#I’m not giving moldy balls a face because he sucks

[daedric-prince-of-pasta]

Hell yeah, you’ve played the Vigilant Skyrim Mod? Did you finish it? What ending did you go for?

Oooooo it’s been a while. I haven’t played it all the way through— got to episode 4 and my game got a bit buggy. But I’m currently going through another Skyrim playthrough and I’m aiming to get as much karma points as I can. I’ll let you know when and if I complete it. Also it got a big update recently— there’s radiant quests that I wanna try out too!

All in all, it’s a great mod! Gives me that dark souls vibe with a TES twist. From memory, I think my fav boss fight was Reyda ft. her foreshadowing words and some grummites also episode 3 scared the shit out of me lol

Bonus sketch below (I always find it kinda funny if you’re a vamp, Altano still won’t bat an eye and will ask you to join up 😂)

[hoodoo12]

Roses and Rot

This is based of a loose prompt: “Jealous and possessive Keatlejuice where the boy goes feral”. My pals @vicunaburger (Last Train Home)and @clairjohnson (Night Out) also wrote for this prompt; go check them and their fine stories out!

NSFW. Possessiveness, extreme violence and gore, smut, minor bondage, dub-con. This is a darkfic.

~

There hadn’t been any sound. No warning, and that was the scariest thing of all. There was some asshole douchebag who’d been catcalling you and who jogged after you down the sidewalk, even though you’d made it plainly clear you wanted nothing to do with him. The guy had the balls to grab your shoulder, and that was the end.

He’d been torn away from you so abruptly you’d been jerked back too, stumbling and losing your balance. You shouted, because you’d first thought the guy had done it himself, but when you gathered your wits your shout died in your throat at the sight that met your eyes. The douchebag was on his back and screaming, although his voice also went the way of yours. For a different reason, however: it was hard to scream when there was no breath capable of being drawn after the hand shoved in his gut ruptured his diaphragm and was now elbow deep into his chest. “Heart’s still beatin’. Pity,” Beetlejuice laughed. “Not for long though, buddy.” Straddling the man’s legs like they were wrestling or they were lovers, he extracted his hand slowly, like that would be a kindness to make it hurt less. When just his hand was still inside, he cocked his head. “I think that’s your liver. Spleen feels a little less smooth, an’ if I’d gone through it--whoa! You’d have bleed out way too soon! Oops, looks like my damn ring is caught on something--”

With a more violent jerk than maybe needed to happen, he yanked his hand out of the guy with the thickest wet sound you’d ever heard. You retched involuntarily as Beetlejuice examined what looked like a rope of intestine in his hand. Your gag caught his attention. Quick as a snake, he looked up and caught your eyes. Typically pale blue, his eyes were blown dark with what you would have classified as arousal, except he was drenched in blood and was pawing through a person’s innards like picking up candy from a destroyed pinata. Beetlejuice grinned ferally at you, licking his teeth. He seemed to realize he’d gotten some blood sprayed onto his chin, because he licked further down to remove it. You weren’t sure what to think. Or say. Or do. You felt frozen, a rabbit, pinned by a predator’s gaze. Your choices were to not move and maybe he’d ignore you, or run and hope he was having too much fun with the soon-to-be corpse under him. “What’s the matter baby?” he said with much too much amusement in his voice. “I did this for you.” You could barely wrap your head around that, and you shook your head slightly because of it. The amusement on his face melted to a scowl, and you flinched. Luckily, Beetlejuice seemed to believe it was due to the man twitching and still trying to draw breath underneath him. He turned ferociously back to him. “You fuckin’ cocksucker--you apologize to the lady!” he spit, literally, in the dying man’s face. 

It was unfathomable to you the amount of pain and shock the guy must be in, with his guts systematically being pulled from the hole Beetlejuice put in him. When he didn’t respond to the order that had been given to him, the specter snarled and used his unoccupied hand to grab the guy’s chin to twist his head up and over awkwardly to look at you. “Fucking apologize,” he demanded again. He held on with so much force his nails cut into the man’s cheeks. The guy who may or may not have assaulted you given the chance, whose only ‘crime’ was being a prick in public and daring to lay a hand on you, managed to raise his eyes enough to meet yours. He was crying, but still no real noise came from him; collapsed lungs didn’t provide enough air to pass through vocal cords. He wheezed, a little. 

Beetlejuice cranked his head back to a more proper position. “That’s much better,” he said brightly, like a teacher praising a pupil that finally understood something complex. “I’m sure you’ll never do anything like that again, will you?” The guy wheezed again, and you could see that his tears made clean tracks through the blood on his face. “WILL YOU?!” Beetlejuice screamed suddenly, dropping his face within inches of the man. 

The guy still had enough strength to flinch. That made Beetlejuice laugh again, and he planted an opened-mouth kiss to the man’s mouth. It prevented you from seeing what his hands were doing, but you didn’t miss the specter sucking in like he was stealing the last of his victim’s breath. When he sat back up, a string of bloody saliva bridged between the two men’s lips. With one hand on the man’s chest and the other still running intestines through his fingers like fine silk, Beetlejuice cocked his head. “Heart’s giving out, buddy. Maybe, if I’m quick--” And again, with no warning, he torn into the man’s torso with a frenzy. You’d never known how strong he was; you’d never considered how strong he was, but skin and muscle split and ribs were cracked, and before you even had the chance to look away, Beetlejuice had his prize: exposure of the guy’s heart, still in his ruin of his chest, beating erratically from blood loss and rapidly dropping blood pressure. Beetlejuice looked up at you, gave you a wink, and gave the heart a vicious flick. Luckily the guy didn’t feel it; he was obviously dead. Hawking something up from the back of his throat, the specter spit a gob of mucus directly into the dead man’s open chest. You’d never seen someone die before. You’d never seen such frenzied carnage. If you could have torn your eyes away from the show of wanton destruction, you would have. You felt numb and shocky yourself, like you wanted to vomit and curl into a fetal position all at the same time. All your limbs were cold. The fact that it was done so casually, that Beetlejuice looked just as he’d always looked--grimy, moldy, the corners of his mouth always just about to turn up like he was always one step ahead of anyone else around--he didn’t look monstrous at all except that his favorite suit was now that start of a joke--what’s black and white and red all over--

--your thoughts felt fractured, a skipping record, and a giggle slipped out of you, less for amusement or approval and more because you had no reference on how to respond to any of this.

Beetlejuice took your giggle the wrong way, of course. In a flash, between one blink and the next, he was at your side, arms around your waist to hold you upright and against him. The blood soaked into his suit felt clammy and left smears on you. There was still a feral light in his eyes, and pressed this close, it wasn’t any secret he was aroused. “Nobody gets to touch you but me, baby,” he informed you. Just as he leaned down for a kiss that you dared not refuse him, he continued, “You’re mine.”

His mouth covered yours and you held your breath. The taste of him, damp soil with base notes of roses and rot, was familiar; the new flavor of iron from the residual blood on his face was not and you did not care for it much. Naturally, he didn’t care. While you squeezed your eyes shut and tried not to act too put off in case that made him angry, an odd pressure surrounded you and when he released you and you opened your eyes, you were back in your bedroom. You didn’t dare point out that if he could just remove you from the situation on the street he didn’t have to tear that guy apart. 

Wiping his thumb along his lower lip as he stared over you with hungry eyes, he repeated in a low voice, “You’re fucking mine,” as if you’d argued. 

He still seemed to think there was some disagreement, however, maybe because you were still shocky from the events and you weren’t as responsive as typical to his advances. He lifted his lips in what you thought was supposed to be a smile but came off more as a snarl. “Men. Always sniffin’ around, always thinkin’ they can touch whatever they want without consequences. Never thinkin’ that what they’re touchin’ might belong to someone else!” he ranted. This was not the time to try and educate him on the fact that the word “belong” was offensive and demeaned you into being property. 

He took a breath that you know was for show because he didn’t actually breathe any longer, and focused on you again. “I know you didn’t flirt with that guy, baby. I know you didn’t ask for him to follow you and touch you. He was just a prick who got his just reward. But I gotta say . . . seeing him try and get your attention . . . it got me a little possessive.” Once again you held your tongue, although that was damn obvious. You weren’t against possessiveness, per se, and had occasionally breathed into his ear that you only wanted him, you were his, those sentiments and the like slipping from your lips as he fucked himself into you, but this was a little more than typical. The standard thrill of his aggressive behavior was there, even if your pulse also pounded out of fear. Beetlejuice gave you a much softer smile, and it almost made you relax. When he stepped up to you again, however, the smile slipped and a rock settled in your gut because your subconscious better recognized the not so sweet intent behind him coming close again. He grabbed the back of your head, his ragged nails catching in your hair. That was not uncommon; his hand being tacky from mostly dried blood was. You gasped and automatically pulled your head back in response. That only made him laugh. “Gotta be a way to show assholes like that you’re mine--” he growled half to himself, but loud enough for your ears too. “Gonna show them you’re mine--”

With that, he spun you around. Off balance because you weren’t expecting it, you fell front first onto the mattress. Before you could twist or protest or anything, you found yourself without a stitch of clothing on; one of his ‘parlor tricks’ that sometimes you liked very much. A new element had been added, however: your arms stretched forward and wrists restrained with exactly what, you didn’t know. You didn’t keep any ties or shackles in your bedroom; there’d never been any talk of tying up or restraint--

“--gonna prove it, I know you know you’re mine, baby, but other people, other people need to know--”

His obsessive rambling didn’t calm you. He drew his tacky hands down your back to the swell of your ass, and he kicked open your legs, putting you in a more precarious position without your feet under you. You heard the soft noise of a zipper, even with both his hands still on you, spreading you open so your pussy was exposed. 

“--I’ll show ‘em, it’ll be a giant neon sign announcing to the world--”

You had no idea what he meant, but could only imagine it was some sort of other phasmagorical trick he could conjure. Maybe he’d brand you with his name? Maybe he’d claw you till you were bleeding, leaving scars which would give other people pause to even talk to you? His cold fingers dragged themselves through the folds of your pussy and automatically your back dipped to allow him better access. He chuckled through his word vomit and now the head of his cock, wider than his fingers, followed their same trail. You relaxed as best you could against the restraints stretching your arms, knowing what was coming next. With one hand still gripping your hip, when Beetlejuice found where he wanted to be he thrust forward and filled your cunt with one motion. With zero preparation and a slaughtering as foreplay, the friction was immense and you cried out. You’d fucked him often enough that he opened you up easily, and the tight drag and pull lit up your nerve endings anyway. Your cry of surprise that devolved into a moan made him chuckle again. The hand he’d used to hold the base of his cock while he seated himself inside you came up and slapped your ass more sharply than you expected and you jumped and yelped, which only spurred him on more. He did it again, this time spanking you lower on your ass. You felt the extra sting of his ring making heavy contact with the thin skin of your upper thigh. 

Through it, he fucked you at a blistering pace. 

You cried out with each thrust; you groaned each time he pulled back. You’d have reached behind yourself to grab at him, to hook your fingers into his waist, or slipped a hand under you to finger your own clit, but neither of those were options since he decided he wanted all the control himself. You had no choice but to enjoy the rough ride. Beetlejuice hadn’t stopped talking, although it was now interspersed with his own guttural groans. “--fuck-fuck-fuck, your fuckin’ cunt is the best, baby--it’s mine an’ I’m gonna make sure people fucking know it--”

Going to your tiptoes, even with your legs spread to accommodate him, helped tilt your pelvis so he managed to thrust against the perfect spot inside you, even if he didn’t do that on purpose. Drool made a wet spot under your cheek on the mattress, because he drove such pleasure into you it was difficult to remember to do something like close your mouth or swallow. “--gonna fucking fill you up, fuck! Gonna, gonna--” Beetlejuice leaned over you, his weight pressing you down into the mattress. He hadn’t shed his clothing, you learned with a start, as the still damp-with-blood fabric of his jacket and shirt chaffed over your back. You wiggled more out of disgust than pleasure at the feeling of it, but he didn’t seem to recognize that subtle difference, or he didn’t care. He moved one hand to entangle itself into your hair again, to steady himself and stretch you back towards him. With his face now against your neck he grunted, “--gonna fill your cunt with come, baby--”

You gasped at those words, and he laughed again. “--oh, you like that? You like the idea of this dead guy’s come up in your pussy, smelling like me, huh? No one’d mess with you then, so full of rot--gonna flood your cunt--”

Was that even possible? Typically he liked to pull out and come on you, and yes it didn’t smell great but it was easily washed away. If he came in you, would the stench linger? The thought terrified you. The thought also excited you. You should be ashamed and alarmed, but just couldn’t be; him positioned on top of you, his cock still hammering into you, throwing sparks of bliss keep into your belly, promising that no one else would want you, you couldn’t do anything but take what he gave you and it was so, so good--

With a howl, you came around his cock, your pussy spasming even as he continued to thrust into you. He was still talking but your ears were ringing, and in another few moments, while you worked to catch your breath, Beetlejuice yanked your hair hard enough to make you cry out, and shoved his hips so hard into you it actually hurt, and groaned during his own release, deep inside you, just as he’d promised. 

He didn’t immediately pull out and roll off of you either, as typical. He stayed right where he was, rocking his hips through his orgasm as if actively working his come to where it needed to be to leave your pregnant. After several moments and slowly feeling like you were going to have to struggle to get him off you so you could draw a full breath, he pushed himself up and back. You heard him fiddling with his fly again, and wondered if he even dropped his trousers during at all. 

As his cock left you a gush of wet soaked you and the edge of the mattress. Beetlejuice grunted and shoved his fingers up against your pussy as if to push his come back in. You stretched and wiggled against the restraints on your wrists, and suddenly they were gone too.

You rolled over, not caring that whatever bloody mess he’d transferred to you would be on your bedding now. You weren’t sure how you were supposed to feel.

The specter still looked like he worked in a particularly unsanitary butcher shop. Instead of stripping or anything else remotely politely human, he dropped onto the bed bedside you and spooned into you, like all this had been normal.

“I fucked up, baby,” he whispered, to your amazement. 

Oh! Maybe he did see that he went overboard and unnecessary!

He sighed and kissed your shoulder. You felt the imprint of his teeth, but he didn’t bite you. In an even lower voice, he continued, “I should’ve kept that guy alive so he could’ve seen all that we just did there. Then I shoulda fuckin’ offed him.” You kept your mouth shut once again, and just lay with him like he wanted. 

fin

[master-sass-blast]

Out With the Old, In With the New, Part Two -Because Men are Often Worse Still.

IT’S ALMOST 1 AM THIS TOOK SO LONG TO FORMAT AND YEAH I COULD’VE STARTED EARLIER BUT S T I  L L-

Part Two of “Out With the Old, In With the New.” To recap, Piotr is kidnapped while on a mission, and you take things into your own hands when Nathan, Wade, and Neena turn up missing as well. In the process of tracking down Piotr, you run into and team up with Angel Dust -aka Christina--who’s looking for her missing daughter. You then ask Frank Castle for help in freeing your family, friends, and Christina’s daughter, then join him, Christina, Ellie, Yukio, and Russell on a mission to rescue everyone. Just when it seems like you’ve won, though, the mastermind behind the kidnappings --Nathaniel Essex--escapes with Christina’s daughter in tow, leaving you all with no other choice but to pursue him.

Yeah, it’s a lot. If you haven’t read part one, you definitely should otherwise this is going to be really confusing.

Rating: Tish for pyschological torture, injury, feelings of failure/probable rejection sensitivity dysphoria, and near death situations.

Pairings: Piotr Rasputin x Reader, Nathan Summers x Wade Wilson, Frank Castle x Karen Page, Ellie Phimister x Yukio, and Alexandra Rasputin x Nikolai Rasputin,

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie, @super-darkcloudstudent, @girl-obsessed-with-things, @nebulous-leo, @dandyqueen

Alright. Let’s start with the good news.

The good news is that Piotr is –mostly—okay. He’s a little dehydrated and a little roughed up from being knocked out and captured, but other than that he’s fine.

(According to him, Essex and his team of scientists seemed more interested in Neena, Wade, and Madeline; he and Nate were merely proxy captures.)

The bad news is that everything else is going to shit.

Scott basically hit the roof once he found out you left –with the teens, two known criminals, and a Hell’s Kitchen vigilante that is in the legal gray area in tow—without authorization, and is none too thrilled when you return with three more mutants that fall on the vigilante-assassin spectrum and a mutant super weapon with no tongue.

(Fortunately, Alex sends him packing with a none-too-welcoming glare before he can verbally rip you to shreds.)

Your home is a veritable madhouse, now. True to his word, your uncle flew in, and has since taken your dining room hostage with various laptops, weapons, and stacks of paper. Nate and Frank are shoulder to shoulder with him, going over various strategies and pieces of intel; Wade, Ellie, Piotr, and Christina are arguing about Francis and the Weapon-X program, while Mikhail, Yukio, Alex, and Russell are having their own other conversation about the lab and everything that happened there—

It all blends into a cacophony of noises, none of which is helping you think right now.

Shit.

You notice Neena sitting off to the side, staring out the darkened window that overlooks the back deck. You skirt the chaos that starts in your dining room, trails through the hall, and spills into the kitchen, and sit down next to her on the couch. “You okay?”

She sighs heavily, then gives you a weak, tired smile. “Not really. But I will be.”

You want to ask her what happened in the lab –what Essex was so interested in—but you know now’s not the time for that question. That there may never be a time for that question. “Why don’t you go lay down in the guest room upstairs?” You look over your shoulder at the multiple arguments and conversation, then back at her. “Not to say we don’t need you, but I think we’re covered as far as opinions go.”

“Thanks,” she says with a small smile, “but Wade actually called Dopinder for me. He’ll be taking me back to my place.”

“Are you sure that’s safe?” you ask with a frown.

“I’ve got a good feeling about it.”

You let out a little huff of laughter. “Well, if you want to go chill upstairs until Dopinder comes, feel free.”

“That actually sounds good. I think I’ll do—”

The sound of glass shattering cuts Neena off –along with every other person in your home, save for one.

“You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about!”

You whirl around and see Christina advancing on Wade, who quickly gets Russell out of her warpath before picking up the nearest, largest shard of glass from the broken mirror that he can find and angles it at her.

“I will fucking shank you,” Wade snaps, voice entirely lethal. “You –you, of all people—do not get to tell me what is and isn’t a job! Your fucking sugar daddy turned me into a moldy avocado that got facefucked by a naked mole rat! You two built an entire scam off torturing innocent, desperate people just so your psychopathic main squeeze could get his rocks off and feel like some sort of Zeus-wannabe—”

“You don’t understand shit!” Christina snarls, advancing on Wade. “You’ve never tried to take care of a kid—”

“—playing God and crushing people under his feet—”

“—with no way to get a decent job or pay child support—”

“—and then you helped kidnap my future baby momma—”

“—and no resources or avenues to help you out—”

“—and you think I’m just going to forgive that?”

“—so you take what you can get!”

“Alright, alright, easy,” Alex says with an air of unchallengeable authority. With a simple gesture of her hand, she uses her telekinesis to back Wade and Christina away from each other, before flicking her wrist again, sending every last splinter of glass off the floor and into the kitchen trash can. “There’s bad blood between you two, that much is obvious. None of that changes that we have child to rescue. You two can duke it out later; now, we focus. Ponimayu?”

“If you think,” Wade spits out, still glaring at Christina, “that I am working with some fucking Cara Dune knock off—”

“She will not be joining us,” Alex interjects. “So that takes care of that.”

“Since fucking when!” Christina growls, advancing on Alex with her fists balled up. “Maddie’s my daughter, I’m not—”

“Risking losing her permanently by possibly getting your ass caught in some less than legal actions, while associating with less than legal people,” Alex finishes, standing and crossing her arms over her chest. “Because you have criminal history, da? Which means you do not have full custody, da? And if you get caught in further such activity, you will lose custody to ex who decided to give your daughter to man we are tracking, da?”

Christina visibly seethes, but says nothing.

“Our goal is to protect your daughter, which also means protecting you,” Alex continues, voice gentler. “Otherwise, we end up right back here. So, you stay here, we bring Maddie back to you—”

“—and my ex still has custody rights,” Christina finishes, bitter and defeated.

Alex casts a glance at your uncle before shrugging. “Maybe not. We’ll work something out.”

Christina squints at her, expression perplexed. “Work ‘what’ out?”

“Also, sidebar,” Wade interjects. “Since when am I just getting looped in on this?”

“You want to leave young girl in hands of experimenting scientist?” Alex asks, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

“No.”

“Then you help. Anyone else want to say anything?”

“What about us?” Russell asks, gesturing between himself, Yukio, and Ellie.

“You three stay here as well –I will handcuff you all to chairs myself if it comes to that,” Alex adds before any of the teens can argue. “Anyone else?”

“How’re we gonna track this shitstain down?” Frank pipes up. “He could be anywhere.”

“We can go through the intel we already have,” your uncle says, jumping into the conversation. “Chances are he’s still local, since it’s not easy to keep multiple sites running across a widespread area. We sift through everything, we might find something—”

“I can do you one better.” Ellie rummages in the cargo pockets on her suit, then pulls out a miniature hard drive. “I downloaded the compound’s entire database while trying to open the last containment tube. If he’s got other contacts, other places he’s been setting up, it should be on here.”

Your uncle takes the hard drive from Ellie’s outstretched hand with an impressed nod. “Nice. I’ll get working on this, start doing some basic search eliminations so that we aren’t wading through so much information.”

“X-Men are still involved in this,” Piotr says, speaking up for the first time since Christina punched the mirror. “Things cannot go too far off rails.”

“I’ll go along,” you say quickly when you catch the expressions that flicker across Nate’s, Wade’s, Frank’s, Mikhail’s, and Alex’s faces. “To make sure things don’t get too crazy.”

Piotr frowns. “Myshka—”

“I’m already knee-deep in this shit when it comes to Scott,” you mutter, shrugging. “No need to yank anyone else in. And you need to rest. So there.”

Piotr purses his lips, then nods towards the stairs. “Can I talk to you for moment? Please?”

***

 By the time you step over the threshold to yours and your husband’s bedroom, your stomach is in your shoes. You don’t need to see Piotr’s face to feel the disappointment, disapproval, and dissatisfaction radiating off him.

You knew it’d be coming. You’d just hoped that it would wait a little longer than this.

Piotr sits on the bed, waiting until you close the door behind you. The door latches shut, and then he lets out a sigh twice the size he is.

This fucking sucks.

“I wish I knew where to start,” he says quietly, gazing across the room at you.

“You’re upset,” you manage, throat already tight with emotion.

“I am,” Piotr confesses, still quiet. “I know you knew better. Are better.”

And there it is. Less than ten words, and he’s already got you on the verge of tapping.

“I didn’t have any other options,” you say, voice shaking. You sniff, then swallow hard and tilt your chin up. Don’t break down. Not now. “I really didn’t.”

“You always have other options, myshka. Options better than involving children and likes of Frank Castle. You could have asked X-Men for help—”

“Scott was the one on patrol monitor duty. Do you really think he gave me the time of day?”

Piotr frowns deeply. “You are X-Men. If you request assistance—”

“I’ll never be an X-Men in Scott’s eyes,” you spit out, voice breaking embarrassingly. “Look –there’s a young child missing, and she’s in the hands of a fucking maniac. Right now, that takes priority. You’re already disappointed in me—” You choke back a sob, then spread your hands in a ‘what else can I do’ gesture. “We all knew that was coming. So, let’s just leave it there, and next time I’ll try ‘extra hard to be good,’ or whatever.”

“Y/N—”

Whatever he’s going to say next you can’t bear hearing it.

You turn on your heel and all but run out of your bedroom and back downstairs.

 ***

 You catch your uncle as he leaves the dining room.

“Woah, punk –you okay?”

“Yeah,” you lie, scrubbing your face dry. “You get through everything?”

He stares at you, hard, for a long time, but ultimately drops your evident falsehood. “Yeah. Team’s in there concocting a plan right now.” He nods towards the dining room. “Should probably hop in if you want to keep tabs on shit.”

“Yeah, yeah. Look, uh, could you do me a favor?

“Sure. Name it.”

“Can you get her—” you nod towards Christina, who’s sitting on your family room couch and staring off aimlessly into space “—on one of your teams?”

Your uncle raises an eyebrow. “I thought she and your brother had bad blood.”

“I’m more worried about her daughter. If we can give her something mostly legit to do, she’s more likely to be able to keep her, and then…” Images of your childhood flash through your mind, and you swallow hard. “And then another little kid doesn’t have to spend the rest of their life with someone who hates them.”

Your uncle’s expression softens. He nods. “Yeah, punk. I’ll get her set up.”

You nod in thanks –then hug tightly before heading into the dining room. Job’s not over yet. Not by a longshot.

***

 Ellie’s mass download turns out to be more fruitful than anticipated –namely in that Essex has a righthand man that never visited the compound –to avoid potential capture if the location was compromised. A string of email communications shows that the righthand man knew about all of Essex’s secondary locations and developed the teleporter for Nathaniel.

And, with a little bit of working and some mostly illegal hacking, Nathaniel’s righthand man can be traced back to an apartment in Northern Manhattan (thank you, Micro, aka “Lieberman”).

The plan is simple. Mikhail teleports the rest of you inside the building’s stairwell to avoid being caught on camera. From there, you follow Alex, Mikhail, Nate, Wade, and Frank up to the proper floor.

Simple. Now all you have to do is execute it.

Your heart starts pounding in your throat as you follow the gaggle of assassins into the hallway. You’d agreed to come along, and you’d known that things would get… less than kosher…

But for the first time, you really take in the various guns everyone else is packing, and the body armor that Frank, Mikhail, and Alex all wear, and your stomach churns.

Dammit, Y/N, what did you just get yourself into.

Both Frank and Wade make to kick the door in –and then get yanked to the opposite wall via telekinesis.

“What, you want to alert entire floor?” Alex hisses, pulling on a pair of black leather gloves. “And get your fucking gloves on, Castle. We are not leaving prints if this guy decides to squeal.” She puts a glove hand on the doorknob, then frowns in concentration—

The door unlocks with a quiet click and swings open with a barely audible squeak.

You trail after everyone else, careful to stay outside any lines of fire—

And then everything happens in the blink of an eye.

The righthand man –Jason Cross, according to the name on the WiFi bill that Frank’s tech spook had tracked down—gets up out of his chair and makes a dive for a cell phone, only to hit the floor empty handed.

Alex summons the phone to her hand with her telekinesis, then swiftly pockets it. “Quiet, or this gets worse for you.”

“Get him in a chair,” Nate growls.

Frank, Wade, and Mikhail all rush Jason, physically picking him up and manhandling him into a wooden chair.

Mikhail pulls out a roll of duct tape from the duffel bag slung over his shoulder, then restrains Jason’s legs and arms with several loops of the stuff –all while whistling what sounds suspiciously like Katy Perry’s “California Girls.”

Because this night can’t get any weirder.

Wade rubs his gloved hands together, and the eyes on his Deadpool mask widen as he stares down at Jason. “Ah, this is gonna be fun! Whatcha feeling, baby boy? Chinese hot sauce water torture? Car battery to the nips? Poptart up the ass?”

“Why overcomplicate things,” Frank growls, voice sounding less like a human’s and more like if a pile of gravel learned how to talk. He towers over Jason, glaring down at him like Death personified. “Talk.”

Jason, to his credit, doesn’t piss his pants –though it’s probably a near thing. “L-look, man, I –I don’t know what you want, or what you’re hear for—”

“Wrong answer,” Frank snarls, then rears back and balls his hand into a fist.

“What the fuck is wrong with you!” Alex snaps, voice hushed. She bats his hand away from Jason with her telekinesis, then glares Frank down. “Eat a damn Snickers and sit the fuck down! For fuck’s sake!”

“He knows were the girl is,” Frank argues.

“And we are not going to get information if you start messing with his head –or if neighbors overhear you beating his ass. Sit down! Just –give me a minute.”

Frank scowls, but sits down on the nearest chair.

Alex lets out a huff, then starts stalking around the apartment.

You visually follow her trail as she snoops around Jason’s apartment. She does a cursory search of the kitchen, eyeing the pristine white coffee mugs all arranged with the handles facing left. She glances over the meticulously maintained coffee pot, then goes about checking through the cabinets.

“Whoa. Looks like someone’s a caffeine fiend,” Wade jokes when she opens one cabinet door to reveal several unopened bags of the same type of coffee.

Alex ignores Wade as she continues her circuit around Jason’s apartment. She eyes the immaculately white area rug and furniture, the precisely spaced pictures, and the flawlessly dusted coffee table before moving into his bedroom.

“Is there something specific we’re looking for?” Frank grumbles.

“Patience,” is Alex’s only reply. She opens the nightstand drawer, then pulls out a black leather-bound journal.

You get that sinking feeling in your stomach as you watch her flip through the journal’s pages, but stay quiet.

At this point, there’s really not much you can do to stop this ride.

Alex strides back out of the bedroom and tosses the journal onto the coffee table next to Jason, letting it land with a resounding thwap. She stares him down for a moment, then heads back to the kitchen.

“We’re looking for a missing kid,” Frank points out irritably.

“I am well aware,” Alex fires back, tone dry. She casts one more glance at Jason, then starts to shuffle through the rows of coffee cups –messing up their arrangement, touching them all over, sending the handles askew. She eyes one, coughs on it, then sets it back in the group before picking one from the back.

Jason stares after Alex, jaw clenching and unclenching feverishly. “Look, whatever it is you want—”

Alex ignores him as she withdraws the coffee pot from the machine. She turns towards the sink, then freezes halfway and sneezes into the pot.

Jason goes whiter than a sheet. “Just –look, I can’t tell you anything—”

She fills the pot with water, then sticks it in the machine. Alex tosses the already opened bag of coffee around for a moment –spilling a sprinkling of grounds on the counter and floor—before yanking one of the cabinet doors open and pulling out an unopened bag.

“Look, I –just stop!”

Alex pauses in her actions, glancing over her shoulder. “You know where the girl is.”

“I already said, I don’t know any—”

She turns away from him and rips the bag in half, sending coffee flying all over the kitchen.

Jason lets out a noise close to a sob.

Mikhail tosses a knife up and down as his mother portions out coffee grounds into a filter. “Is going long? Because, if is, I order pizza.”

Wade perks up. “Ooh, yeah! Burnt crusts and pineapple with olives!”

“No fucking pizza,” Frank growls, grimacing at Wade’s topping choices. “‘Specially not like that.”

“Terpeniye, ognennyy shar. We are just waiting for coffee to brew.”

“Betcha there’s a Postmates option that gets the pizza here faster than that.”

“Later, gorgeous,” Nate murmurs, gently squeezing his boyfriend’s hand.

Alex sets the coffee to brew, then strides into the main living area of the apartment, trailing coffee grounds with her. “Alright, we have few minutes. Let’s talk.” She fixes Jason with a stern glare when he all but lets out a shriek of agony. “You stay quiet, or I make this worse for you. Ponyal?” When his mouth screws shut, she nods and leans against a marble topped end table. “You know where the girl is. Where Essex took her.”

“Look, I don’t know—”

“Your email is listed in compound records,” Alex lists, starting tick off items on her fingers. “You own the blueprints for teleporter –which you also designed. Your journal mentions Essex by name and working with him. You have record of unethical scientific practices and aligning with agencies that promote or practice testing on mutant individuals. You know exactly why we are here and what we want, you are able to give it to us, and there is no ending in this that you do not come out fucked.” She stares him down for a minute, then shrugs. “You only control just how much it hurts.”

Jason gulps, then looks away. “Okay, look, I admit I know the guy –but if Nathaniel finds out I told you anything, he’s gonna kill me!”

“Should’ve thought about that before you sided with the guy that experiments on kids,” Frank growls.

“He’s going to kill you either way, considering we’ve been here,” Nate adds, leaning against the nearest wall. “You want to save a little girl’s life, or not?”

“You guys don’t understand,” Jason says, voice and expression suddenly earnest in a way that makes your skin crawl. “The gift this child possesses is too extraordinary to simply pass up on. The advancements that could be made for mankind are innumerable.”

“She’s a kid,” Frank snarls, finger tapping against his thigh. “Not a resource for you shitbags to exploit.”

“What even do you want her for?” Wade pipes up. “Aside from whatever sick torture porno collection the two of you are creating.”

“Subject Fifty-Eight has the ability to mimic other mutation sets and already displays remarkable ability to control and use said mutation. On her own, she could be an amazing asset in law enforcement and conflict de-escalation—”

“Which means you want to use her as a gun,” Wade surmises. “You sick cumsock.”

“It’s more than that!” Jason insists, leaning towards Wade as much as he can until the duct tape restraints stop him. “Nathaniel was making good headway on isolating the chromosome that carried the mimicry ability. If he’s able to separate it out, stabilize it, there’s not limits to what it could be used for. Soldiers and policemen with the ability to mimic fighting styles or power sets of alien opponents. Weapons with artificial intelligence interfaces that can adapt their ammunition to whatever they’re up against. Technology with programming that lets them adapt and overcome any type of malware. Vaccinations that could adapt to viruses—”

“We aren’t your ‘Godsend!’” you interrupt, crossing your arms over your chest. “Mutants aren’t a resource that you can just exploit for some type of breakthrough!”

“Not to mention, you held us against our will and put us in giant test tubes,” Wade adds furiously. “And we’re talking about a kid!”

“Sounds like dystopic book,” Mikhail interjects. “Like Hunger Games.”

“I think it’s more of a Divergent, technically—”

“I can’t let you stop the pursuit of science,” Jason says, so sincere and earnest that it’s disgusting.

You stare at him, shocked to your core. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

Mikhail turns to face his mother. “Mozhem li my prosto udarit' yego uzhe?”

“Almost.” The coffee maker beeps, and Alex strides back into the kitchen. She pours herself a cup, then walks back into the living area and sits on the couch, directly across from Jason. “Alright. Let’s try this one last time.”

Jason watches her, shifting in his seat (as much as the duct tape lets him). “Look, I already told you—”

“All you told me was a bunch of self-congratulating bullshit that, frankly, made me want to put your face through that end table,” she cuts him off, nodding at the marble end table to her right. “I’m giving you one last chance to do something other than waste my time, and then I’m personally shipping you out to a Siberian gulag, where you can spend the rest of your pathetic, disgusting days sniveling in a cold, dark cell and getting pissed on by gangsters who think you’re a fun bitch to bend over.”

As a credit to his tenacity, if not his common sense, Jason holds strong.

He gulps, and lets out a shaky breath, but shakes his head. “I can’t. I won’t.”

“For fuck’s sake, why aren’t we just breaking this shitbag?” Frank snaps, lurching up off the couch.

“Oh, we are,” Alex says, voice eerily soft and a calm, as she slowly raises the coffee cup to her lips. She maintains full eye contact with Jason as she takes a small sip—

Then she lifts the cup over the immaculate, pure white carpet, and tips it over.

Jason panics, lurching and struggling against his restraints. “No! No, no, no, no—”

The coffee stops, hovering in the air in a massive, rippling, dark brown blob.

Jason pants and gasps, eyes darting between Alex and the coffee.

Alex gently sets the empty mug down on the end table, expression completely inscrutable. She keeps her eyes locked on Jason, practically staring down into his soul.

If he has one left, you think bitterly.

Jason’s chest heaves, breaths slowly relaxing as the coffee continues to float in the air—

And then the blob begins to slowly –inexorably—pour towards the carpet.

Jason’s expression contorts into one of grief. His brow furrows. His eyes widen. His mouth strains into a grimace. His hands grip the armrests of the chair, knuckles going stark white. “Look –I can’t –I’m not—”

Alex merely raises an eyebrow –looking like the pinnacle of unimpressed—and continues to let the coffee flow sluggishly towards the ground.

Jason’s face goes deathly pale, then flushes as he starts to cry. Tears form in his eyes as he yanks at the restraints on his wrists. “Stop it… just –stop it!”

“Careful,” Alex says, voice perfectly smooth and neutral. “Struggle too hard, and you’ll knock over your chair. Might break something.”

His shoulders shake as he watches on, as he stares at a small drip of coffee that rolls down the outer edge of the blob and drops off, falling away from the liquid mass and towards the flawless white carpet—

And he breaks.

“Okay! Okay, okay, okay.”

The drop halts mere inches away from the floor.

Alex raises an eyebrow expectantly.

Jason sniffs and shudders, then hangs his head and starts talking. “The teleporter’s a prototype. It works, but it has a limited range and limited coordinate functions.”

“Useful stuff,” Alex says, voice going gravelly for the first time. “Or I’m dropping this whole cup and going back for the damn pot.”

“It’s in New Jersey. Near Cape May. There’s a second lab there that Nathaniel planned on retreating to if shit hit the fan.”

“And he’ll be there? With the girl?”

“Unless he’s decided to take her somewhere else, yeah.” Jason sniffs. “It’s the only other place he has that has the equipment he needs.”

Alex narrows her eyes. “Coordinates.”

“There’s a flash drive in my safe, underneath my bed. It has a backup of all the information and programming for the teleporter, in case the thing wiped itself clean.”

“Encryption?”

“Yeah; Nathaniel was paranoid about opposition from other companies and scientists. I can—”

“We’ll manage,” Alex interrupts him briskly. “Security measures on the safe?”

“There’s an alarm wired to the door that texts Nathaniel’s phone when it’s opened without the proper code.”

Alex nods at Mikhail. “Cut the back open.” She goes back to staring at Jason, bracing her elbows on her knees. “Security measures at the compound in Cape May.”

Jason squirms. “Look, I’ve already told you—” He lets out a pained whine when the coffee mass drops two inches, then starts talking once more. “It’s pretty spare. We couldn’t afford to have it equipped like the New York one. There’s some cameras, maybe three or four moderately armed guards, and some lockdown functions on the lab doors and windows, but that’s it.”

Alex watches him for a few moments longer, then turns her attention to everyone else. “Anyone else have questions?”

Frank scowls and shakes his head. He lurches off the couch, stalking towards the bedroom where the sounds of Mikhail cutting through the safe drone on. “Broke for a fucking carpet. Disgusting son of a bitch.”

Nathan shakes his head when Alex looks at him. “I’ve heard everything I need to hear.”

You pass on asking any questions, which only leaves Wade—

Who is staring off into space, fists clenched at his side.

You look at Nathan –who shakes his head—then back to Alex. “I… think we’re all set?”

Jason lets out a whimper when Alex collects the coffee back into the cup –mass, single drop, and all—then crumples as much as his restraints let him. “So, what are you going to do with me now?”

Alex shrugs. “Nothing.”

He frowns. “What?”

“Well, you said it yourself,” Alex says. “Essex will kill you just for ratting him out. We don’t have to do anything.”

Jason sputters, mouth opening and closing as he stares at Alex. “I—”

“I mean, look at you,” she continues, smiling enough to show a hint of teeth. “There’s not even a mark on you. Your apartment’s in one piece. All we really did was tape you to a chair and just… talk to you.” Her smile grows as Jason’s expression morphs to one of horror. “You broke for a carpet. If he doesn’t kill you for that, I’d be amazed.”

Jason’s chin trembles as tears roll down his cheeks.

Alex smirks, stands, takes a sip coffee, then grimaces. “You have shit taste in coffee.” She chucks the cup against the nearest wall –which elicits another groan from Jason—then peers into the bedroom. “Ognennyy shar! Skol'ko dol'she?”

“Uzhe sdelano!” The sound of the safe-cutting stops, followed by some rustling noises, and then Mikhail appears in the living room. He tosses the flash drive to Nathan. “Here goes.”

Nate catches it, then raises an eyebrow at the manila folder and envelopes in Mikhail’s other hand. “What are those?”

“Identity thieving.” He crams them in his duffel bag, then nods at Jason. “What do with him?”

Alex makes a ‘hmm-ing’ noise, then glances over at Jason—

Who promptly passes out.

“What did you do to him?” you ask.

“Pressure point and telekinesis.”

“And we’re just leaving him here?” Frank growls, emerging from the bedroom. “Letting him walk away?”

“With any luck, Essex will handle him for us,” Alex says, dropping the empty coffee mug in the kitchen sink. “If he doesn’t, we take things from there.”

You gulp. You know you should protest the idea of executing another human being –on some level, you want to, the justice system exists for a reason—

But you also know there won’t be any swaying any of the people around you. And… you doubt the world would mourn the loss of someone that broke for a damn carpet.

“Alright, we’re done here,” Alex declares as she strides towards the front door. “Let’s go.”

***

 “What the fuck was that?”

You’re all back at the van –which was parked a few miles away from Jason’s apartment—stationed around it while you all wait for Frank to finish his argument with his “tech spook” and for the flash drive to be unencrypted. Frank’s at the open tailgate, doubled over a laptop while grumbling into a shitty flip-phone. Mikhail and Nate are going what the former lifted from Jason’s safe, and Alex—

Is currently being glared down by one very, very irate Wade Wilson.

He has his mask off, which is the biggest tip off that he’s genuinely furious and not just making an argument for the sake of making an argument. The dim lighting and the scars covering his skin cast his face in shadows, but it isn’t hard to miss the sound of his ragged breathing, the way he keeps clenching and unclenching his fists, or how his body is so tensely coiled that it seems like he’s only three seconds away from physically lashing out at Alexandra.

Everything goes silent –save for Frank’s frustrated muttering—as you all glance between the two assassins.

Alex, to her credit, seems none too ruffled. She blinks slowly, raises an eyebrow, and calmly crosses her arms over her chest. “In regards to what?”

“That fucking interrogation!” Wade snaps, sounding almost like a feral dog. “You said we were going in there to squeeze this guy until he coughed up his juices, and then you just –you just—”

“Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.” She shrugs. “Evident from the state of his apartment, his reactions to his order and cleanliness being disrupted, and the journal entries talking about his therapy sessions for the condition.”

“You fucking—”

“I got results,” Alex states. “Without alerting neighbors, authorities, or leaving a trail of evidence that would lead back to us or X-Men.” She raises an eyebrow. “You have problems with that?”

“Oh, I have fucking problems,” Wade seethes. “You don’t just… you don’t just force your way into someone’s brain and turn it fucking inside out! You don’t use something against them that they can’t help or control!”

Even Frank’s staring now, having stopped his quiet swearing and arguing.

“How many therapy sessions do you think this guy is gonna have to go through, now, just undo everything you did to him? You don’t –you don’t just—”

“Presuming he lives that long,” Alex interjects, leaning against the side of the van, “that is not my problem.”

Wade shakes his head vehemently, mouth twisting into a scowl. “We’re not supposed to be that. We bend the rules, we’re morally gray, but we do not sink to the bad guy’s level.”

Alex stares at Wade for a long time before finally speaking. “If you think you’re the first man who has problems with how I operate—”

“It has nothing to do with me being a man!” Wade shouts. “It has everything to do with you emotionally manipulating that shitbag on stuff that he can’t help and can systemically destroy his mental well-being! You beat the shit out of them, you make them piss their pants in fear, but you don’t purposefully look for their weakest spot and keep beating on it until they have nothing left to give you!”

Silence falls, save for the sound of taxis honking and various sirens in the distance.

Nathan steps towards Wade, gently putting his arms around him while Wade gasps and shakes. “Easy, sweetheart. Deep breaths.”

“Semantics of the ‘ethics of interrogation’ aside,” Alex continues once Wade catches his breath, “you are not the first person who takes issue with how I operate. Our goal tonight was covert operation and quick answers. I did both. That nets a win.”

Wade shakes his head against Nate’s shoulder. “You can’t.”

“You don’t want to. I don’t take issue with it.” She shrugs. “Next time we have to do something similar, we stick you on lookout duty instead. Simple.”

You swallow hard as silence stretches on once more, gaze darting between Wade and Alex as the two stare each other down—

And then Frank’s phone starts yelling.

Frank blinks, then lifts his phone’s speaker to his ear. “Yeah, I’m here… dammit, Lieberman, why didn’t you say you were fucking done? …yeah, yeah…” He crouches and peers at the laptop screen, where there’s a few different folders open. “Alright, what are we looking at?”

***

 The secondary compound is markedly smaller than the first. It’s fairly non-descript, planted in the center of a vast, weed-choked, otherwise abandoned parking lot.

“Used to be a pharmaceutical processing center,” Nate says as scans the warehouse through a pair of night vision binoculars. “Records say that Essex bought it through a third-party once they shut down due to budget cuts.”

“Good for him,” Frank grumbles as he sips down a cup of coffee. “How do we crack this place open?”

“Should be able to break in through the South entrance,” Nate reasons. “It’s the least defensible from the inside. Get in, gun our way to the lab.”

You drink from your own cup of coffee as you mull your dad’s suggestion over –it’s three in the morning, and it’s only going to get rougher from here on out—then shake your head. “No. We can’t risk losing Madeline.”

“She’s right,” Alex chimes in. “Going in ‘guns blazing’ will alert everyone and give Essex time to escape.”

“Anything we do is going to alert him,” Nate huffs. “The lab has security camera feeds that let him see the whole base. At this point, it’s about speed.”

“Unless we draw him out,” Wade suggests.

Silence falls over the group as you all consider the idea.

“How would we do that?” Nathan asks.

“Like you said, he has the camera feeds,” Wade explains. “So, figure out where the cameras are, and send out a ‘bait team’ to trigger them and bring him out. Then, while they have Essex distracted, the rest of us go in and save Madeline.”

“Is good idea,” Mikhail agrees after a moment of thought.

Nathan considers, then nods. “Alright. Let’s do this.”

***

 “Do you really think he’s gonna come out here to fight us?”

You’d teamed up with Alex and Nate to distract Essex, leaving Frank, Wade, and Mikhail to extract Madeline from the compound.

At the time, it’d seemed like a good idea.

But now, as you’re strolling up to the warehouse-style building, in full view of any cameras and with no other cover, you’re starting to have second thoughts.

“He’ll come,” Nate says, charging up his gun.

There’s an undercurrent to his voice –tension, anger, you’re not sure what—that makes you think he knows more about this situation than he’s letting on—

But then there’s a flash of light, and Nathaniel’s standing less than twenty feet away from you, and you don’t have time to second guess anything else.

“You really thought that splitting up would work?” He smirks, self-assured. “Like I don’t already have your whole plan figured out.”

“Working so far,” Nathan grits out, setting his sights on Essex. “You’re out here.”

Nathaniel’s smirk broadens into an arrogant, borderline crazed grin –and then whips his hand to his left.

A rusted metal shipping container, long since left discarded by the previous owners, scrapes across the pavement as it moves towards you three. It picks up speed, moving faster and faster, until it’s practically hurtling towards you.

You gasp and crouch, split seconds away from grabbing your dad and Alex and flying for it—

And then Alex flicks her hand –deftly, casually—at the container.

It stops in its tracks, crumpling in on itself like an empty Pepsi can.

Nathaniel stares at her, mouth gaping in awe and horror.

Alex glares mutely at him, stalking across the parking lot towards him before pulling out her own gun and opening fire.

Nathaniel erects a telekinetic shield to deflect the bullets, then reaches for the teleporter mounted on his wrist.

Before he can touch it, though, Alex flicks out a thin cord of energy from her hand, wraps it around his upper body, then flings him across the parking lot.

Nathaniel grunts as he tumbles along the ground, teleporter sparking when it smacks into the hard pavement. He rolls to his feet, tapping at the device’s display screen, then curses when it doesn’t work before launching more scattered debris at Alexandra.

You watch, somewhat awestruck, as Alex deftly dodges the various projectiles as she charges Essex once more. “You think she’s got that covered?”

“Here’s fucking hoping,” Nate grunts as several black-clad, well-armed men sprint out of the nearest entrance to the warehouse.

The fight becomes less of a ‘fight’ and more of a ‘dodge the multiple flying chunks of metal’ challenge as you and Nathan try to take down Essex’s hired muscle and Alex deals with Nathaniel himself.

You yelp as you duck a straight blast of energy from Alex, which goes on to score out a chunk of the asphalt behind you. You try to fly into the air to avoid getting hit by anything else –then nearly get taken out by a spray of gunfire from one of the guys Nathan’s chasing down.

You’re in over your head. You’re in way over your head. This is so far above your pay grade it’s not even funny anymore. You can handle the various scrapes the X-Men get into, and you’ve managed to come out on top in a few rougher fights than that, but trying to keep pace with literal professional soldiers and assassins is a step too far for you. Several steps too far.

Get home to Piotr, you chant in your head, like a mantra. Get home to Piotr, get home to Piotr, get home to Piotr.

You unleash a whirlwind of air, knocking several gun-bearing men away from you.

Get home to Piotr.

You bounce away from what sounds like a grenade going off, sailing through the air and dodging pieces of shrapnel as best you can as you go.

Get home to Piotr.

Something hits you hard in the back, and you plummet to the ground with a choked grunt. The pavement is none too forgiving to your comparatively fragile, fleshy body; pain sparks in your head and your right knee, alerting you to their discontent with being abused like this.

Your vision goes blurry, and the world slows for a minute as you try to get your bearings back about you.

Get… home…

“…hardly even a challenge.”

You look up, and see Nathaniel Essex standing over you.

He’s grinning nastily, which only further offset by the blood caked to the side of his face. He flicks his hand, and sends you tumbling across the ground once more. “I know the X-men have low standards for fighting capabilities, but this is depressing, even for them.”

Get home… to…

You stagger to your feet, gritting your teeth together as your head and knee throb in vengeful unison. Your stomach drops when you think of Alexandra –granted, your vision’s blurred, but you can’t see her anywhere—but you quickly push it aside when Nathaniel launches a steel beam at you.

He has the decency to look somewhat impressed when you bat it away with an air shield. “Not bad.”

Before you can think, you feel an invisible hand close around your neck, shutting your airflow off as it lifts you off the ground.

“But not good enough.”

You claw at the invisible force –not that it does any good. Your feet kick and thrash as you cough and sputter—

And slowly, the world goes dim.

Piotr.

I’m sorry.

Your face throbs, pulse slowing as you begin to pass out—

No.

Absolutely. Not.

I refuse to go out to this jackass.

With your last bit of consciousness, you force yourself to stop struggling against the pressure around your neck and focus instead on the air around you –to do something with it, anything.

You manage to create a shockwave, sending it out in all directions around you—

It’s enough.

You drop to the ground as Nathaniel goes flying –hitting your other knee in the process, because that would be just your luck—gasping and sobbing as oxygen flows back into your lungs and body. Your ears are ringing slightly, and you throat feels like you’ve been drinking sandpaper—

Get home to Piotr.

You’re alive. Now you just need to do something with it.

You get to your feet, vision swimming as your eyes adjust from having hit your head and then nearly been strangled, but you manage to make out Nathaniel, groaning and laying a few yards away from you.

Get home to Piotr.

You clumsily unleash another blast of air at him, shoving him further away from you and getting a few good, pained swear words out of him for your efforts. You stumble to the side, then gear up to hit him again—

A flash of brilliant, golden energy slams into Nathaniel, rocketing him across the lot and into one of the warehouse walls. A few seconds later, it’s followed by a none too happy Alexandra, who storms after Nathaniel like the human equivalent of a particularly angry swan with a gun.

Seeing that Alex has Nathaniel well handled, you opt to drop down to your knees –hurting both of them this time, fan-fucking-tastic—then crumple against the asphalt on your side and curl into a ball.

Get home to Piotr. Get home to Piotr. Get home to—

A pair of hands grip underneath your armpits, and then someone hauls you to your feet.

“Come on, Rasputin,” Frank grunts, steadying you as you whine and curse. “We’re not done yet.”

“I am,” you mutter. “Hit my head.”

“Yeah, that’s probably why you’re bleeding.”

“Shit.”

A few feet away, you can see Mikhail handling the last of the gunmen, while Wade sprints clear of the fracas, holding a crying little girl in his arms.

Further away, you can make out Nathan and Alex, who’re working on taking down Essex.

You squint, then let out a frustrated sigh when that does nothing to clear your vision. “Who’s winning?”

“Your guy’s mom,” Frank says, sounding somewhat… amused? Impressed? It’s impossible to tell, with him. “She’s uh… she’s pretty much stomping him.”

There’s a few more flashes of Alex’s energy powers, accompanied by the tell-tale sound of your dad’s “future gun”—

And then there’s a flash of white light, and everything goes silent.

Dread sinks in your stomach. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

Frank lets out an irritated grunt that confirms your fears.

“Okay,” Wade says as he gently rocks Madeline back and forth. “Who pressed the Staples’ button?”

Mikhail looks around for any sign of Essex, then looks to his mother. “Chto teper'?”

“Now, Alexandra sighs as she flicks the safety for her rifle on, “we go home.”

“What about Essex?” Mikhail asks.

“He will surface again, eventually. For now—” she nods at Madeline “—we get her back to mother.”

You raise your hand. “Question: does this mean I can pass out now?”

 ***

 The ride home –since Mikhail’s too tired to teleport everyone and the van you’ve been using back to Xavier’s—is exhausting. By the time you reach the school, the sun’s already rising into the sky.

The process of going through the medical checks –which takes even longer for you, since you have a definite concussion—is excruciating. You’re past running on fumes; all you want is a hot shower, a warm bed, and to not be interrupted for about seven to twelve hours.

It’s all worth it when you see Madeline dash into her mother’s arms. For all your misgivings against Christina –and, considering what she did to Wade, there’s plenty—there’s no denying that she and her daughter have a good bond.

Your uncle intercepts you as you trudge up the porch steps, steadying you as he guides you towards the door. “We’ve got her—” he points discreetly at Christina, who’s still hugging Madeline “—step up. She and her kid should be safe.”

You nod, too weary for words, then make to enter your home—

Except Christina stops you, quickly ushering Maddie inside while your uncle leaves to talk to Nathan and Frank. She steps between you and the door, gaze darting between your uncle and you. “Who the hell is he?” he hisses, jerking her chin towards your uncle. “And why did you even help me? He told me you asked him to set me up with… basically everything?” She narrows her eyes at you, regarding you with hostile suspicion. “The fuck are you trying to pull?”

You want to say something about morals and doing the right thing, about taking the high road, about mutants needing to stand together regardless of their respective pasts…

What comes out, though, is, “My parents paid a telepath to remove my mutant abilities, and all it wound up doing me was nearly killing me and left permanent psychic scarring on my brain.”

Christina blanches, blinking repeatedly. “…Shit.”

You shrug. “Pretty much. Look, your daughter needs a safe space to grow up in, and despite my vast misgivings against you… it’s clear that the two of you love and trust each other. As far as I’m concerned, I did all this for your daughter, so that…” You throat constricts with emotion, and you swallow hard before pressing on. “So that she wouldn’t have to endure the kind of childhood I had.” You sigh, wipe away a few stray tears, then level Christina with an exhausted glare. “Let’s be clear, though –you hurt Wade again, and I’ll fly you out to the middle of the fucking ocean and drop you there.”

Christina rolls her eyes. “Ooh, I’m so scared.”

“Whatever. Please get out of my way so I can go take a fucking shower.”

She smirks, but steps aside nonetheless.

You sigh heavily, then finally step into your home.

Somewhere during the period when you were gone, Illyana and Nikolai showed up –and brought Karen Page with them, too. They, in tandem with Piotr, are monopolizing your kitchen, making breakfast for everyone.

You wait until everyone else from the “rescue group” files into your house, then use the distraction of everyone being reunited to slip upstairs unnoticed. You beeline straight for the bathroom in yours and Piotr’s bedroom, shucking your clothes as you go, then step into the shower and turn the water on full blast.

You can barely keep your eyes open. The only thing that’s keeping you from curling up and going to sleep in this shower is that you don’t fancy the thought of drowning… or accidentally plugging the drain with your foot, flooding the basin, and soaking the bathroom floor.

(You’d been sick; it’d been an accident.)

You do the bare minimum to get yourself clean, then shut off the water and sag against the tile wall. It’s a full five minutes before you can convince yourself to get out of the shower, and even then it’s with a great deal of mental swearing and complaining.

You get dry, find some pajamas (which are really just one of Piotr’s shirts and a pair of clean underwear), then crawl onto the end of your bed and curl up under the throw blanket you keep there for decorative purposes.

And, finally, sleep claims you.

 ***

 You get all of five minutes before the door to yours and your husband’s bedroom opens.

“Myshka.”

You groan and crawl further under the throw blanket. “Y/N is not available right now. Please leave a message at the sound of the ‘fuck.’”

Piotr laughs softly, and you can hear a plate and a glass clatter against his nightstand before the soft, rustling sounds of the blankets and pillows being moved fill your ears. “Come on, moya lyubov’. Breakfast is—”

“I will jam a pancake up your ass.”

He laughs again –then gently cradles you in his arms and sets you at the top of the bed, against a pile of pillows. He sets a warm plate of food in your lap, then sets a fork and knife on the top edge of the plate. “You need to eat, myshka. You have had long night.”

You groan, reluctantly pry one eye open, then sigh resignedly when you see a stack of chocolate chip pancakes, a helping of bacon, two slices of banana bread, and a heap of hash browns. “Carbs. You would know the way to my heart.”

“I would hope so.” He sits next to you on the bed, takes your hand in his, and kisses your bruised knuckles. “You are moya zhena, after all.”

He looks better than when you rescued him from Essex’s clutches. He’s showered, shaved, put on fresh clothes, combed his hair. There’s still shadows under his eyes and a bruise on his cheek, but he looks more like the Piotr you know and love.

You lift your hand to gently rub your thumb along the swell of his cheek, skirting the edge of his bruise –but then your low mood catches up with you, and you drop your hand and look down at your breakfast plate. “You don’t have to stay with me. I know you probably don’t want to.”

You can hear the frown in his voice when he speaks. “Why… why would I not want to be with you?”

“Because you’re ashamed of me,” you eke out, fighting back tears.

Piotr sighs heavily, then leans over and kisses your temple. “I am not ashamed of you. I love you. And… I owe you apology.”

“Apology?” You frown, then set your plate aside before looking up at him. “For what?”

“For not standing up for you more, to Scott.” He grimaces. “Ellie told me what happened. How Scott treated you.”

“That –that’s not your fault, Piotr,” you protest. “Scott’s an asshole because he wants to be; you’re not responsible for his dickotry.”

“Perhaps not—”

“And I can stand up for myself,” you add, eager to soothe his worries. “It’s –it’s not your job to have to do that for me. I’m more than capable of standing up for myself, I promise.”

He smiles softly, then kisses the back of your hand. “I know. It is nothing about ‘capable’ or ‘job.’ I… I know he picks at you. And others. And perhaps it is because I am complacent or non-confrontational, but… I do nothing. And that is not okay. And for that, I am sorry. I am sorry I have not protected you better, and I hope you can forgive me.”

You sniff, then wipe away the tears trailing down your cheeks. “Of course, I can forgive you, sweetheart. I…” You sniff again, and –finding yourself at a loss for words—repeat yourself. “I forgive you, Piotr. Always.”

“Spasibo, moya serdste.” He kisses your forehead, letting his lips linger for a moment, then leans back to rub at his own damp eyes. “Ellie also told me about… conversation she and you had before rescue mission. About position she and others put you in. We had long talk about respecting authority and listening to those with more experience; she wants to apologize, once you are ready.”

You let out a shaky breath, then nod. “I think I want to sleep first.”

“Konechno. After breakfast.”

You laugh wetly and roll your eyes. “Yes, fine, after breakfast, you big dad.”

He chuckles along with you, then none-too-subtly sets your plate back in your lap. “Shoe fits, I wear. Plate in front of you… you eat?”

You laugh at the adorable, impossibly hopeful look he gives you, then heap up some hash browns and pancake on your fork and shove the bite in your mouth. “There. Happy?”

“Immensely.” He hands you the glass of orange juice he brought up, but it slowly ebbs as he watches you eat, contemplation evident in his expression. “Why… why did you think… that I was disappointed in you?”

“Is this your way of saying you weren’t?” you ask tiredly.

He purses his lips, then sighs heavily. “Initially, I was… frustrated. And small bit disappointed. But once I understood,” Piotr says, angling his head to catch your gaze until you relent and look him in the eye, “I was not disappointed with you in slightest. I know you. I know you are not needlessly reckless. I know you would not carelessly put Ellie, or Russell, or Yukio in such dangerous position.”

“But you thought I was. Reckless and careless.”

“It looked that way, but I knew it was not you,” he says, sincere. “And I knew that you had to be desperate to turn to Mr. Castle, I just… did not have all pieces. So, again, why did you believe I was disappointed in you?”

“Because why wouldn’t you be?” You set your fork down, chest tight with hurt and sorrow and regret. “I –I failed! I couldn’t do things the ‘right’ way, I asked a vigilante and a –a murder for help, I couldn’t –I couldn’t keep Ellie and Russell and Yukio out of it—”

“You did your best,” Piotr says softly. He sets the plate back on the bed and draws you into his arms when you start crying again. “You knew that we were in danger –that child was in danger—and you had no help, so you went and found it.”

“But –but Ellie—”

“Put you in unfair position and did not respect your authority, so you did what you could to keep her and Russell and Yukio safe,” he murmurs, kissing the top of your head. “You did your best, myshka. And that is something I am very proud of.”

You burst into sobs, relief pouring over you, washing away the grief and hurt and self-loathing you’d held in over the course of the night. You cling to him, clenching the material of his shirt in your fists as you shake and sniff and whimper.

And Piotr holds you. Rocks you back and forth. Whispers how much he loves you and how proud he is of you and kisses your hair and the bridge of your nose and your tear-streaked cheeks.

Eventually, you calm down. You catch your breath, inhaling and exhaling shakily as your husband rocks you back and forth. You lay your head on his shoulder, blinking the last of the tears away. “She’s right, you know.”

“Who is?”

“Ellie. About being an adult. We won’t be able to… to tell her what to do forever.”

“Nyet,” Piotr agrees, kissing your forehead gently. “But this is different. And she understands that now.”

You let out a shaky breath, then hug your husband tightly. “I love you, baby.”

He hugs you back just as tight. “And I love you, myshka.”

You tip your head back so you can kiss him, then let out a contented, relieved sigh when he presses his lips against yours.

You’re okay.

[redflowerwind]

The things we give

Summary: Charlie is willing to give, and MC is willing to take. But overworking and burn out is a common threat that all geniuses face.

Or: Charlie has to deal with a very burnt out MC. Slight angst. Fluff. Supportive!Charlie because he’s a cinnamon roll.

A/N: this is my last piece for Hogwarts Mystery Event Day 7: Free Day! I’m glad to have been able to participate in it.If anyone has any suggestions on what to write next, please don’t hesitate to ask! @hogwarts-mystery-event

The first few days of spring were marked with a mixture of torrential downpours, blooming flowers and chilly weather. The last puffs of draft wind did nothing to help against the chill, though the scent of wild grass brought tidings of warmer weather as the sun began to peak out more each day. It made the first full day of sunshine all too tempting to resist as both students and teachers alike flock to Hogsmeade that weekend. Everyone seemed happy, after all who wouldn’t be?

Allison wasn’t, that’s who.

Whilst everyone was out and about enjoying the brief stint of fine weather, she was stuck inside the castle doing homework. This was because this was a day where she could have been running around like a lunatic in Hogsmeade with Penny and Tonks, enjoying the sun and fresh air and a fresh pint of butterbeer. But instead, she had dragged herself to the stupid library. She couldn’t even go out to the castle grounds and spread her work there. Instead, she was forced into sitting inside the stuffy room and suffer through a mountain of potions, arithmancy and transfiguration.

“This sucks.” She grumbles, flipping through her battered copy of Numerology and Grammatica as she scribbles furiously into her parchment, “I should have taken Divination instead, at least you get to make up stuff.”

Charlie leans over her shoulder and takes a look at her work, frowning at the list of numbers that went on to the end of the page, “Wow, are you gunning for Professor Sinistra’s job or what?” He asks just as Allison flips unto the next page.

“More like she’ll have my head if I don’t get this done by Monday.” She replies, not looking up as she sucks on the tip of her quill before scribbling down ever more numbers. Her brow is furrowed as she turns back to the book and scans it, seemingly deep in thought.

“She really works you all hard, doesn’t she?” He says, eyeing the pile of books she had stacked around her, some covered heavily in dust and most smelling like old moldy paper, “I mean, when was the last time you even slept in your bed?”

Allison grabs another book off the tall pile and turns to him, raising a brow, “if you think this is bad, wait till next year. Also,” she clears her throat, “I’m not sure why it concerns you whether I sleep in my bed or not.” She says huffily.

“It does when your snoring is loud enough to wake up the whole house.” He smirks at her, thinking of the time he found her curled into a ball and fast asleep in the common room in the wee hours of the morning, “That was an erumpent’s level of snoring.”

Allison blushes bright red, and Charlie finds it funny with how it clashes with her silver hair. Her round face doesn’t make her look any less like a tomato. He surprisingly likes the look on her.

He feels his stomach flutter.

“Oh, just shut it would you.” She hisses out, just as Madam Pince pops out behind a towering book shelf right behind them and shushes them both loudly. She shoots them both a dirty look before skulking back behind the shelves.

They get back to work immediately after that and spend the next few hours in total silence. Allison finishing up her arithmancy homework and Charlie just lazily sketching through the latest developments of their Cornish pixies. It’s almost 3 when Allison finally rolls her parchment into a tight scroll and shoves it into her bag with her 10 or so books. She takes a long yawn and stretches, her head spinning slightly as her back emits a loud crack.

“Gonna take a break? You’ve been here for at least 6 hours. We can go grab some food.” His suggestion is turned down as Allison shakes her head and pulls a couple books nearer to her.

“Make it 8. You can go ahead if you want, I still have so much more to do.” She groans, ignoring the grumbling from her stomach.

Charlie reaches into his own bad and pulls out Spellman’s Syllabary, “nah, I need to finish up my ancient runes homework, unless you don’t mind sharing?” He adds hopefully.

“Unless you’re offering me your firstborn child, you know my answer is no.” She smirks at him, and it zaps him with a surge of electrifying energy he doesn’t recognize.

“Boo Hoo. You know I can’t do that.” He pouts, “imagine what my mum would say!”

Allison snorts, cracking her stiff knuckles. “You have like 6 other siblings, it’s not that bad. It’s for your own good.” She ends in an insufferably high voice she picked up from Angelica. Not one to give up so easily, Charlie pulls another trick up his sleeve.

“If you trade me your Charms essay I’ll let you look at my Transfiguration homework.” Charlie offers. While Ben was the best at Charms in their class, Allison’s work wasn’t too shabby either and he could use some help.

“Nice try Charlie, but I finished my transfiguration essay before you came in, though I wouldn’t mind checking your Banishing charms essay.” She adds after a thought, pulling out her another roll of parchment and her copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. After her last potion exploded and sent nasty green gas throughout the dungeons, Snape saw it fit to punish her with a 12 feet long essay on the uses of standard ingredient.  

“Hopefully it’ll get through that thick skull of yours not to mess up so badly the next time you brew a simple common antidote, though I highly doubt it would.” He sneers as Merula makes faces at her behind him.

“I got to get start on this baby right here.” She pats the book with a grimace. Her past few potion classes have been a nightmare, and she swore if that kept up Snape would force her to drink her potion.

“He’s a real git, I can tell you that.” Charlie adds sympathetically. “I mean, did you even see what Ismelda did last class?”

“Nope,” She sighs and feels her shoulders throb as she started her essay, “I was too busy fighting off green gas remember. But Snape isn’t wrong though, my last few potions have been total bull crap.”

“Well, I’m sure if you focus more-“

“Now’s not the time for this Charlie-“

“Maybe pay closer attention-“

“Charlie-“

“And tried harder-“

“I am trying Charlie!” She snaps, fuming. He recoils immediately, looking as though her words burnt him. He stares at her with hurt eyes and she’s sure they did. But she’s too frustrated to apologize.

“Oh, why don’t you just take a walk or something. It’s a perfect day to be out, no point staying here with me.” She says, ignoring the soreness of her wrist as she attacks the essay. He doesn’t say anything, but neither does he leave.

“I’m sorry”, he mumbles some time later, and she grunts in response. Allison knew that Charlie didn’t deserve the short end of her temper, but her frustration had continued to mount further as another half an hour passes.

“Stupid, stupid book!” She spits out, slashing her copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi furiously with her quill, she had barely made a dent in the essay, “Why on earth would Snape even want this essay for? It’s not like memorizing a hundred ways to deskin a puffer fish is going to help me!” She growls.

Just as Charlie opened his mouth, Madam Pince appears again. The old librarian looked ready to shush them once again, but her eyes fall onto Allison’s old textbook and she screams.

“Defiling a library book! Get out! Get out the both of you!” She screeches, lunging for the book. Allison immediately grabs on to it tightly and pulls.

“It’s mine! That book is mine!” She shouts back, but Madam Pince is mad with rage and she continue to pull relentlessly until Charlie kicks her in the shins. They then shove everything into their bags and makes a run for it, all the while hearing Madam Pince screams echo behind them.

“That old bat is mad I tell you,” Allison huffs, panting heavily as she rests herself against a wall, “now I won’t be able to finish this blasted thing in time.” She sighs. The late afternoon air is heavy and humid, unsurprising considering the amount of rain they have been getting. She looks around, squinting at the unfamiliar layout surrounding them.

“Do you know where we are?” Charlie pants out, she shakes a head and looks through her bag to make sure she has everything with her and gasps.

“What is it?” He asks as she proceeds to dump everything out and sift through the remains. Scattered pieces of parchment lie everywhere and the ground around her is covered in books.

“I lost my quill!” Allison cries out, angrily digging through her stuff. Charlie bends down to help her but there is no quill in sight.

“I must have left it at the library.” She moans, slapping her forehead repeatedly. “Can this day get any worse?”

“Only if you want it to be.” Charlie offers her bag back together with a book, their fingers brush when she accepts it and together they start packing things up.

“Where to now?” He asks, offering her a hand, and proceeded to grunt under the weight of the books in her bag as he pulls her to her feet, “God, you could lose some weight!” He teases.

Allison slaps his hands off, “I’m on a diet, okay?” She says, blatantly ignoring the pile of honeydukes chocolates she had stashed underneath her bed.

“Sure.” From the look on his face, Charlie seems to know about that stash of chocolate too.

Allison is about to make a swift rebut when they hear a nearby classroom door suddenly creak open. They both look at each other and draw their wands out. A couple years in Hogwarts have thought them that wondering into places blindly is a mistake that only idiots would make.

Unfortunately, they were also the type of idiots to walk straight into danger rather than the opposite direction.

“What is this place?” He mutters. The ceilings are unbelievably high past the threshold, and every inch of the place is covered with crate upon crates of parchment and books. There’s a desk and a chair in the middle, and it’s a complete mess of used ink bottles and broken quills. Strange diagrams are propped up against the walls along with handwritten notes pasted beside them. Its horribly dusty and he sneezes.

“Jacob’s room.” Allison states, her voice very small, “We found another one.”

She’s standing by the desk, holding something in her hand. Charlie approaches her and sees her sifting through hundreds of pages of writings, the words matching the same notes on the walls. He comes in closer to look at the words before she promptly tosses it all to the floor, her eyes glinting wildly.

Without another word, she turns back to the desk and proceeds to swipe everything off the desk. Ink bottles shatter when they fall to the ground, dried ink breaking into pieces.

“Hey-Hey! What are you doing!” He grabs unto her arm, and he feels her tremble violently.

“Allison, please calm down. Come, take a deep breath with me, let’s count to 10. I promise it’ll help.” He holds on to her until her ragged breaths even out and releases her. She still doesn’t speak and saunters off to a different part of the room.

Giving her the space she needs, he goes through the desk. The writings are too messy to read and seem to be written in either some sort of code or a totally different language all together. He starts to think the room was a lost cause until he feels a tap on his shoulder.

Allison is standing there, her expression unreadable as she holds up a picture. It’s tattered and faded, but he can clearly make out the images of a young Jacob Reed and an even younger Allison waving happily at him.

Charlie grins softly, pointing at a younger Allison in the photo. “Look at you, I can barely recognize you. In a dress and all, you look so prissy.” He laughs, turning to face her and his smile drops immediately. Allison stares at him with wide eyes, and he recoils when they start to overflow.

“Hey, hey. I didn’t mean that,” he sets the photo down, and instantly found himself grabbing her arms, “I like you. I mean the you in the photo. I-I also like you now, but you look very cute then! I mean, you still look cute now!” He fumbles, and laughs awkwardly, feeling the ends of his hair standing on edge. But she looks to the floor and Charlie resists the urge to shove his foot into his mouth.

The floor is littered with teardrops.

And without thinking, he engulfs her in a hug.

He’s taller than her now, the top of her head brushing his nose. Her hair tickles his cheek, and he can’t help but note that she smells strongly of fresh laundry and wild grass. He feels her stiffen as she immediately begins to pull away from him.

“It’s not that.” She mumbles out, pressing her palms against her face, “I lost my quill.”

“We can get a new one?” He suggests nervously. Allison shakes her head violently.

“I lost my quill. I lost my brother. I lost my home. I can’t even brew a single potion right without something exploding in my face now.” She spits out, fingers clenched into tight fist, and she bangs them against her face.

Charlie takes hold of them immediately, “Hey don’t do that! Look it’s not your fault. Whatever happened here, it’s not your fault.” She brings herself closer to him and buries her face into her hands and lets out a sob.

“It isn’t your fault.” He repeats, still holding onto her hands as he rests his forehead against her. “It really isn’t.”

“I know it’s not, I know! But,” Allison pauses and looks up at him, and he sees for the first time what years of desperately trying to hold everything together could do to a person.

Her blue eyes are flooded, rimmed red and puffy from tears, and he doesn’t miss the circles under her eyes, or the dryness of her skin. Her face is unusually gaunt under the dim light, her bony wrists shake furiously, looking so very young. She looks absolutely broken.

“I tried so hard, Charlie. I really did. I tried so, so hard.” She whispers, “I thought if I just focused on school, on work, on anything, then I’ll be ok. I really thought I would be.”

“I wanted to leave it all, to just walk wherever my feet would take me and never look back.” She smiles painfully, shuddering as he breathed in. He feels her wrist shake even more, “but I just couldn’t, Charlie. I kept going back to the very thing that was hurting me even though I knew that it would eat me alive.”

“And look where that brought me.” She looks down to the ground, “I scared everyone away. I lost so many points, Gryffindor is losing and now everyone is in danger because of me. But I still thought I could do it all on my own, I believed so much in myself that I couldn’t see how it was pushing everyone away, pushing you away.”

Allison stops shaking, gently pulling away from him and he lets her go. “I’m sorry Charlie. I’ve been a real prat to you.”

“Yeah you have been.” He says lightly, punching her lightly on the head. She looks to him. “But at least you know it too now, and you’re willing to change.”

“But what if it’s too late? What if we can’t fix it in time? What if-“ She starts again, panicked, but he holds out a hand. She stares at it.

“Leave tomorrow’s troubles for tomorrow. Trust me on this, Allison. I’m here for you. We’re all here for you.” He says firmly and looks right into her eyes, “Ben, Rowan, Tonks, Tulip, Bill, you can trust us. We’ll help you.”

She lets out a watery laugh, and her reply makes his heart jump to his throat.

“Don’t forget about yourself.”

The grin that spreads across his face is uncontrollable, especially after she takes his hand into her smaller one.

“Of course I won’t. I’ll be there for you too, just like how I am here now.” He reassures her, and the look on her face makes him feel like the luckiest boy in Scotland.

Charlie isn’t sure how it happened, but suddenly they were both sitting against a few crates, Allison cradling the old photograph in hand. She stared at it blankly for a moment before suddenly pulling up a blanket over them both and leans on his shoulder.

“I’m so tired Charlie.” She says.

I know.

“I think I’ve been tired for a long time.” Her gaze is distant.

I know.

“I just keep going and going.”

You do.

“But I just can’t find the top.”

There is no top.

“I’m all burned out.”

You are.

“I have been, for a long, long time.”

It’s alright.

“Can you read to me?”

He grins and leans in closer to her. She’s soft, and warm, and she’s sitting next to him.

“Yes, do you want to hear more about dragons?”

“I would love to.”

They rest there, silent except for the soft hum of Charlie’s voice as he recites stories of dragons and fairies, and gradually they both began to relax. Sometimes he too would just stop to hear the chirping cicadas roaming the castle grounds, and they would smile at each other, noses bumping. Charlie is still all too aware of how her hand was still wrapped around his, and how they filled in his gaps just perfectly. The small window was their only way to keep track of the time and under the blanket, both of their eyes started to droop, and before any of them knew, they fell into a deep slumber.

Love is strange, it’s patient, tender and kind.

It’s also very mysterious.

Just as the bright April sky faded away to inky darkness, they both knew deep down what this all meant.

And at that moment, everything changed.

Bonus scene:

Bill knows something is up between Charlie and Allison.

To the untrained eye, their relationship looks almost the same, Almost.

There are more shared looks now, soft whispers, knowing smiles and plenty of brushing fingers. Allison braids Charlie’s hair almost every other day now and Charlie sits next to her at almost every meal. In the evenings, they sit side by side near the fire place in comfortable silence.

Oh yes, Bill knows something is up, he notes as Allison erupts into laughter when Charlie broadcasts his ability to push milk through his ear, and he smiles, turning back to his book.

He isn’t going to say anything about it until they do though.

That is until the whole house decides that blowing milk out of one’s ear was the apparent best way to greet someone.

[nancywheelxr]

Batfam Week: Day 2 - Trapped

through different colored glasses

The Justice League, Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen in particular, love to say that Bruce is too serious.

They say he needs to lighten up. They say he is too anal about things. They say he is too strict. They say a whole lot of things.

But Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen do not have to deal with things like this.

“Bruce, I’m telling you,” Tim says, frantically, “this is in no way my fault. If I had to blame anyone, it would be Dick anyway!”

“Me?” Dick cries, scandalized that his brother would throw him under the bus like this, and almost lets the ice pack slip from his black eye, “why is it my fault?”

“I don’t know,” Jason drawls, sounding utterly bored by the whole situation, “I think I agree with Replacement on this.”

or, alternatively, Bruce confiscates Jason's rocket launcher and sets off a chain reaction, Dick somehow gets dragged into Jason's mess, Tim wishes his brothers weren't maniacs, and maybe it's really a matter of points of view

The Justice League, Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen in particular, love to say that Bruce is too serious.

They say he needs to lighten up. They say he is too anal about things. They say he is too strict. They say a whole lot of things.

But Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen do not have to deal with things like this.

“Bruce, I’m telling you,” Tim says, frantically, “this is in no way my fault. If I had to blame anyone, it would be Dick anyway!”

“Me?” Dick cries, scandalized that his brother would throw him under the bus like this, and almost lets the ice pack slip from his face, “why is it my fault?”

“I don’t know,” Jason drawls, sounding utterly bored by the whole situation, “I think I agree with Replacement on this.”

Bruce should intervene before it escalates further, he really should. Even if it’s nearing four in the morning and he has a board meeting at 8 am. Alfred wouldn’t be happy if Bruce just went back to bed and left them to resolve this on their own. He sighs, rubbing his eyes, “keep your voices down, Alfred is sleeping. Good. Now, start from the beginning.”

Dick and Tim immediately begin talking over each other. He doesn’t know what else he expected, really. “One at a time.”

“Fine,” Jason says, leaning against his rocket launcher, “I’ll start.”

*

All Jason wants is to get Roxy back.

Honest.

She is an integral part of his arsenal and she has so many memories attached to her. The emotional value is priceless. Like, remember that time he tried to blow up an entire building with Black Mask inside? Good times, he knows.

So yeah, Jason wants Roxy, his beloved rocket launcher, back.

And in all fairness, Bruce had no business confiscating it this time. He hadn’t been planning on firing her against Penguin’s stupid warehouse. It was just for intimidating purposes, mostly.

But getting her back, it’s not gonna be easy, Jason knows. Since the last time, he bets Bruce won’t simply lock her in the armory.

Since asking is not an option, and apologizing is entirely too unfair on his part, Jason does what he has to do. He waits until everyone is out on patrol and Alfred is down in the Cave, and sneaks into the Manor.

It’s quite easy, in fact. Less than fifteen minutes and he’s silently roaming the empty hallways.

You’d expect more, it being Batman’s house and all.

The tracker says it’s not downstairs. Jason walks around aimlessly, watching the tiny red dot blinking on his phone as it grows and shrinks with each turn.

Not in any of the bedrooms, not in the living room, not in the pantry. The second floor, past the music room, past another row of unused bedrooms, past Bruce’s study, past–

Finally. In one of the old ass broom closets.

Jason opens it slowly, cringing at how loud it creaks in the otherwise silent house.

Peering inside, he sighs in relief. There she is. Cue in shitty cliche music. Roxy, in all her rocket glory, stands in the corner of the room, the only shiny object among all the dust-coated, forgotten things.

Ah, how long have they stood there? Forsaken by mankind, refused by society. Sitting in a shrine of dust and cobwebs, never to see sunlight again–

*

“Oh for the love of god, Jason,” Tim kicks him in the shin, wincing when the movement jostles his sprained wrist, “quit bullshitting, your prose sucks.”

Bruce feels the beginning of a headache growing at the back of his head. Stress then. “Jason, please,” he sighs, “just cut to the chase.”

“Fine, fine. Jeez, talk about a tough crowd.”

*

Anyway. Where was he?

Oh, right.

So, Jason steps inside. And promptly dies a little more inside. Cobwebs stick to his everything. They get in his hair, on his clothes, even on his damn shoes. Of all the days to leave his helmet behind.

But he powers through. All for Roxy, do it for Roxy, he tells himself.

Finally, after crossing miles of disgusting cobwebs, Jason is reunited with his baby. She looks as gorgeous as the day he bought her, shiny and cool and deadly.

With his mission accomplished, he steels himself for the trek back.

In a totally unrelated note chain of events, a vase is knocked out by something– that may or may not have been Roxy as Jason turned around, but no one can prove that, so– and ends up falling to its side, knocking out a row of boxes that had been beside it on the highest shelf in the process, and then, as it topples down, one of the boxes falls open, letting a bowling ball roll away.

And, in a true feat of the Universe deciding to fuck over Jason, the ball hits the door. Or, more specifically, it hits the doorknob. Breaking it right off.

“Fuck no,” says Jason, with feeling. He hugs Roxy closer, cursing every god in existence and a few fake ones too, just because. If this was anyone else’s house, he wouldn’t think twice before kicking the door down.

But, as previously stated, this story is set on Batman’s house. Jason doesn’t trust an of the doors not to have some freaky sensor thing that’ll alert the big, bad Bat of any disturbance. He’s half convinced it already might have. For all he knows, Bruce could be a second away to breaking it down himself and yelling at Jason.

Even ignoring that particularly upsetting prospect, there’s a lot of ways he could open that door. He could pick the lock, he could unscrew the hinges, he could blow it off with Roxy. The only problem is that all of them are way too noisy for this way too silent place. At this hour Alfred is probably back upstairs, making post-patrol snacks. He would most definitely hear any attempt of messing with the door, Alfred has superhearing when it comes to the Manor, everybody knows that.

And Alfred Pennyworth’s wrath is way worse than Batman’s.

Jason checks the time. While breaking in had taken no time at all, wandering around certainly did. If tonight was slow, and it sounds like it was, they will all be back soon. He turns on his comm, just to check. Tuning in the frequency, he listens as Dick babbles about his stupid day job. Jason turns it off, cursing. If the idiot is babbling that much already, they must on their way back.

Now there really is no way out. Nothing that Jason knows would be fast enough to get him out before they all arrived. You can’t outrace the Batmobile. He is trapped.

Sliding down the dusty, moldy wall, Jason wallows in well-earned, very justified, self-pity, and waits.

Time seems to slow down to spite him further, a way for the Universe to fuck you in big, bold, neon letters. Well, fuck you too, buddy. He waits and waits and waits and waits, but nobody comes his way, because Bruce lives in this unnecessarily, ridiculously giant ass Manor with an unreasonable number of empty ass rooms.

Fed up with the whole situation, Jason ponders his options. On one hand, he could stay there forever, trapped in this tiny, disgusting broom closet, which by the way, has no brooms whatsoever, and waste away into eternity. Maybe he could live off the spiders for a bit, rats if he’s lucky. His arm too, he won’t need two to live in a closet. It might buy him a few months. Or, on the other hand, he could swallow his pride and call someone to come let him out of the damn closet.

He eyes the cobwebs on the upper right corner. Yeah, no, too disgusting. He can’t eat spiders, too creepy, too many legs, too many eyes. Nope, not gonna do it.

Calling someone it is.

Bruce is a no-go, obviously. The Brat, too. He would lord it over his head forever. Alfred? Nah, he would give Jason his disappointed look and shake his head in that sad way, and Jason would be left feeling like the worst person ever. Cass? Fuck, no, she’s still in Hong Kong. Tim, then? Maybe. The kid would definitely be the less annoying option. But he would also be a little shit about it, Jason would never hear the end of it. So that leaves… Dick? Really? Is he that desperate yet?

Let’s be real, he is.

But then again, Dick can be persuaded not to tell on him. If Jason uses the brother card right, maybe he can convince the idiot to keep quiet.

Yeah, he can do this. He survived being exploded, he can survive this.

So he sends him a text, help pls.

To which, Dick answers with a call. Jason declines, they’re operating in stealth mode here. Cant talk, u at the manor?

Yeah where are u? Whats going on? Are u hurt? His phone is thankfully on silent, buzzing with the new messages.

fine, he sends. Then, come to the broom closet next door to the next study after Bruce’s.

what?

quick no time for questions

Sighing deeply, Jason buries his hand on his hands. This is a nightmare. This is all his bad karma kicking his ass. This is hell, this is purgatory– in fact, this is the lovechild of hell and purgatory.

Then, just as he was about to despair, there’s a soft knock on the door. “Jason?”

“Shhh,” he winces at the loud voice, “in here.”

Dick opens the door unceremoniously, not bothered by the creaking hinges. He stands in the doorway, disheveled in his stupid pajama and looking confused like a stupid, lost duckling, “Jason, what do you think you’re doing? At this hour?” He asks, hands on his hips, sounding just as stupidly confused.

“This is an ongoing rescue mission,” Jason explains slowly, because it’s important not to rush Dick, best to let him process things on his own time, “and I needed you to bust me out.”

“What.”

“I’m bringing Roxy home, but the doorknob fell off on my side.”

“Oh,” Dick steps inside, examining the other side of the door to confirm that, in fact, the doorknob had indeed fallen off and Jason hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing, “it really fell off,” he says dumbly.

“Yeah, well, thanks for opening up the door,” Jason gets up, dusting himself off and then picking up Roxy, “and I’d appreciate if you would keep this, you know, between brothers? Great, now it’s time to scram.”

“Uh, Jason,” the idiot stammers out, looking panicked at Jason and pointing, “don’t freak out, but there’s a huge spider on your shoulder.” He takes a step back, totally freaking out, and bumps on the door. Slamming it shut. “Uh, this is bad.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Jason glares at him, easily flicking the small spider from off his shoulder, “congratulations, now we’re both stuck.”

Then, Dick wails in despair.

*

“Jason, that is not what happened!” Dick launches himself across the bed, trying to reach his brother but only managing in scaring Tim into climbing up the headboard, “stop telling everyone I’m dumb!”

“To be fair,” Jason says, watching amused, “you make it real easy.”

“Stop jostling the bed!” Tim complains from where he’s perched, cradling his injured wrist. He is going to fall, and it’s going to hurt, mattress or not, but Bruce doesn’t have the energy to get him down himself.

“Tim,” he warns, “if you fall and aggravate your injuries, you are going to tell Alfred yourself tomorrow.”

The teenager grumbles, sending Bruce a betrayed look, but slowly climbs down, scooting as far back as possible.

“Fine,” says Dick, frowning. He and Jason hadn’t stopped bickering yet, but Bruce hadn't expected them to. “here’s what really happened.”

*

Staring at the door, Dick can’t fathom what the hell Jason could be doing inside an unused broom closet. True, his brother can be a unpredictable at times, but this a new level of random.

He knocks at the door, just to be sure. Prank wars aren’t that rare around the Manor.

“In here,” Jason calls quietly. That’s never a good sign.

The door opens with noisy hinges that would probably make Alfred cringe. Dick takes in the scene. Jason is sprawled in one corner, hugging a rocket launcher. Near his feet, a bowling ball sways. Weird, he didn’t know Bruce used to go bowling.

Right. To more important things, “Jason, what the hell?”

“I’m rescuing Roxy,” Jason says unhappily, as if offended that how come Dick didn’t immediately jump to that totally reasonable conclusion, “and I needed you to bust me out.”

There are so many things to address, Dick isn’t sure where to begin. What even. Okay, first things first, “you named your rocket launcher Roxy?”

“That’s what you got from what I said?”

“Would you rather I focus on the fact you were trapped in a broom closet?” Dick rolls his eyes. Tonight patrol had been almost dull, suspiciously so. He should’ve known better.  Clearly, Gotham seen Jason hiding in there and had taken pity on Dick, knowing the kind of wravoc Jason is undoubtedly going to bring down. On that note, “how did you manage that, by the way?”

Jason makes a non-committal noise, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the door as he gets to his feet with dramatic groans. Dick steps inside to take a better look at the thing, almost tripping on the bowling ball and sending it rolling to the other side of the room. The doorknob is missing and the metal is dented around where it should be. Really? How the hell did he break the whole thing clean off? “It fell off? How?”

“Sometimes,” Jason says, “it be like that. Now, if you could keep this just between us, I’d really appreciate it.”

Dick snorts, already expecting that, and shakes his head, turning around in time to see his brother dusting himself off and grimacing at the cobwebs sticking to his fingers. Gross. But then, something catches his eyes. Crawling its way up Jason’s shoulders, a black spider is quickly reaching his neck. Dick shudders, resisting the strong urge to check himself for any insect, “hm, Jason?” His brother looks up. “Don’t freak out, but there’s a spider on your shoulder.”

And, of course, Jason loses it.

“Shit, I said don’t freak out,” he rushes to stop him from tripping over anything or knocking any of the shelves down. Jason keeps trying to bat the thing off, but the cobwebs stick to his hand, leaving the spider dangling in the air, almost landing on his leg. “Hold still, stop squirming, you’re gonna– jesus christ.” In his frantic flailing, Jason manages to hit him with a painful elbow to the eye, causing Dick to stumble back and almost lose his balance.

Unfortunately, backing away means bumping right into the door. It closes with a loud thud.

“Okay,” Dick sighs, “this is bad.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Jason says, having stopped his ridiculous flailing around, “congratulations, now we’re both stuck.”

They watch in silence as the tiny black spider crawls across the room and up the wall. She’s surprisingly fast, and it makes him think of Wally, even if his friend would probably disagree with the comparison. Well, Wally isn’t here to see the little eight-legged speedster himself, therefore, he has no base for opinions, agreeable or not.

“I’m not eating spiders,” says Jason, out of nowhere and with no context whatsoever, “or my arm.”

“That’s good, I suppose,” Dick shrugs, because what else is he supposed to say to that, “cannibalism is generally frowned upon in most societies. And spiders are generally gross, even when they’re like Wally.”

“I really don’t wanna know,” he frowns, sitting back down where Dick first found him and beginning to check his rocket launcher for any damage, “but anyways, you wouldn’t know if Bruce boob-trapped the door, would you?”

Dick wants to say no, he does, but after spending his teenage years in the Manor, he can’t honestly say that’s not something he wondered in more than one occasion. Bruce’s absolute perfect timing used to border omniscience. It was almost supernatural. Every attempt at sneaking out after curfew was foiled before he could even make it to the gates. “I mean, I don’t think it’s going to blow up on our faces if we try to pick the lock.”

“But it might trigger a silent alarm,” Jason concludes, sounding resigned.

“How pissed do you think he’s gonna be?”

“With you? Very. With me, though? Astronomically.” He sighs, rubbing his eyes, “I don’t really feel like being lectured at three in the morning, how ‘bout you?”

“Think I’ll pass, too.” Dick should’ve been sleeping now. On his bed. Getting some rest before his shift tomorrow. He should’ve been sleeping, not sitting on a hard, dusty floor.

“Guess there’s no other way then, uh?” Jason says, like Dick is somehow supposed to know what the shit is going on in his head. Dick stares blankly at him until he huffs, annoyed, “we gotta call the Replacement, he’s the only one left.”

“No, wait, don’t wake him up.”If Dick remembers it right, Tim should be fast asleep by now, safely tucked in his room. No need to drag him into this disaster in the making. “God knows it’s an uphill battle to get him to actually sleep.”

Jason snorts. “Too late. He’s on his way.”

“What?” Son of a– ,“he was already awake, wasn’t he? Damn it. I really thought Alfred put something on his coffee.”

“Sounds healthy.”

A knock on the door echoes loudly on the small room, startling Dick. He glares at Jason snickering at his side, and calls, “we’re in here!”

The door swings open silently for once, revealing Tim still on the frankly way too coffee-stained sweatpants he found earlier in the cave and a baggy NASA shirt. Specifically, a NASA shirt that belongs to Dick. A NASA shirt he distinctly remembers going missing years ago. And when he says years, he means before Tim had even stepped inside the Manor. Which means–

“Oh my god, you little shit,” Jason is saying accusingly to Tim, “that shirt is mine!”

Dick hadn’t been doing anything at the moment, but he screeches to a halt all the same. In spirit, if you will.

“No way,” Tim crosses his arms, “I’ve had this shirt since forever.”

“Fuck off, Replacement,” Jason points a threatening finger, “I remember tearing that hole trying to climb down the window.”

“How dare you,” Dick finally gets his voice back, whirls on Jason, “how dare you, you hypocrite lying liar who lies.”

Jason gapes. “What the fuck.”

“That shirt was mine and you know it,” he can’t believe this. No, no, actually, he can. Easily. “I distinctly remember asking you if you’ve seen it, and then you looked me in the eyes and said I don’t know, I ain’t your housekeeper. And then you flipped me off.”

To be fair, Dick mostly remembered that day because it had been one of the few times he had been visiting the Manor before Jason, you know. Passed away. So yeah, he remembered it.

Now, though, seeing his shirt going from thief to thief, Dick isn’t feeling too charitable, death or no death.

He realizes Jason had gone quiet, looking as if trying to recall the incident. “I don’t really remember,” his brother finally says, “but it does sound like something I would do.”

“Oh my god, I hate you.”

“I mean,” Jason raises one of his hands up in a placating gesture, the other still cradling his stupid rocket launcher, “it’s not like you’re my favorite person either, Dickhead. ‘Sides, I wasn’t the only asshole back then.”

Shame and guilt rise in tandem, swallowing his gut in acid. Jason’s right. Dick has no right to sit here and call him out on being a jerk, not when he’d been just as guilty. He had been so caught up–

“Can we please skip the guilt trips?” Tim asks tiredly, “it’s almost four in the morning and your argument is moot anyway. The shirt is mine.”

It’s a testament for how tired he is that Dick doesn’t immediately restrains Jason when he goes silent. And, to be perfectly honest, that shirt is not freaking his.

“Jason, put the rocket launcher down,” Tim continues, unfazed, or maybe reaching the apathetic stages of lack of sleep, “you know how Alfred feels about weapons upstairs.”

*

“Why does everyone think I don’t sleep!” Tim glares at the ceiling, shifting so he can stretch on the bed more comfortably and kick Dick on the side, “I do sleep! All the time!”

“I don’t know,” Jason shrugs, wincing. He hides it well, but now that Bruce is paying more attention, Jason is leaning rather stiffly against his rocket launcher, standing as still as possible without being too obvious about it. Bruce sighs, he should’ve suspected; Jason has always been one to hide injuries. “Never seen it. Methinks the lady doth bullshits too much.”

“Jason,” Bruce begins cautiously, he doesn’t want to spook him. “Why didn’t you say you were hurt?”

It’s the wrong choice of words, it comes out more accusing than he intended, and Bruce can see Jason shutting down, face going blank. “I’m not hurt. And it wouldn’t be any of your business if I were anyway.”

Dick is giving him a sad, disappointed look. Completely unnecessary, Bruce knows he screwed this up. It seems to be a pattern when it comes to Jason. “If you sprained your ankle, there’s a perfectly good bed for you to sit.”

“Oh yeah? Good thing I ain’t hurt then.”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Bruce sees Dick burying his head in his hands, ice pack forgotten beside him on the bed, already melting and soaking the covers.

“Jason,” Bruce tries again, taking a moment to find a better way to phrase it.

Before he can say anything else, Tim kicks the rocket launcher, forcing Jason to put his weight on both legs to regain his balance. He curses loudly, clutching the bedside table to stay upright, and glares at his brother. Dick still refuses to look up.

“Get on the damn bed, idiot,” Tim scoots over, making space, and pushes Dick further down to the foot of the bed, “you know Alfred will have our heads if he finds out you were standing on that ankle.”

Jason grumbles and huffs, but climbs on the bed, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re such an asshole, Replacement. This entire fucking family, I swear to god. All assholes. Except Cass. And Duke. Probably because it hasn’t been long enough for them yet. Fucking assholes.”

“Language,” Tim elbows him, “now all of you, shush. It’s my turn.”

*

Tim watches them argue with little interest. This shirt had been down in the Cave when he found it and thus, by the unspoken laws of the Manor, had been fair play.

It’s his now and Jason and Dick can both cry him a river.

Honestly, it’s just a shirt. A remarkably comfortable one, sure, but just a shirt. Besides, NASA shirts are all the rage now. Walmart probably sells them at a reasonable price.

Tuning back in the conversation, Tim catches the tail end of Jason’s retort and the beginning of Dick’s knee-jerk reaction to all things before. Crushing guilty and vitriolic regret. And it’s always worse in times like these, when Jason isn’t trying to kill anyone, when it almost feels like family.

Either way, Tim should stop them before it inevitably spirals into a real fight. Which would be so not good in such a tiny room and with Jason holding a rocket launcher. “Can we please skip the guilt trips?” He pauses, resigned. “It’s nearly four in the morning. And it doesn’t even matter anyway. This shirt,” he points down at his own chest, “is mine.”

Jason falls silent, and that’s not a good thing, but Jason is also thankfully very, very predictable, so Tim simply raises one eyebrow, “Jason, put that damn thing away,” he yawns, unimpressed by the rocket launcher aimed at his face, “you know how Alfred feels about weapons upstairs.”

He grumbles, muttering under his breath, but lowers the ridiculous thing back on his lap. Dick looks vaguely ill, scooting away from the rocket launcher. Tim supposes that’s fair, although he doubts it’s loaded. For a brief moment he entertains the idea of calling Jason’s bluff, but dismisses it in the end. Dick would probably have a stroke.

On that note, “how did you get a black eye?”

“Oh shit,” he raises a hand to gingerly touch the rapidly bruising skin, wincing, “is it that bad?”

“Yup.” Tim pauses, decides he doesn’t want to know, “now, are you two getting out today or…”

Dick and Jason scramble up, dusting themselves off. Cobwebs stick to their clothes, and something runs from where they had been sitting– Tim wrinkles his nose, figures it’s better not to mention it.

“How the two of you managed to break the doorknob is beyond me,” he comments as they pass him, “but somehow, I’m not surprised.”

“Whatever you say, Replacement,” Jason waves him off, stretching, “but damn, it’s good to be free.”

“You know what’s gonna be even better?” Dick asks, his question trailing off in a yawn, “sleeping in a real bed.”

“Shit, did you hear that?” Jason stops mid stretch, frowning, “shit, shit, someone’s coming.”

They all look at each other panicked. Tim doesn’t even know why he’s panicking, he’s done nothing wrong here besides letting himself be talked into helping these two morons out. Which he now sees was a terrible mistake, worse even, a rookie mistake. But maybe it’s being awake at 4am wandering an empty hallway that gives off this feeling, like he’s doing something he’s not supposed to do. It reminds him a little of the times he snuck out of his parent’s house after lights out to shadow Batman and Robin around.

Or maybe it’s the fact Jason is still carrying around the damn rocket launcher like a newborn baby. That definitely would count as a bad thing on Bruce’s point of view. And no matter what they might say, the man would certainly write Tim and Dick off as accessories to the crime. Well, they did learn of the crime after it was committed and they are kind of aiding the criminal in scaping.

Sighing, Tim lets himself be dragged back to the broom closet by a frantic Dick. He adds helping the criminal conceal the crime to the list. The door closes with a soft click just as the footsteps get closer. Whoever it is, probably Bruce by the heavy steps, turns the corner, and then walks past them. Somewhere still uncomfortably near, a door opens, then closes.

“He’s in the study,” Dick sobs, “and we’re stuck here again.”

“We’re never getting out of here,” Jason says, sitting down again, “one day Alfred will finally come clean here and find our decomposed bodies.”

“Gross,” Tim wrinkles his nose at the mental image, “come on. Let’s just pick the lock.”

“No!” They whisper-shout at the same time.

“What the fuck.”

“It’s booby-trapped,” says Jason.

“There’s silent alarms,” says Dick.

Oh right, all of his brothers are paranoid lunatics at heart, how could Tim have ever forgotten that. “This place looks like nobody used it since before either of us were born. Why, oh why, would B put it under surveillance?”

Silence. Jason hugs his rocket launcher closer, sharing a look with Dick. Great, and they’re a united front now. “Listen, fine. You don’t wanna pick the lock. Fine.” It’s always best not to contradict a crazy person, let alone two. “What do you suggest, then?”

“Living off spiders.”

“Call Damian.”

“One, gross. Two, I’d literally rather die.” He begins, “three, you all are useless to me.”

They need a plan, and they need it fast. Before one of those two finish spiraling into cabin fever. Looking around, Tim tries to think of it as any other mission. There’s a small window in the on the right wall, probably connecting to the adjacent room, which Tim thinks might be a bedroom. It was probably a leftover of some old renovation, it might’ve led outside once upon a time, but now it’s likely their only way out. It’s very small, Tim might go through it with little problem, Dick too, but Jason is too broad shouldered, he might get stuck. If only they could remove all the bars, it could give them just enough space.

Okay. They have an exit. All they need is way to get up there and the tools to deal with the bars. He turns to his brothers, “I think I can get us out. There’s a window behind that shelf.” He points at the glass visible between two boxes, “but I need some sort of ladder and a tool box.”

Apparently the prospect of a real plan is enough to shake them out of their stupor. Jason jumps to his feet, begins rummaging through the scattered boxes. Dick busies himself with pushing the shelf out of the way, clearing the path to the window. Satisfied, Tim begins digging inside the nearest box in search of anything useful.

By the time Dick manages to push the shelf out of the way, Jason has found a hammer and a phillips screwdriver. He did find a crowbar too, but that was quickly discarded and buried under a pile of old books. Deciding the boxes are sturdy enough, hopefully, to hold their weight, Tim piles them up in the best makeshift stairs he can make.

Is it wobbly? Yes. Are they going to fall and break their necks? Probably. But better be dead than ask Damian for help. The little demon would never let him live it down for the rest of their lives and probably in the afterlife too.

Once again tuning out his brothers, Tim begins the quickly climbing up the boxes. It’s more stable than he expected, so he starts unscrewing the metal bars–

*

“Of course it was stable!” Dick exclaims, throwing his hands up and then falling down on the bed, “we were holding it in place!”

“You weren’t even listening to us, you ungrateful–”

“I got us out, didn’t I?” Tim snaps, “god, everyone’s a critic. Can I go back to the story, please? I’d like to finish telling it before sunrise.”

“God, yes, please.”

*

Anyway.

The metal bars and the stained glass panels fall apart easily, as expected from such old, unused things. The space left looks wide enough to let them through, maybe. If they’re lucky. “Okay, I’m already up here, so let me go first.”

“Wait–”

Tim doesn’t wait. He hoists himself up, diving face first through the window. It gets him a mouthful of dust and sand, and then he’s free falling–

There’s a second of panic, in between falling and landing, where Tim recognizes waiting might’ve been a wiser course of action and that maybe he should have looked before jumping.

–right into a bed.

He had been right. It did lead to an old bedroom. The bed was covered in sheets, just like the rest of the furnitures, but it works to break the fall, even if a cloud of dust rises in the air when he lands, coating his lungs with filth.

Laughter bubbles up, a little hysterical, a little relieved.

“Are you okay?” Dick’s head appears through the hole, “are you hurt?”

“My wrist hurts a little, I think I sprained it when I tried to break the fall,” Tim shrugs, rolling off the bed, “but I’m fine, really.”

“Hold on, I’m coming through.”

Dick falls with a huff, his breath knocked out of him in the landing. He groans, “shit, that’s gonna bruise.”

“Cool, you’ll get a matching set,” Tim gestures his black eye, “but you might wanna make space, it sounds like Jason is on his way.”

And true enough, as soon as he had forced himself out of the bed and limped away towards Tim, a rocket launcher lands on the bed with a heavy thud, and then Jason appears. Although only half of him makes it through. He dangles, arms swinging uselessly, stuck in the window. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Seriously?”

“Oh my god,” Tim wheezes, “tell me someone has a camera.”

“I feel so much better already,” Dick giggles.

“Oh come on,” Jason snaps, flipping them off with both hands, “a little help here? Assholes.”

To be fair, it only takes a little wiggling and a little pulling to get him out of there and into the dusty bed. By now the air is more dust bunnies and promises of allergies.

“Tell me it’s over now,” Jason says, then changes his mind, “no, no, no. No one say anything, it might jinx it.”

“Please leave,” Tim tells him, “you have an apartment, I know you do. Please.”

“Are you kicking me out, Replacement? Really?”

“You just put me through the most traumatic hour of my life and I don’t even know why. So yes, please.”

“What he means,” Dick intervenes, “is that–”

“All of you have a lot of explaining to do.” In the now open doorway, Bruce stands, looking like your regular angry father if your regular angry father was the Batman.

“Oh crap,” Jason says, and Tim wholeheartedly agrees.

*

“And the rest is history,” Tim says, yawning, and then turning to Jason, “I can’t believe all of this was because of your stupid rocket launcher.”

“Excuse me,” Jason sounds affronted, “Roxy has emotional value.”

“Your unhealthy attachment to that thing gave me a sprained wrist so excuse me for being a little salty.”

“Can you guys not fight for ten seconds, please,” Dick, in turn, sounds tired.

“I don’t think I need to say in how much trouble all of you are, do I?” Bruce finally says, gathering the attention of the three. He glances at his watch, it’s nearing five in the morning, then back up at the bed. Jason is laying with his leg propped up in a pillow, looking harried and tired and less antagonistic than before, Tim is at his side, curled up around a pillow and his injured wrist carefully cradled on his chest, and the story seems to have drained the last of his energy, as his eyes close for longer and longer periods of time. Dick is sprawled at the foot of the bed, laying sideways and currently wrestling a pillow out Jason’s grip.

Bruce looks at the scene in front of him, three of his children together at peace, or the closest thing to it they’ll ever get, and something inside him softens. Seeing them like this, getting along, no trace of masks or capes, it feels almost like a normal family.

It feels warm and golden.

Unwilling to disturb the fragile peace, he gets up from the armchair, heading for the door.

“Where are you going?” Dick, the more awake of them, asks, “aren’t you gonna yell at us?”

“As I said, you all know you are in trouble,” Bruce answers calmly, “but there’s going to be time for that tomorrow, at a more reasonable hour.” He suppresses a smile, “I am going to retrieve some blankets. It looks like you’re not going back to your rooms tonight.”

Dick looks around him, finding Tim already asleep and Jason yawning. He smiles, “you might be right. Thanks, B.”

Bruce nods, but as he leaves the room, a thought suddenly occurs to him, “oh, and Dick?”

A sleepy noise comes from the bed.

“You were all wrong.” Another inquisitive muttering, a little more awake now. “That shirt? It used to be mine. It was a special edition, confectioned after the moon-landing. You stole it from me.”

Shaking his head, Bruce prepares to leave, but a voice stops him just before the door closes, “I know, but you know the rules. If it’s down the Cave, it’s fair play.”

Laughter echoes quietly in the hallways at the Manor, bouncing off the walls and filling all the empty spaces.

*

[craftedcoils-blog-blog]

The Coward Adventurer

"I think I'm slowly growing a mustache that will conduct a transvestite orchestra."

I looked at him briefly during the downwards arc of my glance, "well thats good", and I meant it sincerely, "because someones gotta do it. This bastard over here", I gestured towards the other room and through the doorway, "he's got slugs for days but wont grow the balls to commit."

He sat  with his bass guitar, teeth clenched, managing a few acronyms "Ehh?" like a frantic centipede on his last legs, disregarding it all to return to some strange form of science.

"No matter", I said, redirecting my attention towards the maniac trying to sleep at my feet, "I think you should cool your guns.  It happens, it happens.  You can't expect something to happen if it hasn't happened before.  Right?"

In the beginning I was approached by Dynastic Industries to commission a musical piece based on the time I spent in Indonesia.  I was there initially to do some work for a successful blog I was a part of called Why Where and What the Fuck.    And why the fuck D.I. approached me or chose to employ me in any way or for any reason at all still bewilders me.  

WWWF had initially hired me as a writer when they caught me on camera during a Turkish uprising kind of thing in Berlin dressed up as an Osama Bin Laden clown character and giving away free condoms to all the turkish children, or at least I told WWWF that this was my agenda and since then i've sort of become their mozart genius marionette. Letting them pay for me to travel around and be kind of an idiot in the process.  

And one time they sent me to Indonesia. I had this guide named Yusef.  Yusef loved everything I did but all I really did was just get drunk the entire time I was there.  I think I managed some scribbles on the backs of other people's suicide notes or maybe I had etched a few artistically interpreted Sumarian glyphs on random pieces of pottery, maybe a few pages of notebooks here and there.  But certainly not anything at all to write home about;  Like literally no writing got home at all.  It wasn't even Youtubed.  They wrote the entire article from translations of the Yusef's journal.  I mean, Interpreting his dialect into a palpable demonstration of my experiences from the view point of a native who was also insane and spent most of our time sitting around trees while he wrote about eternal chaos and the derivatives of perspective in that goddamn journal is great but it may or may not say anything about what I was actually experiencing.    

The whole time its just me, staring at him, wondering why I cant write a word. (….) I now realize its because I was watching myself write and there was nothing to add.  By being obsessively observational, I had become my own guide in my own right.  And I guess it panned out...

Or maybe it didn't.  At this point I am completely unsure.  

For example:  I don't have a lot of standards for living and still there are things now that are capable of disrupting what I have always thought to be eternal.  Because of the situation I have currently found myself in, I no longer feel as if I have a subtle and well conceived balance and I feel as if I have become a monster in trying to achieve such a thing even though I know it's already there and it's something that had been in front of me my entire life.   And here It's like I am constantly trying to balance the finite with the infinite and in the end all I am is shit and that's what I see.  It is what you become.  White drapes on white sheets with dirty boot scuffs on the trim and dirty oatmeal floors and moldy shower curtains, but everything set to a standard you have set either way.  And peoples' minds, constantly enforcing, even if they are rudimentary.   Especially so.  I had to say fuck it all or become it all.  To me it really has not or has ever made a difference at all which way I lean.  But of course this is my fault, and because of this perhaps I am a mutant, the holder of the all seeing hand, detached, and it's beckoning the circus freak inside to be let loose, and yet, to live this way is not out of pride or conviction, necessity or convenience and, quite possibly, not even out of lack of trying.  But because it is my basic human stigmatic function to build a home and relish in its 'my-ness'  whether its a shopping cart or a castle.  I have no choice.  I am driven to order and none of us can escape it.  Even the most avant-garde lifestyle is a victim.  Its a 12 tone composition gone wrong, or right, it no longer matters for there is always a boundary.  

We were passing through the sewers.  Gulping sounds stuck out like we were being sucked into some undercurrent.  We came across a television stuck in the wall.  It was the "Old Last Time Agenda Variety Show"  and there was Razputin, the social phenomenon that was just recently resurfacing from a long term hibernation and public disappearance, his face always recognizable.  He stood with his guitar and legendary mustache, the orchestra moving with each flowing twitch.  As the bouncy music continues, the camera widened to show his famous and, although now sagging a bit, voluptuous breasts .  The dance number began and 2 women and a man appeared, they linked arms with Raz himself and tapped around each other to swaying rhythms and choreography patterns, like drunken swans.  The music began to swell and Razputin began to open chambers of his body like cupboards in german kitchen.  Hands appeared out of nowhere to reveal his various implants and gender surgery.  He revealed his cock, which was filleted into two pieces and inverted, exposed from the inside out.  He flicked it like a guitar string and smiled ferociously.  His mustache was now two huge, stretching arms.  Another drawer revealed what seemed to be his intestines.  His face became nontransparent and the music kept bouncing along.  He reached down and plucked his bloody coils like a harp, ruffing them up as if to break the strings and find some kind of new tonality, as if to say that none of this mattered, his martyrdom, strange that it was so accepted, but we all knew that this was big.

"Man, this will probably be on the news."

"Yeah of course it will.  This is huge."

He kept going at it like some kind of sexual torture, throwing his organs around inside of what was left of himself and still maintaining that maniacal grin.  The other dancers began to force him out,  concerned with the drunken patterns that he was disrupting.  But he kept on, his body now three times wider, revealing parts of himself that could not be contained.

Eventually he was forced off stage and everyone cheered.  I remember thinking that this was not something to take lightly as the dancers bowed and accolades were distributed.  This was not some typical piece of choreography to briefly consider and then forget.  

The haunting voices of the dead appeared again.

"Lets go,"  someone seemed to have said, and we were off, our feet like popcorn in a mushroom patch.  

Things stuck out to us then like blue flowers in a field of wilted dandelions.  Our senses were too abrupt.  We had found a church.

Like ruins.

[ravenqueensspecialboi]

Fic Writers Week Day 5

Day 5: Verbatim

You mean I have to choose?  Alright, just sticking to Haikyuu for this one.  Here’s a bunch of quotes broken down by fic:

Little Ghost, Little Ghost, One I’m Scared of the Most (Haikyuu, BokuAka, One Shot):

"Vampires have tangible bodies, so you would have seen it by now.  So it has to be a gho-"  Kuroo trailed off, looking up from his phone as confusion, then realization dawned on his face.  He whipped his head around to glare at Bokuto.  "You moldy soybean, I can't believe you're trying to drag me into a conversation about paranormal bullshit." Bokuto smacked his hands on the table in frustration," Dude, I'm telling you the truth!  I've been telling you the truth!  There's a ghost in my apartment!  I heard it!" Bokuto paused, then added, "Wait, did you just call me a moldy soybean?"

Pretty Lights and Corner Stores (Haikyuu, DaiSuga, Series):

"I really couldn't impose," Koushi replied.  Yes, good.  He could still talk.  Score one for Koushi.

"I am many things, dear Sugawara, but a liar is not one of them," Tetsurou said, and boy wasn't it weird to see a cat talk.

Koushi almost pushed Tooru down the stairs.  Almost.  Instead, Koushi opted to tousle Tooru's perfectly styled hair and revel in the offended screeches that Tooru emitted.

"Can you be less of an asshole?" Koushi snapped. "I could," Tooru said before going completely limp and dragging Koushi down to the sidewalk.

"Koushi, Koushi the cat is talking," Tooru said.  "Koushi why is the cat talking?  Koushi why is the cat talking!?" Koushi and Daichi both opened their mouths to reply, but Tetsurou beat them to the punch. "Well, guess the cat's out of the bag," he said, shifting into human form with a lazy grin.

Koushi wasn't sure if he was dreaming that his boyfriend was calling his name in an attempt to wake him up, or if Daichi actually was that dumb.  He knew that Koushi wasn't a morning person, and that under no circumstances was he to be woken up before his alarm.  Ergo, this had to be a dream.  Koushi burrowed deeper into the covers.  If he hid under the blankets, he didn't have to wake up.  Those were the rules.

Ghost Finders Incorporated (Haikyuu, Multi Ship, Multi Chapter):

“Seriously, I SAW Bigfoot at the supermarket the other day, Asahi. He was there and he was looking for coupons in the dumpster. One of these days, I'm gonna fight him.”

"Sure, let me get Danny Phantom on the phone and have him come right on over," Chikara grumbled.  When his comment was met with confused looks, Chikara's face flushed.  "You know, Danny Phantom?" he asked.  "The cartoon character?  Who's half ghost?  Conveniently fights ghosts too?   Sucks them into a thermos?  You know what, never mind."

"Futakuchi you jerk," Moniwa grumbled.  "What the hell have you done now?"

"NOT TODAY BOX GHOST," Chikara screamed as he chucked his thermos at the pile of boxes. The thermos collided with the box, spraying coffee everywhere.  Chikara breathed heavily as he watched the coffee seep into the cardboard.  The box hadn't moved again. "Chikara, what the fuck?" Kinoshita groaned from behind him. And didn't that make this whole situation better?

"So when is a ghost not just a ghost, but an asshole?"

"Suga, I hate to interrupt," Daichi cut in, "but what the hell are you reading from? Suga looked up at Daichi, then back down at the book in his hands before responding, "It's an encyclopedia." "Suga…" "I'm not lying when I say it's an encyclopedia," Suga said in his defense as he held up the book.  He pointed at the title which definitely contained the word 'encyclopedia' and continued, "See?  Encyclopedia." "The Encyclopedia of Scary Things?" Daichi pressed. "I found it at the bookstore," Suga explained.  "It was in the clearance bin." Daichi let out an exasperated sigh, "Suga, I thought I said we should be looking at credible sources." Suga leveled Daichi with a look and deadpanned, "We're looking for ghosts and you want my sources to be 'credible'.  Right, my bad.  I forgot that I needed to get all of my information from Paranormal JSTOR.  Let me get right on that." "I see your point," Daichi muttered, but Suga wasn't done. "Dark JSTOR, show me forbidden research about the supernatural."

Tanaka and Noya were instantly all over Aone, sizing up the large, silent man with the most intense, synchronized scrutiny that Daichi had ever seen exhibited between two people who had just met two days prior.

"Sorry, you said you're the researcher?" "That I am," Suga replied proudly. "And you use The Encyclopedia of Scary Things to get your information?" Moniwa pressed. "Sometimes, yeah." "Is… Is that really the most credible source of information?" "That's what I said," Daichi muttered. Suga glanced down at the book in his lap.  He studied it for a minute before looking back at Moniwa, "I mean, considering I got it from the clearance bin, it's probably not the foremost in paranormal research.   But it's got the best title out of all the books I have, so it's my favorite." Moniwa did not look amused. "Well, it's probably better than when I was reading off of Wikipedia articles," Suga reasoned.  After a moment of intense eye contact with an increasingly distressed Moniwa, Suga turned to Narita.  "Can you grab the Breverton's Phantasmagoria out of my bag?  It's the black and orange book."

The Planchette spelled out, "D-E-A-D-S-E-R-I-O-U-S". "Hilarious."

"I hate everything that these past two months have stood for," Kei said.

Fright Night (Haikyuu, BoKuroo, One Shot):

Kuroo let out the most undignified screech of his life as Bokuto lifted him up and backwards.  The rest of the group looked on with a mixture of alarm and bemusement as Bokuto readjusted his grip on Kuroo and slung him over his shoulder. Bokuto took off down the hallway, screaming, "Not today, Ax Man!"

Bokuto flexed, one eyebrow raised with a shit-eating grin plastered to his face.  "What can I say?  These muscles are built for lifting Tetsus."

Not So Passive-Aggressive Post-It Notes (Haikyuu, DaiSuga One Shot):

"We need some sort of system," Suga groaned as he pulled a box of dubious looking leftovers from the fridge.  "Like a 'Hey, so and so is making dinner tonight' sort of system."  After a moment, Suga elaborated, "Chores list is the word I'm looking for."

The following morning Daichi woke up to two Post-it Notes on his face.   Wondering how Suga could have stuck the paper to his face without waking him up, he removed the neon green pieces of paper and gave them a once over.  The first one read, "Here's a passive aggressive Post-it note for you asshole >:0 –S".

"So, what happened exactly to warrant this one?" Kuroo had asked once when he came over for a study session. "You're going to have to be more specific," Daichi said without looking up from his notes. Kuroo cleared his throat and began to read, "Suga, there is a difference between 'dad' and 'daddy' and which one is appropriate to call me in public. Will discuss later.  Daichi."

You Teach Me, And I’ll Teach You (Haikyuu, DaiSuga, Multi Chapter):

Daichi was so screwed he failed to notice the Pelipper heading straight for him until it hit him like a freight train.

Daichi gave Suga a smirk before asking, "And you ended up living here?  What, did you decide the soda wasn't enough, so you took the house?" Suga glanced at Daichi out of the corner of his eye, his expression unreadable as he deadpanned, "No.  The soda wasn't enough."

Suga hopped off the porch to meet her and crouched down to catch her in his arms.  The Mudkip nuzzled under Suga's chin, happy to see him. "So I heard you like Mudkips," Daichi called from the porch. Suga stiffened visibly and Daichi choked back a laugh.  "You are quite literally the worst person in Hoenn, Sawamura Daichi," Suga hissed, straightening to glare at Daichi.

"Good thing we're surrounded by water Pokémon because you are thirsty as fuck," Yui teased.

Right.  Conversation.  Words.  Manners.  Yes.  That's a thing that Suga could do.

The people in the red sweaters Daichi had seen when he first arrived passed Daichi and Suga, making their way north.  Daichi assumed they were on their way to the Ocean Museum, which was odd considering Daichi could hear them muttering "seven-point-eight out of ten, too much fucking water" and "would not come here again" under their breath.

Daichi groaned, flopping face first onto the futon.  Shimmer, who had been unceremoniously left behind by Suga that morning, mewled pathetically at Daichi, stretching to paw at Daichi's ribs.  When Daichi didn't immediately respond to the vaporeon, Shimmer mewled again and jumped up onto the futon.  Shimmer proceeded to clamber onto Daichi's lower back, curl into a ball and fall asleep.

"Shit, it's the PokéCops!"

Like You a Latte (Haikyuu, DaiSuga, Series):

"Take that sass and put it in your pocket."

"Sounds like you've got a latte on your mind," Suga managed to choke out. "Did you just make a coffee pun at me?" Sawamura asked.  "That's pretty dorky." "My shop's called Espresso Yourself and you're surprised I'd make a coffee pun at you?" Suga retorted.

Suga fished his own phone out of his pocket and programmed Daichi's number into it (he tilted his phone away so Daichi couldn't see the arm flex emoji and the prayer hands emoji Suga added next to his name).

"This is now a 'Gang up on Suga' free zone.  Ok?  None of you are allowed to give me shit for the rest of the day.  Effective immediately.  You all have ruined my life." 

"Do you wanna borrow my fancy underwear, or are you sticking with the shrimp boxers?" 

"I will pay literally any amount of money for the cat to not be in there," Daichi pleaded to the empty air before cautiously approaching the dumpster. 

{Attachment: help.jpg} 

The group turned to see him leaning against the frame, the kitten perched on one shoulder and an incredibly smug look on Oikawa's face.   "He was attacking the toilet and was soaked from the sink, so I decided to intervene.  Seems he likes Uncle Tooru best-." At that moment, the kitten lunged at Oikawa's head, digging his tiny claws into Oikawa's scalp and biting at his hair.  Oikawa let out a screech, smacking into the door frame as the kitten continued his attack.  Koushi let out a squeal of delight and raced over to scoop the cat off of the panicked and mildly offended Oikawa.

"You are doing the best job!  Who's a little fighter?  You are!  You are!  Who wants to fight the very concept of existence?  That's right, it's you!" "Daichi, your boyfriend is praising that little monster for attacking me," Oikawa pouted.

[robbiefarlow-sidequestfitne-blog]

New Post has been published on Side Quest Fitness

New Post has been published on http://sidequestfitness.com/61-life-lessons/

61 Life Lessons I Would Deliver to Younger Versions of Me (And Wisdom You'll Find Useful as Well)

They say it’s important to reflect on your birthday; to ponder what you’ve learned during your latest orbit around the sun and to contemplate how you can make the next year of life better.

Well, I don’t know who the hell “they” are, or why they’re telling me that I should do anything on my birthday other than eat ice cream, play video games, and drink whiskey. But fuck looking back, I’m looking forward. (To the steak I’m going to eat and the sex I’ll be having with my wife.)

Pfft, who am I kidding, of course I’m going to look back. I’m an introspective kinda guy. And it’s fun to imagine traveling through time to deliver messages to younger versions of Robbie Farlow.

So if I could travel through a wormhole and deliver some life lessons to the younger, dumber, and far less attractive version(s) of myself, what life lessons would I attempt to upload and save in my adolescent cranium?

Copyright: Image by StockUnlimited

Originally, this article started as a letter to my younger self. But that quickly (d)evolved into a listicle. Because,

a) people like lists. And,

b) the future is on mobile and I’m trying to crush that game early on.

So since it’s my 31st birthday, and I’m doing what “they” suggest, which is really an excuse for me to attempt to leave a mark on the world should I cease to live in 2017 and humanity is denied witnessing another four or five decades of my wisdom, here are the 61 Life Lessons I Would Deliver to Younger Versions of Me (And Wisdom You’ll Find Useful as Well).

61 Life Lessons I Would Deliver to Younger Versions of Me (And Wisdom You’ll Find Useful as Well)

1. Never mix Budweiser and Mountain Dew. I know, at the time it sounds like a good idea because 1) Bud tastes like moldy cat piss and, 2) you’re 17 and think that Mt. Dew will blunt the taste of the beer (and it will), but you’ll hate yourself in the morning.

2. You’re never going to stop being an emo kid. So fuck the haters. Turn that shit up and scream your heart out.

3. Henry Rollins was right: “Half of life is fucking up, the other half is dealing with it”. And you’re probably gonna fuck up and then have to deal with it more often than not. But that’s life.

4. It doesn’t matter whether you wanna be an actor or not, get some fucking cool ass tattoos.

5. Life is like a buffet: try everything you can and find what works for you

6. You have time. Barring an unfortunate accident like getting hit by a truck or some other unforeseen act of God, you have time to achieve things in life. Stop wishing for it to happen when you’re 25. It could. (It won’t because I’m 31 and writing this to you) But stop getting upset that you’re not famous, rich, or living the good life when you’ve never lived outside of the same state you were born in.

7. You can want a lot of things. But if you don’t understand why you want them, what good are they?

8. Flying isn’t that terrifying. Unless your first flight is on the same model of plane that crashed at 2 am in Buffalo, NY while you were up playing video games instead of sleeping because you were nervous about flying for the first time. (gulp).

9. Quitting is sometimes the best decision. Not because you don’t have the strength to continue, but sometimes, it’s just what’s best.

10. Buy less stuff. Buy more experiences.

11. People aren’t inherently evil. 99.9% of people will do what’s right. But they’ll do what they feel is right. We’re selfish and will protect our own interests before we think of others.

12. You can’t change the world—or even love other people—until you change or love yourself.

13. Be more aggressive in your decisions. Just make a choice and go. If you fuck up, fine. Apology later and make it better.

14. If you’re not willing to make sacrifices, you can’t complain about how the world isn’t changing; because it’s you that refuses to change.

15. Everything is about sex. And a majority of our issues in life revolve around feeling like we’re not good enough to continue the species. And that’s why rejection sucks.

16. You’re not as cool as you think you are.

17. Read more books.

18. Acting isn’t about what you’re doing as a character, it’s about how that character reacts to what others do to him. And that’s what life is as well: a reaction to others (or nature). You can’t control what other people do, but you can control how you react. So, will you choose actions that make the world better, or worse?

19. Chill. The. Fuck. Out. Take (some)things a little bit less serious. Stress is a silent killer. Learn to deal with it now before it kills you in your 40s or 50s.

20. The sweat of your brow doesn’t have to mean manual labor. Work is what you find passion and meaning in. And I’m sure, even if your grandfather had no idea what you were doing, he’d be proud of you. And he’d feel proud of the “work” you put in.

21. You’re actually pretty cool and should stop telling yourself you’re some lame loser who sucks at life. Because the more you say that shit, the more you believe it, and then it becomes a self-fulling prophecy.

22. South Carolina sucks. Avoid it at all costs.

23. You’ll search the world for the one thing your hometown has that no other can match: the best goddamn queso on Earth.

24. Sometimes your biggest mistakes turn into your biggest blessings.

25. Who you surround yourself ultimately determines your road in life.

26. Your heroes aren’t infallible or indestructible. They may even let you down from time to time. They’re human, forgive them and move on.

27. The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me is a much better album than you thought when it was first released.

28. Time is the one resource you can’t regain. Stop trying to do things the hard way because you think you’ll learn more from it, be better, be more efficient, and stop wasting time on useless shit.

29. Astrology is bullshit. But you’ll notice some weird things about being a Gemini. Specifically, that you’ll notice this weird ebb and flow where one minute you’re the gregarious center of attention to the lonely wallflower in the corner. At 31, I still haven’t figured it out. But just be prepared for it.

30. You don’t find meaning; you make it.

31. Don’t feel bad for letting go of connections that could hold you back, even if they’re family. Blood may be thicker than water. But you can drown in both.

32. “Your success is predicated on the number of uncomfortable conversations you’re willing to have.” – Tim Ferriss

33. Also, you may eventually look like AC Slater, physically. But you’re always going to be Screech.

And a side note on that: you’ll never be Gaston. You are Lafou. I mean, I’m not saying you can’t play Gaston. You can do anything. But you’re a ginger. People look at you and see a goof ball not Gaston. (Then again, fuck those haters who say you can’t be Gaston. You be the best goddamned Gaston ever. But add some more muscle, that always helps.)

34. Patience, Robbie. Fucking learn to be patient.

35. There are a few select, awesome, people who are still trying to make fetch happen. (It hasn’t happened in 2017. But it might. Never give up.)

36. Okay, you won’t really get this for a long time but, tip more than $2. People have to make a living off of that shit. And speak to them like a human being, maybe they’ll give better service because you greeted them with a smile and a joke and not eyes that scream, “Oh gee, I’m glad I’m not you and got knocked up at 16 and had a kid in high school.” Be a better human being fuck face.

37. Some day Robbie, you’ll find people who love comic books, video games, Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, and who dance around like idiots when Madonna’s Ray of Light comes on. So yeah, you’re not the only one. And you’re not strange. Fuck being “normal.”

38. Write. Don’t stop at the age of eight. Keep writing. Every day. And write about anything. Trust me, it’ll benefit you more than anything else in life.

39. A tailor made suit will increase confidence by 1,000x. (And it makes your ass look amazing.)

40. Not every girl who looks at you, or in your direction, is eye fucking you. It is possible that she looked at something else; actually, it’s likely she wasn’t looking at you. But just in case, you should probably go to the gym and rep out countless sets of bicep curls and bench presses just in case.

41. I know that hypocrisy is the one thing you can’t stand. But you need to accept that everyone is a hypocrite. Not only will it make life easier for you, but you’ll forgive people more often because you realize that, at our core, we’re all selfish beings.

42. Words without action are just another wasted exhale.

43.Changing your body, truly changing how it looks via strength training, will be the one key you realize that has given you the confidence to start a podcast and business, the humility to know you can always improve no matter the task, and you’ll discover it was the catalyst for taking charge of your life.

44. Southerners did a lot of fucked up shit. But don’t be ashamed of where you’re from. Be a better version of what you think a Southerner should be.

45. Know this: once you start fighting your demons, they will punch back ten times as hard. And you’re gonna be fighting them the rest of your life. It don’t get easier kid. Sure, it, and you, get better, but it ain’t no cakewalk.

46. Robbie, I hate to tell you this, and really I feel like I should just let you keep thinking what you’re thinking. But; no one will really give a rats ass that you have a six pack.

47. Your dad made a lot of mistakes. Get over it. He’s a human being. And if you keep striving to be the perfect version of him that you were told he could never be, you’re going to drive yourself into madness and end up doing some of the same shit. Then guess what? That goddamn guilt and shame will consume you and you’ll never escape. You’ll wind up in a darkness that would make dark matter shudder.

48. Put nothing past anyone. Everyone is capable of acts you’d never imagine—even you.

49. No matter what anyone tells you, it’s absolutely okay to workout because you want to look better naked.

50. 95% of the time, the problems people have with you, aren’t about you, it’s about them.

51. Don’t prove yourself, or your self-worth, to others—prove it to you.

52. Love is messy; it’s painful; it’s magical; it’s stressful; it’s fair; it’s unfair. It is nothing like what the hopeless romantic inside of you thinks “real love” looks like—it’s not a goddamn movie.

53. Fight for things that have great purpose. Fight for what matters for the betterment of mankind. Fight because you want to leave the world a better place than when you came into it.

54. Practice where you want to be.

55. You’ll always feel restless. Be prepared to never be able to turn your brain off. But that may be the price you pay for greatness.

56. Pain is the harbinger of truth.

57. Maybe it’s because you were conceived while your parents were on acid (which really explains so much about you), but you’ll find yourself drawn to psychedelics and crazy instrumental guitar riffs that make you feel like you’re riding the winds of the universe. Enjoy that stuff.

58. You have an addictive personality. So, you’re gonna have to keep an eye on things and make sure they don’t consume you.

59. Talk less. Listen more.

60. Kid, look. I wish I could tell you that at 31 I’ve got it all figured. That you’re in a good place in life. And in some ways, you are. But there is no “I’ve got it all figured out.”

61. Two people will tell you in different chapters of your life that they do not teach (or coach) mediocre people. Listen to them. Because if you rest on your laurels, you’ll half-ass everything. Fuck mediocrity.