a gruff question startled her.

“Who in t-t-the hell are you?”

Rose let out a cry, her hold slipping. She dropped to the ground, landing on her back. The good thing was that she hadn’t climbed that far so the fall wasn’t too great. The bad thing was that it still bloody hurt. She lay on her back, waiting for the air to make its way back to her lungs.

“Did you hear me? How did you g-g-get here?”

The grey clouds that hung over her eye line were blocked out by an irritated looking face.

“Scraggly” was the word that came to Rose’s mind when she saw the face. The face looked tired. It had dark circles under the eyes, and a jaw invaded by stubble. And even upside down, Rose could see the small scars on one of the cheekbones.

“I’m…I’m Rose.” It was still hard for her to breathe. She climbed to her feet. “Rose Tico.”

The scraggly face belonged to a scraggly figure. The man was wearing a dark, worn coat. He had the air of someone who had been through trials. Rose wondered if he was the manor groundskeeper.

“Wonderful,” he rasped, his expression flat. “T-T-That tells me absolutely nothing.”

“I’m - I’m Rose Tico,” she said again, taking quick steps forward and holding her hand out. “I’ve come to see Mr. Talbot.”

The man simply stared at her and then at her outstretched hand before looking back up at her. “You want to see Talbot?”

Rose frowned, dropping her hand. The rudeness of the man! “Uh, yes. I was hoping to have an audience with him.”

At that, the man laughed, a wheezing sort of crackle that left Rose feeling like she was the unsuspecting subject of the joke. “An audience with him, eh?”

Rose’s frown only grew. “Yes, I heard he was back in town.”

The man shook his head, his mouth crooked in a smile so smug that it irked her. “Oh? Where d-d-did you hear that?”

“I - well, it’s all over town. In the society papers. Everyone knows.”

“They do, huh?” The man sniffed and looked away, rubbing his nose with his knuckles. He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment, but then he turned back, ire pooling in his eyes. “You never said how you g-g-got here.”

“Ah, the gondola,” Rose said, gesturing vaguely behind him.

“It’s out of order.”

It was increible, Rose thought, just how much the man managed to convey despite being so dead-eyed. For instance, she could tell that he thought her a simpleton.

“Not anymore.”

A frown accompanied his dead eyes.

“I - I fixed it.”

“You fixed it.”

“Yes?”

The man’s eyes narrowed.

Rose felt the urge to insist that she had, in fact, fixed the thing but held herself back. She didn’t have to prove herself to this stranger.

The man seemed to sense her resentment and his lips twitched, a smile hiding in them.

“It isn’t easy to fix,” he said.

“Well, I’m an electro-mechanic.” She shrugged. It was almost true. She had completed her studies and her apprenticeship after all. Any further details about her as-yet-undeveloped career weren’t necessary to this man.

His eyes narrowed some more, and she could see him assessing her. She held back the outrage and defiance that was unfurling slowly in her stomach. After all, all he saw was someone still fresh out of university, looking as if they lacked all work experience.

“Right.” His drawl implied that he didn’t believe her. “And what is it you need t-t-to have an audience with Mr. Talbot for?”

Rose could almost marvel at the fact that someone she had met mere moments ago had the capacity to spark so much irritation. Almost.

“I really would prefer to discuss it with him.”

The man let out a huff of laughter and had the audacity to roll his eyes, neither of which did anything to dampen Rose’s ire.

“I’m sure you would prefer it,” he said, eyes sliding back to meet her. “But Mr. T-T-Talbot expects all visitors to go through me. So if you wouldn’t mind -” he held out an arm with a mocking graciousness, dipping his head - “Miss Tic, was it?”

“Tico,” she ground out. Blast this man. He was proving to much more of an obstacle than the imposing gates had been. She supposed that Mr. Talbot must pay him well. Though if he did, the man clearly did not spend any of his salary on personal grooming. “Very well. I have - I come seeking Mr. Talbot’s assistance.” Now that she was here and forced to articulate her need she found that she didn’t quite know how.

“His assistance?”

“Yes. Well, his knowledge. His scientific input. My sister is - she works in the Llanwelly mines, or rather she worked in them. And she has been in a weakened state the past few months. None of the doctors know what the matter is, and nothing seem to hel-”

“And why do you s-s-suppose Mr. Talbot would know any better?”

Rose blinked.

“He has one of the keenest scientific minds in Llanwelly! Everyone knows that.”

“They do, do they?” His blank stare turned ironic.

“Well, yes, he has -” Rose stopped. The man clearly resented his employer, and nothing that she could ever say at this moment would change that. “Well, that is, I was hoping to seek Mr. Talbot’s advice.”

“And, what?” the man rasped, eyes flat. “You th-th-thought he would help you out of the kindness of his heart? That he’s some b-b-benevolent benefactor? You can’t possibly be as naive as you look.”

Rose’s mouth tightened.

“I have no such delusions, I assure you. I am willing to recompense Mr. Talbot for his efforts.”

The man’s eyes stayed on Rose, a small frown forming between his brows.

“It won’t be cheap.”

“I - I can appreciate that.”

“Can you? It will d-d-demand more of my time. I’ll need to learn the details of your sister’s illness - the state of her health before the illness, all of those details - before I can even begin to decode the problem.”

Rose knew she was gaping in what Me would say was a most un-ladylike fashion.

“And then of course who knows how long it might take to solve the problem. That is -” he turned to look at Rose from under his heavy brows - “if there even is a solution.”

“I - you - you’re Mr - you’re not -”

The man - Mr. Talbot? - sighed, looking away.

“Yes, I’m Talbot. Monseratte Rafael Lawrence Talbot, second son of Talbot Senior, and -” his words slowed to a scornful, staccato cadence, “heir - to - Talbot - Manor. Or whatever’s left of it,” he added, sucking on his teeth.

His head swivelled back to her. “You can close your mouth now,” he said, waving his hand at her, before turning around and making his way down the path that curved along the side of the property.

Rose snapped her mouth shut and made to follow him, then, remembering her bag, ran back, looped it over her shoulder, and turned around to run after him again.

“Right, so you’re - you’re Mr. Talbot,” she panted, as she tried to keep up with his strides.

He grunted. “You won’t have t-t-to get your hearing checked, I see.”

“Alright, alright,” Rose acceded. “Yes. Well, would you - would you be able to help?”

“That d-d-depends, Miss Tic, on what you’re offering.”

“Tico. I can - offer - three hundred pounds now,” Rose said between huffs. Trotting after him with her bag hitting her leg was proving difficult. “And another three hundred pounds later.”

He stopped, swerving on his feet with a suddenness that had Rose almost careening into him.

He gazed at her with his flat eyes. “Th-th-that’s not nearly enough.”

“That’s…,” Rose inhaled, “not enough?”

He shook his head, his mouth screwing up apologetically. Though Rose had the distinct impression that he wasn’t apologetic at all.

“Right, well…,”  Rose frowned, thinking, eyes dropping from his face to his   throat, to the faded buttons on his jacket - “well, I could…try and get some more, I suppose.” Her family’s savings might have grown a bit in the time it would take for Mr. Talbot to complete his work.

“My services would require a th-th-thousand pounds.”

Rose’s eyes jumped to his face.

“A thousand pounds?” Somehow her voice did not squeak.

He nodded, his eyes on her.

Ever since Paige had gotten sick that small, glowing spark - hope - had stubbornly lodged itself in Rose’s chest. With each doctor’s visit, with each pronouncement of failure, it had faltered, flickered at first, but then it had always burned again in Rose with a vengeance.

Now, looking into the steady, dark eyes of this man - eyes, which seemed to offer steadiness only because emptiness tinged them - who so carelessly made demands that couldn’t even begin to imagine meeting, Rose felt that hope slowly fade away.

She breathed through her mouth, trying to ensure she would have control over her voice before she spoke.

“Th-Th-There is another option.” His rough, staccato words cut through Rose’s thoughts.

She blinked up at him.

“In addition to your three hundred pounds, I would be willing to accept your services.”

Rose frowned, and then, as realisation dawned on her, her jaw dropped.

“My - ?!”

The man scoffed, his flat expression disappearing for once to make way for exasperation.

“S-S-Spare me the scandalised virtue. I have no interest in schoolroom chits.”

Rose slowly closed her mouth again, still rendered speechless as her mind tried to grapple with offense after offense. She had left the schoolroom after all. For quite some time now.

“You c-c-claimed that you’re an electro-mechanic?” He inclined his head in question, though it felt most certainly like a challenge.

Rose lifted her chin, ignoring the flush of heat that still clung to her face. “I am.”

“Mm,” he grunted, nodding, his eyes running down the length of her, stopping for a moment at her waist where her toolbelt hung.

The assessment made her want to growl at him. Lord, all her polite manners were going to be in tatters.

“If th-th-that’s the case, I could use someone like you in the manor.”

“What do you mean?”

He scratched at the back of his head. “It’s been in disuse for some time. N-n-no doubt all of the foot-droids will need some attention. And then of course there’s the household equipment. Would your skills be up to the task?” He watched her out of the side of his eyes, his head tilted to one side. His eyes were narrow, sharp like the tip of a dagger, curving to dangerous points.

“If I say yes, how long would I be in service?”

He shrugged, mouth curving down, his eyes suddenly looking a lot less dangerous.

“That all d-d-depends, of course, on how long my work will take.”

Rose nodded, absent-minded. She had known that would be the answer.

“Fine. Yes. I accept.”

He stared at her for several moments longer before inhaling. “Alright, then.” He turned on his feet and started down the path again without sparing Rose another glance. This time she didn’t run to keep up. She still wasn’t entirely certain of what it was that she’d agreed to. And she wasn’t certain that she wouldn’t regret it.

She looked up to see that he’d stopped by a small gate set deep into the stone wall. Overhanging vines spilled insistently over it making it easy to miss. She heard the lock click, and he shoved the door open with a grunt. He stepped back, turning to her with an outstretched, chivalrous arm. She ignored it and the resulting chuckle from him, and stepped over the weed-ridden threshold.

[watchinghannibal]

Season 1 Episode 1

I said I would go back and start at the beginning, and here I am! After I wrote the first post, it was clear that this a live blog experience, meaning I think this is best consumed while watching or right after watching the Hannibal episode. Therefore, I’ll be putting in some timestamps so that people know where I am in the episode without me having to stop the flow of my commentary. I am watching on Netflix. Here we go!

My very first impression of this show, knowing nothing but that it was a crime show with a cannibal involved, was that I was about to get the displeasurable BBC Sherlock experience. There’s a popular video on YouTube that intricately explains what I mean (https://youtu.be/LkoGBOs5ecM), but the short version is that we have a detective who can magically solve crimes that the viewer could NEVER solve on their own. You see Will, looking at a crime scene, and rewinding it in his head - something that I admit could possibly be done with the visual evidence laid before him. But then...

2:04 “This is my design”. Will has not only visualized the crime but he now knows the “psychology” of the killer, simply by looking at the scene. There are certainly ways to deduce the generic mindset of a killer from a crime scene - a person stabbed 100 times is most likely a crime of passion - but to know that the killer wanted the man to watch his paralyzed wife bleed to death is just not possible. 

But this is a work of fiction, and I’m willing to put reality aside to believe that Will can do this. The story he creates in the first scene has logic, it’s not unreasonable. What comes next is what really appalled me and drove me to write this blog.

4:46 Big, mean FBIman comes in and asks where Will falls “on the spectrum”. Rude, to start. Will then describes a spectrum that goes from Asperger’s to narcissist/sociopath and declares himself autistic because he doesn’t like being social. However, in the next sentence, he says he has empathy and imagination. Okay, so now I know what I’m dealing with - a Psychodynamic BBC Sherlock, based on psuedopsychology and wikipedia-level psychyoanalyses. The writers, five minutes into the show, have displayed a massive misunderstanding of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), sociopathy, and personality psychology.

But that’s okay - psychopathology is an advanced and technical field. It makes sense that this American crime TV show doesn’t get it all right. I won’t forgive the mistakes they make because honestly I see this show as offensive to people with ASD, but again I’m watching fiction so I’m willing to continue watching and give my opinions about the psychology that comes up. 

11:32 Will finds the girl impaled by antlers in her own home. He chokes her in his little replay and this is when I started to become uncomfortable about how this show treats violence towards women. In the first scene, Will replayed the crime. This time, he just pounced and choked her. That’s not what happened to this girl - she was killed, impaled, and then placed back in her bed. So why did we see Will choking her?

14:05 Very good doggo scene. There are many good doggos in this scene. Good job to all involved.

15:28 I thought to myself, ooh is this gonna be a scary show? I’m into that. I think if this shows goes more towards horror, I’m more willing to allow all 

USE THE LADIES ROOM

to allow or at least tolerate the women choking shit. Quick note about sociopaths: sociopathy is a personality disorder in which the person is unable feel some or any emotions. They sometimes act in ways that harm others because they are unable to understand how their actions make others feel and further unable to empathize about others who are harmed. Not all sociopaths are bad people or do bad things. Some actively try to understand others and fit into society.

21:34 Will magically discovers the killer eats his victims and we are shown our first view of Hannibal eating a beautiful meal of dubious origins. I liked the imagery and contrast there. The gory forensic morgue, the mortifying realization of cannibalism, and then boom - a delicate and indulgent show of pleasure.

I actually really like Hanny and maybe it’s just ‘cause of Mads, but I’m sure I’ll figure out why I like him soon enough.

FIBman barges into Hanny’s perplexing and massive office. May I also note I hate FBIman. He has bad energy - he seems like the kind of person to call a psychologist a tree hugger.

26:18 Hanny analyzes Will in public. Again, so very rude. And might I add, against the code of therapists, the Goldwater Rule, to not make public psychological assumptions about people who did not ask for help.

28:26 Again I am questioning why I’m seeing a full naked woman impaled. I’m not against gore, but I guess since I’ve watched ahead a bit I just kinda know this pattern continues and it irks me. I promise I’m trying to turn off my angry scientist brain.

He loves women he LOVES them that’s why he eats them!! Love.

I can’t imagine lungs tasting good Hannibal. Or maybe he’s just a good cook. Damn the little smile Hanny gives to that tomato. Thank you Mads.

More SPOOKY visions, this time a feathery deer. Why does it have feathers? I guess that’s scarier? No, that... can’t be it. Is it because the call the killer a shrike? That might be it.

32:03 Are you reconstructing his fantasies? Oh Hanny please give me a full Freudian report on the shrike please. Oh he’s just gonna toy with Will, darn.

36:52 This made me want to keep watching the show. I mean I assumed Hannibal the Cannibal was a bad guy but this was a cool way to solidify the viewer’s suspicions. THEY KNOW!!!!!!!!!

Now Will rewinds a crime scene he was actually involved in. Hanny acts so chill he’s like, huh, would ya look at that? I also appreciate that Will legit looks like someone witnessing a horrible crime and panicking. Sometimes in crime or horror shows, the detective is like, yeah he ripped her insides out, just another Tuesday.

Big Bad FBIman is so fucking mad and Dr. Mom is like fuck you, you hurt my BOY! Those 2 really suck you guys. Will is not a child, Dr. Mom, and he did NOT ask for your help. Hanny has the balls to be holding this girl’s hand.

Okay guys, sorry this post was a bit less funny, but I wanted to articulate why this show is not good to me and why I feel like I can make fun of it without taking it seriously. I want this blog to be a chance to laugh and maybe learn a bit about real psychology. Thanks!

[ghost-writing]

The Monster 2/?? - August Walker fanfic

This is a re-post from my other blog... I’ve decided to post my writing on a separate page, it’ll be easier to access like that.

I’ve edited this a little, but there might still be some spelling mistakes & grammatical errors. (English is not my 1st language!) So, if you see something that irks you, please tell me! :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PART TWO - Breaking

Word count: 3.2k  (The bit below the 2nd gif was labeled “part 2.2″, and titled “Interlude at the office”, but it’s quite short, so I decided to not make it separate anymore.)

Warnings: Sex (unprotected), rough sex, a certain dose of violence (including light choking), SMUT, swearing and bad language. And August Walker. (The Kingstache deserves its own warning.) And it’s probably full of typos and redundancies.

Part one can be found here!

He texted her around midnight. He had tried to not give in, resisted for almost a week, but he needed to let some steam off tonight. And he thought he liked her, which was angering him even more. She was a good investigator: smart, could think outside the box, and did not take shit from anyone, not even him. He used to like that about Sloane: she commanded respect. She did not deserve it, though. He did not know yet if Annie Franken did, he had not scratched under the surface enough. But after the month he had spent here in Brussels, he could say that he almost enjoyed working with her. At the very least, she made this dull case more acceptable. He had been offended when Sloane had given him the assignment. He felt it was an insult to his previous accomplishments. And the case would last months. At least, he’d get to travel around Europe. And since that night, he thought she was another perk.

Less than five minutes into his first meeting with the captain, he had requested to see the whole team’s files. He wanted to know exactly who he was working with, especially as it was his first time working with the Nexus. The man in charge had refused, but he went higher to get them, and he got them. Detective Franken’s dossier was heavier than the others, almost as thick as the captain’s. Apart from the chief, she had been there longer than everyone on that team, which was why she was in charge, and his direct liaison officer.

She had been in a little more trouble than the others, too. Nothing important: some insubordination (from what the redacted report seemed to say, she had been right, and her senior officer got fired shortly afterwards), and a one-time misconduct while handling a criminal in her care (he was lucky to still be alive, but he had it coming). He smiled thinking about the pics of Denizio, the “victim”: covered in bruises and scratches, a couple of deep bites, a dislocated shoulder, and multiple fractures (nose in two places, left side of his face smashed in, seven ribs, and right ankle). He was impressed: she was a fighter, and a nasty one. He had searched for the video of the incident, but had not got to it yet. He didn’t doubt that the evidence had been deliberately lost, to avoid her too much trouble.

The file also contained a lot of praise: from her former chief in the federal police, and her current one. Thinking back of his first meeting with the man, all these compliments, the twinkle in his eyes: the captain admired her, maybe even had a crush on her. August understood the appeal: good at her job, and a nice rack. Maybe too virtuous, at first sight, but he could smell that there was something hidden under the surface of that porcelain skin. Something wicked. He could see it as clearly as his own darkness.

So he stole her psych evaluations, and got disappointed when he read them. All pristine. Not in an obvious, “I’ll tell them what they need to ear” way. She admitted some problems, discomfort, insomnia, anxiety even. But she had a degree in psychology and criminology: she could’ve been faking it. He listened to the tapes: she sounded genuine. Articulate, but still confused by her feelings and reactions at times. Not the reactions of a control freak, just someone genuinely trying to understand herself, and better herself. He particularly disliked the way she was bouncing ideas off the shrink, as if he had been a wall to play against. No, actually, it’s the guy he hated. He either talked too much, or didn’t ask the right questions, the ones he would’ve asked her. And she seemed to like that bespectacled poster boy of blandness. He thought for a moment that they had fucked in his office, but after a really quick check, he found out the man was a closeted gay.

And so, an hour ago, he parked his car in front of her building, trying to calm down after Sloane’s phone call, a fire burning low inside him. He texted: “Are you at your place? Can be there in 10.” He knew she was in: shortly after his arrival, she got out on the balcony, sipping a drink, looking at the horizon, stretching her limbs, trying to unwind after a long day. The answer he got ignited something else in him. “Sure.” Not yes: sure. Sure, you can come over and fuck me. Sure, I’m waiting for you, CIA. Sure. He was panting, raging. He tried to steady his breathing, which took some time. He gripped the wheel tight, his knuckles turning white. Concentrating on the air filling his lungs, then escaping, slowly. Better. Blank face, blank mind, the August Walker way. Never give too much, to anyone. So tonight, he was going to take. And he made himself a promise.“If she has changed from that black t-shirt and sweatpants from earlier, I’ll take everything I want.” He too needed to unwind.

He got out of the car, slowly making his way to the 3rd floor apartment, still breathing in patterns, not to snap too quickly with the pretty doll upstairs. He knocked, looking at the floor. Seconds stretched, and she finally opened the door. She was barefoot, naked legs, dark red satin starting a few inches above her knees. A short kimono, belt knotted tightly around her waist, modestly covering her ample breasts. Sexy, not slutty. He felt his cock twitch. She still sported the same ponytail she had earlier, but she looked younger than at work. Probably the absence of the constantly furrowed brow, which was a common look in those offices, anywhere around the world.

Pushing past her, he entered without a hello. He heard her protest: “I did not invite you in!”, and made his way into the living room.

“I am not a vampire, I don’t need your invitation.” Thinking to himself “What you are wearing is one, anyway.” He heard the door close.

“Yeah, you give more of a werewolf vibe, actually…” His cock twitched again. He turned to face her, menacingly backing her against the wall. “Doll, you have NO IDEA”, he thought.

He towered over her, a nasty look on his face. He was so close she could probably feel the warmth of his chest, though they were not touching yet.

“Don’t you like a wild beast?” He breathed her scent deeply. “Damn, you smell nice, doll!”

“Do I look like a poodle lady?”, she jested.

And all hell broke lose inside of him: he slammed his body into hers, pinning her against the wall, making her gasp from the physical shock. He grabbed her wrist in his left hand, and opened the kimono with the right: she was wearing a dark red satin balconnet bra that barely covered her breasts. He grabbed her ass: a thong. All assorted to the robe. “Something for guests.”

She was pushing her hips towards him: he growled, less than an inch from her mouth now, but instead of kissing her like she wanted him to, he bit her throat and sucked viciously. She yelped : the thought that this man could hurt her, or break her in two with ease, crossed her mind, but she was still aroused. And she could feel that he was too. She could feel his heart beating in his chest. The thought of August Walker having a heart made her chuckle, and he growled some more as a response to her silent joke. She ran her free hand in his hair and, wanting to kiss him, she grabbed him to make him move towards her face. But he snatched her wrist, brought both her arms above her head and held them secure in his gigantic left paw, still nibbling on her throat. He unbuckled his pants with his right hand, undid the zipper, moving away from her just enough to look at her heaving chest, moving up and down rapidly with desire. Her nipples were peaking out of the satin, now, hard as rocks.

He brutally yanked her thong, and she felt the elastic band clap on her hip. She almost told him that those cost a lot of money, but decided it was wisest to just go with the flow, right now. She got distracted almost immediately anyway: he took his cock out and penetrated her without holding back. As she was dripping with anticipation (she had been since receiving the text, to be honest, running to the bedroom to change out of her comfortable sweats, into something more appropriate for a booty call), he slid his entire length inside her with ease, up to the hilt, and stayed still for a few seconds, looking hungrily at her round tits, biting his lips at the sight of her exposed nipples. He let go of her wrists, leaving them tingling with the sensation of blood circulating again in her veins, and pushed the satin robe off her shoulders and arms. She let it slide off her, feeling it brushing the back of her legs as it fell to the floor.

Suddenly, he pushed the vase and the decorative bowl that were placed on the sideboard next to them, sending them crashing down, and lifted her with his other arm to sit her on the wooden piece of furniture, still inside her. He then planted both his hands on the wall, on each side of her head, framing her, leaning in, his forehead touching hers, pushing her shoulders closer against the cold surface, and he started moving his hips, back and forth, between her thighs, wide open for him, increasing the speed every few thrusts. She moaned louder, and tried to grab his shirt to open it.

“Don’t.”

That one syllable made her blood freeze, and she took her hands off him, grabbing the edge of the sideboard outside of her legs instead. He was grunting like an animal, a huge bear completely enveloping her with his frame. She had always liked big guys, she liked feeling small in their arms and under them. She didn’t need a man to protect her; it was more about being shielded from the outside world for a moment, forgetting everything but the man fucking her senseless. And this large grizzly was very good at that, even if he was rough. She liked rough. She preferred a bit of pain than feel nothing at all.

But the bear man was inflicting more than a little pain, now. His eyes were still fixed on her breasts, dark with rage, his thrusts becoming violent. His lips occasionally sucked at her nipples, more often his teeth bit into them, but he was mostly looking at her breathing in and out, slightly smiling when she’d whimper in protest. And as she started to cry a bit louder, a visible grin was adorning his face.

He stopped pumping into her, grabbed her with one arm around her waist, carrying her next to the couch. There, he pulled her off his cock, savoring her gasp, and put her down. Her legs were slightly shaking, but she did not try to hold onto him for balance. She had understood that he was in a foul mood, and did not want to be touched. “Good girl.” But he was still raging, not feeling like calming down, and she would pay the price for it, even if she behaved. But he was sure that she could take it. If she had wanted him to stop, she would’ve fought back, and he’d be in a similar state as that “poor” Denizio guy.

So, instead of feeling sorry for her, he turned her around, bent her over, and parted her legs with his hands, guiding her ankles with a feet. He slapped her ass once, twice, three times. She let a scream escape only with the first blow. He pushed her forward, so that she ended up kneeling on the sofa. But instead of letting her upper chest rest on the back of it, he grabbed the base of her ponytail in his left fist, and yanked, silently ordering her to look at him. And as soon as her eyes met his, he slid his cock back into her, making her moan loudly. He saw fire behind her pupils: she was enjoying this. Thus, he fucked her, hard and fast, into oblivion. And her cries of rapture grew louder and more desperate. He let go of her hair, seizing her elbows instead, pulling her to him, allowing him to go even faster. She came, but it still wasn’t enough for him, so he let go of her arms, and shoved her face in the seat, pushing her back with both hands. She was screaming now, her petite body jerking with each thrust. He slapped her ass some more, leaving big red marks on her pale, soft flesh, and vigorously took hold of her waist, knowing perfectly well he’d leave bruises, feeling pride at the thought.

She felt him withdrawing, turning her around to face him. She was a rag doll in his hands, unable to think for herself. Not once had she fought him, asked him to stop. She thoroughly loved being used by him. He could take whatever he wanted, right now. And he did: he bottomed out into her, making her howl, a throaty wail after her prior screaming, and pinned her down with his hips. His right hand lifted her leg up, allowing him deeper access into her cunt, and his left hand caught her throat. The surprise of his touch made her climax, her whole body shaking, her eyes rolling in her head, her back arching, her walls clenching on him. Thereby, he huffed and puffed as his own orgasm built, and swore profusely as he pulled out of her to come all over her belly and her breasts.

Both out of breath, they looked at each other, panting, completely spent. She saw a light in his eyes, hoped he would just collapse on top of her, and finally kiss her, but in an instant, his expression changed. He got up, tucking himself back in his pants, rearranging his clothes, smoothing his messy hair. And without one last look at her, he got out, his words slapping her face.

“See you at work tomorrow, Franken.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day had been long, just like the rest of the week. She still couldn’t sit down without wincing. She couldn’t sit down at all the first day. And she had to wear a fucking turtleneck to hide the bite marks and the hickeys he had adorned her neck with. Her whole body was covered in bruises, purple finger prints on her wrists and forearms, on her hips, on her ass. She was raging inside, and he was there, working like absolutely nothing happened.

He did not avoid her, they still exchanged about the investigation, they had prepared a necessary trip to London. But it felt different than the week before, the week after that first night. Before, she had noticed his gaze, a furtive smile; once, he even had asked her if she wanted tea. But now, he was distant. Or maybe she simply wanted him to be closer.

She was angry about all the marks left on her, and she definitely would’ve preferred to be able to sit normally, but it was the way he left that hurt the most, and how he acted now. She wasn’t a fuck toy to discard after use. She didn’t want a relationship, she just wanted him to acknowledge her existence in a decent way. Say hello, and kiss her before, during and after making her climax like she hadn’t in a long, long time. She could’ve been nice to him too, reciprocate. Because whatever August Walker tried to pretend he was, deep down, he was human too. Probably. Or maybe he was just a psycho.

She could see some signs: the manipulation, the violence. She wasn’t sure about the lack of remorse or guilt. She felt he was wearing a mask, not just covering up a mistake. Doing what was expected of a cold, calculated man. But she had seen glimpses of humanity in him. He had grabbed a fantasy book left by Simon on his desk, and had smiled as if remembering the first time he had read it. She heard him hum to a song played on the radio while on a stakeout, thinking she was asleep. Not a robot, just a character he was projecting, for protection most probably. She could relate: she had tried that, but could never maintain it for too long. She still joked, she still cared. And she needed to come out for air after keeping a serious face for too long. Just like she could not let him get away with using her like he had, not without saying something.

So tonight, after sending Simon and Niklaas home, she confronted him. He was finishing the cold pizza they had earlier, mumbling about anchovies.

“How did that broom get stuck so high up your arse?”, she asked, a fake incredulous look on her face. He almost chocked on a tiny hairy fish, and he fumed.

“I’d really love to ear that story. Please, tell me how!” She batted her eyelashes, simulating fascination.

“I’m not playing this game with you…” He dropped the slice back in its box.

“No, of course not. I can’t take control of the conversation, that would belittle you, wouldn’t it?”

He remained silent, stood up and walked towards the door. Before he got there, she aimed and fired: “You lost control the other night.”

He stopped in his tracks, turned around.

“I did not.”

“Yes, you did. I had zero control, I left it to you, but you lost it anyway. If you had not lost it, you would’ve pretended. You’re a great pretender, Walker, that’s part of your job. But instead, you acted like a little boy who can’t help breaking his toys.”

“There”, she thought. He twitched when she called him a boy, almost catching fire. And right after, a flash in his eyes. Regrets. Just a hint, before snapping back.

“You enjoyed it.”

“I do like it rough, yes. But I don’t like being treated like a cheap whore.” She got on her feet, moved slowly towards him, stopping just an inch from his tall frame. “I’m not cheap in any way.”

Looking down on her, August wrapped his arm around her waist, resting his hand in the small of her back, drawing her closer to him. Almost tenderly, if it wasn’t for the hardening cock in his pants, rubbing lightly against her belly. He breathed in slowly, before what must have felt to him like spilling his guts.

“Let me take you out while we’re in London. For dinner.”

She pushed away from him, moving towards the door.

“No.” She got out of the office. “See you at work tomorrow, Walker.”